The Nature of Railroading

[PhoenixPhyre]

Well, you've certainly presented me with something challenging to discuss.

Let me create what I think is an easier to discuss parallel:

GM: Bob, the friendly guard is at his post, and won't let you pass. What do you do?

Player: I kill him.

GM: you can't - I already ran him as alive tomorrow with my other group.

It doesn't matter the reason, if the GM is ignoring game physics or facts to force or prevent an outcome, it's railroading.

Now, if you get player buy-in / Participationism, you shouldn't reach that point, and it's just a linear adventure, or a... I'm not sure what to call what you've described. An adventure with linear components, perhaps?

But any time you reach the point where you are denying the players the agency to have the PCs take actions, or to have those actions have the logical consequences that they would through following game physics, then you are railroading.

The point is that the DM has the absolute right to establish setting facts, even surpassing the game rules. Now there's a sliding scale--at the level you countered with, sure. The right thing to do there is to do a timeline split and rejoin/canonicalize later (after the campaign). That was not the case for my groups, because they were separated by thousands of miles without any way of transport.

On the other hand, there's a well-established use of background elements. For Group 2, the Cataclysm was a background element, along with a war between Order and Chaos. Their characters had no way of knowing it was going to happen--no one did until it did happen (because of the effects of Group 1's actions).

So setting up backdrops that the party have no way of responding to is not railroading. Group 2's whole final scenario was them (a group of level 4-5 4e D&D characters), an army of "Order" and an army of "Chaos". The Chaos army was led by the literal physical incarnation of Change and Chaos itself, one of the initial beings who created everything. Effectively the heart of the Abyss made flesh. A being against whom even the gods were outmatched. There was not way for them to win this war. But they weren't supposed to win--that wasn't their job. Their job, and their meaningful choices, were about taking actions at the fringes of this war. Saving that person (or group), not this other person or group. Joining Chaos or not. Fighting to the bitter end or fleeing. As it turned out, about halfway through the session was when Group 1 initiated the Cataclysm (by doing something very predictable, but very stupid. Except it worked, so it wasn't stupid.) This locked both sides of the war down enough for a desperate plan (still in the background) to accept change into the natural order and end the war, at the cost of all the gods' lives. Group 2's last session then ended with them gathering survivors and rebuilding. They could have just fled, they could have chosen to take command (since the higher-ups were all killed), or many other outcomes. The war? The Cataclysm? Those are background elements that happen according to the needs of the story. And using them is not railroading. Agency does not have to be total to be agency--it's not a denial of agency to say that you can't do something impossible. And impossible is set by the narrative, not the rules (unless we choose to delegate).

The DM can introduce these background elements without warning the players and getting explicit buy-in--it's part of their job. The players don't get to look behind the screen and judge "did you set that up in advance?" That's the social contract of trust. Without trust, the whole thing falls apart. No set of rules can simulate the world and make it believable, not even in the slightest. No printed module can even slightly begin to give enough information to do an adequate job of this without railroading the players hard, because they can't predict all the possibilities.

[Jakinbandw]

So, the villain didn't have the Contingency until your deal with the player?

In this scenario, you got (blind) Participationism from the one player - he has no right to claim rails. The other players could technically call rails - you changed reality to cause an effect without their explicit approval / declaration of Participationism. It depends on the gaming culture of the table if one player had the right to trade away game physics like that (I suspect most tables would say "in silence, you are assumed to consent" - that is, since they did not object, they implicitly gave their consent to Participationism).

So, unless your table has an unusual social contract, it's "rails with permission". If this were ShadowRun, someone Teleporting is a Big Deal, and, were I at your table, I'd speak up. But, since, as you said, it worked with game lore, I might grumble about the social contract, or nudist Teleporters, or how two wrong rules don't make things right, or other such, but I wouldn't scream "Railroad!", and certainly wouldn't add this to my own personal GM horror stories.

Also, you happen to know that this wasn't your intended outcome, so, in that regard, you acted *against* the standard application of rails, by being open to things turning out differently than you had intended.

I did get buy in from all the players (only 3 of them) at the table before we went further. They were in unanimous agreement to let the guy do his special thing even if I gave the foe a boon in response.

In this case the player had a way of doing unsavable arbitrarily large damage. The players are young gods in this setting and they were facing a full npc god. One of the perks of being a god is that you get a limited use revive from death with half health and half power recovered. The book states that npc gods shouldn't have this as they are assumed to have burned it off screen. In this case I ruled that the npc god still had theirs remaining (it's why I said it was lore friendly). The PC's could have followed the npc god back to his home base, but they were low on power and knew that there were at least 2 other gods there, and decided to let combat end there (teleportation is common, but not cheap to accomplish).

I think the reason why I worry if this is railroading is that I set up for an epic confrontation between the players and the enemy god, and when a player found a way to bend the rules to autowin it, instead of letting the player have a permanent win, I rescheduled it for later in the campaign. The player did save their base, so their actions weren't wasted (I give a 50/50 chance of them winning if the fight had progressed normally), but I did make it so they will have to have a proper confrontation with the god later.

(The system I'm running is godbound. It's weird to describe it's exact power level, but you can build minions to be incredibly strong in the combat department. The godbound themselves tend to not be great at combat, but have the ability to alter the world, such as making economics function according to ideals instead of any real logic, or freezing time across an entire city and make it repeat the same day over and over again.)

[Pippa the Pixie]

But any time you reach the point where you are denying the players the agency to have the PCs take actions, or to have those actions have the logical consequences that they would through following game physics, then you are railroading.

Except your defination is: Unless the DM rolls over and lets the players do whatever they want: it's railroading.

You don't even have a game if the player characters just automataclly do everything. After all, the second anything happesn that one player even slightly dislikes, they will cry 'Railroad!' like a baby.

And at best you get the hostile player mini game: where the DM must bend over backwards all the time to 'prove' to the players that they are not railroading...in whatever way makes the players happy.

[Florian]

It doesn't matter the reason, if the GM is ignoring game physics or facts to force or prevent an outcome, it's railroading.

That will need a lot of variables to clarify. For example, I work under the assumption that the fictional reality of the setting (aka fluff) is what matters, with the rules system only being the interface to interact with that (and a communication tool to settle disputes). So even while spells, magic items and such are completely transparent on the rules side of things, its actual function, roots and whether there is an underlying magic theory/explanation are completely unknown at the level of the in-game reality.

One other factor is the power level we talk about for what is needed to actually enact certain changes. One system I regularly use, Splittermond, is at the same time high magic and low power, as in even the least commoner knows some helpful spells and even what we generally consider to be mundane classes will learn magic to raise their ceiling above what is possible for the unenhanced, but overall, what is possible sticks to what is physically possible, only enhanced a bit. So Fly? Yes. Teleport? No. Locate Portal? Yes. Plane Shift? No. And because I know your special Schtick with Quertus, creating tailor-made spells to self certain situations is definitely out.

Going back to the setting I mentioned because how magic works, the last example is how the gods functions, because I know you love that topic. The lowest rung are something like "Hero Deities" or "Spirits", the first being regular humans/whatever that managed to obtain a divine spark and grant a bit of spells to followers. That could be some Ranger 5, living in a temple. Go over and knock him out, no one cares. Spirits are the spiritual embodiment of places and such. Kill the spirit of the river Rhine and slowly but surely, this river fill decline and vanish over time, because you destroyed the concept of it. This is an example for mystical reality overwriting laws of physics. The highest deities on the rungs just... are. Pharasma is death, fate and life, Groetus is the inevitable end of the multiverse, Asmodeus is the unyielding law of Hell. Unlike something like an Empyreal Lord, Duke of Hell or Great Old One, those do not have a physical form, personal realm, direct interaction with anything (beyond allegories), need for worship, because they are the direct embodiment of the reality. When it comes to them, no matter what you want or do, no matter how high you level or how many Mythic ranks you amass, it doesn't matter, like, at all.


I think the reason why I worry if this is railroading is that I set up for an epic confrontation between the players and the enemy god, and when a player found a way to bend the rules to autowin it, instead of letting the player have a permanent win, I rescheduled it for later in the campaign. The player did save their base, so their actions weren't wasted (I give a 50/50 chance of them winning if the fight had progressed normally), but I did make it so they will have to have a proper confrontation with the god later.

Basically, you created what we commonly know as a "set-piece battle". In a way, that's the combination of a regular combat encounter with a puzzle, because there are additional variables beyond regular combat/tactical abilities to keep in mind. Your player requested to "game the rules" to circumvent that, your counter-proposal was to make this a two-sided affair and delay for a re-match. Fair deal, no railroading here.


Except your defination is: Unless the DM rolls over and lets the players do whatever they want: it's railroading.

Or, to put this a bit into perspective: Quertus seems to often work under the assumption that RAW is the game, all participants needs to know the RAW by heart/rote and whoever knows the RAW best for a given situation, or can find the most favorable interpretation of the RAW "wins". As in, the sheer existence of a spell like "Teleport Thru Time" enables you to invalidate anything that happened, especially in one of the rare cases of a shared game world.

[Quertus]

Those are background elements that happen according to the needs of the story. And using them is not railroading. Agency does not have to be total to be agency--it's not a denial of agency to say that you can't do something impossible. And impossible is set by the narrative, not the rules (unless we choose to delegate).

See, you say a lot of things I would agree with, then you say things like this. I don't care what "the narrative" or "the story" says, if I've got LoS to an event, and I make the necessary perception / comprehension rolls, I should understand it, and potentially be able to interact with it.

Agency does not need to be omnipotence, no. But Agency should be set by the rules / the physics, not the narrative - otherwise, we're in rails territory.


I did get buy in from all the players (only 3 of them)

The system I'm running is godbound.

Ah, I was responding to the singular "player" in your initial description.

Also, not familiar with godbound - I'll have to check it out.


Except your defination is: Unless the DM rolls over and lets the players do whatever they want: it's railroading.

