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

[Bill Zebub]

I disagree quite a bit. Not that horror can be difficult… it can be. But rules can help.



Right, but as you’ve both pointed out… that’s very difficult to achieve. I mean… so much of what Lovecraft is about is how inconceivable the threats are! That merely witnessing them can break one’s mind.

That’s a pretty high bar to set for a GM!

What if, instead of hoping for that to happen, the game functioned in a way that could result in something unwanted? Some kind of loss state that the player might fear?

I mean… the player fearing loss of control would seem to promote alignment between player and character, which has been brought up quite often. And what is horror, really, except the loss of agency? That doom is inexorable… that the guy in the mask is going to catch you no matter what… that the universe is rules by uncaring gods… that we are not in control of our own fate.

I wouldn't describe it as "fear" of losing control of the character, as much as disappointment and disengagement when it happens.

I think you both likely find horror so difficult to pull off because of your unwillingness to put control of character at risk in play.

I don't think horror is any more difficult to pull off than any of the other....experiences?...I want to share with my character, or that I want my players to share with theirs. It's all hard! It would be easier to not try. But part of the fun is trying to create those situations. The reward is worth it.

 

[thefutilist]

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(ii) the notion that players will sometimes author PC responses other than what the PC themself would prefer (eg the player will sometimes have the PC make irrational decisions);​

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Through a certain literary frame, all choices are going to be rational because they reflect expression of the characters priorities. If you’re ‘not’ using invasive mechanics AND not using that specific literately framing, then I find acting out irrational responses one of the naffest things in all of role-play.

For instance: Deciding your character goes all loopy when faced with a cosmic horror. Even if your portraiture is good, it lacks teeth and play very easily becomes genre re-enactment.

That being said, a lot of horror mechanics are terrible so it’s still very much a case by case basis. The most horror like game I’ve played is lovercraftesque, which is gmless, heavily procedural and has a shared central character. The group as a whole trying to create the unsettling and the uncanny, with the system providing a mounting dead.

Whereas the idea of having the GM try to scare me, I find it a bit silly.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I wouldn't describe it as "fear" of losing control of the character, as much as disappointment and disengagement when it happens.

Is this how you feel about all consequences?

I don't think horror is any more difficult to pull off than any of the other....experiences?...I want to share with my character, or that I want my players to share with theirs. It's all hard! It would be easier to not try. But part of the fun is trying to create those situations. The reward is worth it.

Oh, well… you had agreed with the idea that horror was more difficult to pull off… so I suppose I’m not sure what the above means.

 

[zakael19]

You don't need immersion to play a role; that's the core distinction between a lot of our perspectives. Fitting a mechanical prompt seamlessly into my character's next statements and actions is just as much roleplaying.

Some of the absolute best "roleplaying" I've seen in a TTRPG came when we started a session of Stonetop and I was like "hey Nik, do you want to play the eldest daughter of the leading family or <some other NPC> tonight?" And he picked the eldest daughter and in every moment when we turned to him for what she was doing he (openly) referred back to the Instinct / tags / Moves I threw together for her, and portrayed her with incredible verve and integrity in each and every moment of that night.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Is this how you feel about all consequences?

Why do I feel like the next question is going to be if I've ever thought about killing my father and marrying my mother...

 

[hawkeyefan]

Why do I feel like the next question is going to be if I've ever thought about killing my father and marrying my mother...

I have no idea.

I’ll get more specific. Do you feel similarly about going to zero hit points or being otherwise removed from combat? Is it disappointment and then disengagement when that happens?

 

[Bill Zebub]

I have no idea.

I’ll get more specific. Do you feel similarly about going to zero hit points or being otherwise removed from combat? Is it disappointment and then disengagement when that happens?

Nope.

Do you?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Nope.

I find that odd. It’s very much the same thing.

Do you?

Well, they’re loss states of a sort, so sure, I may feel disappointment as like a player who cares about play… especially it I made some poor decision that led to this situation. But I think that’s a different type of disappointment than you meant, isn’t it?

Neither leads to disengagement though. Just because I may be temporarily out of play doesn’t make me less invested in what’s happening in play.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I find that odd. It’s very much the same thing.

It seems very much the same thing, to you.

A pretty clear indication that we experience the games very differently, no?

 

[pemerton]

Whereas the idea of having the GM try to scare me, I find it a bit silly.

I think I agree.

Or at least, I think the "being scared" has to be generated by some sort of internal effort, a willing oneself into a certain emotional state.

If you’re ‘not’ using invasive mechanics AND not using that specific literately framing, then I find acting out irrational responses one of the naffest things in all of role-play.

For instance: Deciding your character goes all loopy when faced with a cosmic horror. Even if your portraiture is good, it lacks teeth and play very easily becomes genre re-enactment.

One thing that I personally have found works with CoC Sanity is that it gives a type of permission, in the context of the play of the game, to depart from what would be normal/rational for one's character. It authorises a type of portrayal - easily drifting into the lurid at a table of hammy RPGers! - of "nervous breakdown" in the literary sense of that phenomenon. And because it's not (entirely) under the player's control, and it does pertain to the fate of one's PC in the game context, the play-acting is not just or entirely play-acting: it corresponds to a type of concern for one's piece/place in the game.

In this session of Cthulhu Dark that I posted about - Cthulhu Dark - another session - the player of the PC who succumbed to insanity quite rapidly (in the context of the game, due to some unlikely rolling) got to portray his PC's mental decay. And this wasn't mere colour in the context of commando-raid-esque play: it drove the way events unfolded in the game (which I was GMing largely "no myth").

Through a certain literary frame, all choices are going to be rational because they reflect expression of the characters priorities.

I find this a challenging proposition - not necessarily because I disagree with it, but because it asks me to think about RPGing in a particular sort of way which I don't typically do.

Presumably the proposition isn't meant as mere tautology (ie the PC's priorities are whatever the author of the PC chooses to have the PC do). So there's an idea of the character having priorities that are authored/established in some way, and then the idea of authoring action declarations in a way that is expressive of those priorities. But how, then, do we establish that the PC's priorities have changed to - say - ones that would warrant the sort of responses that the butler PC had in my Cthulhu Dark session?

This is where I find mechanics can be helpful. I don't think I know how to get the sort of stuff that happened in that session playing purely freeform, because I'm not sure how the ruptures in sanity get conveyed and established purely via the narrative medium.