D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Malmuria]

Oh, this thread again. It took surprisingly many pages until we got to the terrible thought crime of illusionism. Seriously, whether the ogres were always meant to be on one path, were moved, made up on the spot or were in some vague state between these is information that only exists in the GM's noggin and will not affect the experience of the players one bit.

I think illusionism is less fun and actually more stressful for me as a dm. I found myself guiding players toward prepared content, and then presenting that content rather than playing it, if that makes sense. It's the difference from the role of the dm to curate an experience vs the dm to be a particular kind of player who also gets to be surprised.

As a player I've had dms that say, 'it's a sandbox! you can do anything!' But then still have an idea of what they would prefer you to do, and so it becomes guess what this dm wants us to do.

 

[overgeeked]

Better or Worse Practices for WHOM? Despite what you may posit here you don't get to standardize how people choose to run their games.

I’m not trying to. I’m trying to find some agreement on the term.

You don't get to declare that someone is a bad or poor GM because they don't run their games the way you do.

Not doing that either. I’m stating my opinion.

 

[overgeeked]

Making it about things you prefer or don't prefer, or things you've found annoy some people and ways you've found to avoid them... Instead of making it an objective judgement on individual styles.

Objective judgement? It’s not about preference, it’s about what’s railroading and what isn’t.

(Recognizing when the person saying something is a mod is sometimes helpful too . ).

The mods are people, too.

 

[guachi]

A few years back I participated as a player in a one-shot GURPS Fantasy game at my local game store. The game started off with us arriving at an inn after traveling a great distance and getting some sack time. It was pretty obvious to me that this was where the adventure was supposed to start, but one of the players, who had a ranger type character, was insistent that his character would sleep in the wilderness outside the city. I wish the GM had just said, "Hey, it's easier if you start at the inn with everyone else because that's where the adventure is going to start" instead of trying to coax the player into having his character just start out at the inn.

Starting campaigns (or an adventure) can always be difficult. The PCs all have to be in the same place or it doesn't happen. One campaign, I gave the PCs several ideas of how to start. One of them was using N4 Treasure Hunt (where the PCs start as 0-level characters). The entire first act is the PCs getting shipwrecked. They have to get shipwrecked for the adventure to really start.

So I decided if that was the way the PCs wanted to start the campaign then we'd just start with the PCs shipwrecked. It's like Gilligan's Island - the shipwreck occurs during the theme song. Tell the players what the outcome is and let them decide how they were on that ship in the first place. With no die rolls it plays VERY quickly and players are forced to engage with each other and the game world. It dispenses with the illusion of choice (that the players have agreed to) and engages the players' imaginations.

Campaign before that started by telling the players it was the first of the year and all the PCs had been thrown in jail for some minor infraction (whether the PC did it or not...) and I told the players they could use that "crime" as the means to connect to at least one other PC, if they didn't have some deeper connection.

I've found doing it this way is liberating for many players.

EDIT: TL;DR - If it's a railroad at least tell the players and let them design the train.

 

[Cadence]

Objective judgement? It’s not about preference, it’s about what’s railroading and what isn’t.

Which it felt like you were setting up as a bad thing by your definition, and using it to say a lot of folks weren't role-playing even if they thought they were.

The mods are people, too.

That is one theory...

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Railroading is only an issue if the players SEE the rails and try to jump off the speeding train.

 

[overgeeked]

Which it felt like you were setting up as a bad thing by your definition, and using it to say a lot of folks weren't role-playing even if they thought they were.

I do think it’s a bad thing, hence trying to understand why people do it / defend it.

My definition of role-playing games isn’t negative. It’s neutral. It may be wrong and people may disagree with it, but as far as I can tell there’s no “and you’re going to hell for it” in there.

Near as I can tell, defining roleplaying as “making decisions about your character in a game with a persistent world where your character improves based on the decisions you made” is completely neutral. Likewise, saying that 1) removing those decisions; 2) not playing a character; 3) not playing a game; 4) not being in a persistent world; and 5) characters not improving based on the decisions you made precludes something from being role-playing shouldn’t be controversial. We can argue about whether those elements are necessary and go from there, but I can’t see anything without all those elements reasonably being called a role-playing game.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I do think it’s a bad thing, hence trying to understand why people do it / defend it.

My definition of role-playing games isn’t negative. It’s neutral. It may be wrong and people may disagree with it, but as far as I can tell there’s no “and you’re going to hell for it” in there.

Near as I fan tell, defining roleplaying as “making decisions about your character in a game with a persistent world where your character improves based on the decisions you made” is completely neutral. Likewise, saying that 1) removing those decisions; 2) not playing a character; 3) not playing a game; 4) not being in a persistent world; and 5) characters not improving precludes something from being role-playing shouldn’t be controversial. We can argue about whether those elements are necessary and go from there, but I can’t see anything without all those elements reasonably being called a role-playing game.

Character improvement certainly is not required for it to be a roleplaying game.

Also, yes, you're making decisions, and if you weren't making any decisions at all, then perhaps it could be argued that it would not be an RPG. But no one has advocated that. Your decision space is always limited in some way, in fact without limits it is not an RPG either, it is just making up a story.

 

[Cadence]

Near as I can tell, defining roleplaying as “making decisions about your character in a game with a persistent world where your character improves based on the decisions you made” is completely neutral. Likewise, saying that 1) removing those decisions; 2) not playing a character; 3) not playing a game; 4) not being in a persistent world; and 5) characters not improving based on the decisions you made precludes something from being role-playing shouldn’t be controversial. We can argue about whether those elements are necessary and go from there, but I can’t see anything without all those elements reasonably being called a role-playing game.

I've been in lots of one shots over the years for a variety of things marketed as RPGs. Do (4) and (5) only apply to continuing games?

What does "improve" mean - accomplishing goals the character might have, or improving stats? It feels like a game could easily not need the later (at least after some point).

And, for (1) it sure feels like some decisions are required, and that the number of decisions we make IRL is impossible... and that there is a lot of territory in between that folks here would call role-playing.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Oh, this thread again. It took surprisingly many pages until we got to the terrible thought crime of illusionism. Seriously, whether the ogres were always meant to be on one path, were moved, were made up on the spot or were in some vague state between these is information that only exists in the GM's noggin and will not affect the experience of the players one bit.

[Citation needed.]

Seriously. Players that can't make informed choices and learn from the consequences thereof aren't playing a game; they're dancing to your tune. It's not a "thoughtcrime," it's just disingenuous, leading the players on, making them believe they (as players) are doing something they aren't.

And I dunno about you, but despite being a fairly smart person myself, I absolutely could not fool my players like this forever. Absolutely, positively could not. The truth would leak out eventually. And as soon as it does, all your claims about how it "will not affect the experience of the players one bit" go right out the window. When the illusion is broken, the joy goes with it.