Um, no? My definition - and I think I've even explicitly stated it in this thread - is that railroading involves ignoring game physics or changing game state to cause or prevent an outcome.


Or, to put this a bit into perspective: Quertus seems to often work under the assumption that RAW is the game, all participants needs to know the RAW by heart/rote and whoever knows the RAW best for a given situation, or can find the most favorable interpretation of the RAW "wins". As in, the sheer existence of a spell like "Teleport Thru Time" enables you to invalidate anything that happened, especially in one of the rare cases of a shared game world.

Again, no? Yes, the rules are the game. True for Chess, or Monopoly, or RPGs. Of course, at least Monopoly and RPGs are known to have house rules, rules addendums, etc, so, the game is the rules, not the game is RAW. Idiots who try to move the pawn three spaces diagonally should get slapped down by people who actually know the rules, yes. Because you play by the rules, or you are disruptive, and get kicked out.


That will need a lot of variables to clarify. For example, I work under the assumption that the fictional reality of the setting (aka fluff) is what matters, with the rules system only being the interface to interact with that (and a communication tool to settle disputes). So even while spells, magic items and such are completely transparent on the rules side of things, its actual function, roots and whether there is an underlying magic theory/explanation are completely unknown at the level of the in-game reality.

One other factor is the power level we talk about for what is needed to actually enact certain changes. One system I regularly use, Splittermond, is at the same time high magic and low power, as in even the least commoner knows some helpful spells and even what we generally consider to be mundane classes will learn magic to raise their ceiling above what is possible for the unenhanced, but overall, what is possible sticks to what is physically possible, only enhanced a bit. So Fly? Yes. Teleport? No. Locate Portal? Yes. Plane Shift? No. And because I know your special Schtick with Quertus, creating tailor-made spells to self certain situations is definitely out.

Going back to the setting I mentioned because how magic works, the last example is how the gods functions, because I know you love that topic. The lowest rung are something like "Hero Deities" or "Spirits", the first being regular humans/whatever that managed to obtain a divine spark and grant a bit of spells to followers. That could be some Ranger 5, living in a temple. Go over and knock him out, no one cares. Spirits are the spiritual embodiment of places and such. Kill the spirit of the river Rhine and slowly but surely, this river fill decline and vanish over time, because you destroyed the concept of it. This is an example for mystical reality overwriting laws of physics. The highest deities on the rungs just... are. Pharasma is death, fate and life, Groetus is the inevitable end of the multiverse, Asmodeus is the unyielding law of Hell. Unlike something like an Empyreal Lord, Duke of Hell or Great Old One, those do not have a physical form, personal realm, direct interaction with anything (beyond allegories), need for worship, because they are the direct embodiment of the reality. When it comes to them, no matter what you want or do, no matter how high you level or how many Mythic ranks you amass, it doesn't matter, like, at all.

"it doesn't matter, like, at all." - If other beings don't matter, why are you playing those? Wouldn't it be more fun to play the beings that matter in a setting?

"And because I know your special Schtick with Quertus, creating tailor-made spells to self certain situations is definitely out." - I mean, any of my characters with a sufficient... hmmm... intellect & creativity, and the resources to do so, will create custom spells. Quertus (my signature academia mage, for whom this account is named) just happens to have a lot of all three (well, some would debate his "creativity"...). So I don't think it's quite accurate to call it Quertus' special shtick. Just a property of any well-characterized character - even Melf, Bigsby, Rary, Mordenkainen, and company invented their own custom spells, how lame do the PCs have to be to not do so? Should the PCs really aim to be more generic than someone teased as "Male Elf"?

That out of the way, what interested me most about this particular quote was your use of the word "definitely" - why is it definitely out? What about Spittermond finds creativity and characterization anathema?

"the rules system only being the interface to interact with that (and a communication tool to settle disputes" - The rules system is the only interface between the players and the game world. (Mal's voice) And that makes it mighty.

So, what still needs clarification here? I feel "It doesn't matter the reason, if the GM is ignoring game physics or facts to force or prevent an outcome, it's railroading" is pretty clear.

[King of Nowhere]

Since we're talking about railroading, I'm curious as to how you would judge a key episode of my campaign, where I did railroad an outcome.

Premise: 700 years ago, the lich Cemandrion, high priest of vecna, decided that his god would get more prayer if he was more palatable to the masses. So he started some major reforms that brought the cult of vecna from a bunch of thugs hiding in basements to one of the most popular religions on the planet. Using its portfolio of secrets, the church pushed for progress, research and education - at reasonable rates - and ushered in a period of progress and prosperity.
Cemandrion had deeper plans. He knew he needed to suck five million souls with a ritual to become a god, and the subsistence agriculture of the time could not support such a population. So he kickstarted the technological advancements needed for it (I quite like the subversion of a villain bringing peace of prosperity as a step along his villainous plan).
In the meanwhile, he started to select the most loial and powerful of his followers to help them become liches and be ready, one day, to take over the world.

Flash forward to present, Cemandrion is ready for his ritual. using the sterling reputation he gained along the centuries, he had built a major cathedral in the heart of one of the world's bigger cities (the one that the pcs are using as base), with a subterranean stronghold underneath. inside it, he has set up the apparatus for the ritual. he helped sponsor and organize a major fair in the city that would attract more people. knowing the pcs are the only ones that could twarth his scheme, he even set up an event on the other side of the city to keep them away from him, but that particular plot failed for logistic accidents.

At the time the ritual started, the party was near the vecna cathedral. they saw the sky turn purple, and they felt the tug of a death spell on their souls. they saw people whrite in agony and die near them, but being high level, they were able to shrug it off for a time.
I had them notice a few details:
- teleportation has been disabled in the city
- the death effect is stronger closer to the cathedral
- the death effect also disables golems and undead.
I also informed them that the sword of the party barbarian is the only artifact weapon in the city that is powerful enough to keep working in the powerful antimagic that protects the stronghold perimeter, and it could hack through the thick metal doors in a few minutes; their characters were confident they could hold off the death effect for long enough.
this meant that Cemandrion had to be alone, the stronghold defences disabled by his own ritual. running away was actually an option (they have a dragon companion that could fly fast enough to escape), but i was certain they would fight.
Long story short, they broke into the disabled stronghold and had a big climatic fight with Cemandrion.

Now, the railroading part. I always knew that I wanted this event to only be a setup for the major plot that would follow later, i.e. the church of vecna (and its allies) tries to take over the world, and the pcs are the only ones strong enough to stop it. So I decided that during the fighting the ritual, out of control, would fizzle and suffuse everyone with the divine energy thus far gathered. it would resurrect all the fallen, it would give everyone a hefty stat boost and some flashy unique powers, and the villain would then retreat, whether he was winning or losing; his unique powers would be some of the minor powers of a demilich (only the minor powers, a full demilich is way above the power level of my cammpaign, especially if Cemandrion is the base creature for the template) and the capacity to dissolve most antimagic fields touching him as a free action. So even if he was grappled, silenced and dimensionally anchored in an antimagic field, he still had the means to dissolve the antimagic, cast still silent disjunction on himself to remove the dimensional anchor, and quickened teleport (which he had from tattoos) away.
I actually expected the players to lose, since cemandrion uses to open the fight with disjunction and quickened banshee's wail, both with a DC of 36. with some clever use of contingency, counterspelling and antimagic fields, though, the party managed to win the fight.
So, once they won I activated the cutscene of the ritual fizzling and everything went according to my plan.
After the fact, I was upfront with my players and told them that this would have been the outcome in any case. the only difference is the stat boost reward: I had decided on +2 to all stats if they were curbstomped, +4 if they lost after a hard fight, +6 if they won. They got a +6, cemandrion got a +2. He's still the main boss, and still the single most powerful humanoid in my campaign world, but he's no longer a credible threat for the party without significant help.

The players liked it a lot. Partly because I threw a good surprise at them that doubled as a wham episode for the whole campaign, partly because it set up a cool plot, partly because I had this idea in my mind for a while and I was able to describe it very viscerally. partly because they were able to face the most powerful humanoid npc of the campaign world. Partly because they got an untyped +6 to all stats, certainly.
And their previous actions definitely mattered. the party's previous exploits ensured them many allies that I had initially assumed would help vecna instead; and they gained the enmitiy of a few potential allies. now, as the strongest people left on the side of good (during the ritual, the aforementioned liches struck all around the world to capture/soul-bind many powerful good individuals preemptively; due to the period of peace and prosperity, security was a bit lax), they are leading the effforts of the free world against vecna at their leisure.

Anyway, I railroaded. I didn't technically violate the in-world physics, but as all the ritual and powers are homebrew, I made them to ensure the result I wanted. I set up an encounter with a predetermined outcome. I set up the ritual and the stronghold and the church of vecna's reputation so that it was practically impossible for anyone to discover them in advance.

So, if anyone had taken the time to read through this long story, I'd like to know how you would have reacted as a player.

[Gallowglass]

Since we're talking about railroading, I'm curious as to how you would judge a key episode of my campaign, where I did railroad an outcome.

...yada yada yada...

So, if anyone had taken the time to read through this long story, I'd like to know how you would have reacted as a player.

Yeah, you railroaded. I don't see anyway to define that other than railroading. You knew how it was going to come out and you enacted that regardless of any agency the players had or anything they could do.

How would I react? That's a tough question. I've played in plenty of games with railroaded outcomes and enjoyed myself because the DM was good, the game was clever and interesting and the STORY was fun. I am a player that enjoys the story. And stories are sometimes better if you aren't making it up as you go along and have recurring bad guys.

I've also been in plenty of games with railroaded outcomes and resented and got pissy about it. Why? Because the DM was NOT good, the game was NOT clever or interesting and the STORY was lame. I am a player that enjoys the story. And stories sometimes suck when you refuse to make it up as you go along and have bad guys that you just can't ****ing kill.

As long as your players legitimately enjoyed themselves you don't have a problem. railroad away. Just make sure that the players ARE really enjoying themselves and you aren't lying to yourself about it.

