D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[EzekielRaiden]

Stop wasting time on a blow by blow description of the combat, that is nothing more than a time delay, and get back to the parts of the narrative where my successes amd failures will meaningfully affect the story.

Why can't combats meaningfully affect the story even if you just get captured?

Like I genuinely don't understand how or why that is an automatic thing.

If you get captured and can't save the queen, the queen DIES. The nation is in chaos. Evil won.

Why isn't that meaningful?

 

[zarionofarabel]

Why can't combats meaningfully affect the story even if you just get captured?

Like I genuinely don't understand how or why that is an automatic thing.

If you get captured and can't save the queen, the queen DIES. The nation is in chaos. Evil won.

Why isn't that meaningful?

It is. It's the blow by blow, spending an hour of my life rolling dice part, that I find meaningless. The entirety of the combat and it's outcome could be decided with a quick description and single roll, much like how many (if not most) people decide the outcome of a social encounter.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It is. It's the blow by blow, spending an hour of my life rolling dice part, that I find meaningless. The entirety of the combat and it's outcome could be decided with a quick description and single roll, much like how many (if not most) people decide the outcome of a social encounter.

I just see that as incredibly boring.

That's like saying you could skip Lord of the Rings by being told, "They climbed Mount Doom and the Eagles rescued them. The end."

The blow-by-blow is the point, even though you can know with pretty much total certainty that Tolkien would never write a story where the world outright actually ends, where Fantasy Satan's Lieutenant wins. He'd never tell a story where hope is pointless and faith simply ends up totally unrewarded. That's not the kind of person he was, and his devout Catholic faith directly informed his world-building (in addition to, obviously, the Anglo-Saxon literature that he was a leading expert upon in his day).

Just because we're pretty sure we know the hero won't die, hell just because we know the world won't end, doesn't mean we now don't care in the slightest about how that plays out.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I just see that as incredibly boring.

That's like saying you could skip Lord of the Rings by being told, "They climbed Mount Doom and the Eagles rescued them. The end."

We all have our preferences, and things we find fun or not. I don't have any fun playing out a combat encounter where I know my PC will come out the far end unscathed. It's an incredibly boring experience as there is no feeling of tension as there is no real risk. There is no reason to try to employ smart tactics. There is no reason to try to utilize my PCs abilities effectively. It's all just waiting until the inevitable outcome that my PC is fine and can move on to other things. Just decide the outcome with a single roll so I get to quickly move on to other things. Either that or have combat be potentially lethal, making it a risky endeavor, with an unknown outcome. Then at least I have a reason to utilize my abilities effectively and try to employ smart tactics, so I can survive the combat, so I am still able to move on to other things.

 

[Maxperson]

All of these are still predicated on the assumption that:

(1) If you're alive you can ALWAYS fix EVERYTHING wrong
(2) No consequences are ever permanent except death
(3) You can never lose something you care about

All of these are wrong. Heck, that second one is wrong in both directions. Resurrection magic exists, so death isn't even permanent in the first place.

Are you going to railroad me by saying that there's nothing out there in the infinite cosmos that can possibly work to overcome?

D&D is nearly infinite. If I can't die, it's highly unlikely that there's no way to overcome whatever happened. If I lose something i care about, I can get it back. A consequence is only permanent until I can find a way to reverse it. If I fail, I get to keep trying over and over and over and over and over until I succeed, because I can't die.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

We all have our preferences, and things we find fun or not. I don't have any fun playing out a combat encounter where I know my PC will come out the far end unscathed. It's an incredibly boring experience as there is no feeling of tension as there is no real risk. There is no reason to try to employ smart tactics. There is no reason to try to utilize my PCs abilities effectively. It's all just waiting until the inevitable outcome that my PC is fine and can move on to other things. Just decide the outcome with a single roll so I get to quickly move on to other things. Either that or have combat be potentially lethal, making it a risky endeavor, with an unknown outcome. Then at least I have a reason to utilize my abilities effectively and try to employ smart tactics, so I can survive the combat, so I am still able to move on to other things.

but...like...

You've literally just said that you CAN lose. And tactics...are what make the difference...?

