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Razanir
2011-11-11, 05:51 PM
The scenario: They were sacrificed by orcs to a giant spider. In the cave, there's a giant spider web covering a pit with stairs going down. They all have amnesia.

What I hoped they would do: Oh look, stairs! Let's go down them!

What they did: Grab the spider's string, have the wilder hold the end then use Crystal Shard to mimic Spiderman's powers and get up to the pretty light (the orcs' campfire)

My solution: You climb up the rope and find a torch. There is another pretty light above you.

Repeat a few times :smallannoyed::smallmad::smallfurious:

My new solution: You reach the ceiling and are forced to go down the stairs.

Their reaction: Let's throw the (gnome) cleric into the pit to see how deep it his. The cleric wound up with negative hit points. After a rest and some healing, the game went on (mostly) like normal.

Was my reaction fair?

Gavinfoxx
2011-11-11, 06:15 PM
No. No it wasn't. The entire setup where there was only one solution, and it had to be the one you thought of was completely unfair. This is a pen and paper roleplaying game, not a videogame. You should have let them out and had them fight a few orc guards and then have an escape from orc camp adventure. NEVER railroad unless you tell them up front, 'okay guys, I have a specific adventure idea planned, and I would like to ask you nicely to not go off the rails. Okay?' BEFORE the start of the adventure.

This isn't trouble PC's, this is an overly inflexible DM. Also, what level were they? You know it's feasible that characters at level 3 have access to spider climb or flight, right?

Belril Duskwalk
2011-11-11, 06:21 PM
The scenario: They were sacrificed by orcs to a giant spider. In the cave, there's a giant spider web covering a pit with stairs going down. They all have amnesia.

What I hoped they would do: Oh look, stairs! Let's go down them!

What they did: Grab the spider's string, have the wilder hold the end then use Crystal Shard to mimic Spiderman's powers and get up to the pretty light (the orcs' campfire)

My solution: You climb up the rope and find a torch. There is another pretty light above you.

Repeat a few times :smallannoyed::smallmad::smallfurious:

My new solution: You reach the ceiling and are forced to go down the stairs.

Their reaction: Let's throw the (gnome) cleric into the pit to see how deep it his. The cleric wound up with negative hit points. After a rest and some healing, the game went on (mostly) like normal.

Was my reaction fair?

I'd have let them find the orc campfire the first time. Either they fight the orcs and win, or they fight and lose and the orcs throw them back in AGAIN, only this time with more stab-marks. Now this time they'll probably think the stairs down look pretty inviting.

If you stick a group in an enclosed space with no memory of how they got there, their first instinct is generally going to be survival, which in this case means getting OUT not going further IN.

Gavinfoxx
2011-11-11, 06:26 PM
Also, in general, amnesia is a really really bad plot device... it disconnects characters from their history, it disconnects them from the world, it means that they can't make their characters have motivations that are larger or place them in the world, etc. etc.

Jayabalard
2011-11-11, 06:29 PM
No. No it wasn't. The entire setup where there was only one solution, and it had to be the one you thought of was completely unfair.What's unfair about only having a single solution? having only a single solution work != railroading. In this particular case there was only one solution and the players were railroaded. But the former, in and of itself, isn't a problem.

Gavinfoxx
2011-11-11, 06:39 PM
Railroading is unethical unless the players are warned and have buy in ahead of time, or --secondarily-- the DM negotiates at the time of the railroad with the players that yes, there will be some railroad tracks going on, but it will be worth it, honest.... AND the players then have buy in. Railroading requires a certain amount of trust, rapport, and understanding with all parties involved, and that was not obtained.

Jayabalard
2011-11-11, 06:44 PM
Railroading is unethical unless the players are warned and have buy in ahead of time, or --secondarily-- the DM negotiates at the time of the railroad with the players that yes, there will be some railroad tracks going on, but it will be worth it, honest.... AND the players then have buy in. Railroading requires a certain amount of trust, rapport, and understanding with all parties involved, and that was not obtained.What exactly is unethical about railroading? You seem to be saying that railroading is bad because it's bad. That's just circular logic, and doesn't make any sense.

And keep in mind that piece I disagreed with was the notion that having only one option is necessarily railroading; it might be, or it might not.

Gavinfoxx
2011-11-11, 06:58 PM
It's bad because it removes agency from the players and their characters, removes one of the main strengths of a non computer based roleplaying game, the idea that you can go anywhere, you can see what is over that ridge, you can actually try to assassinate the duke, and it also lowers verisimilitude as characters run into these heavy handed invisible walls, AND it means that the DM isn't facilitating a story that is about the player characters, it means that the DM gets to sit and tell the story, and the player characters are along for the ride to do what he wants.... etc. etc.

Which is why that such things should be negotiated, so everyone is on board with them, as it breaks the default social contract for what a role playing game IS.

