Telling a story vs. railroading

[Raven Crowking]

There's nothing to bite! I'm trying to defuse Raven Crowking's fabrication of what I've posted,

I'm still not sure where what you said, and what I paraphrased, differ. Could you please tell me in explicit terms?

RC

 

[rounser]

I'm still not sure where what you said, and what I paraphrased, differ. Could you please tell me in explicit terms?

I suppose that this means that when you apologised, you didn't know what you were apologising for? I don't buy it. I think you're just playing games now.

I'll humour you, though, because you don't have a leg to stand on. You said this:

Rounser, for example, seemed to make the claim that any linear play in railroading.

About my premise, which I'm now spelling out for the twelfth time this thread:

No - or at least I don't use it this way. It's just a descriptor of a campaign style where what adventure comes after the other is predetermined, and PCs have little or no impact on the direction of the campaign arc, because no matter what they do usually short of TPK, adventure B will be followed by adventure C. The campaign has a linear, set course of one adventure after another that the PCs cannot alter...it's on rails.

The above is NOT "any linear play is railroading".

I'm content to leave my take on railroading at the level of "next adventure is...", because I think that's the classical definition of a railroad, in the Dragonlance Classics sense (although DL Classics also commits other "sins" that could be considered railroading, such as NPCs who cannot die). Railroading within an adventure is another issue, and also being discussed in this thread (I think). I'm not discussing that.

Nor is that.

As I've said earlier in this thread - I'm discussing railroading at the campaign arc level, of which adventure occurs next, not in terms of the finite area of a dungeon or setting. By that measure, I'm sure that not even all the infinite planes would satisfy someone's strange definition of railroading as "any DM-imposed restriction whatsoever", which you again seem to be hinting that you believe in, and as we've covered earlier in the thread is a furphy.

Nor is that.

What you call "paraphrasing" was pure invention of something that misrepresented me for your own purposes, and now seemingly aren't admitting to it like you did earlier. Now I suppose you're going to try and argue that your fabrication is the same as my statements. Don't bother, anyone who can read can tell the difference.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I suppose that this means that when you apologised, you didn't know what you were apologising for? I don't buy it. I think you're just playing games now.

<snip>

What you call "paraphrasing" was pure invention of something that misrepresented me for your own purposes, and now seemingly aren't admitting to it like you did earlier. Now I suppose you're going to try and argue that your fabrication is the same as my statements. Don't bother, anyone who can read can tell the difference.

My apology was for offending you. And I will certainly apologize for misunderstanding you, as you say.....From your repeated quotes I am assuming that you are saying that, as a non-exclusive definition (i.e., as a part of a larger definition you are not interested in discussing), linear play specifically affecting the choice and order of adventures is railroading. Do I have that correct?

I also assume, based on earlier discussions, that the agreement aforehand of the players to play an "adventure path" does not prevent a campaign from falling under this definition of railroading. Again, is this correct?

Finally, I am forced to assume from your responses that you agree that some forms of linear play are not railroading. Please correct me if I am wrong.

You said to Janx,

for purposes of defining what I'm arguing, what you think doesn't matter. Not one bit.​

But for purposes of understanding what you're saying, what the other person "hears" or "understands" matters quite a bit. Obviously, from your comments, I misunderstood your position in a significant way. It was not, however, intentional misunderstanding -- what would be the point of that? If I didn't think that I had understood your earlier position, I certainly wouldn't have pointed back to your posts as an example.

I make as many mistakes as the next person; I try to avoid obvious mistakes whenever possible......I don't always succeed, even when I think I am on fairly firm ground. However, what I do not do is intentionally make mistakes "for my own purposes".

RC

 

[painandgreed]

For my group, there's one style of DM'ing that we all, unitedly, cannot stand: The totally "open DM." If a DM goes totally LARP-style freeform, it bugs the living daylights out of us, because to us it lacks focus, drive, and a reason to play. The one time our group tried one of the Storyteller games (Vampire the Masquerade), it was under a totally "open DM" who helped us with the rules, watched us make our characters, and when the game started, he gathered us around the table, and basically said, "now, roleplay." No plot, no hooks, no nothing except however our characters decided to interact with one another. So, when we began doing what we expected vampires to do (go hunting, etc.) it bugged him to no end because we basically went and did our own thing, directionlessly, and just basically became petty criminals. One day, I think I'll re-try VtM, but this one bad experience pretty much turned off the entire group to it.

The totally "open DMing" style may be good for some gamers, but for me it really (pun intended) bites. I'd rather have a DM say, "OK, these are the rumors you hear" and follow up on them, or the DM says, "a man comes bursting in, screaming for help!" and follow the big, glowing hook to whatever destination it leads. I don't consider either of these railroading. To me, railroading is when helping said screaming man REQUIRES our capture, or requires us to act in a way which must lead down one path, no matter our choice.