Because every single DM who falls into that second category are NEVER aware of it. They ALWAYS think that "the players love my game, I'm doing great, I'm so clever, I'm so good, I'm so amazing at this!" And they are categorically incapable of any self-realization about the fallacy of their belief.

DM: "Hey guys, so I totally was going to make it end that way regardless of what you did. Are you guys having fun?"

Players: *Sideline glances at each other* *disconsolate plunking of dice* "I mean.... yeah.... I guess...."

That one player who wants to preserve everyone's feelings: "Oh yeah, it was great! So cool how you did that thing... with that thing..."

DM: "I knew it! I'm so awesome at this!"

And the other thing I would ask you to think is, what could it have been like if I HADN'T decided how that was going to end? If I legitimately gave the PCs agency and legitimately left the story in their hands? Based on your description it would've ended with a super-cool win for the PCs where -they- saved the world, rather than the world just happening to be okay despite them. Where THEY beat the bad guy and he stayed beat so you would have to bring in a NEW bad guy instead of using the old bad guy. Or it could've ended with the players LOSING, the world descending into Vecna's darkness and the PCs who survived having to go on a quest to undo the damage or save as many people as they could. Also cool. Also fun.

I think it could've been better and more fun. Because rather than telling a story to your friends and letting them throw some dice and limited interaction, you'd be telling a story WITH your friends and equals in the narrative outcome.

That's all the anti-railroaders want you to consider. what -if- I did it a different way? Would it be worse or would it be better?

also, reading between the lines of your post, between your "immune to anit-magic, able to cast quickened teleport, DC 36 banshee wail/disjunction" super villain (which makes it seem pretty disingenuous when following "a dem-ilich is too powerful for my campaign") I don't think I would've enjoyed your game. I hate villains who have a counter for everything and "can't be beaten no matter what". They are boring and wasting hours fighting them is pointless and futile and it feels like it. When every clever tactic I bring up ends up with "oh no, he totally has a counter for that. ha ha, he's so awesome" But that's just a gut reaction, I have never played with you so maybe it didn't feel like that to your players. *shrug*

[King of Nowhere]

And the other thing I would ask you to think is, what could it have been like if I HADN'T decided how that was going to end?

I think you mistook that part. This was not an end. This was a beginning.
The real plot will be them trying to stop vecna's forces. the ritual was a way to introduce that plot.

which is why i let myself railroad it. I would not railroad the way the players are fighting against him.



also, reading between the lines of your post, between your "immune to anit-magic, able to cast quickened teleport, DC 36 banshee wail/disjunction" super villain (which makes it seem pretty disingenuous when following "a dem-ilich is too powerful for my campaign") I don't think I would've enjoyed your game. I hate villains who have a counter for everything and "can't be beaten no matter what". They are boring and wasting hours fighting them is pointless and futile and it feels like it. When every clever tactic I bring up ends up with "oh no, he totally has a counter for that. ha ha, he's so awesome" But that's just a gut reaction, I have never played with you so maybe it didn't feel like that to your players. *shrug*
my players have as much cheese as this guy. Especially now that they got divine bonuses. I don't think any of them has AC below 50. the rogue had +20odd to will save and it's probably the crappiest save of all the party. For most of the party, getting a 36 isn't difficult. The wizard has 250 hp. the rogue is permanently surrounded by fog and darkness he can see through. the cleric can decide to ignore a bad thing happening to him - ANY bad thing - twice a day. I could go on for a while.
the campaign is level 18, optimization is low, but magic available is considerably above wbl, every pc acquired some powerful artifact along the way, and now +6 too all stats. we have high numbers. a villain with save DC 36 is the bare minimum I need to challenge them. In fact, once they defeat this guy, I only have a couple more villains to throw at them before they exhaust the list of people that can be a serious challenge to them. Then the campaign will end, I think.
So a regular demilich out of the srd would not be too powerful. In fact, most members of the party could curbstomp one alone. however, slapping the demilich template on a villain that has already AC 50 and giving him another +20, giving +10 to all mental stats to a guy who already has 30-45-31 and then adding a cha-based save or die with no immunity, that would be too much.

[Pippa the Pixie]

So, what still needs clarification here? I feel "It doesn't matter the reason, if the GM is ignoring game physics or facts to force or prevent an outcome, it's railroading" is pretty clear.

Can you clarify such a vague statment?

What is the game physics anyway? Is there a game that does not mostly use ''real world" physics, with some game rules for a couple set things?

What is even a ''fact"? Or a ''game fact"?

You talk a lot about rules....but rules only cover like 5% of an RPG...and mostly combat at that.

Like lets take a typical ''no rules" railroad example: the DM makes a Tower of Traps, and whats the player characters to go through it.

So you have:

Crude Railroading: DM-"Ok guy every other way anywhere is blocked by..um..stuff...so your charcters can only go South to a......Tower!

Clumsy Railroading: DM-"Um, the whole East is flooded...and Um, the whole north is lit by a forest fire and um, um, um, West there is an uncrossable wall...so, um, your characters go south....to a Tower!"

Quantum Rairoading-"Ok..your characters head across the grasslands......and see a Tower!" (it's amazingly ANY direction the players pick to go)

Bait Railroading-"Yup, your fathers sword, the book of all spells, the holy orb and the ring of many wishes are ALL, amazingly, just to the south....in a Tower."

Awesome Railroading-It's just like a typical game...but the players are railroading along a most railroads of railroads: but don't even know it...and will likey think they have super agency or whatever else they want to think.

Ok, note how there are no ''rules", or ''facts" or ''game physics" or anything like that in any of the above examples.

All are railroading...to a third party that can see/know all. But each is only ''really" railroading In the game....if a player whines and cries about it like a baby.

[Quertus]

if the GM is ignoring game physics or facts to force or prevent an outcome, it's railroading.


Can you clarify such a vague statment?

No, this is not a "vague" statement, this is an "absolute" statement, of the type only Sith Lords make.


What is the game physics anyway?

Pawns only move forward one space, or two unobstructed spaces on their first activation, or capture one space to either forward diagonal. That's game physics.


What is even a ''fact"? Or a ''game fact"?

I'm not really sure how to clarify the confusion here. Some Playgrounders focus on "established" facts. I feel that this ignores the effect that supposedly "unestablished" facts have on the consistency of the world. So, a fact is like an "established fact", except without the necessity of having been perceived as "established".


You talk a lot about rules....but rules only cover like 5% of an RPG...and mostly combat at that.

And (one form of) railroading involves the GM ignoring those rules.


Like lets take a typical ''no rules" railroad example: the DM makes a Tower of Traps, and whats the player characters to go through it.

Yes, rails first form in the GM's head, when they want something, without getting explicit buy-in.


Ok, note how there are no ''rules", or ''facts" or ''game physics" or anything like that in any of the above examples.

Because you are looking at the problem wrong. Or, at the very least, in a way that isn't conducive to seeing the things necessary to have that conversation.


All are railroading...to a third party that can see/know all. But each is only ''really" railroading In the game....if a player whines and cries about it like a baby.

No. If I murder someone, they're just as dead, whether someone finds the body or not, whether someone misses them or not, whether someone cries like a baby or not.

Whether railroading is perceived is utterly irrelevant to whether or not it has occurred.

[Thrawn4]

Ok, note how there are no ''rules", or ''facts" or ''game physics" or anything like that in any of the above examples.

All are railroading...to a third party that can see/know all. But each is only ''really" railroading In the game....if a player whines and cries about it like a baby.

Which makes these examples unsuited to explain railroading. Railroading means that established facts are warped or outright ignored to achieve a certain outcome. Whether or not players complain is irrelevant, although some players might not mind railroading all that much.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Pawns only move forward one space, or two unobstructed spaces on their first activation, or capture one space to either forward diagonal. That's game physics.

So, what would an RPG example be?



Yes, rails first form in the GM's head, when they want something, without getting explicit buy-in.

I feel like this is something Other then Railroading. To say the DM must get player buy in for everything is not railroading.



Whether railroading is perceived is utterly irrelevant to whether or not it has occurred.

Not in a game though.


Which makes these examples unsuited to explain railroading. Railroading means that established facts are warped or outright ignored to achieve a certain outcome. Whether or not players complain is irrelevant, although some players might not mind railroading all that much.


Again this brings the question of what ''is'' a fact?

And what can be changed, warped or ignored....and what can not be?

There is all most nothing that can't be changed, and this is even more so true in fantasy.

And if the players don't complain....or even know....then it does not matter, right?

[Quertus]

So, what would an RPG example be?

Boccob has a +127* bonus to Spellcraft. Skill checks are handled by rolling a d20, and adding the bonus. Intermediate+ gods have a special rule that overrides the general rule, and count as having rolled a 20. So Boccob always gets a 147 on Spellcraft checks.

There are rules for calculating the DC to recognize a spell. Determining whether Boccob recognizes a spell or not followes game physics by following those rules.

If the GM decides that they want recognizing this particular spell to be a tense game moment, and replaces those rules with a coin flip, then they have ignored game physics.

* Although, from his stats, I don't see how, so this itself may be a typo, or may break game physics.


I feel like this is something Other then Railroading. To say the DM must get player buy in for everything is not railroading.

I really need to come up with better words to explain this idea. "Where do babies come from? When a Mommy and a Daddy love each other very much..."

Where does railroading come from? It comes from the existence of rails. Where do rails come from? They come from the GM wanting something.

Where does photosynthesis come from? It comes from plants processing sunlight.

So photosynthesis is sunlight? So photosynthesis is the sun? No. But understanding the sun's role in the process is part of understanding photosynthesis. Understanding the role of the GM wanting something (and not getting explicit buy-in) is part of understanding the nature of railroading.


Not in a game though.

And if the players don't complain....or even know....then it does not matter, right?

Wrong. Photosynthesis occurs whether anyone notices or not, a murder is still a murder whether or not anyone complains, whether or not the murderer gets away with it. Railroading is equally defined by what it is, not by perception.