Aidan305
2011-11-11, 07:10 PM
Firstly, OP, you were in the wrong here; not the players. As has already been said, your reaction was A) Unfair to the players, and B) Nonsensical. Why would someone have climbed up a large hole just to place torches?

Players will seldom do what you envisage them doing. When you've gained more experience at GMing you'll start to learn how to incorporate that style of thinking when you're designing the scenarios, but until then, plan out your scenarios, but don't start imposing blocks when the players start going in their own direction. This will end badly, for you, for them, and for the game. The more you push it in their faces that they have to do something, the more they'll want to push back against it and a game can only take so much of that before it falls apart.

Instead of pushing, learn to lead. Guide them gently to where you want them to go. Your story can still be told, but if you arrange it so that the players want to follow it, both you and they will find themselves enjoying it far more.

Which brings me to my opinion on Railroading. Railroading itself is not a bad thing. What's bad is when the tracks are clearly visible and the players have to follow them wether they want to or not. A good GM will be able to guide the players along the same tracks with the barely noticing them along the way by making the players want to see what's at the far end. In the end, it's just another technique. How its viewed depends entirely on the GM using it. In the examples Gavinfoxx and the OP giving, the GM is pushing the players along the tracks, not letting them off because the story must be told. This is poor railroading because, as Gavinfoxx says, it's restricting what the players are able to do. But if you arrange things so that they actually want to follow the tracks, railroading can be immensely fun because the players are now contributing as opposed to standing by and watching.

bloodtide
2011-11-11, 08:43 PM
First off, every time a DM puts a 'one way plot' in front of the players it's not 'Railroading'. If a cave in, locked door, spider web or canyon forces the group to go only one direction, that's not railroading. Not every physical location in the world must open to at least two choices for the players to pick from. Railroading is where the characters are standing in a field, and are free to go any direction, and the DM says 'nope you must go south to the Dungeon of Doom.

Now, Elimu Marimech, your reaction was...odd. So you wanted the orcs to toss the character's in a pit and then have the characters go down the stairs. Well, you did that wrong.

1.If you really want the characters to go in one direction out of two, then simply make the other direction impassable. Slam down an anti-magical adamantium door, or a boulder or supper slick/steep walls they can't climb. It does not need to be impossible, just hard. Most of the time players will avoid the 'hard' way, and take the 'easy' way.

2.Should the players find a way out past the 'impassable obstacle', then let them escape. At least for a while. Give them a good 50% to get away.

3.You should always use honey. You want the players to go down some stairs, then place a couple gold coins on the stairs..and oh, look, the characters will run over and pick them up. Anything that attracts their attention can move them one way.

4.Don't do the Groundhog Day Repeat.

5.Just ignore stuff like the gnome tossing.

Gavinfoxx
2011-11-11, 09:00 PM
I would NEVER put a large quantity of Adamantine in a dungeon like a door or something. A heavy Adamantine cover of a pit has to be worth several million gold pieces...

One pound of adamantine is worth at LEAST 100 gp. Possibly 2000 gp or more... and how many tons would such a thing be??

Coidzor
2011-11-11, 09:15 PM
First off, every time a DM puts a 'one way plot' in front of the players it's not 'Railroading'. If a cave in, locked door, spider web or canyon forces the group to go only one direction, that's not railroading. Not every physical location in the world must open to at least two choices for the players to pick from. Railroading is where the characters are standing in a field, and are free to go any direction, and the DM says 'nope you must go south to the Dungeon of Doom.

No, consistently preventing any player initiative also counts as a form of railroading, and constructing the entire game linearly so they don't even get to see the open field doesn't exactly help the case.


What exactly is unethical about railroading?

Generally speaking it is considered fairly rude to be actively disrespectful to one's fellows.

VariaVespasa
2011-11-11, 09:26 PM
They were being sacrificed to the spider by orcs- chances of the orcs NOT crowding around the top of the hole laughing, and taking bets on who will die first, and using spears and, er, biological missiles to pursuade the characters to go the other way? Zero. None at all. Nada. Zilch. So you were wrong in not just reminding them why they were down in the hole in the first place, rather than decreeing an unreasonable and unrealistic blockage.

You havent mentioned anything about how they came to be sacrificed by orcs, and if there's any railroading going on thats where it most importantly occurred, not once they were in the pit. Granted the clumsy blocking of their climbing attempts makes me dubious about the fairness of their capture, but we dont know how it happened so we cant comment. Once they are legitimately in the pit they SHOULD have limited options. You'd be amazed how many sacrifices fail to escape their doom. Its quite a high percentage. Almost 100% in fact. Fancy that. Luke DID have to fight the rancor, after all. But people suggesting things like there should only be a few guards and the players should be able to beat them up? Ridiculous- these are the same critters that captured the party in the first place, and now the party can suddenly beat them up? Yeaahhhh. Smells of entitlement to me. Oh, nothing really bad should ever happen to the players...

