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

[Fenris-77]

The term 'character destroyed' is pretty loaded, verging on outright purple prose. Probably not a useful term for civilized discussion.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. I mean, this isn't dissimilar in style to Fate, where a player can accept a compel on an Aspect to get a Fate point, but isn't required to do so.

I strongly dislike using either meta-currency or XP as carrots. I'd much rather go the stick approach, where a penalty is leveled on related actions not in keeping with the results of the roll.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yup.

And, I have to admit, even after closely following this entire thread I don't truly understand why anybody would want that. It would just yank me right out of the kind of immersion I enjoy.

Because they enjoy other kinds of immersion, or immersion isn't a priority for them at all?

 

[Micah Sweet]

You didn't ask me, but I definitely am surprised to "discover" new facets of my character while playing. I don't work out my characters' entire personalities and backstories ahead of time; usually I just have a vague sketch, with a couple of key characteristics. Then, in the middle of play, it hits me what unexpected thing my character would do, and how that fits into what I've developed for them so far, and suddenly my character is richer and more complex than they were a minute ago. Sometimes it generates a whole new chapter of backstory. I love those moments.

That's not surprising yourself. That's you making a decision in improv.

 

[AnotherGuy]

I also give XP. Not out of fairness, which I think is the wrong term. It's not unfair to fail to give XP for people who play or don't play that way. I give it as a reward for good roleplaying, because that's what it is in my opinion. And it also works as an incentive for people who don't play that way to start playing that way, making it a habit after a while.

Ah, I wanted to eliminate me as the arbiter of what is good. I do not want that responsibility. I want to stay far away from that as possible.

I prefer setting up the dilemma as it ties to their TIBFs and then offer the XP to lean into them (obviously with the fictional or otherwise cost). Therefore for me the word fairness works.

 

[TwoSix]

Yup.

And, I have to admit, even after closely following this entire thread I don't truly understand why anybody would want that. It would just yank me right out of the kind of immersion I enjoy.

To extend the method acting metaphor, it would be the director (I'm imagining Paul Schaffer) screaming, "Cut! Cut! No, no, NO! I want you crying, not laughing!"

Because there are some (many) games that you don't want to play in an immersive fashion.

To me, those kinds of complaints feel somewhat like "I don't understand why you would to play Civilization on your computer instead of Call of Duty; it doesn't test your reflexes or hand-eye coordination at all, and that's the point of video games!"

Not every RPG, or mode of RPG play, is about immersion. You can enjoy it, and still also want to do other things that aren't that.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think that’s actually a big part of this. That ownership that we all can't help but feel toward our characters. That bit of self that’s in them. We don’t want to find out that our character (


I think this is a big part of things. We all feel that sense of ownership over our characters. We can’t help it. They’re “ours”. There’s some bit of ourselves in them. We try to view the world through their eyes… to “be” them to some extent.

So there’s a reflexive resistance to anyone or anything else telling us what our character thinks or feels. But I think that’s a product of that ownership more so than anything else.

And I think that feeling of ownership is a different thing than being a person. I think to try and feel like someone rather than just choose things for them based on an internal model or whatever, we need to not be 100% in control… because people are not always 100% in control.

I'm one of those crazy people who has no qualms about bad things happening to my PC. I'll play them honestly to the setting as long as they're around, but if they end up maimed or dead I let them go and make another one. I don't care about intense emotional investment. I just care about setting logic and consistency (and fun once those are met).

 

[Fenris-77]

Because they enjoy other kinds of immersion, or immersion isn't a priority for them at all?

Frankly, I don't think there is anything but other kinds of immersion. The experience being described there is so personal and so tied to interior brain stuff that we have no direct conscious access to that I struggle when people try too hard to start categorizing it. Sure, you can explain your version and I can explain mine and those two descriptions might be broadly similar, but that's a far cry from being that same thing in a way that can be compared to 'another thing'. What break immersion for one doesn't for another, etc etc.

This is not to denigrate or marginalize the idea mind you, nor the central importance of the experience to some desired play styles. I just don't think it admits of taxonomy, that's all.

 

[CreamCloud0]

The internal model of the character says the character dislikes the NPC, the dice say your character likes this NPC. Immersion ruined.

when do the dice ever actually say something like 'you like this NPC' though? yes, they say things like 'they make a convincing argument that you can't really refute' and 'they display no signs of deception and appear completely honest' or 'you cannot parse their motive or intentions' but the dice never mind control your character.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm one of those crazy people who has no qualms about bad things happening to my PC. I'll play them honestly to the setting as long as they're around, but if they end up maimed or dead I let them go and make another one. I don't care about intense emotional investment. I just care about setting logic and consistency (and fun once those are met).

Honestly, for me, assuming a D&D-like game, if I don't have at least one character die on me (as a player), I feel like I wasn't really playing my hardest.