D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Maxperson]

Also I seem to recall some text in 1e, which also wasn't mentioned in the article, about 'official' AD&D and how you shouldn't change the rules. This, to my mind, is really the nut of what grew into the tree of Rule 0. 1e really tells the GM to step on the necks of the players! It then tells the GM that TSR/EGG is the king of the whole game, lol. Of course then Gary goes on, quixotically, to explain just how much absolute power the DM has, but nobody ever really said he was a very consistent guy...

The 1e preface says this, "Naturally, everything possible cannot be included in the whole of this work. As a participant in the game, I would not care to have anyone telling me exactly what must go into a campaign and how it must be handled; if so, why not play some game like chess? As the author I also realize that there are limits to my creativity and imagination. Others will think of things I didn't, and devise things beyond my capability." giving the DM free reign to change things. Then, all over 1e DMG Gygax tells the DM that he can make or change rules, but often cautions to be careful or not to. As you note, he's pretty inconsistent, but the heart of the matter is that rule 0 existed for the DM to make the game his own.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, I imagine a lot of people did NOT write down what they did, though that seems like it would have lead to a lot of problems, especially in old 'GSP' style play with troupe play and all, lol.

I mean, you FIRST had to explain to the players how the combat system worked. the LBBs don't actually have A combat system. They discuss using Chainmail's system, but it is pretty unclear exactly how to do that. Then they show an 'alternative combat system', but it is nothing more than a couple AC vs Level/HD charts.

I think you're under the impression that "Use this to determine hit, use damage listings to determine damage dice, iterate down hit points" was more than most groups did unless it was in an extremely ad-hoc way. It was perfectly adequate for that rather limited set of options at least post-Greyhawk (which is the point where I started).

And it often wasn't so much a case of "decide" as "do whatever the person who taught you the game did".

 

[Ovinomancer]

Though in practice, an awful lot of houserules are pretty top-down in origin in most groups too. The big difference is that the players have more option to know what they're getting into in advance even if they didn't have much hand in deciding it per se.

Thing is, in a game with no rule 0, the expectation is no table rules or the group decides them. It's like sitting down to play monopoly and being told Free Parking pays out all fines. As a player, I can say I don't want that and it's up to the group.

Rule zero coexists with heavily GM centered games, which makes sense -- if I'm to be the primary (if not only) authority on the fiction and action resolutions, then I should have final say on game rules. But, in games that don't have heavy GM centered play, this isn't a need. It's imported in, quite often, by those not yet making the transition of understanding necessary and bringing in other games' methods and assumptions.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Thing is, in a game with no rule 0, the expectation is no table rules or the group decides them. It's like sitting down to play monopoly and being told Free Parking pays out all fines. As a player, I can say I don't want that and it's up to the group.

With almost all trad games, you could pull out any reference to Rule 0 entirely and the general culture would still expect that sort of thing was in the GM's purview and the players could object, but in the end, there'd be no expectation they really had a say beyond just deciding not to play. If you think otherwise I think we've had too different a set of experiences to be able to talk about it.

Rule zero coexists with heavily GM centered games, which makes sense -- if I'm to be the primary (if not only) authority on the fiction and action resolutions, then I should have final say on game rules. But, in games that don't have heavy GM centered play, this isn't a need. It's imported in, quite often, by those not yet making the transition of understanding necessary and bringing in other games' methods and assumptions.

I'd quite agree that this is not true when you have games with reduced GM-power-centric orientation, but I think it just transcends any outright statement of Rule 0.

 

[Umbran]

Maybe. I tend to think of it as an aspect of PC build.

Sure. But, as I think we are seeing, "PC build" here has elements a traditional build doesn't.

PC Beliefs are certainly expected to be front-and-centre in play, though.

And that's the thing - there is an expectation that the next thing the GM does - frame a scene - is going to be relevant to one or more of these Beliefs. It is as if the building were the first move in play, and this is the second.

At least in BW, the intent you describe here is different from a PC's Belief - it is a component of action declaration.

Yes, but by description, that appears to be mostly a difference in scale - the Belief comes in on the scale of scenes, the action declaration on the scale of actions. But both are intended to shape the reality of the narrative.

(1) There's no accounting for taste. People like what they like, and they dislike what they dislike, and we're talking about a leisure activity, and so that pretty much resolves the question of who should play what.

Yes. There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. It was less a statement of value, as it was recognizing the sticking point upon which folks often do assess that value.

(2) When someone says that there is something in the logic of BW-type play, or inherent to this sort of RPGing, that must impede inhabitation of character, I strongly disagree.

Well, I think this is a space where folks who have issues are likely to use a bit of hyperbole, but that doesn't mean their point does not have merit. Even if it isn't "must," in a broad or absolute sense, it may be extremely common, and that should not be dismissed. I don't think much of the discourse around this point has been geared to help folks with the issues - it is focused on whether the issues exist at all. "Those things don't have to be a blocker," may read as "So, it is really a you problem, and therefore.... your problem." If we instead accept that these issues are common, and help folks address them, the overall discussion might be more constructive.