If you can lose and tactics can in fact be what differentiates things, why does loss absolutely NEED to be death?

You've already said that loss can occur that isn't "my character died". So...why is it death and only death which makes it so tactics feel relevant when...like...your tactics do still make a difference when it comes to whether you're captured or not captured, or whether the evil ritual completes, or whether the beautiful dragon gets sacrificed by the evil princess, or whatever?

Like I just...I don't understand why it MUST be death death death death. That's why I always circle back to "okay...so death is the only thing that matters to you." Because...I mean it literally does. I offered examples of other consequences for losing in a fight. You agreed that those are, in fact, actual consequences. But for some reason the fact that those consequences are not very specifically PC death now means that tactics are irrelevant even though those can (and should!) be legitimately what makes the difference between "we succeeded and saved the queen" and "we failed and did not save the queen".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Are you going to railroad me by arbitrarily saying that there's nothing out there in the infinite cosmos that can possibly work to overcome?

how is that railroading????

Like...what??

Let's say an artifact gets destroyed. That artifact is gone! You aren't going to be able to rebuild an artifact created by a long-lost civilization using knowledge lost to time, materials nobody knows how to replicate, magic that is literally not possible to perform, etc.

Let's say a queen gets killed, and in the chaos following her death, the nation shatters and there's mass death from famine and pillaging. Even if you resurrect the queen, the damage to the nation simply isn't something that can be wished away. At best, it will be generations of effort to put things back where they were. The PCs simply do not have the ability to just...wish that back into place.

Let's say part of your soul got destroyed. Souls can't be healed. You just...don't have that piece of you anymore. You have to learn to live without it. It's just gone.

You are making this argument circular by asserting that a fix is always possible.

D&D is nearly infinite. If I can't die, it's highly unlikely that there's no way to overcome whatever happened.

It absolutely is not. There can be a million reasons why what happened has permanent effects that cannot be changed by the PCs.

If I lose something i care about, I can get it back.

How do you know this for absolute certain?

A consequence is only permanent until I can find a way to reverse it. If I fail, I get to keep trying over and over and over and over and over until I succeed, because I can't die.

Except that there simply may not BE any way to do it. You may simply not be able to do that thing. What if a god dies, can your PC reverse that? What if the bad thing is the genocide of an entire species, can your PC reverse that? What if the bad thing is the destruction of an entire planet, can your PC reverse that?

You are simply, flatly wrong when you say it's impossible for things to not have permanent consequences. They can. Death isn't the only thing like that, and death isn't even like that in D&D anyway!

 

[zarionofarabel]

but...like...

You've literally just said that you CAN lose. And tactics...are what make the difference...?

If you can lose and tactics can in fact be what differentiates things, why does loss absolutely NEED to be death?

You've already said that loss can occur that isn't "my character died". So...why is it death and only death which makes it so tactics feel relevant when...like...your tactics do still make a difference when it comes to whether you're captured or not captured, or whether the evil ritual completes, or whether the beautiful dragon gets sacrificed by the evil princess, or whatever?

Like I just...I don't understand why it MUST be death death death death. That's why I always circle back to "okay...so death is the only thing that matters to you." Because...I mean it literally does. I offered examples of other consequences for losing in a fight. You agreed that those are, in fact, actual consequences. But for some reason the fact that those consequences are not very specifically PC death now means that tactics are irrelevant even though those can (and should!) be legitimately what makes the difference between "we succeeded and saved the queen" and "we failed and did not save the queen".

I DON'T KNOW!!!

All I can tell you is that the times I was a player in a game where my PC couldn't die during combat, I found combat bored me to tears. I felt no tension associated with the combat itself. Any tension I felt due to a situation that was tangentially related to the combat quickly faded because of how long the combat lasted. I felt no motivation to try to "do good" during the encounter because I knew, no matter what, my PC would be fine and able to continue on as if the combat encounter never happened.

Unless my PC's life is in danger I find blow by blow combat encounters to be the most utterly boring and pointless activity I have ever engaged in while playing a TTRPG. That's why I have only run a handful of (short lived) supers games in my 30+ years in the hobby, and have steadfastly refused to be a player in a supers game.

