D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Maxperson]

So let me dig in to a few points going like 5 pages back.

you have stressed that if the quantum ogre always appears than that’s railroading, and people are fighting you on that definition. I will actually agree with you here, it is a railroad….but I don’t think railroading is necessarily a problem, it’s a matter of degrees.

So let us take the stance that such a railroad does in fact remove a player choice for this argument….but what if during the encounter the players still have full agency on how to deal with the ogre (run, hide, talk to it, fight, etc). So the player was still offered choices….how many choices are required before the game becomes “unacceptable”?

let’s take that a little further. Let’s say the players chose to fight (a meaningful choice). The fight lasts for 4 rounds, a player making 4 choices that impact the fight. So the player made 5 meaningful choices here. If I had allowed the party to ignore the ogre, there original choice is validated but they lose the ability to make those 5 choices…meaning I have denied my player a total of 4 extra meaningful choices. Am I now a terrible DM?

As I mentioned a few times upthread, even on a railroad you have choices. If I take a train from Los Angeles to San Diego, I'm on a railroad. That doesn't mean that I can't buy snacks, have my choice of which snacks, go to the bathroom or hold it, look out the wind or nap(or do both), etc. Having choices, no matter how many of them there are, won't take you off of a railroad.

The REAL answer here, is railroading can only be determined through the amalgamation of encounters. If the DM denies choice in one scenario but allows it in another, overall things are fine. It’s always about a matter of degree, you can never look at one scenario and go “this is a railroady DM”.

No. The amalgamation determines whether it's a long or short railroad, not whether or not a railroad is happening.

And lastly on the quoted note about deception, this example. Let’s say during a combat a player decides to improvise, and wants to slip a firebomb into a creature’s pocket. The DM asks for the check and also notes that “that pocket also had a container of oil…so the bomb will have a big effect!” But…that’s a lie, I just made that up for this moment, that was not planned ahead of time. Has my deception ruined the game…or just delighted a player and encouraged them to improvise in the future?

Again, it's not about what the players know. They could be quite happy being deceived and railroaded by you. Being happy doesn't make it okay in the first place. I mean, if I stole 5 dollars from a buddy who never noticed and then used it to buy him some candy that made him happy, is that okay? Just because they don't notice and got enjoyment out of it, doesn't mean that it was okay to deceive and railroad the players in the first place.

If you're going to engage in railroading and deception, you should get the players' okay on it during session 0.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think that satisfaction is far more prevelent and relevant to people when either levelling is spread out longer or alternatively its visible in realtime (such as a computer game).

It should be visible in real time, as you gain experience whenever you… do something that earns experience. Also, it should generally take a couple sessions, except at levels 1 and 2.

And I think the increase in milestone advancement in games recognizes that.

I think the prevalence of session-based and story-based advancement (or “milestone” as it’s commonly mislabeled) indicates that a lot of DMs don’t consider the player satisfaction worth the extra bookkeeping, not that XP-based advancement isn’t satisfying,

 

[Crimson Longinus]

CL, seriously, go back and look at the chain of statements I was making. You're essentially talking about a different thing than I was. As I said, I'm suggesting that a legitimate objection to the Quantum Ogre is that it limits its time frame too much in terms of where the meaningful choice is. That's it.

Sorry, I went back several post and I'm afraid I am still not following you...

How does it limit the time frame?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I think the prevalence of session-based and story-based advancement (or “milestone” as it’s commonly mislabeled) indicates that a lot of DMs don’t consider the player satisfaction worth the extra bookkeeping, not that XP-based advancement isn’t satisfying,

Perhaps it is satisfying to some players, it certainly has never been for me. Now in systems where you directly buy things with XP and get to choose what you buy (like WW's Storyteller system and many others) it may be marginally more interesting, but simple progress bar has never been fun for me, and D&D's unintuitively big numbers that keep needlessly growing makes it even less fun.

 

[Maxperson]

Perhaps it is satisfying to some players, it certainly has never been for me. Now in systems where you directly buy things with XP and get to choose what you buy (like WW's Storyteller system and many others) it may be marginally more interesting, but simple progress bar has never been fun for me, and D&D's unintuitively big numbers that keep needlessly growing makes it even less fun.

Yeah. It's not a deal breaker for me, but I much prefer to get experience points awarded and level up that way.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It should be visible in real time, as you gain experience whenever you… do something that earns experience. Also, it should generally take a couple sessions, except at levels 1 and 2.

Not realtime in the sense I'm talking about it; I'm talking about where you can see yourself level from accumulated experience in one sitting.

I think the prevalence of session-based and story-based advancement (or “milestone” as it’s commonly mislabeled) indicates that a lot of DMs don’t consider the player satisfaction worth the extra bookkeeping, not that XP-based advancement isn’t satisfying,

The bookkeeping is mostly at the player end, so I don't find that a convincing argument. I don't think most people in general consider it worth the numbers.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Perhaps it is satisfying to some players, it certainly has never been for me. Now in systems where you directly buy things with XP and get to choose what you buy (like WW's Storyteller system and many others) it may be marginally more interesting, but simple progress bar has never been fun for me, and D&D's unintuitively big numbers that keep needlessly growing makes it even less fun.

Yup. And I suspect you're far from alone. I haven't cared about it in decades, and I know a rather large number of people who feel the same.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sorry, I went back several post and I'm afraid I am still not following you...

How does it limit the time frame?

Because the players aren't going to know there's an ogre on each branch at the point they get to those branches, and avoiding those encounters may be difficult to impossible once they've gotten to that branching--but avoiding the encounters in general could likely have been done before they ever got to that point at all. As such, when you start at that particular branch, you're not really engaging with the point where their choices would have been meaningful regarding the ogres.

 

[TheSword]

Because the players aren't going to know there's an ogre on each branch at the point they get to those branches, and avoiding those encounters may be difficult to impossible once they've gotten to that branching--but avoiding the encounters in general could likely have been done before they ever got to that point at all. As such, when you start at that particular branch, you're not really engaging with the point where their choices would have been meaningful regarding the ogres.

Surely the Ogre being put in your path (irrespective of the route in space you take) and you using your character abilities and wits to avoid the ogre in front of you, is more satisfying and gives greater agency than you avoiding an ogre you never new existed because you took an arbitrary path that led one mile to the east of where the DM arbitrarily placed the ogre.

Though for the record, my players tend to go around looking for encounters not trying to avoid them. Though that comes down to that heroic aspect again.

 

[Maxperson]

Surely the Ogre being put in your path (irrespective of the route in space you take) and you using your character abilities and wits to avoid the ogre in front of you, is more satisfying and gives greater agency than you avoiding an ogre you never new existed because you took an arbitrary path that led one mile to the east of where the DM arbitrarily placed the ogre.

Okay. But that's completely besides the point. This is about railroading and deception, not about fun. That player would have just as much fun using his wits and abilities to avoid the ogre I placed there in advance as part of the adventure, and that didn't involve railroading and deception at all.