[Pippa the Pixie]

There are rules for calculating the DC to recognize a spell. Determining whether Boccob recognizes a spell or not followes game physics by following those rules.

If the GM decides that they want recognizing this particular spell to be a tense game moment, and replaces those rules with a coin flip, then they have ignored game physics.

So by ''game physics" your talking only about "game rules".

Like what if the DM gets the ''tense game moment" by simply having Boccob NOT seeing or hearing the spell’s verbal or somatic components?



I really need to come up with better words to explain this idea. "Where do babies come from? When a Mommy and a Daddy love each other very much..."

Where does railroading come from? It comes from the existence of rails. Where do rails come from? They come from the GM wanting something.

Where does photosynthesis come from? It comes from plants processing sunlight.

Ok....but all your examples are only 100% true in our reality. Once you enter the realm of fiction: anything goes.




So photosynthesis is sunlight? So photosynthesis is the sun? No. But understanding the sun's role in the process is part of understanding photosynthesis. Understanding the role of the GM wanting something (and not getting explicit buy-in) is part of understanding the nature of railroading.

So are you altering your defination of railroading to ''if the DM wants anything: it's railroading". It sounds a bit like you are.

I guess your ideal DM would be a passive done servant that just did whatever the players demanded.




Wrong. Photosynthesis occurs whether anyone notices or not, a murder is still a murder whether or not anyone complains, whether or not the murderer gets away with it. Railroading is equally defined by what it is, not by perception.

Yea.....but not really.

The players have a fun game. During the game, none of the hostile players notice the DM ''wanting anything" and at no time do they cry ''railroading".

The players are all happy as clams, deluding themselves into thinking they just did collaborative player emergent game(with that DM servant firmly in check).

So...unknown to the players, the DM did railroad them All the Live Long Day.

The players are busy high fiving themselves at how awesome the game THEY...only the players...made up out of thin air, without that dumb DM ''wanting stuff".

So....if the DM just sits back and smiles....and never tells them the truth. Was there really ever any railroading in the game?

Like sure if there was an NSA spy van outside spying on the game...and all the agents were RPG folks...then sure they...might...see the railroading and know it was done. But still the players will never, ever know.

So...if the players never know....then it really does not matter ''if" something was done or not....as the players will never know anyway.

[OldTrees1]

So...unknown to the players, the DM did railroad them All the Live Long Day.

-snip-

So....if the DM just sits back and smiles....and never tells them the truth. Was there really ever any railroading in the game?


Yes. You even admitted there was railroading in that example. See above quote.



So...if the players never know....then it really does not matter ''if" something was done or not....as the players will never know anyway.

I disagree. If someone does ______ to you without your knowledge, they still did _______ to you. Reality exists independent of your knowledge of reality. This fact is also built into societal conventions and rules.

For example, if a person breaks a ban but no mod notices, did they actually break a ban? Yes, they did. Does it matter? Yes, the forum cares about the violation even before they learn of the violation.

[Quertus]

So by ''game physics" your talking only about "game rules".

Hmmm... I'll have to say "no". But game rules are a subset of game physics.


Like what if the DM gets the ''tense game moment" by simply having Boccob NOT seeing or hearing the spell’s verbal or somatic components?

There are rules governing what Boccob perceives. A GM ignoring those rules is still violating game physics.


So are you altering your defination of railroading to ''if the DM wants anything: it's railroading". It sounds a bit like you are.

Sounds? Maybe. You're not the first to think so. So this isn't the first time (in this very thread, my senile self believes) that I've said no, I'm discussing the nature of railroading, the roots of railroading, not the definition of railroading.

The GM wanting something is the dark magic that allows rails to form in their mind. The party taking actions is the white magic that can produce actions whose "logical" outcome from following game physics would produce a result that runs counter to the GM's desires. It is in this clash of light and dark magics that some GMs fall to the dark side of railroading, and choose to ignore game physics to invalidate the players' actions, whereas other GMs rise above their petty desires and follow game physics.

Biased? Me? Nonsense! :smallwink:

[Xuc Xac]

It's not just the GM wanting "something" that leads to railroading. If the GM wants to have an impartial world that treats the PCs like any other characters, that desire won't lead to railroading. Railroading comes from the GM wanting to see a particular outcome and then forcing it to happen by negating player actions or random chance events.

GM: I want the Duke to be a challenging opponent who can trade blows in melee with the PCs for a while, so I'm going to give him a magic sword, heavy armor, and 40 hp...
*PC archers roll a bunch of crits to bullseye the Duke's eye socket for 42 points of damage in the first round*
GM: ...and an amulet of "protection from arrows" so he can't be shot.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Hmmm... I'll have to say "no". But game rules are a subset of game physics.
There are rules governing what Boccob perceives. A GM ignoring those rules is still violating game physics.

So there are unknown game physics, that players....and only players...can suddenly ''know" and use as a hostile attack on the DM for anything the DM does that the player does not like.

Seems to be a long winded way of saying: Railroading is just a player complaining about whatever they did not like that the DM did.



The GM wanting something is the dark magic that allows rails to form in their mind. The party taking actions is the white magic that can produce actions whose "logical" outcome from following game physics would produce a result that runs counter to the GM's desires. It is in this clash of light and dark magics that some GMs fall to the dark side of railroading, and choose to ignore game physics to invalidate the players' actions, whereas other GMs rise above their petty desires and follow game physics.



It is amazing how dark and bias this is: any DM that ''wants" anything is allways wrong. All the bad DMs should just be servants to the players and do whatever the players want.

I do wonder why players wanting things is not a dark and evil road though? Why not? Should not the same ''have no wants"apply to the players?

And what about DMs doing things ''inside" of whatever you want to call ''game physics": that is all ok, right? Even if you personaly don't like it? As long as the DM can say ''look I jumpped through your game physics hoop just like you wanted and did my action"; you'd be ''ok"?






GM: I want the Duke to be a challenging opponent who can trade blows in melee with the PCs for a while, so I'm going to give him a magic sword, heavy armor, and 40 hp...
*PC archers roll a bunch of crits to bullseye the Duke's eye socket for 42 points of damage in the first round*
GM: ...and an amulet of "protection from arrows" so he can't be shot.

See the above is either Clumsy Railroading or even more simply a bad or new DM.

At the most basic, any ''tough challenging opponet" should have plenty of common sense protections. So a good DM will add in things like ''protection from arrows".

But in the bigger pitcure: it does not matter. The DM wanted Duke A to be great...and the players ruin that plan. Ok. So what? It does not matter.

The DM can just roll out Duke B to Z, until it happens. Or bring up Baron A. Or Lord C. Or maybe drop in a Earth element warbeast rhino.

[King of Nowhere]

Regarding the duke example, while "immunity to arrows" is a dickish move because it negates a player ability, giving him some more protection retroactively could be a good thing to do.

A major villain is a lot of investment both for the DM and the players. A well-crafted major villain will make for a great story. Losing the villain because of lucky rolls is just like losing a character for unlucky dice rolls: a waste.
As a player, I prefer to interact with my villains a bit more. one-shotting them is unsatisfying.

there was this guy who had opposed us for almost a year of real life time, by manipulating events and stuff. And finally we found him in the final room of the dungeon, where he was looking for the same prize we did. And he had his own adventuring party.
there was a gnoll ranger with trained falcons. my monk tripped and stunned him, then got a full attack and killed.
there was a doppleganger cleric. he got hit by an empowered disintegrate and failed his saving throw.
there was a wizard of some sort. the fighter charged him with full power attack and dispatched him in the first round.
None of them got a chance to act at all. And ok, hooray for us for setting a good ambush, but we lost so much. I still wonder; what kind of story tied a gnoll ranger and a doppleganger cleric and a human bard together? who were his companions? what could they actually do? I regret that I didn't spend more time with those villains.

Nobody complains when the DM railroads to save a character when resurrection is not an option, because it would suck. Wouldn't a well-crafted villain deserve a similar consideration, as long as it does not deprive players of their agency? Railroading got a bad reputation for bad DM using it to screw the players, but it is fine if it is used to make fun for everyone.

then there is also the schroedinger railroading variation: the duke is dead, now the big bad is the suspiciously similar baron.

[Kaptin Keen]

Yes. You even admitted there was railroading in that example. See above quote.

I disagree. If someone does ______ to you without your knowledge, they still did _______ to you. Reality exists independent of your knowledge of reality. This fact is also built into societal conventions and rules.

For example, if a person breaks a ban but no mod notices, did they actually break a ban? Yes, they did. Does it matter? Yes, the forum cares about the violation even before they learn of the violation.

Dunno what you got wrong here - but these are not things I've said. You put my name to someone else's posts.

[OldTrees1]

Dunno what you got wrong here - but these are not things I've said. You put my name to someone else's posts.

Thank you for catching that. I was quoting the post immediately above me and the forum snagged a link to your post but the text of their post instead. Thank you for letting me correct that error.

[kyoryu]

The GM wanting something is the dark magic that allows rails to form in their mind.

I don't think it's useful to say that, any more than saying "breathing is what leads to murder". I mean, yes, it's true, but most people that breathe don't murder, and it's not something you actually want to stop.

GMs *should* want things, and that's okay.

What leads to railroading is GMs not being willing to accept that they don't get what they want, in part or in whole.

[That House]

That’s not railroading, that’s a cool plot hook. :smallsmile:

Don't know if someone’s already said this (I didn’t read the whole thread), but railroading would be just saying “You guys fall in.” If something like that happened, I’d call BS, but your way is way better, makes sense, and fulfilled its purpose.

Another example of railroading is our DM didn’t want our party building a boat, so he said the island we were on had no wood or other resources or food supplies, ignoring the consequences to the colossal city living there, making their odds of survival about nil. That’s railroading. Having a giant chuck the party off a cliff? Way better. :smallamused:

[Quertus]

I don't think it's useful to say that, any more than saying "breathing is what leads to murder". I mean, yes, it's true, but most people that breathe don't murder, and it's not something you actually want to stop.

