What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[Maxperson]

A PC sat down to negotiate with an NPC in Sigil. The NPC attempted to read the PCs mind and find some specific tidbit of information.
The character, who had foreseen this and protected himself somewhat from this, has the Flaw of not being able to keep secrets very well.
I offered an XP to the PC if he let that information slip.

Another PC was meant to attend an extremely important meeting (Council Metting, TiA) along with his party. However he received an opportunity (the help of Elminster's ward) to covertly gain some valuable information from the personal library of someone (Elminster) attending that meeting. The information related to a topic his PC had an interest in. One of his Bonds is lore being more valuable than ABC. I offered him an XP if he skipped on the meeting (at great cost to his party) to lean into his Bond and use the opportunity to acquire lore from Elminster's library.

A PC had a Bond that considered a certain NPC (previously a PC) his brother and would do anything for him. Well that NPC was caught in a city being pulled into Avernus (Elturel, DiA).
He purposefully split from the party to attempt rescue this NPC earning himself an XP.
I'm essentially running 2 campaigns now (1 the main group and 1 for him, separate sessions).

These are just a few examples of how we leverage the TIBFs to truly test the core of the character. Player has full control over the decision to lean into their TIBFs or not.

I wouldn't have even needed XP to do those things. I love to roleplay my characters. All of the character, good and bad.

 

[Maxperson]

You’re mixing things up again. No one uses skills for NPCs to influence PCs as you’re stating. I don’t believe anyone has advocated for that in this thread. I believe there was some “well why not” types of posts, but I don’t think anyone has said that this is how D&D plays or should play,

This is off the mark. This whole discussion stems because multiple folks here think social skills should work on PCs and use them that way in their games. I don't believe anyone has said that's how it should be, but there were some arguments that the rules don't say that social skills don't work on PCs, and at least one other person who argued that anything not forbidden was allowed.

If instead, we’re talking about how PCs can affect NPCs with skill rolls, then I believe the GM actually can and should factor those additional elements into the DC and whether or not to apply advantage or disadvantage. These are the tools provided to the GM for handling these kinds of encounters. So your assessment that the only thing that matters is the roll plus the ability and modifiers is incorrect.

If we were(and we're not) all discussing how social skills all work on NPCs, there would be no argument happening.

 

[Maxperson]

My definition would be this. If the final resolution of a character's mental state and decision-making is always made by the player, referencing their own internal heuristic of what the character is "like", then I would call that "avatar" play.

An avatar is usually about the player, though, and not some character that isn't like the player.

Developing an internal hueristic for how a character would act, and then making declarations in play to support that model, is fairly trivial for most experienced roleplayers, so I assume everyone here can and does do that. I want the mechanics to play a role because I don't want to shape the character, I want to play a character who is shaped.

And we are saying that when we make those decisions, we are playing a character who is shaped. I'm not choosing the fictional dilemmas that force my character to make hard choices that shape who he will become. Those are thrust upon me during game play. I'm just figuring out how he would respond to those character shaping forces, and often have my character propelled in directions I never imagined for him when I came up with his concept.

I understand the difference between what we do and what you do, but it's not really accurate to say that we are not playing characters who are shaped, but are instead shaped by the player.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Edit: Also, it shouldn't be that alien. Coming up with narrative justifications on the fly to match a resolution result is what we're usually doing when we're GMing. You don't try to immerse yourself in every NPC you're running, right? Your perspective is outside of them, focusing on producing some kind of event in the fiction. Same deal.

I get that argument, and yet I would almost always rather be playing than GMing.

 

[Bill Zebub]

A PC sat down to negotiate with an NPC in Sigil. The NPC attempted to read the PCs mind and find some specific tidbit of information.
The character, who had foreseen this and protected himself somewhat from this, has the Flaw of not being able to keep secrets very well.
I offered an XP to the PC if he let that information slip.

Another PC was meant to attend an extremely important meeting (Council Metting, TiA) along with his party. However he received an opportunity (the help of Elminster's ward) to covertly gain some valuable information from the personal library of someone (Elminster) attending that meeting. The information related to a topic his PC had an interest in. One of his Bonds is lore being more valuable than ABC. I offered him an XP if he skipped on the meeting (at great cost to his party) to lean into his Bond and use the opportunity to acquire lore from Elminster's library.

A PC had a Bond that considered a certain NPC (previously a PC) his brother and would do anything for him. Well that NPC was caught in a city being pulled into Avernus (Elturel, DiA).
He purposefully split from the party to attempt rescue this NPC earning himself an XP.
I'm essentially running 2 campaigns now (1 the main group and 1 for him, separate sessions).

These are just a few examples of how we leverage the TIBFs to truly test the core of the character. Player has full control over the decision to lean into their TIBFs or not.

Oh, well, if we are talking XP I'll sell my agency without batting an eye. I take back everything I've said.

(This was my plan all along. I rolled nat 20 with my Haggling skill.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

And I think chances are, they're wrong. People are really, really bad at understanding when something will have an influence on them except in the coarest cases, and I have no reason to believe they'll always be better with a fictional character they created.

But certainly better than other people at the table.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But certainly better than other people at the table.

Not even necessarily then. There's such a thing as being too close to the problem.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, well, if we are talking XP I'll sell my agency without batting an eye. I take back everything I've said.

(This was my plan all along. I rolled nat 20 with my Haggling skill.)

People who don't have as severe an attachment to it as you are are rather more prone to accepting a cookie to do something that may cause some trouble, and other players at the table are often more willing to accept it when there's some kind of benefit.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Not even necessarily then. There's such a thing as being too close to the problem.

Yeah...no. Nobody knows what a PC "would do" as well as the player.

 

[zakael19]

Yeah...no. Nobody knows what a PC "would do" as well as the player.

You've never had a player (or yourself) go "oh, you know what? wow, that's hard to say exactly how CharName would take this. Let me roll a dice of fate / make a check here / etc to see how they'd react!"

Cause that happens a decent bit in my groups! Including the folks who mainly play 5e.