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

[bsss]

Player agency is vital to the game but also delicate in times of interpretation. To preserve that agency, features that compel any kind of PC action should be used sparingly. As a way to allow the fiction to mean something to the gameplay while within that agency, the GM has considerable options at their disposal (e.g. a Fear effect, or a simple "attacks against the orc are at -2 because you're shaken" even without a defense). The GM can just do those things because they are in the language of the game and the GM as arbiter and world-presenter can just say "well, this orc is exceptionally intimidating". But they should never get into "mind control" territory, which a general application of Intimidate applied to a PC may often dance the line of, depending on how it's written.

An interesting case study of this line is a charm effect, which in my experience when targeting PCs is deployed with extreme caution and special cases, is still fairly constrained, and even then considered pretty nasty.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Being able to decide what the character thinks and attempts to do are at the core of the player agency as is the ability to set character goals. This is why I think physical and mental restrictions on the character are different. It is different to say that your character physically cannot do the thing than to say that they no longer even want to do the thing, even if both instances the immediate effect might be that the thing is not done. In former case the player can still decide that their chracter will seek other ways to accomplish the thing, in the latter they cannot. If NPCs can use social skills to mind control the characters, subvering the player ability to set goals, then that is the ultimate form of railroading. Not only are you on the rails, but your chracter now wants to be on the rails because the quest giver rolled high on persuasion!

 

[Scott Christian]

That being said, I think having skills on the skill list that are inherently passive and perceptive is a bad idea. I don't like both Insight and Perception being skills, and I'm not a fan of gating providing actionable information for the players behind checks.

We use a system that has no insight, and the game works just fine. The player, as the PC, either believes the NPC or doesn't. It's their call. I think it allows players (and nudges them) to pay closer attention to the setting and NPCs words/actions instead of having a side skill to rely on.

 

[Scott Christian]

I think there's also a difference between railroading and an adventure just being linear. Most dungeons are going to be linear - you go in, clear out the rooms, and then fight BBEG. There aren't a lot of decisions to be made. If the GM says, "I'm going to run the Tomb of Horrors next week" then bring a character that you don't mind sending in there. That, in and of itself, isn't railroading. What is railroading is when your group had previously been engaged in a taut political thriller and, no matter what you do and without warning, you end up in the Tomb of Horrors.

There is a difficult part you touched on - the social contract. The session zero. The real-life friendships that exist at the table. All of those can change the definition of railroading. Yet some do not want to acknowledge that. They insist there is an actual definition that can be adhered to for all settings. And the truth is, there isn't.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Is not player intimidating vs npc decided by dice rolls to allow player agency and cause npc not real? And is not npc vs player intimidation determined by the fiction presented to them…because real person who can respond.

The NPC played by the GM is just as "real" as the PC played by the Player.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't understand what you are saying there.

The PC is in the world. Everything they know and everything that can affect them and drives their responses IMO should come from the world, not from outside of it. That I think includes social skills in relation to others; PC or NPC does not IMO make any difference in the setting, so why should the PC be able to ignore such effects when it suits their Player to do so?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The NPC played by the GM is just as "real" as the PC played by the Player.

Honestly, they are not. The player's sole focus is on their character, they probably have a elaborate backstory, they have been played for several sessions. Meanwhile Count Mustel of Weaselton, was invented by the GM couple of hours ago, and is played by the GM who has to juggle dozens of other NPCs, not to mention all the other stuff the GM has to think about. Furthermore the "player" of the Count Mustel is basically omniscient, whilst the players of the PCs are not. It is completely different thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Being able to decide what the character thinks and attempts to do are at the core of the player agency as is the ability to set character goals. This is why I think physical and mental restrictions on the character are different. It is different to say that your character physically cannot do the thing than to say that they no longer even want to do the thing, even if both instances the immediate effect might be that the thing is not done. In former case the player can still decide that their chracter will seek other ways to accomplish the thing, in the latter they cannot. If NPCs can use social skills to mind control the characters, subvering the player ability to set goals, then that is the ultimate form of railroading. Not only are you on the rails, but your chracter now wants to be on the rails because the quest giver rolled high on persuasion!

And what I'm saying is that if NPCs cannot use social skills to hyperbolically "mind control" PCs, then I think the reverse should also be true. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

The PC is in the world. Everything they know and everything that can affect them and drives their responses IMO should come from the world, not from outside of it. That I think includes social skills in relation to others; PC or NPC does not IMO make any difference in the setting, so why should the PC be able to ignore such effects when it suits their Player to do so?

But GM can ignore such effect when it suits them too. The GM can just decide, that Lord Dreadskull of the Death Knights of Inconvenient Doom cannot be indimitated, and that's it.

The player is the expert on their own chracter. Their whole job at the table is to create, inhabit and present the persona of that chracter. So it is the player who gets to decide how their chracter will react in any given situation.

 

[zakael19]

Being able to decide what the character thinks and attempts to do are at the core of the player agency as is the ability to set character goals. This is why I think physical and mental restrictions on the character are different. It is different to say that your character physically cannot do the thing than to say that they no longer even want to do the thing, even if both instances the immediate effect might be that the thing is not done. In former case the player can still decide that their chracter will seek other ways to accomplish the thing, in the latter they cannot. If NPCs can use social skills to mind control the characters, subvering the player ability to set goals, then that is the ultimate form of railroading. Not only are you on the rails, but your chracter now wants to be on the rails because the quest giver rolled high on persuasion!

Sure, you allow the character to try whatever they want and think whatever they want and then if they run into a situation where external factors might come into play you ask them what they do and how they press forward and then prompt for a roll if the outcome is uncertain.

And of course, there's plenty of magic out there that says "you cannot move" and "you cannot stand against them" and "thou must flee."

What I will say is that whenever I indicate the world and characters within are having an effect, I first state the conditions and ask how that would affect the PC / their course of action. In some of my games, my players are being mindful of how they've described their characters to date and will immediately change their behavior (oh, no, she wouldn't press up against that / wait he's doing what? Ok, I'm immediately escalating). If it's something like terror or deception around something at stake, I'll ask how they resist that and we find out together.

The declaration and attempt I always keep in the character's hands (I dont play anything right now that really does opposed rolls, but things that do stat out how difficult an NPC is and some maneuvers they take socially).