Adamantine doors? Ya, what you said- I would NEVER put such a thing in a dungeon for that reason- the players WILL find a way to take the thing home with them, and will drop damn near any other goal they had to make it happen. Teams of engineers and miners, 400 elephants with chains to drag it, no problem. Of course the cheap bastiches will scream blue murder if the DM suggests they might have to actually pay some of these people for their help, but thats a different issue. Oh, and for the funnies, try to suggest the kingdom has a treasure trove tax... :P

VariaVespasa
2011-11-11, 09:37 PM
No, consistently preventing any player initiative also counts as a form of railroading, and constructing the entire game linearly so they don't even get to see the open field doesn't exactly help the case.

If its consistently preventing, and always linear then yes. But thats not whats being discussed here.

Coidzor
2011-11-11, 09:46 PM
If its consistently preventing, and always linear then yes. But thats not whats being discussed here.

He was giving an objective single possible definition that wasn't complete. You expect that to be allowed to stand? This is the internet!

Leecros
2011-11-11, 09:56 PM
First off, every time a DM puts a 'one way plot' in front of the players it's not 'Railroading'. If a cave in, locked door, spider web or canyon forces the group to go only one direction, that's not railroading. Not every physical location in the world must open to at least two choices for the players to pick from. Railroading is where the characters are standing in a field, and are free to go any direction, and the DM says 'nope you must go south to the Dungeon of Doom.

No, consistently preventing any player initiative also counts as a form of railroading, and constructing the entire game linearly so they don't even get to see the open field doesn't exactly help the case.

I disagree with your disagreement of the post that you quoted, but not your comment(does that make sense?). Nowhere in Bloodtide's post did it say anything about consistently providing only one option. All he was trying to say(in the part you quoted) was that "not every physical location in the world must open to at least two choices for the players to pick from." Which, i can agree with there will be situations where the players get put into a position where there's really only one option.

However these situations are rare as smart adventurers should always make sure they have a way out, on top of that, some of the situations bloodtide's exampled could be potentially foreshadowed. For example, a cave in could be foreshadowed by saying that the structure doesn't look very safe. This provides them with a choice, they can go into the structure and hope it doesn't do any number of various things it could foreshadow(in this case a cave in). Or they can leave and abandon the quest. Really, i can almost guarantee you that they would continue the quest. I give it an...%80 chance.

As for the op's issue. Part of a good DM is the ability to predict what your players will do, this allows you to show them a good time and being able to perform your plans without necessarily railroading them. Another part of a good DM is the ability to improvise(or plan) for your players to do something unexpected. So, being able to prepare for your party to do something unexpected and being able to organize a logical outcome. Even if that means they climb facefirst into an army of orcs and get slaughtered to the man. It sounds to me like the players did something you hadn't prepared for and you somewhat hastily tweaked the pit a little bit to compensate. It's easy to say looking in from the outside that you could have done something else, but i'm not going to reprimand you for it. I've been in situations where i have had to improvise and have come up with terrible ideas(who's idea was it to put a maze there? Not mine...*shifty eyes*). However next time i would suggest taking a five minute break and plan out your next move. Just enough to get you ahead of the players. It usually makes for better decisions as a DM.

I could be entirely wrong though, i'm not inside your head so take what you want from whatever.:smalltongue:

Aidan305
2011-11-11, 10:09 PM
I suspect it's probably best to agree to disagree on the definitions of railroading. It's pretty clear that everyone has their own idea of what it means to them.

Regardless, this is an experience and the OP can learn from it. Next time he can plan better to take player abilities in to account and be better prepared to move to either divert them or entice them if they start to wander away from the plot.

Razanir
2011-11-11, 10:43 PM
Players will seldom do what you envisage them doing. When you've gained more experience at GMing you'll start to learn how to incorporate that style of thinking when you're designing the scenarios, but until then, plan out your scenarios, but don't start imposing blocks when the players start going in their own direction.

That's a bit difficult with these guys because they claim, and I quote, "DnD is about messing with the DM" :smallannoyed:


Also, in general, amnesia is a really really bad plot device... it disconnects characters from their history, it disconnects them from the world, it means that they can't make their characters have motivations that are larger or place them in the world, etc. etc.

Why amnesia, you may ask? They aren't so keen on RPing so it lets me surprise them with their backstories AND explain why they don't start out with backstories :smallbiggrin:


You havent mentioned anything about how they came to be sacrificed by orcs, and if there's any railroading going on thats where it most importantly occurred, not once they were in the pit. Granted the clumsy blocking of their climbing attempts makes me dubious about the fairness of their capture, but we dont know how it happened so we cant comment.