As one of those "open DMs" I must agree, and would like to think I have learned my lesson. It was way before VtM with D&D. Totaly open DMing rarely works because the players (and therfore the characters) do not live in thier world 24/7 and have no points of reference. You can do this at least two ways. One is just give them plot hooks and see what they bite on. Two is ask for their goals and then design stuff around that. Still, unless they are intimatly familiar with the game setting, it's really hard for them to come up with their own goals (especially when they've been playing for last 20 years in RL by having their characers sit in a tavern and having the adventures come to them).

 

[Hussar]

I really have two issues with the idea that the presence of railroading is entirely determined by the players.

Firstly, as I've said numerous times already, there is a fair chance that what appears to be railroading may not be. In the doppleganger example above, this is 100% NOT railroading. However, by HappyElf's definition, if I, as the player, think it is, it becomes railroading.

The fact that I as the player don't have complete access to information doesn't matter. I think I'm being railroaded, therefore I am. Despite the fact that I am completely mistaken and that I am not being railroaded, rather there is more information here than I am aware of, it doesn't matter. I send up the flag of railroad, and that's the end of the story.

However, there is also a second problem with this. If railroading is determined by the players, then what happens if I, as DM, railroad without their knowledge?

For example, if I make a dungeon with 15 rooms. I then make 15 encounters that could fit into any of the 15 rooms. The first room the party enters becomes encounter 1, second becomes encounter 2 and so on. I place certain items in previous encounters that will be used in future encounters. Perhap the key found in encounter 6 opens the chest in encounter 8.

This is 100% a railroad. There is zero player choice. It doesn't matter where the players choose to go, they have no chance to influence the outcome of the dungeon. By any reasonable definition, this is a railroad, I think we can agree on that.

However, the players may never know. Unless they look at my adventure notes, they may be completely oblivious to the tracks. In fact, if I do it fairly well, they really have no reason to even suspect that they are being railroaded.

So, if the players do not perceive the railroad, does that mean I haven't railroaded them? I don't think so. My above railroad dungeon doesn't suddenly become not a railroad because the players aren't perceptive. That's silly. If I set up an encounter that will occur no matter what the players do, that's railroading. Just because the players aren't aware of it, doesn't make it any less of a railroad.

I understand what you are saying HappyElf. In fact, for the most part, I agree with you. The DM is unfairly exercising power over the players=railroading. I can agree with that. What I disagree with is the idea that the player's are the sole judges of railroading.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Rounser,

After my last post, I downloaded the thread so that I could go back and re-read all of your posts. You are quite correct; I am wrong. Not intentionally so, though, despite what you may think. I do try to limit signs of my approaching senility as much as humanly possible....


Hussar,

I hope you realize that the question of "perceived player power" may be reopened in light of this thread & the poll. Hopefully this will not demonstrate my approaching senility more than I have already done.

 

[Hussar]

I had thought of that.

If the judgement of railroading is determined entirely by the players, what limits their power to fiat the DM's game? How can we determine if a player is actually being railroaded or is just a bad player if the only measure is his opinion?

 

[Raven Crowking]

I had thought of that.

If the judgement of railroading is determined entirely by the players, what limits their power to fiat the DM's game? How can we determine if a player is actually being railroaded or is just a bad player if the only measure is his opinion?

When a question is phrased specifically to demonstrate a power imbalance, the percentages were such that I was willing to concede that the "player power" thing was largely the result of a vocal minority. Now, I'm not quite sure at all........

 

[happyelf]

I had thought of that.
If the judgement of railroading is determined entirely by the players, what limits their power to fiat the DM's game? How can we determine if a player is actually being railroaded or is just a bad player if the only measure is his opinion?

That's the only measure that exists in any event. The opinons and preferences of the players and the GM.

What else is there? Can you dip some conceptual litmus paper into the game? Do the 3.5 rules come wiht a chart to balance the prevalence of GM fiat against the party's average level? Of course not.

That's the issue. Preference. Everything beyond that is a just a matter of the group articulating it's preferences and goals, and again, that is not a process that can be codified or placed into an 'objective' framework. That's a matter of dialogue, discussion, even experimentation.

I think there's a lot of good stuff that can be said about such issues, but it doesn't change the fact that the blanket term 'railroading' refers to a problem defined by preference.

Everybody has a different story about railroading, and most of them have merit, despite how much they often seem to differ. The solution then is not to say that some stories are railroading, and some are not, but rather to recognise that railroading is relative to preference.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I think there's a lot of good stuff that can be said about such issues, but it doesn't change the fact that the blanket term 'railroading' refers to a problem defined by preference.

I think the main problem is that most people seem fixed in their perception that railroading is, by definition, a bad thing, whereas really its quality should be one of oppinion, like high vs low magic or like grim 'n gritty vs heroic fantasy.

If you define raliroading as simply a bad thing, then it becomes a term more akin to munchkin: someone who plays in a way that I don't find fun. While that makes it a great desparaging remark toward a game or game style, I don't think it offers a useful definition.

Once we accept that railroading can be a good thing, I think we can start to find a definition that is more suitable to reality. As is, people are probably going to be more concerned with making sure the term stays far away from their own preferances than giving it any kind of suitable definition.