D&D General Why defend railroading?

[overgeeked]

I disagree. At least in the sense that I think you're using railroad for any deployment of GM Force (again, this is why I prefer different terms for a moment of play vs an entire stretch of play).

The Alexandrian defines railroading thus: railroads happen when the GM negates a player’s choice in order to enforce a preconceived outcome. I would define it as the DM removing meaningful and consequential choices from the player. I don't know what "GM force" is as you're the only person I've ever seen use the term. Railroading works perfectly fine as the term for this.

And I say this because 5e requires prep...

Some, yes. But most games do.

and prep engenders use of Force.

Not really, no. I can prep a sandbox and give the players full control over where they go. At no point do I need to railroad them into a given space or encounter. I can also prep a point crawl and give the players full control over where they go, though there freedom is necessarily limited compared to a sandbox. I can also prepare scenario hooks and dangle them in front of the players and give them full control over which they engage with. I can even prepare a linear adventure and not resort to railroading the players.

Once I prep something and put that in front of the players no matter what choices they make, I've railroaded them. I've given them the illusion of choice. They think their choices matter when in fact they don't. That's still railroading.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The illusion of choice is still railroading.

I disagree, it's required in 5e. You cannot, in any RPG, ever actually provide full agency. It must be limited. And, in many ways, the maintenance of illusion is important (I mean, it's a pretend elf game!). I think that if you were very critical of your own play, you'd find lots of instances of illusion of choice being present, they're just usually lampshaded behind things you're vary familiar with and so don't examine. This leads to these kinds of assertions, which typically beg the question.

Let's look at Quantum Ogres again. Let's say the GM has no planned encounter, and selects ogres after the choice is made because they decide that an encounter is necessary. We've utterly avoided the issue of moving prep around, now, but we're at the same result. And, in both cases, the reason ogres are on the table is because the GM decided that. Functionally, there's no difference. We pretend to ourselves that prep somehow makes this more real, when it's still the GM creating the fiction. We also pretend to ourselves that using a random roll makes a difference when the inputs to that roll are not accessible to the players. It doesn't.

If we're going to have a serious discussion about what railroading is, and why it may be bad, honest examination of actual play is necessary, if only to prevent such blanket assertions as this that can't even survive a cursory examination of actual play.

 

[Ovinomancer]

There's a problem though.

What if the players decide to do both paths?

Do you use the same exact encounter in both? This could happen if hte players after the encounter decide to go the other way. Maybe their goals will change.

That isn't necessary a Quantum Orge or stopping player choice, but it does feel you're not acknowleding that choice in there, and it could get massively weird to have the same exact encounter prop up on two different paths.

If there is an encounter you definitely want to happen on the way, you could make it so that the main path to the fork in the row occurs later, and then allow the players to choose the path.

Then, you could have a more hidden path to avoid an encounter or to provide a different choice.

I think that would be better design in general. It doesn't get weird and encounters for every reasonable scenario.

The choice wasn't to avoid ogres. I mean, we can come up with strange setups, like "they take both paths at the same time," but I don't think that's terribly illuminating. When was the last time this happened in game to you?

 

[payn]

Related tangent. I get the idea of not telling people their preferences are wrong or bad. At some point that wishy-washy, anything goes, it doesn't matter notion literally prevents conversation from happening. It stop us from being able to do simple things like even define what a role-playing game is because that will inevitably result in hurt feelings. Sure, that's a noble goal. But as we're seeing with the toxic and regressive elements of gaming culture, we clearly need to be a bit less everything's perfectly and equally great and a bit more...rigid...adamant...self-protective...something.

Yes, well for some simply choosing human or elf, bow or sword, is role playing. I choose to lean liberal on definitions that are general and so far this discussion has been very specific to the point of being exclusionary and what is the benefit of that?

 

[ReshiIRE]

It hasn't happened to me on a more macro level but we have absolutely split up in dungeons and other places to try and cover more ground (we've spent a lot of time playing in a city in the campaign I'm in). It can certainly happen, especially in bigger parties. Heck, it's not even a bad idea to scout ahead. Depending on the game and situation, maybe the partyy might want to decide where they want to go based on the obstacles they see in their path.

And why isn't there the possibility to avoid ogres?

I think a lot of difference in preference of style comes down to how much expectation the game takes place in a reasonably realistic world (where there are multiple paths to and from places) and how much certain things have to happen.

 

[overgeeked]

I disagree, it's required in 5e. You cannot, in any RPG, ever actually provide full agency. It must be limited.