GMs *should* want things, and that's okay.

What leads to railroading is GMs not being willing to accept that they don't get what they want, in part or in whole.

Well, for murder to occur, the *target* must be breathing. Murdering corpses doesn't count. :smallwink:

To my mind, the easiest and most successful way for a GM to keep from railroading, or from even having their desires subtly influencing the game, is to stop rails at the first beachhead, and choose not to want anything.

Regardless of whether that opinion is considered "a good idea" by anybody else,

A) it's how I evaluate things;

B) I'd not heard others saying it before, so it seemed appropriate to mention in a "nature of railroading" thread;

C) I've not heard anyone successfully contend that my understanding of rails and railroading is wrong*.

So, afaict, "the nature of railroading" is when one of the GM's desires comes into conflict with following game physics / facts, and the GM chooses to ignore game physics / facts in favor of this other consideration.

So the existence of "other considerations" seems quite central to railroading, IMO.

So, how are we saying different things? Because it sounds, to me, like we're not.

* Although, sure, the trivial case of the GM wanting to "run the game honest" probably doesn't produce rails. But any other desire could find itself opposed to an honest depiction of game mechanics / facts. And, thus, any other desire could result in the GM railroading.

[King of Nowhere]

I don't think it's useful to say that, any more than saying "breathing is what leads to murder". I mean, yes, it's true, but most people that breathe don't murder, and it's not something you actually want to stop.

GMs *should* want things, and that's okay.

What leads to railroading is GMs not being willing to accept that they don't get what they want, in part or in whole.

I think this best sums up the question




C) I've not heard anyone successfully contend that my understanding of rails and railroading is wrong*.

So, afaict, "the nature of railroading" is when one of the GM's desires comes into conflict with following game physics / facts, and the GM chooses to ignore game physics / facts in favor of this other consideration.

This argument is contradictory.
First it says that railroading stems from the DM wanting something.
then it says that railroading is when the DM ignores established in-game physics.
those are two very different statements and can't both be held true. Ok, the DM warps physics because he wants something in the first place, but it doesn't necessarily follow. kyoryu has the best retort with breathing and murdering there. just because the DM wants something to happen, it does not mean the dm will railroad.

another flaw of this definition is that there are plenty of ways to railroad without violating any established physics. Have a high level npc put a geas on them. have them dominated. create events such that they unfold in a certain way. sure, the players may get out of those rails with plenty of effort, but it's very unlikely.
it's the "valley" metaphor I used a few pages back: instead of hard rails, you have soft obstacles that tend to push the players towards the valley the more they try to get away with it. And all those obstacles are perfectly justified in-world.
I would say, in fact, that yoou cannot give an exact definition of railroad, because it's impossible to establish a specific point where the DM setting up events with the expectation that they will lead in a certain direction stops being worldbuilding and becomes railroading. Like the gray between white and black.

one last thing: when DMing, I have to put lot of effort into the game. I have to make worldbuilding, plot hooks, I have to plan encounters, create in-world documents. If I have to build up all this sandbox only for the players to smash through it while I watch, I'm not interested. If I am not allowed to want something out of the campaign, then I'm not going to bother investing all the energy into it.

[NichG]

Again, most of this is tangled up in the emotional attachments to the word 'railroading'. If you don't see railroading as inherently bad, there's nothing particularly standing in the way from following Quertus' argument. You can in fact maintain that perspective even if Quertus is making their argument from a strong 'railroading is always bad and I hate it!' perspective.

The objection to Quertus' argument isn't 'I can't think of wanting things to be bad GM-ing, so I have to find a reason to object to the logic'. That way lies very convoluted semantic arguments. On the other hand, if you just say 'I find wanting things to be acceptable GM-ing, whether or not it might influence the chance that railroading occurs' then there's almost no argument left to be had. Everything else becomes a matter of taste, with Quertus taking a position on one extreme of a spectrum and other people finding themselves at different points along it.

The association 'railroading is bad and must be avoided at all costs' is what lets one get goaded into attacking what amount to tautologies. There is very little that is made better by holding one ideal above all else at all costs. But internet arguments can tend to follow a trajectory where people are stuck defending more and more extreme positions, until that's all that's left.

[Xuc Xac]

I would say, in fact, that yoou cannot give an exact definition of railroad, because it's impossible to establish a specific point where the DM setting up events with the expectation that they will lead in a certain direction stops being worldbuilding and becomes railroading.

That's when it becomes railroading: the DM sets the world up to cause a particular result.

The Duke of Florin's wizard puts a geas on the PCs to make them try to assassinate the duke because the wizard wants to start a war with Gilder and needs some disposable patsies? Fine. The PCs definitely look like the sort of murderhobo who would act as hired assassins for Gilder.

The Duke of Florin's wizard puts a geas on the PCs to make them try to assassinate the duke because the DM has a cool fight scene planned involving the Duke but the PCs just said "meh, whatever, we'll go somewhere else then" when the Duke insulted them and tried to pick a fight? That's railroading.

[Frozen_Feet]

Threads like these are groansome because railroading is a metaphor, not a technical term. Furthermore, it is a very simple metaphor: a train will travel along its rails with no input from a passenger and the passenger just chooses which stop they climb in and which they climb out at.

Interpreted: a game will continue along its preplanned course with no input from a player and the player just chooses when to start and stop playing.

A sane technical discussion of why something like Talakeal's example scenario might be dissatisfactory to players, would do best to ditch the railroading metaphor entirely. Because while the sample might not be "railroading", it can still be one of rigged probability where certain outcomes are favored significant % of the time and this can be tested (by playing the scenario over and over), mathematically dissected and analyzed both in terms of game design and player psychology.

[Quertus]

What leads to railroading is GMs not being willing to accept that they don't get what they want, in part or in whole.


I think this best sums up the question

This argument is contradictory.
First it says that railroading stems from the DM wanting something.
then it says that railroading is when the DM ignores established in-game physics.
those are two very different statements and can't both be held true.

So, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.

The easy way is, the poster that you're agreeing with? Afaict, they're agreeing with me, too. So, agreeing with them, then disagreeing with me represents a failure at some point here.

The hard way...

The sun burns gasses, produces light. Plants absorb this energy in a process called photosynthesis. "those are two very different statements and can't both be held true"

Uh, no. They're two different statements, I'll give you that, but they're looking at the situation from different angles and/or looking at different layers of the scenario and/or looking at different steps of the process. Much like light is required for photosynthesis, or the target still being breathing/alive is retired for murders, so, too, is the GM wanting something which then opposes following game physics/facts required for railroading to occur.

Simple as that.


Ok, the DM warps physics because he wants something in the first place, but it doesn't necessarily follow. kyoryu has the best retort with breathing and murdering there. just because the DM wants something to happen, it does not mean the dm will railroad.

Wow. I clearly need new words for this, given how many people misunderstood me this way. No, that is not what I'm saying. At all.

Just because the sun is burning doesn't mean that plants are having photosynthesis. Well, of course not. A->B and B ->A are two different logical statements, after all. A boy is a human; a human isn't necessarily a boy.

This really isn't complicated.

What is the nature railroading? Railroading has its roots in the GM wanting something. When that desire comes into conflict with game physics/facts, the GM may follow their desire rather than game physics/facts, and thereby engage in the sin act of railroading.

This really is basic stuff. I'm amazed so few people can follow it. I must be explaining it really poorly.


another flaw of this definition is that there are plenty of ways to railroad without violating any established physics. Have a high level npc put a geas on them. have them dominated. create events such that they unfold in a certain way. sure, the players may get out of those rails with plenty of effort, but it's very unlikely.
it's the "valley" metaphor I used a few pages back: instead of hard rails, you have soft obstacles that tend to push the players towards the valley the more they try to get away with it. And all those obstacles are perfectly justified in-world.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't define "following game physics" as railroading. Just because the Commoner 1 cannot 1-shot Pelor with their bare hands does not make me scream "rails!".

Now, to borrow your imagery, a setup with too high of hills, and too narrow a valley is or can be bad encounter design / world-building / etc, but that is a distinct problem from actual railroading, which changes/invalidates after the fact.



I would say, in fact, that yoou cannot give an exact definition of railroad, because it's impossible to establish a specific point where the DM setting up events with the expectation that they will lead in a certain direction stops being worldbuilding and becomes railroading. Like the gray between white and black.

Definition? No, one can certainly define the word. I would and have defined railroading as the act of ignoring/countermanding/overriding game physics/facts to cause or prevent an outcome.


one last thing: when DMing, I have to put lot of effort into the game. I have to make worldbuilding, plot hooks, I have to plan encounters, create in-world documents. If I have to build up all this sandbox only for the players to smash through it while I watch, I'm not interested. If I am not allowed to want something out of the campaign, then I'm not going to bother investing all the energy into it.

This is why I advocate getting explicit buy-in from your players.


Again, most of this is tangled up in the emotional attachments to the word 'railroading'. If you don't see railroading as inherently bad, there's nothing particularly standing in the way from following Quertus' argument. You can in fact maintain that perspective even if Quertus is making their argument from a strong 'railroading is always bad and I hate it!' perspective.

The objection to Quertus' argument isn't 'I can't think of wanting things to be bad GM-ing, so I have to find a reason to object to the logic'. That way lies very convoluted semantic arguments. On the other hand, if you just say 'I find wanting things to be acceptable GM-ing, whether or not it might influence the chance that railroading occurs' then there's almost no argument left to be had. Everything else becomes a matter of taste, with Quertus taking a position on one extreme of a spectrum and other people finding themselves at different points along it.

The association 'railroading is bad and must be avoided at all costs' is what lets one get goaded into attacking what amount to tautologies. There is very little that is made better by holding one ideal above all else at all costs. But internet arguments can tend to follow a trajectory where people are stuck defending more and more extreme positions, until that's all that's left.