There are two reasons here, interrelated: (i) I know that I can play BW while inhabiting the character, because I do (I don't think it's the only way to play BW, but I know from experience it is a way); (ii) part of what makes that possible is the action declaration structure - in declaring I search for the incriminating letter I believe to be there, I don't have to think about anything outside of my PC's thought processes...

So, word choice could be generate another sticking point - an event happens, and now the character "believes" evidence of who did it exists in a certain place. Where does that belief come from? In "no myth" it doesn't come from anything the GM tells you, as we are agreed that the evidence doesn't actually exist, and isn't placed in the world, for the GM to speak about it yet.. To many, it would seem that such belief without evidence rather does indicate something outside the character's thought processes is involved, as with the information in the narrative so far, there seems to be no basis for the belief.

"Hope", "desire", or "expect" might change that perception.

There is no mechanism in BW, once PC build is done, for players to establish fiction outside of this process of declaring a mental state for the PC - I look for . . ., I search for . . ., I hope to meet . . ., Don't I recall that . . . ?, etc. And having those sorts of mental states is utterly compatible with being a thief.

As above, all those things are fine, if the thing you want to reference is already present in the narrative. Invoking such a statement about things that aren't established yet, to some, may seem to implicitly include thoughts that the character can't have yet.

I've seen some of this tension alleviated by changing the order slightly - like, in the Urban Shadows legwork or "hitting the streets" move, the player states that they're going out broadly in search of information on a topic, roll, and if they succeed then they describe the person who gave it (and, if playing no-myth, they decide what the information you gleaned was). Building from general to specific, rather than starting at the specific, can be an aid to those not used to the style.

 

[Umbran]

Why defend railroading?

Because the arrival of a technology enabling the movement of large numbers of people, and more importantly, vast amounts of cargo, overland, safely and efficiently, heralded the most dramatic increase in trade since the invention of the sail, and it would not be too much of an exaggeration to say that it built the modern world?

Oh, wait...

And here, we see the power of the metaphor made manifest.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you're under the impression that "Use this to determine hit, use damage listings to determine damage dice, iterate down hit points" was more than most groups did unless it was in an extremely ad-hoc way. It was perfectly adequate for that rather limited set of options at least post-Greyhawk (which is the point where I started).

And it often wasn't so much a case of "decide" as "do whatever the person who taught you the game did".

Well, yes, actually you needed a LOT more than what was stated! Who goes when? At what point is damage allocated? Is this all determined by the fiction? By GM dictate? By some part of application of the Chainmail rules? These are, to a wargamer at least, critical questions which are not clearly answered in the LBBs...

Even 1e only answers SOME of these questions, leaving more detailed ones, like how you work out positioning and if it is even relevant to the rules, to being worked out by the GM.

I agree that most people don't really notice how much is just extrapolated. I've been in a few threads before where people ABSOLUTELY refused to believe how much 1e's combat system simply doesn't answer or contradicts itself on, even when you put it out there in black and white. Everyone just sat down and played with someone that 'already knew' or else they just skimmed the rules and went with their own assumptions without even realizing it wasn't 'obvious' what the rules were. This can actually make it a bit hard to talk about TSR D&D in a some cases.

 

[Ovinomancer]

With almost all trad games, you could pull out any reference to Rule 0 entirely and the general culture would still expect that sort of thing was in the GM's purview and the players could object, but in the end, there'd be no expectation they really had a say beyond just deciding not to play. If you think otherwise I think we've had too different a set of experiences to be able to talk about it.

I wasn't disagreeing. I was pointing out that rule 0 is tightly coupled with games that feature GM-centered play, and why that is -- it's a feature there for the GM to have this authority because the GM has to make so much prep work in game.

I'd quite agree that this is not true when you have games with reduced GM-power-centric orientation, but I think it just transcends any outright statement of Rule 0.

I'm not sure what's transcending here. If I had to guess, it's following your above that Rule 0 isn't always explicit in games where the culture applies it. In fact, I think that's what we've seen in this thread -- the expectation that Rule 0 is always present due to only really experiencing the gaming culture where it is the default (and that is centered around games like D&D). Even in 3.x and 4e, where the rulesets where much less amenable to Rule 0 in any explicit sense, the culture prevailed, and 5e, as a "return" edition has moved heavily in the other direction such that Rule 0 is effectively enshrined in the rules themselves (where the core mechanic is usually "the GM decides").