I fundamentally disagree. I tend to run sandboxes. The players have full agency. If you mean to push it into pedantry by declaring that the DM choosing to run a sandbox is limiting player agency or the DM picking a world to run the sandbox in is also limiting player agency, then you're clearly taking the piss and there's no conversation to be had.

And, in many ways, the maintenance of illusion is important (I mean, it's a pretend elf game!).

Maintaining the illusion that you're really dwarfs in a fantasy land hacking up monsters, yes. There's literally zero need for the illusion of choice.

Let's look at Quantum Ogres again. Let's say the GM has no planned encounter, and selects ogres after the choice is made because they decide that an encounter is necessary. We've utterly avoided the issue of moving prep around, now, but we're at the same result.

No, we're not. One is effectively a random encounter. The other is the illusion of choice.

And, in both cases, the reason ogres are on the table is because the GM decided that.

Correct.

Functionally, there's no difference.

Incorrect. The difference is that in one the DM decided on a random encounter at a location, while in the other the DM decided that no matter what the players do they're going to encounter those ogres.

We pretend to ourselves that prep somehow makes this more real, when it's still the GM creating the fiction.

Not quite. The whole point of a role-playing game is to cooperatively play. The players must have input that affects the fiction for that to happen. If the players have no input, it's not a cooperative role-playing game. The DM doesn't create the fiction. You're thinking of novels and short stories. In an RPG, the DM creates the world, puts the PCs in it, and sees what happens. That combination of elements, DM choices + player choices + actual play, that creates the fiction.

We also pretend to ourselves that using a random roll makes a difference when the inputs to that roll are not accessible to the players. It doesn't.

Again, disagree. It does matter.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The Alexandrian defines railroading thus: railroads happen when the GM negates a player’s choice in order to enforce a preconceived outcome. I would define it as the DM removing meaningful and consequential choices from the player. I don't know what "GM force" is as you're the only person I've ever seen use the term. Railroading works perfectly fine as the term for this.

Some, yes. But most games do.

Not really, no. I can prep a sandbox and give the players full control over where they go. At no point do I need to railroad them into a given space or encounter. I can also prep a point crawl and give the players full control over where they go, though there freedom is necessarily limited compared to a sandbox. I can also prepare scenario hooks and dangle them in front of the players and give them full control over which they engage with. I can even prepare a linear adventure and not resort to railroading the players.

Once I prep something and put that in front of the players no matter what choices they make, I've railroaded them. I've given them the illusion of choice. They think their choices matter when in fact they don't. That's still railroading.

So prep = railroading? Interesting. I think this shows that the definition being used is incoherent, but maybe we can work with this.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It hasn't happened to me on a more macro level but we have absolutely split up in dungeons and other places to try and cover more ground (we've spent a lot of time playing in a city in the campaign I'm in). It can certainly happen, especially in bigger parties. Heck, it's not even a bad idea to scout ahead. Depending on the game and situation, maybe the partyy might want to decide where they want to go based on the obstacles they see in their path.

And why isn't there the possibility to avoid ogres?

I think a lot of difference in preference of style comes down to how much expectation the game takes place in a reasonably realistic world (where there are multiple paths to and from places) and how much certain things have to happen.

In the example, the choice was not about ogres. This doesn't mean some other choice can't be about ogres, but this one isn't. If you need to change the parameters of the example to address it, that's not a flaw in the example.

 

[overgeeked]

Yes, well for some simply choosing human or elf, bow or sword, is role playing. I choose to lean liberal on definitions that are general and so far this discussion has been very specific to the point of being exclusionary and what is the benefit of that?

The benefit is we get to have a working definition of a common phrase so we can then effectively talk about it, devise best practices around it, etc. Without being able to make even that basic definition we can't talk about these things. The purpose isn't to exclude, it's to discover. If we can't try to define terms for fear of hurt feelings or exclusion, then we can't even talk about gaming beyond "that's fun". We can't talk about good habits or bad. Good prep or bad. Good use of time or bad. And besides, I don't know about you, but considering the toxic and regressive elements of the hobby, I'm honestly looking for a little bit of exclusion.

 

[Cadence]

Not quite. The whole point of a role-playing game is to cooperatively play. The players must have input that affects the fiction for that to happen. If the players have no input, it's not a cooperative role-playing game.

How.does deciding there will be Ogres down either path not leave a ton of places for player input?

The DM doesn't create the fiction. You're thinking of novels and short stories. In an RPG, the DM creates the world, puts the PCs in it, and sees what happens. That combination of elements, DM choices + player choices + actual play, that creates the fiction.

I think everyone here is aware of that. The issue seems to be how many of the choices and what kind.

Again, disagree. It does matter.

Bad wrong funning by claiming exclusive ownership of definitions also matters.