Remember just before this quote when I said I gave them amnesia to explain the player-induced lack of backstories? The amnesia came from their various backstories leading to being kidnapped by orcs, knocked unconscious, sacrificed to the spider and left for dead. :smallbiggrin:


1.If you really want the characters to go in one direction out of two, then simply make the other direction impassable. Slam down an anti-magical adamantium door, or a boulder or supper slick/steep walls they can't climb. It does not need to be impossible, just hard. Most of the time players will avoid the 'hard' way, and take the 'easy' way.

They were level 1 and faced with a 30' cliff. That SHOULD have been impassable

Traab
2011-11-11, 11:16 PM
The scenario: They were sacrificed by orcs to a giant spider. In the cave, there's a giant spider web covering a pit with stairs going down. They all have amnesia.

What I hoped they would do: Oh look, stairs! Let's go down them!

What they did: Grab the spider's string, have the wilder hold the end then use Crystal Shard to mimic Spiderman's powers and get up to the pretty light (the orcs' campfire)

My solution: You climb up the rope and find a torch. There is another pretty light above you.

Repeat a few times :smallannoyed::smallmad::smallfurious:

My new solution: You reach the ceiling and are forced to go down the stairs.

Their reaction: Let's throw the (gnome) cleric into the pit to see how deep it his. The cleric wound up with negative hit points. After a rest and some healing, the game went on (mostly) like normal.

Was my reaction fair?

So... they have amnesia. How would they even know where they are, whats going on, or where they should go? Also, did the orcs choose to toss down these sacrifices with their armor and weapons? Why would they do that? And if, as you stated later on, the players are of the opinion that their goal is to mess with the dm as much as possible, why didnt you make the tracks magnetized? I mean, like someone else said, line the top of the pit with a large crowd of jeering orcs. Point out that they already lost once in order to get into the pit, and there is no way this crowd of orcs is going to just let them climb right out. Then if they insist, just make them fight more orcs than they could beat with rolling nothing but 20s and every time they lose, its back into the pit they go.

Just be careful, because while its one thing to do a little bit of forced choices, it will bore them to tears if nothing they do has any real effect on the storyline, because you want everything done a certain way. If every time they decide to go back there is a mysterious rock slide that blocks their path, or if they decide not to help the injured npc he dies and they get the plot hook from a dm narrative auto search of his things anyways, they will stop seeing the point and likely get their jollies out of making it as hard as possible to keep them on the rails.

bloodtide
2011-11-12, 08:57 AM
They were level 1 and faced with a 30' cliff. That SHOULD have been impassable

And that is why there is a number 2.

This is a good teachable moment:

As a DM you can spend lots of time making the 'perfect' trap, monster, encounter or whatever. But a group of players can always, always find a way around it or defeat whatever it was....

Never count on anything always working out just like you have planned.

And if the players do escape from the whatever, reward them.

VariaVespasa
2011-11-12, 11:57 AM
You expect that to be allowed to stand? This is the internet!

Actually its a series of tubes, you fool! :P

Traab
2011-11-12, 01:24 PM
Actually its a series of tubes, you fool! :P

But since Al Gore invented it, it has to be good anyways.

Mando Knight
2011-11-12, 06:10 PM
Their reaction: Let's throw the (gnome) cleric into the pit to see how deep it his. The cleric wound up with negative hit points.

...Throwing a gnome isn't a valid solution? What kind of D&D are you playing? :smallconfused:

:smalltongue:

Templarkommando
2011-11-12, 06:49 PM
What needs to be taken into consideration is that if the PCs venture too far off the beaten path, they need to understand that there are things that there DM won't be prepared for. So if the party doesn't like plot holes, they are more likely to run into them off the beaten path. If the party doesn't like completely unplanned dungeons that are rolled off the random table in the DMG, that is basically all they are going to run into off the beaten path.

Does the party enjoy running into characters that are deeper than the DMG list of NPCs with equipment and class attributes? They aren't going to run into any unless they let the DM have a reasonable expectation of being able to prepare for the session. Does the party enjoy role playing with rich and flavorful characters? If they don't let the DM have some license to plan the session, the only one they will run into is the plot hook NPC and that's it unless they stay within range of the plot.

Realistically, DnD is a game of give and take. It would be as if the OoTS arried at Dorukan's dungeon and Belkar says "Welp, this was fun, let's go do something else." The story would never be told.

XiaoTie
2011-11-12, 07:48 PM
That's a bit difficult with these guys because they claim, and I quote, "DnD is about messing with the DM" :smallannoyed:

Get the hell out of there now. NOW. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW.

But, seriously, that might be a big and flashing red light. It seems that your style of DMing isn't really what they are looking for. Try to talk to them, and if that doesn't work, bow out and get a new group that suits your play style.

Coidzor
2011-11-13, 03:28 AM
...Throwing a gnome isn't a valid solution? What kind of D&D are you playing? :smallconfused:

:smalltongue:

That takes me back to the days of the Halflingdoken houserules of high school...