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So, word choice could be generate another sticking point - an event happens, and now the character "believes" evidence of who did it exists in a certain place. Where does that belief come from? In "no myth" it doesn't come from anything the GM tells you, as we are agreed that the evidence doesn't actually exist, and isn't placed in the world, for the GM to speak about it yet.. To many, it would seem that such belief without evidence rather does indicate something outside the character's thought processes is involved, as with the information in the narrative so far, there seems to be no basis for the belief.

I don't know what @pemerton would say, but my answer to that is "this is why we use dice!" The player, in actor stance, says "I am searching the study, looking for incriminating evidence." and it isn't the action declaration which 'causes' that evidence in character, it is the searching which may uncover it. By injecting chance (and risk in most systems) into that equation we have transformed an act of pure authorship into an act of letting 'the Universe' or 'Fate' decide what is true and what is not.

I mean, you CAN still split hairs a bit, if the GM decided, then maybe there is some other unimagined possibility that his authorship invoked. That kind of touches back on what @Ovinomancer and I were quibbling about in respect to Dungeon World's process.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sure. But, as I think we are seeing, "PC build" here has elements a traditional build doesn't.



And that's the thing - there is an expectation that the next thing the GM does - frame a scene - is going to be relevant to one or more of these Beliefs. It is as if the building were the first move in play, and this is the second.



Yes, but by description, that appears to be mostly a difference in scale - the Belief comes in on the scale of scenes, the action declaration on the scale of actions. But both are intended to shape the reality of the narrative.




Yes. There is nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so. It was less a statement of value, as it was recognizing the sticking point upon which folks often do assess that value.



Well, I think this is a space where folks who have issues are likely to use a bit of hyperbole, but that doesn't mean their point does not have merit. Even if it isn't "must," in a broad or absolute sense, it may be extremely common, and that should not be dismissed. I don't think much of the discourse around this point has been geared to help folks with the issues - it is focused on whether the issues exist at all. "Those things don't have to be a blocker," may read as "So, it is really a you problem, and therefore.... your problem." If we instead accept that these issues are common, and help folks address them, the overall discussion might be more constructive.



So, word choice could be generate another sticking point - an event happens, and now the character "believes" evidence of who did it exists in a certain place. Where does that belief come from? In "no myth" it doesn't come from anything the GM tells you, as we are agreed that the evidence doesn't actually exist, and isn't placed in the world, for the GM to speak about it yet.. To many, it would seem that such belief without evidence rather does indicate something outside the character's thought processes is involved, as with the information in the narrative so far, there seems to be no basis for the belief.

"Hope", "desire", or "expect" might change that perception.



As above, all those things are fine, if the thing you want to reference is already present in the narrative. Invoking such a statement about things that aren't established yet, to some, may seem to implicitly include thoughts that the character can't have yet.

I've seen some of this tension alleviated by changing the order slightly - like, in the Urban Shadows legwork or "hitting the streets" move, the player states that they're going out broadly in search of information on a topic, roll, and if they succeed then they describe the person who gave it (and, if playing no-myth, they decide what the information you gleaned was). Building from general to specific, rather than starting at the specific, can be an aid to those not used to the style.

The thing that strikes me about this is that this play is true in all RPGs, the only difference is between games that allow actions to resolve this for everyone, and games where one person already knows the answer because they author it and the game allows actions to get this person to reveal the details. In both, the fiction is still authored by a player at the table, so a player authoring fiction that actions reveal seems like it's a tad misplaced as a general argument.

Instead, this is more about who has authorities. In games where all of the authorities are vested in the GM, then the GM has say, and the players are taking actions to prompt the GM to reveal more about what they have authored -- either in prep or in the moment. Even if the GM invites player contributions, the authority rests with the GM, as they are the only ones at the table that can say no, and their word is the last on all matters (including, quite often, what an allowable action declaration is -- see Metagaming). This is contrasted by a game that puts some authority with the players -- games like Fiasco put all authority with the players, as there isn't even a GM role! And, then, there are systems that share some authorities, but do so through the use of mechanics. In all of these, though, fiction is authored by a player and discovered through action declarations. Method matters, but I don't think your formulation of the differences gets to the root of the issue. And, to me, that root is "how active, as a non-GM player, do you wish to be in forming the story?" There's no right answer to this -- it's perfectly valid to say "almost not at all" because you trust the GM to deliver a fun and engaging story that you don't have to be active to generate -- just do your job as a player to prompt the next bits from the GM. It could be "some," in which case you can have a 'sandbox' where the GM has a lot of fiction but you get a say in how you chart a path through it. It could be "lots" in which case a system mediated game might fit the bill, like PbtA. It could be "all of it" in which case a number of GM-less games are out there, like Fiasco, that are entirely player driven with a light system touch. There's places in-between these as well. But, overall, I disagree that it's because the player 'authors' things -- this is true in every game, as the GM is still a player. It's more 'I don't like having the authority and duty to author things.' Which is entirely valid as a requirement for an entertainment hobby -- you don't have to be active to enjoy the game.