D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[AnotherGuy]

I mean, I don't think it could have done anything to help, that's for sure. Whether they were great otherwise, I can't say. They never really got that much chance....but it certainly didn't feel great to have my warnings brushed off or, worse, met with (what seemed to me like) extreme hostility.

I'm personally more of the opinion that the weak design of the early levels (due to them trying to serve three masters and failing to actually serve any of them all that much), coupled with the radical, overweening dependence on GM skill, coupled with the painful dearth of actual guidance in the 5.0 DMG, is what led to this experience.

The extreme hostility you mention coupled with your belief in the weakness in the game and the guidance provided somewhat implies a degree of ego being at play, as well as limited exposure and experience by the GMs. My interaction with others here, being privy to their insights, even with persons with vastly different playstyles certainly improved my GMing skill at my own table.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I'm personally more of the opinion that the weak design of the early levels (due to them trying to serve three masters and failing to actually serve any of them all that much), coupled with the radical, overweening dependence on GM skill, coupled with the painful dearth of actual guidance in the 5.0 DMG, is what led to this experience.

I have argued as much in many different threads over the years.

Not saying the game is perfect, far from it, but I am not surprised that you complaints based on your highly anomalous experience do not gain much traction. You are wanting to fix an issue most people simply do not have.

 

[Maxperson]

I have interacted with Bloodtide enough to know what he means, having heard it numerous times before. Remember, he's the one who proudly railroads--as said specifically in this thread. Who is proudly "cruel" to his players. His word, not mine.

He also proudly states that natural consequences that stem from player agency is a railroad when it isn't. He doesn't seem to understand what railroading really is.

If the king hired the PCs to save his daughter who would be killed if not rescued, and the players decided to have their PCs give up the quest and go spelunking in the nearby Caverns of Wealth, he'd allow that. Then he'd kill the princess as a natural consequence, and view that as railroading since it's a negative to the players. Then the king who had his trust betrayed by the group, resulting in the death of his daughter, would likely send bounty hunters and or assassins after the group to exact revenge. Another natural consequence of the agency displayed by the players. And another thing he would incorrectly view as a railroad.

What he wouldn't do, from the posts I've seen and interacted with him on the subject, would be to tell the group no they can't go to the Caverns of Wealth or force them back onto the quest.

 

[Maxperson]

Suggestions are cobwebs. Ephemera. They're literally less than nothing--because if it were nothing, at least the players would know that there were nothing between them and the GM's whims.

The bolded is irrelevant since the DM doesn't act on whim with rules changes. The rule(har har har) is that the suggested rules are followed and any changes are the result of reason, not whim, and the overwhelming majority of the time are not done in the moment. The rare corner case bad DM acting on a whim doesn't alter the rule, but is instead the rare exception to it.

The fact is, the rules are just suggestions because the DM can change them and is not beholden to follow them blindly. He can overrule them with reason, and create now ones for a purpose. Whim doesn't play into it.

 

[Mort]

The only reason I am is because another user here, Hussar, very kindly offered to let me join his group, and he has been nothing but a great GM, so I have no complaints.

And yes, my experience with 5e has been miserable (outside of Hussar's campaigns; again I want to stress how distinctly different he has been from all prior 5e GMs). A very large portion of it has come from either GMs being cavalier about the rules, GMs acting with impunity when they should have been more circumspect, or player characters being extremely fragile and ineffectual at low levels. And "low levels" (e.g. 1-3), prior to Hussar's games, were the only levels I ever got to experience.

The designers supposedly designed the game such that people were supposed to skip to level 3 and ignore levels 1 and 2 because they're so fast and don't add much gameplay value outside of new players or people who really really want that gritty feel. My experience has been that very nearly 100% of GMs demand that play start at 1st level merely because it is "first", because you start with the "first" thing, that's what being "first" means, regardless of the consequences that entails.


I cannot say if it is typical or not. I have no good evidence to say that anything else is typical. I have been told by several that it is atypical, but that's really all I have, being told it.

