D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Ovinomancer]

Do you see how you are conflating "DMs have different styles of running their table" with "people who disagree with me must not want a healthy, less abusive game?" You aren't "strongly advocating for a more healthy overall hobby" here. We were discussing two different and equally-valid styles of gameplay until you started implying otherwise.

No, because I didn't conflate them. I said that playstyle has nothing to do with why I am making the arguments I'm making because you accused me of doing so.

I then put in a paragraph break -- like the one immediately above -- to indicate a change in thought, and discussed exactly why I feel there needs to be a change in the traditional conception of the GM's position re: social contracts. This is an independent thought from playstyles, but I'll say it again -- playstyle has nothing to do with it.

As for thinking people arguing for the status quo instead of moving to a situation where we actually treat each other as peers, yes, I do think that move is in a positive direction for the hobby. Disagreeing with me doesn't mean you don't want that, though, and I didn't say that. I said why I wanted the move. You can have any number of reasons for not wanting to move -- as I said, it's no big, we're not policing each other's tables. But, as I also said, that doesn't mean I'm not going to advocate for a change I think is a good improvement to the hobby as a whole. And that move is treating people like adults, really, so I'm not that fearful of any opprobrium I receive for advocating we treat others like adults.

You can continue this without me; I think I've just about written all I can on this matter.

Sure, happy gaming!

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sure they do. If the coach has interpersonal disputes in their team, they're going to squelch them whether that means benching someone, booting them from the team, or getting the players to comply.

But that's ultimately beside the point. I don't think it's necessarily damaging for a group to expect the GM to manage the problem players, though ideally everybody should feel empowered to do so. Calling it damaging is overstating the effect. I just think that a lot of gamers condition themselves to defer to the GM on a lot of issues not necessarily related to administration of the rules of the game and running NPCs/creating adventuring sites. They look at them as the Game Master and that includes managing the table as well.

Conditioning yourself to defer to someone who's authority is assumed because of a game role is not unhealthy? Yeah, hard disagree, there.

 

[Stalker0]

To me the fail there is trying to set (or worse, force) a theme like that up front, rather than let the theme - whatever it may be - organically evolve during play based on who the PCs turn out to be and what they end up doing.

This notion as you already noted is based on your personal perspectives as a DM, that you enjoy a very open "free style" game.

While such a preference is fine.... assuming a DM that goes in a different direction than said preference is incorrect is the true fail here.

 

[Lanefan]

Usually because unless the GM is effectively running two different games, they aren't compatible. The guy who's gig is that he thinks he's around to protect society and make for a better day makes no damn sense to be involved with robbing a merchant.

Which means the players have to sort that out in character as their PCs, and in so doing set a tone - heroic, murderous, flighty, whatever - that the party will probably more or less maintain going forward, as long as some key PCs remain in it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's not what the coach does, though. They direct how the team with play and assign training exercises. They don't mediate social disputes. And, I can't seem to thing of these outside agencies that monitor the social contract. Perhaps you can expound further?

Uhm, in terms of ones that impact the game, they absolutely do. Read any sports tell-all and you'll see all kinds of anecdotes about it. It may not be their official job, but its one of their jobs in practice.

You think there should be an additional onus on GMs in 5e, what with their already full plate of pretty much everything in how the game runs? No, I don't think unnecessary is doing any excessive lifting -- it's not necessary. If you disagree, I'll definitely entertain your argument why it's necessary for the GM to also be in charge of the social contract in addition to the game duties.

Because I've never seen it work better any other way. If that's not good enough for you, I'm afraid I see you as making a theoretical argument that seems to poorly mesh with reality. I think any attempt to manage this internally to a group is not only going to fail more often than not, its probably going to fail overwhelmingly more often than not (this last clause I'm not as wedded to, but its my genuine opinion).

 

[Blue]

All DMs railroad. It's only a "bad" thing when players think that's what's happening because the internet told them so.

And here we see part of the problem. I believe he's making what he believes is a factual statement. Because he can not conceive of a game where the DM doesn't railroad.

When I give my players a bunch of plot hooks, and they go off in a different direction and I improv something new for them - that's not railroading. When I then go and detail it out for the next session but players are free to follow or not, and approach things in whatever way they want - that's still not railroading.

Having something prepared - as long as you are willing for your players to do something else - isn't inherently railroading. But there are quite a lot who've only done modules or have DMs who homebrew that do railroad that they aren't even aware other options exist.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, my. You think that most game groups are full of children that need supervision? Really? I mean, I guess I'm okay having more faith in my fellow gamers that they don't need supervision at the table and can stand up for themselves. I'll take it, though.

Only if you consider most people in general "children that need supervision". I've had absolutely no sign in my life that people in general are good at this, and gaming groups tend to have internal stressors that make it worse.

And I'll absolutely, firmly, with no equivocation say there are enough people who either can't or won't stand up for themselves to not be trivial. If you think otherwise, I think you've either been exceedingly fortunate in what groups of people you've hit, or have been very blind to the way people will avoid conflict even at considerable cost to themselves because they find conflict even worse. Just in the extended groups I've been in personally I've seen at least half a dozen people who would rather just leave a game completely than do that, or bottle it up until it was intolerable and then explode (and run through that cycle repeatedly). And that's among only a score of people. That's not even counting stories I've heard from other groups.

 

[Lanefan]

What about a breastplate? I think PCs would be disappointed if they couldn’t buy a breastplate or splint mail in a small town. I think it would be odd if you couldn’t get these things in a town in the forgotten realms default setting. Healing potions are on the PhB equipment list, as is alchemists fire. All more expensive than the average 1st level scroll.

Just because something's on the PHB equipment list doesn't mean it's necessarily going to be available in every village the PCs ever pass through.

Also, I think there's a disconnect in what people are calling a "small town". To me a small town has a population of maybe 500-1000; several pubs, a few inns, and either has some sort of local industry (fishing, or mining, etc.) or acts as a supply and market center for such (usually farming).

Something that "struggles to have a general store and an inn", slightly paraphrasing @Maxperson from upthread, comes across in my mind as a village of maybe 50-125 people, if that.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sure they do. If the coach has interpersonal disputes in their team, they're going to squelch them whether that means benching someone, booting them from the team, or getting the players to comply.

Yup. Coaches do all kinds of intervention in the social sphere in teams. I'm really wondering if Ovinomancer has ever watched coaching in action.

But that's ultimately beside the point. I don't think it's necessarily damaging for a group to expect the GM to manage the problem players, though ideally everybody should feel empowered to do so. Calling it damaging is overstating the effect. I just think that a lot of gamers condition themselves to defer to the GM on a lot of issues not necessarily related to administration of the rules of the game and running NPCs/creating adventuring sites. They look at them as the Game Master and that includes managing the table as well.

Yeah, that's definitely a problem too. I just think there's some pretty toxic results from expecting management of social expectations within a group to managed entirely within it, too. As I said, groups that aren't going to have problems with that management, aren't liable to need to do it much in the first place, but that's worlds away from all gaming groups, which can easily be full of a lot of little problems that will snowball if unchecked and absolutely will not be handled well internally (usually at the expense of the less assertive personalities, though there are other destructive responses such as passive-aggressive behavior).

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And I thought the railroading discussion was getting weird... But I really don't even understand what the few last pages have been about...
Can we get back to arguing about ogres or something?