D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[Maxperson]

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.

D&D is an exceptions based system. Things can't be done........until they can be. The only way I can fail is if the DM deliberately prevents me from being able to, invalidating my agency.

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

It did before it was destroyed. I go back and get it.

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.

Which of those are D&D? None that I can see.

Yes, it's true that OTHER games can have things that can't be undone. D&D just isn't one of those unless the DM goes out of his way to prevent a way from being discovered.

It may be that bad rolls, an inability to come up with ideas, etc. might keep me from succeeding, but in an infinite cosmos with exceptions to everything out there somewhere, it's possible unless the DM removes player agency.

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

There are spells in editions of D&D that do it to varying degrees. So out there somewhere is a time god, time titan or something new that can do it.

Heck, this is in the Forgotten Realms.

Time conduit

Time conduit was an incredibly rare, powerful chronomancy spell that allowed the creation of a very short-lived portal backwards through time.[1] It caused items that were anachronisms in the destination time to be removed, only restored to existence on the bearer's return to his or her own...

forgottenrealms.fandom.com

And this...

"The Realms were home to at least five time gates, permanent portals that allowed for time travel"

An exception to everything is out there somewhere.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

An exception to everything is out there somewhere.

And that remains a mere assertion, not something you have even remotely proven.

Unless and until you do that, all you're doing is asserting you're right, and then concluding from that that I must be wrong.

Edit: Further, using examples solely derived from the Forgotten Realms isn't any more "D&D" than any of the things I cited. You're using one single setting to justify something being true of all D&D ever. That's simply incorrect.

 

[Celebrim]

No, not all time skips are railroading. In fact, the overwhelming majority of them are not. How many games have you been in where you've played out every minute of every game day in real time? Not many I'm sure. Hours get skipped. When travelling days and even weeks get skipped. Those are non-railroading time skips.

Your argument seems to be that because something is necessary or even desirable it can't possibly simultaneously result in a loss of player agency or an increase in the ability of the GM to steer the adventure toward his preferred results.

 

[soviet]

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.

I think what you're describing here is what's known as 'pawn play'. You don't seem to have any particular investment in your character as a person or their ties to the gameworld, your investment is in not losing the game by having your playing piece die.

 

[Maxperson]

And that remains a mere assertion, not something you have even remotely proven.

Unless and until you do that, all you're doing is asserting you're right, and then concluding from that that I must be wrong.

Edit: Further, using examples solely derived from the Forgotten Realms isn't any more "D&D" than any of the things I cited. You're using one single setting to justify something being true of all D&D ever. That's simply incorrect.

Go read like every edition of D&D ever made. It's entirely exceptions based. Hell, 5e like every other edition is based on it and made it one of their biggest rules. Specific beats general. There is a general rule, but there are all kinds of exceptions(more specific things) that break it.

You can choose to play D&D differently, but you'd be railroading me out of being able to find an exception.

And I hate to break it to you, but the Forgotten Realms is part of D&D and shows exceptions that include time travel. It shows that in D&D there is an exception somewhere. In your game I could use planar travel to get there, unless you removed the Forgotten Realms from your multiverse to deny me the agency to get there and use their time travel methods.

D&D has the multiverse, which includes official and homebrew settings by default. The DM has to go out of his way to remove settings from his Prime Material Plane.

 

[Maxperson]

Your argument seems to be that because something is necessary or even desirable it can't possibly simultaneously result in a loss of player agency or an increase in the ability of the GM to steer the adventure toward his preferred results.

You have yet to prove that the players choosing something it is a loss of agency. The personal definition you've chosen flies very much against the standard definition of railroading.

Railroading isn't just a loss of agency. Railroading is negating player choice specifically to achieve the DMs ends and push the players to where the DM wants them to be. If they choose to go to a city and they choose play out every second of every day, there is no lost agency there. They have made the choices(agency) and they are going where THEY, not the DM wants to go.

You can use an personal definition of agency for your game, but if you assert that your personal definition is the general definition of railroading on a forum like this, you're going to get a lot of pushback like you've gotten in this thread.

 

[bloodtide]

Well that would be the essence of the "life goes on" story. The PC has lost everything they care about, what new things can they find to care about? Which are often some of the most powerful and uplifting stories you can encounter.

I guess, like someone else said previously, it's whether or not people see their PCs as disposable. I never do, even if it is a game with high lethality. Sure, the PC faces the possibility of death, but that doesn't mean they don't value being alive. They may even sacrifice themselves for a cause, but it better be something that is truly worthy of that sacrifice. Perhaps that is why I don't feel tension in a combat encounter unless my PCs life is in danger. An immortal PC doesn't need to value their life, as it is never in danger. That is too much of a disconnect from reality for me, as IRL, life is valuable because it can end at any time, so time is precious.