So, just to check - you're saying that I'm fundamentally, by definition, right regarding the nature of railroading, but my inability to express it without my "rails are bad, m'kay?" attitude coloring my delivery makes it difficult for others to follow or accept the otherwise inescapable logic?

If so, I'm pleased to hear that this seemingly obvious fact that I'd never heard anyone explain before isn't the product of my insanity, but is instead actually grounded in reality.

[King of Nowhere]

That's when it becomes railroading: the DM sets the world up to cause a particular result.

The Duke of Florin's wizard puts a geas on the PCs to make them try to assassinate the duke because the wizard wants to start a war with Gilder and needs some disposable patsies? Fine. The PCs definitely look like the sort of murderhobo who would act as hired assassins for Gilder.

The Duke of Florin's wizard puts a geas on the PCs to make them try to assassinate the duke because the DM has a cool fight scene planned involving the Duke but the PCs just said "meh, whatever, we'll go somewhere else then" when the Duke insulted them and tried to pick a fight? That's railroading.

the second case is obviously railroading, but the first? the wizard npc is trying to achieve certain goals. he will succceed unless something stops him. that may well be considered railroading by some.
just like the giant tossing people into the cliff was simply an npc using a tactic that made sense for him, yet the very act of placing that npc with those modifiers to bull rush near a cliff did set the world up for a specific result. Some would call it a natural consequence of the battle, some would lament railroading because the battle scenario was set up with a high chance of ending that way.





A sane technical discussion of why something like Talakeal's example scenario might be dissatisfactory to players, would do best to ditch the railroading metaphor entirely. Because while the sample might not be "railroading", it can still be one of rigged probability where certain outcomes are favored significant % of the time and this can be tested (by playing the scenario over and over), mathematically dissected and analyzed both in terms of game design and player psychology.
And yet such a technical discussion would likely be pointless, because most of it depends on the players and the table. You can't say "talakeal did well" or "talakeal should have done something different" because there is no right answer without sitting at his table.
instead, the technical discussion started with "were the players robbed of their agency?", which is also a legitimate question. Before the discussion devolved into fine points of semantics or took large detours, of course.

[Frozen_Feet]

@King of Nowere: you are only right insofar that a technical discussion without reasonably complete information is fruitless, but that's just a matter of Talakeal providing it. In pretty much every other hobby and field of life, it is accepted that you can analyze and criticize someone's work and performance even if you weren't personally there, as long as you've been presented with the salient facts in good faith.

For the record, player agency is pretty easy to mathematically dissect and analyze in games, but I'm not willing to rehash that argument for millionth time.

[NichG]

So, just to check - you're saying that I'm fundamentally, by definition, right regarding the nature of railroading, but my inability to express it without my "rails are bad, m'kay?" attitude coloring my delivery makes it difficult for others to follow or accept the otherwise inescapable logic?

If so, I'm pleased to hear that this seemingly obvious fact that I'd never heard anyone explain before isn't the product of my insanity, but is instead actually grounded in reality.

It's more that your presentation basically has distinct parts, but since it uses loaded terminology then there's an implied argument underneath the presentation (which is likely or at least perceived as intentional because of your 'rails are bad, m'kay' attitude).

The first part was to propose 'lets consider the underlying causes for a GM making a decision to override the established system for how to determine what happens within the world', relate that to the sense of railroading as 'the GM forcing something to happen' (which is a bid to redefine terms, and has no factual content - e.g. it's neither correct nor incorrect, but it's a matter of what people want to use certain terms for), and then pointing out somewhat tautologically that if the GM makes a decision, that must originate from them wanting something. It's a non-trivial statement despite being a tautology because it connects your proposed sense of the term 'railroading' which is different in detail to the more commonly held sense of a GM wanting a certain outcome and then forbidding alternatives through fiat.

The thing that is loaded here is that, the way the conversation went, this can be perceived to be an injunction against GM's wanting things rather than an observation about how things might be logically connected. 'When GMs want things, it leads to railroading, and that is always bad' is a statement that can be attacked both because it has a weak logical connection (B requires A does not mean that A implies B) and because it has a value judgement which need not be shared ('that is always bad').

The problem is that the conversation took the form of attacking the 'B requires A' part, which I think is because in many cases the association with railroading or even the sense of accusation of railroading is taken to be an attack - e.g. the term has a valence that makes it hard to say 'Yes, in this case one could argue that there are railroading elements; but so what?'. So there was a feeling of need to defend the idea that 'wanting something' could be criticized indirectly via association with the term railroading.

But if we just take all of this as you establishing a set of related definitions and looking at connections between them and strip off the value judgements, it's possible to say 'okay, that's Quertus' definition, is it useful for what we want to do?'. If it turns out not to be useful for people, or if it turns out to indeed be useful for people, either way we have the possibility of learning something.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One thing to consider:

People being predictable (and thus a DM predicting what a group will do in a given situation and building with that as the "predicted outcome") is not an agency violation IMO. Penalizing a group or forbidding a group from taking a different, unpredicted outcome is an agency violation IMO.

I have a couple people I can predict to a fine degree because I've been playing with them for a while and they're not exactly subtle.

One kid will always get really outraged by mistreatment of women or the innocent (he's a paladin at heart that plays a wood elf rogue every time). If there's a situation involving such behavior, he will always act directly to end it. I build scenarios and scenes with this in mind. That doesn't stop me from being wrong--he might surprise me one day. Unlikely, but possible.

Another is (and always plays) highly chaotic characters who are allergic to external authority. You can guarantee that certain responses just will not happen. He won't play nice to being coerced, and his reactions are usually in a few different modes. This is predictable enough that it shapes how I build scenes. He could decide to go along with the coersion and it wouldn't break anything, but it would certainly be unexpected.

Rails apply force to keep the train on track. Without that force, all you have is a paved road. Sure, it's easier to drive on the road and things are more straightforward, but in a suitable car you can leave the road whenever.

[Resileaf]

Rails apply force to keep the train on track. Without that force, all you have is a paved road. Sure, it's easier to drive on the road and things are more straightforward, but in a suitable car you can leave the road whenever.

That's what I keep saying!

A good GM paves the road.
A bad GM turns it into a train track.

[Frozen_Feet]

Yes, people being bad faith actors who don't embrace their radical freedom every once in a while to act differently, is not a GM problem. :smalltongue: It's a problem of a player having limited selection of roles they are able and willing to play. Accounting for this is metagaming, but it's not railroading.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yes, people being bad faith actors who don't embrace their radical freedom every once in a while to act differently, is not a GM problem. :smalltongue: It's a problem of a player having limited selection of roles they are able and willing to play. Accounting for this is metagaming, but it's not railroading.

I don't consider people always playing the same role to be a problem. It's a game, so they should do what makes them have fun. And the DM should always act to encourage fun--their fun as well as that of the players.

Some players actively want "guidance" as to what they should do. They want gentle rails to nudge them back onto a track. They don't have fun with sandboxes (heretical thought, I know). They want to follow someone else's story.

Others want radical freedom. Any hint of nudging from the DM is too much for them. Most people are somewhere in the middle and vary depending on the situation.

None of these are wrong or bad. The only bad comes when you have conflict over what is desired. When you have people with mixed, firmly-entrenched views (whether players or DM), you end up with a no-win situation. Someone(s) will have to compromise or leave the group.

[Thrudd]

I don't consider people always playing the same role to be a problem. It's a game, so they should do what makes them have fun. And the DM should always act to encourage fun--their fun as well as that of the players.

Some players actively want "guidance" as to what they should do. They want gentle rails to nudge them back onto a track. They don't have fun with sandboxes (heretical thought, I know). They want to follow someone else's story.

Others want radical freedom. Any hint of nudging from the DM is too much for them. Most people are somewhere in the middle and vary depending on the situation.

None of these are wrong or bad. The only bad comes when you have conflict over what is desired. When you have people with mixed, firmly-entrenched views (whether players or DM), you end up with a no-win situation. Someone(s) will have to compromise or leave the group.
Is it possible that some of the people who want guidance from the GM want that because they have been conditioned to believe that all rpg's have a story they are supposed to be following, a "right direction" they are supposed to be going? If they knew that there is literally no wrong thing they can do in the game and that everything they are able to choose will lead to adventure, would they still want/need so much guidance?

It helps, of course, that a sandbox has some boundaries. Players should know the range of things their characters are intended to be doing and be clear about what they should be looking for in the game- IE they are treasure hunters who go to dungeons. They pick which dungeon to go to, when and how to go there, how to approach it. There is no wrong way to do it, no wrong choice- but there is also guidance in the sense that they know they are supposed to look for dungeons and treasures to loot, nobody is going to be a farmer or a merchant or try to be involved in court intrigue. I'd be interested to see how "guidance needing" players handled a set up like that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Is it possible that some of the people who want guidance from the GM want that because they have been conditioned to believe that all rpg's have a story they are supposed to be following, a "right direction" they are supposed to be going? If they knew that there is literally no wrong thing they can do in the game and that everything they are able to choose will lead to adventure, would they still want/need so much guidance?

It helps, of course, that a sandbox has some boundaries. Players should know the range of things their characters are intended to be doing and be clear about what they should be looking for in the game- IE they are treasure hunters who go to dungeons. They pick which dungeon to go to, when and how to go there, how to approach it. There is no wrong way to do it, no wrong choice- but there is also guidance in the sense that they know they are supposed to look for dungeons and treasures to loot, nobody is going to be a farmer or a merchant or try to be involved in court intrigue. I'd be interested to see how "guidance needing" players handled a set up like that.

In my experience, people who want "rails" do so because of one (or multiple) of a few considerations:
* they don't want to think very hard about things like plot. They want a fun ride and don't care if they don't get to choose. Some of these are the beer-and-pretzels type, there mostly for the sociality. Others are kill-and-loot types--they don't like worrying about things like that. Just point them to the next fight and give them shinies and they're happy.
* They get analysis paralysis. Too many options is just as useless as too few. It's like writer's block--the "blank page" makes it impossible to go on until that breaks.
* They don't know the world well enough to make sense of their options. They don't know what's reasonable to do.