That's a bit difficult with these guys because they claim, and I quote, "DnD is about messing with the DM" :smallannoyed:

Oh dear. That's... not good.


Why amnesia, you may ask? They aren't so keen on RPing so it lets me surprise them with their backstories AND explain why they don't start out with backstories :smallbiggrin:

Hmm... Tried Beer and Pretzels style? Seems like it might get its foot in the door and get them to adopt a new paradigm for enjoyment, since it's quite difficult to mess with a DM running that kind of scheme fast and loose?

...If I'm recalling what it is correctly, anyway, which, come to think of it, I'm only about 35% confident in doing so at the moment. :/ Sorry.


Actually its a series of tubes, you fool! :P

Well, it's certainly not a series of tubes.

Mando Knight
2011-11-13, 02:43 PM
Oh dear. That's... not good.
Agreed. There are many ways this can go, and none of them pretty.

Rejakor
2011-11-13, 02:47 PM
If I had a group of players who said that DnD was about 'messing with the DM', the absolute first thing I would never do is obviously, clumsily, railroad them. DM vs Players, i.e. power-trip, i.e. gygaxian dickery, never ever ends well. When it comes down to it, yes, you can totally kill the party any time you want to. But they can leave and never play DnD with you/talk to you ever again. Guess which is more effective.

Repeat after me. There is no such thing as bad players. Sometimes you can't run a game for people, or have to kick someone out of a group, because you can't handle what they're doing.. but when it comes down to it, ANYONE who shows up week after week wants something from the game. If it's social creds, or to make trouble, sometimes you can't fix that and you have to ask them to leave. But usually it's to play the game, and any other crap going on can be dealt with.

The attitude you describe, combined with creative problem solving (which indicates a fairly high level of immersion) and lack of absolute stupidity (throwing the gnome down a flight of stairs is really, really not that bad compared to the whole party slitting their own throats 'for teh lolz'. hell it's something that could occur in character), indicates that this group has been through a fair bit of heavy handed railroading/GM silliness but still actually want to play the game. At this point, the absolute best thing to do is to get them to be immersed in the game and their characters a whole hell of a lot more than they are currently. And you've absolutely hamstrung yourself there as they don't HAVE characters at the moment, at all. No personal hooks for you to dig claws into whatsoever.

So you're left with danger. Chase scenes are amazingly fun for getting people into character. Someone getting left behind or knocked to negatives and all but begging the other players to go back for him is seriously quite possible. Have some long hard fights. Have the players get lost. Make them feel like their amnesiac characters are totally out of their depth, and they'll actually start acting like amnesiac characters totally out of their depth.

Then actually handle the amnesia part with aplomb (people from some character's past come up to greet them, party learns scattered facts about themselves from an innkeep, a shopkeep, a constable... while others learn about themselves from seers or old acquaintances, one gets the idea that he wouldn't like who he used to be (easy.. find someone who is acting in a certain way at the table, start describing from npc's his 'old' character's personality as something opposite/different/worse), and one learns nothing but tantalizing hints from even the best sources... all that kind of jazz, now that you've chucked the lodestone around your neck, better make good on it.

Traab
2011-11-13, 02:50 PM
Agreed. There are many ways this can go, and none of them pretty.

There is a way to make it work, but it involves being the type of dm who enjoys that sort of behavior. When you create your campaign, try to think of as many odd or strange methods your players may use to break what you want them to do and counter it. After that, if they try one of them you can laugh and show them why it fails. if you didnt think of it, they win and get to move on how they wanted. It cant be stupid "rocks fall" style stuff, it has to be somehow justified.

"Ok, we are going to climb out of the pit. "

"You make it halfway up the walls when you realize that they subtly slope backwards, leaving you dangling and trying to hold on. Your grip fails and you fall back down to the bottom."

So your method would not be acceptable of, "there is no top of the pit." Or that they somehow are in a pit, with no sense of how they got there, since you somehow sealed the top off, despite there having been a top in your description.

Jayabalard
2011-11-14, 11:57 AM
It's bad because it removes agency from the players and their characters, removes one of the main strengths of a non computer based roleplaying game, the idea that you can go anywhere, you can see what is over that ridge, you can actually try to assassinate the duke, and it also lowers verisimilitude as characters run into these heavy handed invisible walls, AND it means that the DM isn't facilitating a story that is about the player characters, it means that the DM gets to sit and tell the story, and the player characters are along for the ride to do what he wants.... etc. etc.Nothing you mention here is unethical. It's just stuff you don't like. It's like calling lima beans unethical because you don't like the way they taste.

Jayabalard
2011-11-14, 12:02 PM
No, consistently preventing any player initiative also counts as a form of railroading,irrelevant to the text that you're quoting. Keep in mind that both he and I are disagreeing with the notion that any problem that has only a single solution is necessarily railroading.


