D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[TwoSix]

I mean, it's true...

Aren't you the same guy who doesn't even like the combat in BG3?

Maybe it's just slightly possible you're overly biased towards your preference for narrative over the other aspects of play?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Aren't you the same guy who doesn't even like the combat in BG3?

Maybe it's just slightly possible you're overly biased towards your preference for narrative over the other aspects of play?

Oh, well of course yeah! I'd never deny that!

Roleplaying games are absolutely 100% meant to be a story-creation medium, not a board game. Which is why I couldn't care less about anyone's efforts to make sure the "board game" of D&D is balanced and works correctly. If I wanted that, I'd just play actual board games.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The campaign premise. Typically, there is either an occupation or an interest in place or series of events. Perhaps the PCs are law enforcement of a frontier town, or perhaps the PCs are residents of a city in political turmoil, there may be some unexplained phenomena that has become and existential threat to the world the PCs live in. The Players accept that premise and explore it extensively. As opposed to a non-linear game where the premise is a moving target and the players can chose to engage, disengage, reengage the premises as they like.

I don't think having a general premise for a campaign makes it linear. Words mean things. Linear implies that the events follow one predetermined path. If that is not happening it is not linear.

 

[payn]

I don't think having a general premise for a campaign makes it linear. Words mean things. Linear implies that the events follow one predetermined path. If that is not happening it is not linear.

Damn, now I guess there is no difference between sandbox and linear RPGs.

 

[Desdichado]

If you don't mean plotted, then I'm unclear as to what aspects of a novel the game would be attempting to convey.

Other than the sample ones that I listed in the post you were responding to?

To put it more plainly, it is not up to the DM or an outsider perspective to determine whether an adventure is a railroad or not, because they aren't the ones playing through it. It's the players for whom a "railroad" matters, because they are the one who are seeing and feeling that their choices are being ignored and thus are being "railroaded". They are the ones feeling the negative effects of the decisions the DM is making.

I agree that this is the only useful (to me) interpretation of a railroad. A railroad doesn't really occur at the product level, it occurs in game. A good GM doesn't railroad his players, and his sessions don't become railroads. I sometimes fudge this and call certain written scenarios a railroad because it's so tightly scripted that it's difficult to use without turning into a railroad at the table. But I also, if pressed, acknowledge that that's fudging around the edges of the definition and using it kind of sloppily.

(The big issue for some other DMs of course are that they might not be skilled enough yet to actually do their job correctly. They might not be able to pull off the magic trick to the satisfaction of their players. But it's thus on them to work to get better at it.)

Yes, exactly. Perfectly said. I actually think most GM advice that I see online isn't very good, because it doesn't address this simple premise; as a GM, your primary role is to read the room, figure out what your players are enjoying, and adapt on the fly to give them more of that and less of what they don't enjoy. I'm not sure that it can be taught, honestly, but... well, there it is.

 

[TwoSix]

Oh, well of course yeah! I'd never deny that!

Roleplaying games are absolutely 100% meant to be a story-creation medium, not a board game. Which is why I couldn't care less about anyone's efforts to make sure the "board game" of D&D is balanced and works correctly. If I wanted that, I'd just play actual board games.

Ok, but there’s also a pretty big difference between how those stories are authored.

There’s pretty massive differences between D&D and Brindlewood Bay and Fiasco despite all of them being “story creation”.

 

[payn]

Yes, exactly. Perfectly said. I actually think most GM advice that I see online isn't very good, because it doesn't address this simple premise; as a GM, your primary role is to read the room, figure out what your players are enjoying, and adapt on the fly to give them more of that and less of what they don't enjoy. I'm not sure that it can be taught, honestly, but... well, there it is.

I'd go a step further and say a GM needs to know themselves well too. There is a point you may be trying to drive a square peg through a round hole. It might behoove one to find round players instead if the goal is a round slot.

 

[CreamCloud0]

But if the path can branch in such a significant way via a player choice, then it is not linear!

okay perhaps my choice of example was a little poor, what with the diverging parties and storylines, aragorn, gimli and legolas probably got the bulk of the 'intended questline' to fill in the distance from moria to mordor but we all know that the destination was never going to be anything other than mt.doom.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Damn, now I guess there is no difference between sandbox and linear RPGs.

I mean that there doesn't seem to be a coherent definition of "linear adventure" that is impossible to answer. If people merely use it to mean "a non-sandbox adventure" then I think term "linear" is a colossal misnomer. You can easily have a game with more tightly focused premise than a sandbox has, without having a predetermined outcome or course the events has to take.

 

[Desdichado]

I'd go a step further and say a GM needs to know themselves well too. There is a point you may be trying to drive a square peg through a round hole. It might behoove one to find round players instead if the goal is a round slot.

Indeed. If my players enjoyed a lot more tactical depth and drawn-out combat, which I don't really care much about, then I'm not likely to adapt to their preferences very well, and I'd be better suited for not running for this group. This isn't always possible, because most people play with their friends, and their friends might not all have the same tastes, but ideally, the best games are clearly those in which the whole group is on the same page about what is best in gaming and all work towards maximizing that element of the experience.