Honestly, I'm not too fond of pure sandboxes myself, because they inevitably feel empty or random. Point me at a scenario, then let me start messing with things. Or heck, I happen to like playing JRPGs, despite the very tight rails. Different people are different--sandboxes are not inherently better than linear plots. It's all a matter of meeting the needs and matching the desires of the group.

[awa]

there is also the factor that a well planed encounter/ mystery/ story may be more fun than something improvised on the fly and they are willing to lose the hypothetically value of some agency to experience it.

[Resileaf]

Honestly, I'm not too fond of pure sandboxes myself, because they inevitably feel empty or random. Point me at a scenario, then let me start messing with things. Or heck, I happen to like playing JRPGs, despite the very tight rails. Different people are different--sandboxes are not inherently better than linear plots. It's all a matter of meeting the needs and matching the desires of the group.

I'm not a fan of pure sandboxes either, unless it's in a setting I know very well (such as Warcraft). You can have an entire world of content, but if I don't know anything more than the basic lines, I'm sorry but I'm not gonna know what my options are and I need something to go on.

Just having a map is more than enough to give context to things.

[Morgaln]

Wow. I clearly need new words for this, given how many people misunderstood me this way. No, that is not what I'm saying. At all.

Just because the sun is burning doesn't mean that plants are having photosynthesis. Well, of course not. A->B and B ->A are two different logical statements, after all. A boy is a human; a human isn't necessarily a boy.

This really isn't complicated.

What is the nature railroading? Railroading has its roots in the GM wanting something. When that desire comes into conflict with game physics/facts, the GM may follow their desire rather than game physics/facts, and thereby engage in the sin act of railroading.

This really is basic stuff. I'm amazed so few people can follow it. I must be explaining it really poorly.



I think I can explain why people are opposing your viewpoint the way they do. It's because of sentences like this:




To my mind, the easiest and most successful way for a GM to keep from railroading, or from even having their desires subtly influencing the game, is to stop rails at the first beachhead, and choose not to want anything.



You repeatedly portray the GM wanting things as the reason why railroading happens, and also as the main issue that needs to be changed to prevent railroading in the first place. Most people, however, think that the way to prevent railroading is for the GM to learn to deal with wanting something in a way that doesn't inhibit player agency. They don't consider the GM wanting something as a problem. They just consider it a problem when the GM puts what he wants over everything else.
As an analogy, consider death by car accident. Your point of view would be akin to "if we didn't have any cars, there wouldn't be any car accidents," whereas most people would say "Maybe we just need to make sure people drive responsibly."

[Florian]

I rather think that Quertus has a very outdated view on the relationship between setting, rules systems and the function of the GM.

Most people I've played with over the last couple of years are in the hobby are in it for the combination of escapism, entertaining stories and potential agency that comes along with most TTRPGs. They want the GM to provide cool stuff that they can participate in, along with the illusion that they are in complete control of their character, fully well knowing that this is an illusion, because it would break the game quite hard when their actions force a switch between prepped stuff and going full improv.

Setting and rules are just tools to facilitate all of that, they are not a means to an end by themselves. The thought that the GM should be a neutral arbiter of the rules/setting, while pitting the players characters agains the world/module/campaign harkens back to war-gaming roots and is simply not plausible in modern RPG environments.

(caveat emptor, unless we are talking about something like DSA/The Dark Eye or L5R, which are expressively build around the concept of being shared game worlds that should persistent along all tables)

[King of Nowhere]

Is it possible that some of the people who want guidance from the GM want that because they have been conditioned to believe that all rpg's have a story they are supposed to be following, a "right direction" they are supposed to be going? If they knew that there is literally no wrong thing they can do in the game and that everything they are able to choose will lead to adventure, would they still want/need so much guidance?

Possibly so.
And possibly those that don't want any guidance have been conditioned to believe that guidance=railroading=bad

In my experience, people who want "rails" do so because of one (or multiple) of a few considerations:
* they don't want to think very hard about things like plot. They want a fun ride and don't care if they don't get to choose. Some of these are the beer-and-pretzels type, there mostly for the sociality. Others are kill-and-loot types--they don't like worrying about things like that. Just point them to the next fight and give them shinies and they're happy.
* They get analysis paralysis. Too many options is just as useless as too few. It's like writer's block--the "blank page" makes it impossible to go on until that breaks.
* They don't know the world well enough to make sense of their options. They don't know what's reasonable to do.


there is also the factor that a well planed encounter/ mystery/ story may be more fun than something improvised on the fly and they are willing to lose the hypothetically value of some agency to experience it.
* some others don't want to have inter-party arguments and are fine with following the others
* some don't have an overarching character goal and prefer to react to events

[PhoenixPhyre]

Possibly so.
And possibly those that don't want any guidance have been conditioned to believe that guidance=railroading=bad

* some others don't want to have inter-party arguments and are fine with following the others
* some don't have an overarching character goal and prefer to react to events

I agree with these as well. I care, both as a DM and as a player, about micro-agency more than macro-agency. I'm fine with following a story, as long as I can determine how my character acts. Even if it has no significant long-run effects, as long as I have tactical freedom I'm fine.

[awa]

I agree with these as well. I care, both as a DM and as a player, about micro-agency more than macro-agency. I'm fine with following a story, as long as I can determine how my character acts. Even if it has no significant long-run effects, as long as I have tactical freedom I'm fine.

very much this
my last big adventure started in media res they were in the haunted house they had been given a list of objectives and then they were left to explore the house find out what had happened there ectera. I spent literally months preparing that house, harvesting parts from board games to build it, each room was a tile that got flipped over showing doors to other rooms.

I had to borrow a table big enough to run it and we spent 5 sessions in there. They had lots of options for what to do and where to go once inside the house, but i needed them to go into that house. I simply am not willing to put that kind of effort in an adventure if there is a plausible chance they would not go there.

Just cutting and laybling all those tiles took longer than a week it would not be physical possible to do it on the fly. The fact that the party could see the monsters on the board maneuvering around the board and letting them use that to try and avoid fights added to there enjoyment and that simply isn't possible in a theater of the mind system. My point is this major prep improved the game the loss of their agency in that i decided they were going to a haunted house was paid off with the quality of the adventure.

[Pippa the Pixie]

The Duke of Florin's wizard puts a geas on the PCs to make them try to assassinate the duke because the wizard wants to start a war with Gilder and needs some disposable patsies? Fine. The PCs definitely look like the sort of murderhobo who would act as hired assassins for Gilder.

The Duke of Florin's wizard puts a geas on the PCs to make them try to assassinate the duke because the DM has a cool fight scene planned involving the Duke but the PCs just said "meh, whatever, we'll go somewhere else then" when the Duke insulted them and tried to pick a fight? That's railroading.

But does this not mean that Railroading does not exist?

After all, the DM just needs to say ''it's not my idea" and it's automatiaclly not railroading.

It's even more of a bonus if the DM can say....with a stright face...that the idea is from a fictional character!



The hard way...


So, my question is what about the fictional fantasy? How do you account for that?

D&D has things like teleportation, shape changing, size chaging and more. All sorts of things that don't fit into ''physics as we know them on Earth".

D&D, in fact, has plenty of Plants that get energy from things other then sunlight....things like space, or time or reality.

So the game has a time flower that eats a persons time stream. The DM says that happens....and you will be like ''the DM is railroading as they broke real world physics!"

[OldTrees1]

It's even more of a bonus if the DM can say....with a stright face...


Are you aware that it is possible to say something that isn't true? I will give an example below by pretending we all live in flatworld.


So, my question is what about the fictional fantasy? How do you account for that?

D&D has things like teleportation, shape changing, size chaging and more. All sorts of things that don't fit into ''physics as we know them on Earth".

D&D, in fact, has plenty of Plants that get energy from things other then sunlight....things like space, or time or reality.

So the game has a time flower that eats a persons time stream. The DM says that happens....and you will be like ''the DM is railroading as they broke real world physics!"

Have you heard of the word verisimilitude? It is perfectly fine for you to run a campaign that pretends objects have 3 dimensions, even though everyone knows we live in a 2d flat world. We judge the game off of the physics of the game rather than off of the IRL physics. So if you want a 3d campaign world that is fine, but if you decide to break the established game rules as a means of violating player agency, then you are railroading.

[Florian]

But does this not mean that Railroading does not exist"

Railroading is always a force technique. It means that the players made a choice the GM doesn´t want and the GM choses to override that choice (assuming that the player choice is a legit move at that point). To stay with the metaphor, the GM changed a paved road into a set of tracks. Trying to hide that change is commonly called illusionism.

See, it´s perfectly fine to create a very linear scenario, when you don't pretend that is anything else than linear. "Your quest is to kill the mountain witch. To get up the mountain and inside the castle, you must travel along the trail of tears on foot and obtain three parts of the key, from the bandits, the troll and the dragon...".

It would be different when you would just announce: "Your quest is to kill the mountain witch. Her castle is on top of the Lonely Mountain" and pretend that they can go at this the way they please, but than force the above sequence on them, no matter whether they chose to walk along the trail of tears, take a short cut through the woods or obtained the ability to fly, they will meet the bandits (who are suddenly riding eagles, if necessary) first, then.....

Your other point is a bit more tricky to discuss, tho.

As I see it, this is largely a matter of expectations and communication. For example, with most RPG systems that are actively published, new material, mechanics and details will be added with each new release, potentially changing the game world and "in-game reality" along the way, possibly quite significantly.

Where it gets tricky is when the GM first declares something to be true or not true, then starts adding stuff that will break with what has been declared. Declaring: "Time travel is absolutely impossible because the Dimension of Time is locked and can't be accessed" is a thing, especially when you are adding your time-eating plants afterwards, which violates the "in-game reality" you have created.