Generally speaking it is considered fairly rude to be actively disrespectful to one's fellows.This has nothing to do with one way dungeons, or railroading (which aren't the same thing). You can have a one way dungeon without being actively disrespectful. You can railroad without being actively disrespectful.

Rejakor
2011-11-14, 12:53 PM
jayabalard -

Straw man. He is not saying it's unethical. He's saying it kills games and makes players not have fun/causes social issues in RL. He is defining that as bad because it is against the stated goal of 99% of DnD groups - to have fun, and a good time, playing a game.

He pretty clearly stated that, which leads me to conclude that you're trolling.


EDIT: You can shoot someone in the face while yelling 'you bastard, you bastard, i'll kill you' without it being murder, too. For example, if you're defending yourself against assault with a deadly weapon, or you're in a war.

Does that mean that shooting people in the face is the default attitude you should take towards your daily life? Or that it is always (or even mostly) a good idea?

Tyndmyr
2011-11-14, 12:55 PM
What's unfair about only having a single solution? having only a single solution work != railroading. In this particular case there was only one solution and the players were railroaded. But the former, in and of itself, isn't a problem.

Real life rarely has only a single solution to something. Oh sure, there may be a BEST solution, but all manner of options exist.

If you are designing things so that only a single solution exists, you're likely sacrificing realism. Furthermore, you'll be sacrificing player agency. It's not really much of a game without choices, now is it?

Jayabalard
2011-11-14, 01:24 PM
jayabalard -

Straw man. He is not saying it's unethical.So when he said "Railroading is unethical unless the players are warned and have buy in ahead of time, or --secondarily-- the DM negotiates at the time of the railroad with the players that yes, there will be some railroad tracks going on, but it will be worth it, honest.... AND the players then have buy in. Railroading requires a certain amount of trust, rapport, and understanding with all parties involved, and that was not obtained."

You think he wasn't actually calling it unethical?


He called it unethical unless certain criteria has been met.
I asked what was unethical about it, even when those criteria haven't been met.
He responded to my question with something that did not explain how it was unethical in any way shape or form.
I pointed out that he did not in fact answer the question, pointing out that it's something he doesn't like and not how it's actually unethical (like he claimed)
You called staw man where there isn't one.



EDIT: You can shoot someone in the face while yelling 'you bastard, you bastard, i'll kill you' without it being murder, too. For example, if you're defending yourself against assault with a deadly weapon, or you're in a war.

Does that mean that shooting people in the face is the default attitude you should take towards your daily life? Or that it is always (or even mostly) a good idea?You seem to be arguing that railroading and problems with one valid solution (not the same thing) are my default stance or should be anyone's default stance.

You argue against this with a reductio ad absurdum, with the implication that this has refuted me in some way.

This is a classic example of an actual staw man argument.

Jayabalard
2011-11-14, 01:27 PM
If you are designing things so that only a single solution exists, you're likely sacrificing realism.We sacrifice realism to make the game more fun to play left and right, using abstracted mechanics like HP, or grossly oversimplifying physic phenomena for ease and of calculation. Sacrificing realism, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing.


Furthermore, you'll be sacrificing player agency. It's not really much of a game without choices, now is it?There's lots of things in the game that players don't have any choices over. Lots of games, roleplaying and otherwise, have only one valid solution for a particular problem. That doesn't make them non-games.

Gavinfoxx
2011-11-14, 08:06 PM
Jaya, I'll try and get to you in a bit, but my answer might take a while, okay? But I'll get to you, really.

Sidmen
2011-11-14, 11:36 PM
I'm going to ignore ongoing discussion about... well, I'm not even sure what its about anymore - it was initially about "what is railroading" but has drifted - and answer the OP's initial question. Was your reaction fair?

Both yes and no. It was fair in the sense that you didn't really punish the players, or favor one over the other.

But no, it isn't something that I would have done. Your players acted in a ingenious fashion - they found a way up a 30 foot cliff with nothing but some spiderwebs and their own skills - at level 1! Hell, that sounds like something to be rewarded - not rejected.

That said, why didn't you just have the orcs at the top of the pit push them back down when they reached the top?

Rejakor
2011-11-15, 03:16 PM
It's a question of intent.

You ignored the main thrust of an argument in order to inflate what was essentially a figure of speech and treated that like it was the main argument. (which you then defeated with 'what is ethics?' which is seriously the weakest piece of crap argument)

I used an example which clearly wasn't intended as a main argument or even point, but to demonstrate the logical fallacy I felt you were operating under.


If this was a serious debate tournament, i'd be using language a lot more precise. This isn't, this is the internet. Here, what is right, and can be shown to be right(and clear, obvious intent), is more important than not leaving any tiny holes in your argument that someone can point to and cry 'UNFAIR' and 'MOMMY' about.