And yes, this is a big part of why I am rather skeptical about some of the alleged value that comes from various elements of 5e's design. I was already skeptical and a bit of a sourpuss beforehand, having felt burned and mocked by the "D&D Next" playtest, since I really loved 4e. The few times I have in fact given 5e a try, it has...not gone well, despite my efforts to the contrary. (I did seek out 4e games first, to be clear, and then non-D&D games that were similar to 4e such as 13A, and then games that weren't even similar to 4e but were still non-D&D, and then even tried giving Pathfinder 1e--2e wasn't quite out yet--a space because at least I can kinda enjoy its gonzo rules. Then I finally said, "Okay, I guess the only way I'm getting to game at all is to play 5e", and thus genuinely tried to give it a shot.)

Interesting. I pretty much always start a new campaign at level 3 or higher these days. Characters are currently at 18th (though in this particular case there was a level jump, skipped 11-16).

We've rotated DMs several times, each running their own 5e thing. Starting points were (not including me) 3, 3 and 5.

 

[Maxperson]

That's what a rule is.

That's literally what a rule is.

It tells you how things will work.

Exceptions--if justified--always exist for anything. Always. That's the nature of playing games.

If I sit down to play Catan, there are no exceptions to any of the rules that come up through odd corner case game play. A 7 results in the robber being placed by the player rolling it. Cards are discarded according to the rules. A card is possibly stolen according to the rules. A roll other than 7 results in resources being handed out, if appropriate, according to the rules. There will never be a corner case where if an 8 is rolled, resources are handed out to someone without a settlement or city next to the number 8 tiles. It's a pretty simple ruleset.

It's the same with most the board games with fairly simple rule sets. Changes to those rules are not from any sort of justifications or exceptions. If the group playing Catan decides that a roll of 7 means that every discarded resource gets handed out one at a time to other players starting clockwise, that's a house rule with no justification or exception fueling it. It's just a house rule the group decided to enact for personal preference.

When you get to the complex rule interactions with expansions, etc., like Terraforming Mars and other similar games, you do end up with weird combinations of cards and circumstances which can create the rare corner case. In those circumstances the group will need to decide on how to resolve that corner case. Those rulings are the result of justification and are exceptions to the rules.

Roleplaying games are more complex than even games like Terraforming Mars. Because players can declare just about anything for their PCs to try, and the rules can't cover anywhere close to everything. Even though any given corner case is rare, corner cases crop up fairly often because of the sheer number of rules and interactions. Further, because there are so many rules, DMs and/or groups will often come across rules that they don't like, or like, but don't like the written implementation of. Those rules will be changed.

 

[Maxperson]

Sure we can. It would be foolish to do so, but who are these Chess Police that are doing this?

Remember, the game we call "chess" today was a controversial house-rule in Medieval Europe, mocked for being "mad queens" chess--but the house rule was incredibly popular, and today, it would be impossible to envision "chess", as we understand it, without the incredibly powerful queen.

You have always had this power. It is something you have inherently by having will.

This statement agrees with us that rules are just guidelines that can be overridden by having a will.

Those exceptions do not make them "guidelines". They make them rules that we understand are adopted at our will. We not only can, not only should, but must examine them as we use them and ask ourselves whether they serve. That's a necessary component of having rules.

That's what a guideline is. A guideline is just a rule that can be overridden if the DM and/or group has a reason to do so.

If the rules are in fact actually designed well, we should need to intervene only extremely rarely. As in, intervention should be a surprise.

This is incorrect. A well written rule that I and/or the group dislike can and should be changed to suit us. Being well written doesn't mean well liked.

The fact that anyone thinks intervention should be a constant, nearly-every-moment thing is, flatly, ridiculous. If any other interactive thing were as buggy, broken, stupid, and self-contradicting as D&D rules are, people would be screaming the creators/organizers into deafness!

And this is a very flagrant strawman of what people are saying about the rules being guidelines. Nobody is arguing for constant, nearly-every-moment rules changes by the DM. That's just you.