D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Thomas Shey]

So, a person selected because of the role in a game is more likely to be successful at safely controlling a social group than a randomly selected member of that group? I mean, aside from the fact that you're still assigning authority and duty to a single person and just switching the method, I fail to see how this actually improves things.

Since I've explained it multiple times now, I don't see a point going around it again. I'm again going to leave this conversation, and I'll thank you to not drag me back into it by the combination of referencing and misrepresenting me. I've explained the summary of my position in the prior post responding to you; if you don't agree with it you don't, but I don't think circling this multiple more times is going to suddenly change our positions on this.

 

[Lanefan]

It's when the DM is no longer acting in good faith that we enter railroading territory.

Best and most succinct summary so far. Well said!

 

[Malmuria]

I wonder if there is a non-osr version of "story after," where the goal for the dm is to consider whether anything that happens at the table will make for a good story later, whether or not it is prepared or random. So, you roll on the random encounter table (in part because this is a vestigial aspect of the game in 5e), and if the result seems either boring in the moment or not something that will produce a good story later, you ignore it. If a monster rolls a critical that would kill a pc, but that wouldn't be the right narrative moment for that pc to die, you ignore it and fudge the result. I could see the appeal of this kind of thing, as the role of the dm would basically be to ensure good pacing, especially when you have limited time to play, though I still think a more emergent style is more fun.

 

[Lanefan]

That’s one way of playing, and I guess that might be an interesting way to play. I’ve played and enjoyed board games that operate on similar principles.

Heh - I've seen many a statement comparing 4e to a board game (and also seen the resulting howls of protest from 4e's supporters) but I think this is the first one I've ever seen that makes that same comparison with old-school play.

However, as a general rule I don’t want to play and procedurally generated adventure. We play with a DM because that way we always win that random bet and get an interesting and fun encounter. The DM doesn’t waste our time with repeated chaff encounters and doesn’t wipe us out with unlucky ambushes piled on to already tough fights.

This would bug the hell out of me as a player once I caught on to it: that we're being set up to "always win that random bet".

Sounds like your DM largely sees combat as sport rather than war.

We trust our DMs will keep the game fun and when I’m DM my players trust me. I don’t think I’d want to play it any other way.

Sometimes fun includes the tension of "how the hell are any of us going to survive this - three of us are down dead and the other three are badly hurt and fleeing for their lives, all because we didn't think to retreat and recover and thus let ourselves get ambushed...again...."

 

[Lanefan]

As I said, I don’t mind those encounters occasionally but when random chance means we get a lone creature 3 times in a row I get bored. When we get 12 Orcs, 3 times in a row I get annoyed. Its just bad pacing because the decisions on pacing are being left to a dice roll.

And here you hit on a very important element: pacing.

The question I rase is this: should either the players or the DM have any pre-set expectations around pacing?

My answer is no; that things should just happen at the speed they happen, meaning sometimes the PCs will just zip through the adventures and other times things will grind to a complete halt for a while.

Random encounters are fine, but the DM isn’t a slave to the dice roll and there is nothing wrong with being able to override or amend them at will.

To a slight extent I agree there's times when the randomizer needs some nudging; but pacing IMO shouldn't be a consideration when doing such.

 

[Helpful NPC Thom]

And this isn't a boring result. It's a footnote.

DM: "Turning down the ally 7 kobolds emerge from the trash piles on either side of you, swords drawn. A few seconds later you emerge from the other side of the ally, leaving the corpses of the kobolds behind you."

You don't roll a combat that's that one sided.

This is not indicated in the rules. Stating that a GM should know not to "roll a combat that's that one sided" is dismissing the procedures of the game and expecting a talented GM to cover for a design flaw. Even moreso, what if that combat does matter? If the PCs are allow low on hit points and resources, seven kobolds could very well put up enough of a fight that running the combat makes the difference between everyone leaving the dungeon alive and them needing a gentle repose and a hasty retreat.

 

[Lanefan]

Wandering Monster Table

Roll: 1d6 whenever the party chooses a path through a forest.

1. live quantum ogre
2. live quantum ogre
3. live quantum ogre
4. dead quantum ogre
5. dead quantum ogre
6. dead quantum ogre

Oh come on, Paul, let's spice this up a little here! How about:

1. live quantum ogre
2. undead quantum ogre (roll for type)
3. displaced quantum ogre
4. ethereal quantum ogre
5. polymorphed quantum ogre (roll for form assumed)
6. dead quantum ogre

 

[Asisreo]

It would be lovely if most GMs put that much thought into random encounter rolls, but even I didn't back in the day; I set up tables that seemed to generally make sense given the terrain involved, and might have a slot for "current event significant encounter" but that was about as far as it went, and I'm not sure I wasn't already doing more thinking about it than most people.

Its a shame people don't put effort into their random encounter tables. A good RET should have the players not even realize the encounter occurring was random. It should be a smooth transition and feel like its adding something to the narrative/worldbuilding in applicable ways for the players.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And here you hit on a very important element: pacing.

The question I rase is this: should either the players or the DM have any pre-set expectations around pacing?

My answer is no; that things should just happen at the speed they happen, meaning sometimes the PCs will just zip through the adventures and other times things will grind to a complete halt for a while.

Yeah, hard disagree on that. Bad pacing is one of my top sources of RPG frustration. But to each their own.

 

[FrozenNorth]

But a game where the GM has overwhelming control over what happens next, based on extrapolation by him/her about fiction that only s/he is aware of or able to invent, whether or not a railroad in the strictest sense, is going to be GM-driven in most cases, I think.

That way lies madness… if everything a DM does and everything a DM doesn’t do is railroading, railroading no longer has any meaning.