Tyndmyr
2011-11-15, 03:46 PM
We sacrifice realism to make the game more fun to play left and right, using abstracted mechanics like HP, or grossly oversimplifying physic phenomena for ease and of calculation. Sacrificing realism, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing.

Yes, it IS a bad thing. It's just that other things, like calculating realistic physics, are worse.

But sacrificing realism, in and of itself, is a bad thing.


There's lots of things in the game that players don't have any choices over. Lots of games, roleplaying and otherwise, have only one valid solution for a particular problem. That doesn't make them non-games.

It makes that particular problem not a choice. If the entire game lacks choices, it ceases to be much of a game. That is an extreme example of railroading, and obviously has worse consequences as a result, but taken to it's logical extreme, railroading ruins the game.

Now, rule systems may not support EVERY solution possible to a problem, but if they only support one for each problem, that's a game I don't want to ever play, and would describe as poorly designed.

Gavinfoxx
2011-11-17, 07:17 PM
The thing that I felt was unethical was blatantly breaking the social agreement -- the social contract -- implicit in the gaming session. The one that says, 'the players play their characters, the DM plays the setting and the secondary characters, and puts together a plausible world that reacts reasonably to the actions the player characters take, and the story takes place around what the characters do. The players play their characters as part of that world, and take reasonable actions in that world, out of respect for the effort of the DM."

With blatant railroading without getting permission to do so, you broke away from some of your implied duties in the social contract... hence a breach of ethics.

RebelRogue
2011-11-17, 07:38 PM
But social agreements - spoken or unspoken - differ from group to group. Some groups are perfectly fine with being railroaded. In fact, I'd say that unless you're playing in a dedicated sandbox campaign, not following any of the DMs clues or rails if you will is equally bad behaviour.

Zeru the Dark
2011-11-17, 08:51 PM
OP, I'd say that you definitely handled that poorly. In the future, just roll with it; players with a stated goal of confusing the DM likely feel like they're winning if you have to obviously stop them like that. Instead, next time, just let them climb out, fight a bunch of orcs, and either win or lose accordingly. If they kill the orcs, good for them; they can find a bunch of orc-carved tablets made by the orc priests detailing just how much in people, gold, and gear the orcs tossed to the spider. If they don't want the loot, shame on them as adventurers.

Rejakor
2011-11-17, 09:07 PM
Going out of your way to avoid the DM's clues can be rude, but any DM relying on clues the players know is a DM clue needs to tighten up their game. It's trivially easy to get players to go the way you want to by seeming to point the other way. And if you have a problem with a player ignoring your hints because of in-character reasons, then you deserve to be taken out by the chemical sheds and shot.

The thing that's rude is showing up at the game and then not playing, by either having your character do stupid things 'for the lolz' (throwing gnome down the stairs, not so much, that could actually occur. Cutting your own throat or attacking the king who you are a knight of 'just cause', a bit more so), or sitting there distracting people with talk about your favourite TV show or something... while the DM is trying to do exposition. The reverse of this, when the DM will just never shut up or fails to create a versimilitudinous game, can also occur. That's more of an ineptitude thing, but generally seems to be caused by wilful blindness, so i'm still happy to call it rudeness.

Jayabalard
2011-11-18, 02:29 PM
Yes, it IS a bad thing. It's just that other things, like calculating realistic physics, are worse.

But sacrificing realism, in and of itself, is a bad thing.No, it's only subjectively bad, not objectively bad (the "in and of itself" implies that you mean it's objectively bad rather than just a preference). So if you like realism, then sacrificing realism is a bad thing. If that's not important to you, then it's not a bad thing.

For example, adding magic to a game sacrifices realism. Sacrificing realism to add magic to a game is not, in and of itself, a bad thing.

Characters having an "item of hammer space" where they can store anything and pull any arbitrary item out of with no in universe explanation sacrifices realism. Sacrificing realism to add such an "item of hammer space" is not, in and of itself, a bad thing.


It makes that particular problem not a choice. If the entire game lacks choices, it ceases to be much of a game. That is an extreme example of railroading, and obviously has worse consequences as a result, but taken to it's logical extreme, railroading ruins the game.That only shows that extremely excessive railroading to the point that the players literally have no choices ever is a bad thing, not that railroading itself is bad, or that having a single arbitrary situation here and there that has only one valid solution is bad in any way.

Jayabalard
2011-11-18, 02:48 PM
You ignored the main thrust of an argument in order to inflate what was essentially a figure of speech and treated that like it was the main argument.Not at all...

He said that having any situation with only a single solution is the same thing as railroading and that it's unfair; I disagree and pointed out that having a single solution is not always railroading, and asked him why he thought that having a single solution was unfair. I mean, if you're going to say X is bad, you should have some sort of reason, preferably a non-circular one.

