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

[Bill Zebub]

I mean, just going around the table and asking someoe to describe their character, especially a specific part of their character like their boots, still takes quite a lot of players a good amount of time to come up with something creative.

I was working with a small (10-12) person, virtual company, and I proposed we kick off our weekly all-team Zoom meetingswith "Victory, Challenge, Shout-Out" where we go around and each person would take THIRTY SECONDS to say something that went well in the last week, something they were struggling with, and a shout-out to somebody else on the team.

It remained our ritual (until the company was acquired and dismembered...) but you can imagine how well people stuck to the 30 seconds. I even found a Zoom addon that let me run a stop-watch that everybody could see. No effect. Some people regularly spoke for 3-5 minutes on their turn.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It occurred to me that a cool use for AI would be to generate "topic histograms" illustrating what any given thread is actually about, over time (or "over posts"). These longer threads keep evolving into totally different topics.

And the next task would then be to figure out which topics (metagaming! NPCs using social skills! fighters suck! AI sucks more than fighters! warlords!) get touched on by the most threads.

 

[Scott Christian]

I was working with a small (10-12) person, virtual company, and I proposed we kick off our weekly all-team Zoom meetingswith "Victory, Challenge, Shout-Out" where we go around and each person would take THIRTY SECONDS to say something that went well in the last week, something they were struggling with, and a shout-out to somebody else on the team.

It remained our ritual (until the company was acquired and dismembered...) but you can imagine how well people stuck to the 30 seconds. I even found a Zoom addon that let me run a stop-watch that everybody could see. No effect. Some people regularly spoke for 3-5 minutes on their turn.

I am confused what that has to do with improvising a decision. You did this every week. People knew the exact question that was going to come up. So they can prepare, get ready, and have something on hand. Seeing a battlefield suddenly change dynamics and having twelve spells at your disposal plus potions and a few magical items, that might be a bit different.

All I am saying is combat can get complex in games like D&D, and it might take some players longer than five seconds to analyze the situation and determine what to do.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I am confused what that has to do with improvising a decision. You did this every week. People knew the exact question that was going to come up. So they can prepare, get ready, and have something on hand. Seeing a battlefield suddenly change dynamics and having twelve spells at your disposal plus potions and a few magical items, that might be a bit different.

All I am saying is combat can get complex in games like D&D, and it might take some players longer than five seconds to analyze the situation and determine what to do.

It's just another version of "people don't know how to answer a question succinctly and move along." They think while they talk.

 

[zakael19]

5 seconds or whatever to make a decision is not "you have 5 seconds to speak." The players in my PBTA games generally make a decision very quickly on their action when they get spotlighted, but they might ask for a clarification or two on the fiction before launching into their action.

 

[Thomas Shey]

5 seconds or whatever to make a decision is not "you have 5 seconds to speak." The players in my PBTA games generally make a decision very quickly on their action when they get spotlighted, but they might ask for a clarification or two on the fiction before launching into their action.

I'm assuming you know this, but that kind of rule, especially with that specific short a time frame, is tantamount to "Don't play in this game" for some people. They won't learn to do it that fast just because its necessary, they'll just fail out until they get disgusted and stop coming.

 

[zakael19]

I'm assuming you know this, but that kind of rule, especially with that specific short a time frame, is tantamount to "Don't play in this game" for some people. They won't learn to do it that fast just because its necessary, they'll just fail out until they get disgusted and stop coming.

It's not my rule, I'm just sharing how quickly the decision making tends to flow at my tables; without counting clarification questions!

 

[GrimCo]

Personally, never had problems with amount of time people took to make a decision at the table. That part is usually fast. How long does it take to resolve, now that's another issue.

 

[zarionofarabel]

I'm assuming you know this, but that kind of rule, especially with that specific short a time frame, is tantamount to "Don't play in this game" for some people. They won't learn to do it that fast just because its necessary, they'll just fail out until they get disgusted and stop coming.

I don't have a problem with people not wanting to play in a game I'm running though. If someone is unwilling to get on board with how I as GM like to run games, then it's probably better they game elsewhere, is it not? The reverse is also true. If someone wants to play a particular kind of game a particular way, and I as GM am not willing to run my game that way, aren't they better off to find a GM that does run games that way? I find the whole "everyone should accommodate everyone" mentality kind of odd. Football teams don't start playing basketball just because they get a player that like basketball, they tell that person to go join a basketball team instead.

Personally, never had problems with amount of time people took to make a decision at the table. That part is usually fast. How long does it take to resolve, now that's another issue.

This is also as big a concern as how long it takes people to make decisions. It's why I do not run games like D&D or other systems where combat rounds feature complex multiple action economies, or use minis/grid combat with precise positioning and positional bonuses/penalties. Combat systems that are primarily narrative based and have similar complexity to other forms of challenges are what I prefer nowadays. Combat is but one aspect of TTRPG play (if at all depending on the game) and need not be any more involved than any other aspect of play. If a negotiation that takes twenty minutes can be decided by a single dice roll, why can't a combat encounter that lasts less than 60 seconds be decided the same way.

 

[GrimCo]

It's why I do not run games like D&D or other systems where combat rounds feature complex multiple action economies, or use minis/grid combat with precise positioning and positional bonuses/penalties

Yea, and even in D&D sphere, not all editions are equal. From personal experience, 2ed combat runs very fast, specially if you modernize it a bit with ascending AC, to hit bonus instead of thac0, static initiative. Goes smooth as a butter. Even basic 5e ( pre xanathar and tasha) is rather fast up to late tier 2. 3.x and 4e, well, those were never fast, but for different reasons.