The most fun I have when I am a player is in horror games like Alien or Delta Green. Those games were rife with tension and so much fun to experience. Which is kind of weird cause I don't like horror movies all that much. I also thoroughly enjoy combat encounters that can be potentially lethal for my PC as they are also rife with tension. Games like Pendragon and Mythras were two of the best combat experiences I ever had. I recently got Twilight 2000 4e and after reading the rules got all giddy just thinking about playing it, as not only is combat quite lethal, but the setting and survival aspects sound like it would make for a game I would very much enjoy being a player in. I'm not much of a thrill seeker IRL, as I am deathly afraid of heights and generally very risk adverse. Perhaps lethal TTRPG imaginationland is some kind of psychological doodad that allows me to live out risky ideas that I would never remotely entertain IRL. If you know a shrink perhaps regail them of my plight and ask them what they think. I would ask my shrink but it's pretty low on my list of things I worry about, and I have lots of other things that need her attention.

If nothing else, I own a Parrot, which means I'm one of those weird "bird people" types. All the dog and cat owners think I'm strange, you may as well too.

 

[Maxperson]

how is that railroading????

Because you are denying my agency to find one of the ways out there in the infinite cosmos of a game with exceptions to literally everything.

Let's say an artifact gets destroyed. That artifact is gone! You aren't going to be able to rebuild an artifact created by a long-lost civilization using knowledge lost to time, materials nobody knows how to replicate, magic that is literally not possible to perform, etc.

Why not? Why can't I get it from one of the zillion gods of secrets? Why can't I find a way back in time to learn it from the builders themselves? Why not many other possible ways?

The reason is that you want it to be the end, so you are denying my agency to accomplish the ways that are out there. That's railroading.

Let's say a queen gets killed, and in the chaos following her death, the nation shatters and there's mass death from famine and pillaging. Even if you resurrect the queen, the damage to the nation simply isn't something that can be wished away. At best, it will be generations of effort to put things back where they were. The PCs simply do not have the ability to just...wish that back into place.

I can prevent her from being killed in the first place. There are ways to completely undo events.

Let's say part of your soul got destroyed. Souls can't be healed. You just...don't have that piece of you anymore. You have to learn to live without it. It's just gone.

Sure they can be. We don't know the way in RAW, but it's literally an infinite cosmos in a game with exceptions to literally everything. Hell, I'd bet Ao and others like him are powerful enough to do it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because you are denying my agency to find one of the ways out there in the infinite cosmos of a game with exceptions to literally everything.

But there aren't exceptions to literally everything. It is in fact extremely important to many things that this be true. Some things are just...true. There just isn't an exception.

Why not? Why can't I get it from one of the zillion gods of secrets?

Because the artifact doesn't exist anymore? Because the material cannot be reproduced?

The Silmarils were unique and irreplaceable. The One Ring was unique and irreplaceable. Callandor was unique and irreplaceable. Karsus' Folly cannot be reproduced, because the foundations upon which it depended no longer exist. Some things just...can't be made a second time, no matter how much we might wish that to be otherwise.

Why can't I find a way back in time to learn it from the builders themselves?

Why would you presume time travel exists? That's absolutely not a justified assumption.

Why not many other possible ways?

There just aren't any sometimes. That's just what happens. There isn't a way to prove that 1=2 (unless we break math in one way or another, which is rather contrary to such a proof). There isn't a way to have a genus 0 surface with a hole in it. There isn't any way to have a triangle with four sides nor two sides, nor any number other than three. Plenty of things can just be flat-out impossible.

The reason is that you want it to be the end, so you are denying my agency to accomplish the ways that are out there. That's railroading.

There aren't ways. That's the point. You are making a circular argument.

How do you know there are ways?

Am I railroading you by requiring that your triangles have three sides and three angles?

I can prevent her from being killed in the first place. There are ways to completely undo events.

....you can? How?

Sure they can be. We don't know the way in RAW, but it's literally an infinite cosmos in a game with exceptions to literally everything. Hell, I'd bet Ao and others like him are powerful enough to do it.

Again, you are making a circular argument. You are presuming that these ways exist.

How do you know?