He defended it by trying to pretend there's something actually unethical about having that sort of situation, and continuing to treat the two situations (railroading and any instance where there is a single valid solution) as exactly the same when they aren't with no explanation. He doesn't offer any other explanation, and I don't see anything unethical about railroading, so "it's unethical" isn't an valid explanation.

I don't agree that he meant it as a figure of speech, since he's defended it at least twice; though he's basically saying it's bad/unethical because it's not what he expects out of a game... and that doesn't make any sense. Not giving the players what they expect out of a game isn't unethical. Nor is there a good reason for him to assume that his expectations are the default expectations that everyone has.

There's no moral issue involved (at least that I see) in having a situation with only a single valid solution; it's a clear cut case of "I expected X but you didn't give it to me" ... there isn't anything unfair with having such a situation, nor is there anything unethical with that situation.


(which you then defeated with 'what is ethics?' which is seriously the weakest piece of crap argument)When you put something in quotes like that, you're implying that someone actually said that. I can't find a place where I say the text that you quoted; nor can I find anything like it... so I'm not really sure why you're attributing that to me. I have a feeling that that's just a kneejerk reaction; I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you misread one of my posts and actually think I said that, and that sparked the rest of your post.

dps
2011-11-19, 11:04 PM
Not at all...

He said that having any situation with only a single solution is the same thing as railroading and that it's unfair; I disagree and pointed out that having a single solution is not always railroading, and asked him why he thought that having a single solution was unfair. I mean, if you're going to say X is bad, you should have some sort of reason, preferably a non-circular one.


I don't think that a situation with only 1 solution is railroading if it's the result of previous choices the players have made. It doesn't seem like that was the case in what you described. Without more background, it's not clear that they got thrown into the pit as a result of choices that they had made in this case, but it doesn't sound like it to me. And besides, it turns out that there wasn't just one solution anyway, just one you didn't foresee. And I find it highly unfair that you didn't reward them for coming up with a solution you didn't expect.

Leon
2011-11-20, 03:20 AM
SHOULD

That word doesn't apply to PCs, they will always find a way around something and do what you don't expect.

Tiki Snakes
2011-11-20, 10:19 AM
One of my DM's has an anecdote that is relevant to this. He had a player, a relative, in his oWoD game who was prone to similarly suprising and often ill-advised direction changes and outbursts.

He cheated. Instead of trying to direct her through a carefully orchestrated series of encounters, he just let her go mental all over the place and had the NPC's react and plan accordingly. It took her over half a year of very frequent gaming (and some of her favourite sessions to date, apparently) before she realised that all he was doing was letting her cause her write her own problems to solve. It was great for him, because it meant much less writing needed for each session, all he really needed was a good grasp on what was around and what was going on and she provided all the drama and conflict the sessions needed.

Not having seen it, I can only imagine. But I would assume that the comparable direction to take would have been for the party to get to the top of the pit only to run into the Orcs who threw them in and have to deal with that. If they beat the orcs, then great, maybe they'll even find some clue as to why they might have been in the pit. But considering presumably the Orcs already beat them once, chances are they are forced to flee back down the hole? Alternatively, if the PC's are as prone to unexpected decisions and third-way thinking as you seem to fear, they may even have tried to reason with the Orcs.

That would have been not only amusing enough in its own right, but would be something worth encouraging with some secret-drops and moderate success regardless because so few PC's ever resort to such abhorrent tactics as discussing things rationally. :smallcool:

Serpentine
2011-11-21, 09:37 AM
When you put something in quotes like that, you're implying that someone actually said that. I can't find a place where I say the text that you quoted; nor can I find anything like it... so I'm not really sure why you're attributing that to me. I have a feeling that that's just a kneejerk reaction; I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you misread one of my posts and actually think I said that, and that sparked the rest of your post.Quotation marks don't just indicate direct quotations, but also paraphrasing, gists, "some people say..." type non-specific quotations, ironic paraphrasing, and other things. So no, he is not necessarily "implying that someone actually said [exactly] that", just that it was a thing generally being got at.
Also, Multiquote and Edit are your friends.

There's a quote I've seen around the place I quite like: "Railroading isn't saying "there is a wall here". It's saying "there is a wall everywhere but here." It's something I've been trying to keep in mind as a DM, both to avoid railroading and to stop worrying about railroading.
I would say that railroading, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. A DM can have a set path her players will take. However, obvious railroading is always a bad thing, or at the very least worse than subtle railroading. Party picks road B instead of road A? Well what do you know, it just happens to swing around to the exact same encounter already set up! What a coincidence! You totally chose to go this way and everything!
The situation in the OP? That was very obvious railroading. Worse than that, it was nonsensical both in and out of character. There was absolutely no reason why the characters wouldn't try to climb out again, and responding to that natural decision with "Oh gee, I didn't think of that... Well it goes on forever until it ends" is just silly.