A player having a disposable PC is a choice. If the player want to play the casual game where they sit back and don't care if their PC lives or dies, that is just one way to do it.

Most player care very much about their PCs.

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?

The easy answer is the above are things you would willing do, and character death is not. So character death is special. Far above all the other things. If it was just like everything else, you'd do it all the time in your games.....

I just see that as incredibly boring.

But you don't see combat with no life or death stakes boring? To just sit there and roll attacks and damages......while knowing none of it matters? Sure if your PC is hit you will subtract some hit points. But you will never get to character death. So why even keep track of HP? The sheet might say "20 hit points", but it is really "infinite".

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".

The question goes back to you.......why do you see it as different?

 

[Gorgon Zee]

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

The easy answer is the above are things you would willing do, and character death is not. So character death is special. Far above all the other things.

OK. I think I have this now. Bloodtide plays characters who prioritize their survival "far above" everything else. Any other consequence the GM might put into play is effectively trivial to them. That does make their argument consistent, but if feels very alien to my experience. It also feels like the least immersive way to play I can imagine. You, the player, have only one priority -- not dying. But your character is unlikely to be like that. Most actual people have things they would die for. Pretty much every fantasy hero does. So you are going to be continually at odds with your character -- that would be really hard for me to enjoy. Maybe Bloodtide just plays characters who all prioritize survival far above everything else?

For me and for most people I know, they like to play characters with a stronger set of motivations. I want to play characters who will happily die for the queen; who will sacrifice themselves to preserve their nation; who consider defeating evil worth their own lives. Characters who absolutely do consider other losses worse than death. This is the very stuff of heroic fantasy and D&D!

So given that a character would willingly die for what they believe in, it makes any conflict that they are involved with far more exciting and tense if the character's core goals are threatened, rather than just their life. When I read the part in LOTR where Smeagol and Frodo are struggling over the crack of doom, I'm not thinking "I don't care if they destroy the ring or not so long as Frodo lives" -- I'm rooting for Frodo to succeed at destroying the ring (thus saving the king, restoring law to the nation and defeating evil) and his survival is absolutely far, far below that goal in order of importance.

In summary, I don't think playing characters who prioritize their own survival far above all other goals is the default assumption. It would bore me always to have the same main motivation for every character. Also, I like to play the role of my character as much as possible, and therefore as a player my goals of a conflict align with the character's goals. Thus, to support Bloodtide's view that character death is far above all other goals, I would need to either always play the same character, or stop immersive roleplaying during combat.

Neither are very attractive options to me. Nor, I feel, to most people.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But you don't see combat with no life or death stakes boring?

I mean you can make any combat boring, in a host of ways. But what you mean is, do I see combat with no life or death stakes as automatically boring? And the answer is no. I think it can be meaningful, if there are other consequences.

To just sit there and roll attacks and damages......while knowing none of it matters?

Nope! Because you've literally just made the argument circular again. You have just inserted, right here, the claim that without death it is automatically meaningless. I reject that, and you haven't proven it. You've just claimed it's true.

Sure if your PC is hit you will subtract some hit points. But you will never get to character death. So why even keep track of HP? The sheet might say "20 hit points", but it is really "infinite".

Because a character with 0 HP cannot act, and thus pushes the party closer to defeat.

Just because you cannot die does not mean you cannot be defeated. And if you are defeated, bad things will happen because you couldn't stop them.

The question goes back to you.......why do you see it as different?

Just to be clear: you are choosing to ask me to answer the question first, rather than answering it yourself?

But the answer is simple: Either my character lives in a world where they accomplished their goal, or a world where they didn't accomplish their goal. These two are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, so one and only one can happen. If I fail at a goal, sometimes that can be corrected later. Sometimes it can't. Sometimes I'll pay a cost and just...not be able to pay that cost a second time.

So, even if my character's life isn't on the line, my character's goals are. As @Gorgon Zee so eloquently put it just above, I feel far greater tension and engagement when it is the goals, both narrow and broad, that are put into question. Brute survival, alone, doesn't make for a very interesting question, because the answers to that question are always, exactly two: "no, throw all your investment away and reroll" or "yes, so nothing has changed". Something that can only either maintain the status quo or eliminate it entirely...I mean I don't find either of those outcomes all that compelling. The only change "did not survive" induces is a dull and frustrating one. "Yes" permits other things to change...but plays no part in actually changing them.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Common enough that I have yet to see the exceptions.

A lot of investigative horror games, honestly. In the majority of them there's no question that combat is frequently a failure state, and they want you to be aware of that.

(This is in contrast to action-horror and survival-horror which have different dynamics).

Yes.

Your choice, but I'm about 90% sure its a categorical error at this point.