It gets even trickier when we are talking about granting, altering and removing permission(s). Declaring "Ok, folks, assume that physics and stuff work like in real life, but the fantastical elements are modeled by the rules in the Pathfinder core books. Let's all agree to stick to those rules as a secondary set of physics and use them as written. As GM, I will use Rule Zero only to solve matters that don't really compute and will create house rules based on the decisions, for everything else, you are granted permission to use the whole core rules as they are" is a straight up affair. The players are now given express permission to use the core rules as they are and their expectations will be set to things working as intended.

We´re getting back into railroad-country when granting permission to use something, like fly, scry and teleport spells and then actively negating choices because they don't fit into the concept.

[Gallowglass]

Railroading is always a force technique. It means that the players made a choice the GM doesn´t want and the GM choses to override that choice (assuming that the player choice is a legit move at that point). ..

See, it´s perfectly fine to create a very linear scenario, when you don't pretend that is anything else than linear. "Your quest is to kill the mountain witch. To get up the mountain and inside the castle, you must travel along the trail of tears on foot and obtain three parts of the key, from the bandits, the troll and the dragon...".

It would be different when you would just announce: "Your quest is to kill the mountain witch. Her castle is on top of the Lonely Mountain" and pretend that they can go at this the way they please, but than force the above sequence on them, no matter whether they chose to walk along the trail of tears, take a short cut through the woods or obtained the ability to fly, they will meet the bandits (who are suddenly riding eagles, if necessary) first, then.....
...

I thought I was with you on your point until your example which, I feel, is a poor portrayal of railroading.

You see, to me, railroading is exactly what you said above. "players make a choice, DM overrides it even though it was a possible/plausible choice."

But your example is just fluid DMing.

I, the DM, have spent time assembling an adventure for the players. I give them the "quest" "go kill the witch on top of the mountain" and, as a responsible DM, I have pre-built a number of encounters for them to have on the way.

There are a set of 20 bandits who have a macguffin then need, macguffin one.

There is a troll who has another macguffin they need, macguffin two.

There is a dragon who has another macguffin they need, macguffin three.

And I have sketched out a map of the 'trail of tears' as the most obvious way for them to proceed.

Now, I -assume- they will start the adventure by asking questions like "how do we get to the witch?" "what are her weaknesses" and such because I'm used to inquisitive players. So I have created the sketch of a bunch of possible NPCs for them to interrogate. A friendly librarian, an innkeeper, a forest ranger, etc.

As a responsible DM I also hold a few generic NPC sketches to use on the fly as players improvise.

So I have set myself up for success through preparation. But I have NOT created a railroad. Not yet. Now how I 'use' these tools and craft the adventure will tell us if I am railroading or not.

Now, lets say the adventurers are clever and they are like "no problem. I can generate some overland flight potions thanks to my (ability the DM didn't' account for) in a day, then we can just fly up there and whack the witch!"

Uh-oh. Not only are they bypassing all my encounters, they aren't going to find out that they NEED the three macguffins to kill the witch.

I already know what the witch's lair is like. They can't even unlock the door without the macguffins. But I didn't account for any aerial defenses. Or maybe I -don't- know what the witch's lair is like because I didn't expect them to get their in a single session so I haven't built it yet. Oh Noes.

I could "roll with it". The outcome of which is, the PCs fly up the mountain, find the fortress. Spend a few real-time hours trying to find a way in and everyone is frustrated and the game sucked.

Or I can *gasp* CHANGE THE WORLD on the fly in order to make sure the adventure doesn't suck.

1. I could tell the potion maker he needs some esoteric components for his potions which leads him to an apothecary. Swap out the innkeeper or librarian I had prepared. Start a conversation about what they are doing. "OH I heard to enter the witch's lair you need some special keys. I think the guardians she's seeded on the mountain keep those keys" Adapt my NPCS to their new strategy.

2. I could swap out the bandits by giving them flying mounts to make the encounter applicable to their new strategy. Or maybe just some ballista or long range way to attack the PCs in the sky. Why would bandits have that? hmmm... maybe they get attacked by the dragon? Maybe they are trying to kill the dragon? I can come up with a reason for that. Infighting between the witch's guardians. Suddenly, the PCs strategy switch is HELPING to craft a more interesting story.

3. I could swap out the troll for another flying beast to make THAT encounter applicable to their new strategy. dragon-blooded troll with wings. Ah yes, a bastard child of the ACTUAL dragon. Grendel to its Grendel's mother. Suddenly, the PCs strategy switch is HELPING to craft a more interesting story.

To me, any of these are RESPONSIBLE DMing. Your job is to PROVIDE an ADVENTURE. If your pre-built adventure isn't panning out, you have to improvise. And the safest, simplest improvisation is to find a way to use what you pre-built with some modification rather than rolling random encounters or making it up whole-cloth on the side.

Railroading would be "uh, your potions all don't' work for no reason." or "a great gust of wind pushes you out of the sky and onto a trail through the woods." or forcing them to your unmodified, un-adapted original intended route.

There are some other things I consider psuedo-railroading. Lets say, they found out about the troll and took great care to come up with a plan to bypass the troll. That's as good as an encounter. I let them succeed if they should by making their relevant checks and rolls. psuedo-railroading would be "okay, a mile past the troll den you are starting to relax and feel like you're out of danger when, suddenly, you enter a clearing and find THE TROLL out hunting! roll init" There is a subtle difference, but a powerful difference between modifying the encounter to keep the adventure interesting and modifying the encounter to force the action you envisioned.

In the "fly potion" scenario, the PCS cleverly and inadvertently found a way to bypass all your encounters. So to give them an adventure you have to modify or add different encounters. Otherwise, no encounters, boring adventure.

In the "scout a way around the troll" scenario, the PCS cleverly and ON PURPOSE found a way to bypass your encounter. Bonus points to them for finding a way to 'solve' the encounter you didn't plan on. But they still SOLVED the encounter. And had a fun time doing it.

Of course, the longer you DM, the more often you are going to run into those players who so inherently balk at any structure that you start the game with "your mission is to go kill this witch on top of the mountain" and they are all "Nah, we are going to find the local stable, burn it down, steal the horses and head the opposite direction!"

First, those players are jerks. Second, its still possible to DM for those players. They still want an exciting adventure, they just want to make it as hard on you as possible.

So, okay. I didn't plan on a stable, but I can adapt. I sketch out quickly a stable and re-purpose the bandits as stable-hands and guards. Ask them some leading questions about how they want to proceed, make them come up with an actual plan, do some actual scouting and such.

Okay we have our first encounter. While they are doing the math of slaughtering the bandits stablehands, I'm doing some re-planning behind my screen. After they kill the last bandit stablemaster, they find a locked chest that he went down guarding. They take it with them and, out of town break it open. Find one of the macguffins. One of the PCs notices it is emanating magical pulses of energy. Another one notices the chest was enchanted to stop the energy but now it doesn't work because they broke it. What's that about? Too bad they didn't leave anyone alive to ask about it.

They go on their pointless road forward. In the night they are attacked by a group of trolls. the Trolls seem to be after the macguffin! Why? Maybe they track the trolls back to their lair (most PCs would) and fight a dragon blooded troll king and find another macguffin that combines with the first. And a bunch of cave paintings showing a dragon mating with a troll to produce a line of dragonblooded trolls. what's that about?

Maybe, just maybe, I create a hook that's interesting enough to make these jerk players WANT to engage with the story. Because I -let- them decide on what level to engage with it.

Its the same story, the same set pieces, the same preparation, but I'm using it with modification to fit what the PCs want to do.

And maybe, just maybe, The jerk PCS still refuse to engage. They throw the macguffins into a ditch and head off in yet a third direction.

At this point, personally, I give them a few more pointless random encounters then call it a day and call it a game. You can call that a "sandbox". I call it players that aren't playing the game, just want to break the DM. But, in my experience, the only players who I run into like that don't' stick around long and will never understand why the game isn't very fun.

[Quertus]

You repeatedly portray the GM wanting things as the reason why railroading happens, and also as the main issue that needs to be changed to prevent railroading in the first place. Most people, however, think that the way to prevent railroading is for the GM to learn to deal with wanting something in a way that doesn't inhibit player agency. They don't consider the GM wanting something as a problem. They just consider it a problem when the GM puts what he wants over everything else.
As an analogy, consider death by car accident. Your point of view would be akin to "if we didn't have any cars, there wouldn't be any car accidents," whereas most people would say "Maybe we just need to make sure people drive responsibly."

It's fair to say that I mix fact and opinion in the same post. I hadn't expected this to confuse people to the extent - let alone the way - that it has.

And, funny thing about your analogy - I think most people would accept safer alternatives to cars before accepting Mindrape to ensure that they drive responsibly.

Personally, I'm all for Mindraping the rails out of the GMs.


It's more that your presentation basically has distinct parts, but since it uses loaded terminology then there's an implied argument underneath the presentation (which is likely or at least perceived as intentional because of your 'rails are bad, m'kay' attitude).

The first part was to propose 'lets consider the underlying causes for a GM making a decision to override the established system for how to determine what happens within the world', relate that to the sense of railroading as 'the GM forcing something to happen' (which is a bid to redefine terms, and has no factual content - e.g. it's neither correct nor incorrect, but it's a matter of what people want to use certain terms for), and then pointing out somewhat tautologically that if the GM makes a decision, that must originate from them wanting something. It's a non-trivial statement despite being a tautology because it connects your proposed sense of the term 'railroading' which is different in detail to the more commonly held sense of a GM wanting a certain outcome and then forbidding alternatives through fiat.

The thing that is loaded here is that, the way the conversation went, this can be perceived to be an injunction against GM's wanting things rather than an observation about how things might be logically connected. 'When GMs want things, it leads to railroading, and that is always bad' is a statement that can be attacked both because it has a weak logical connection (B requires A does not mean that A implies B) and because it has a value judgement which need not be shared ('that is always bad').

The problem is that the conversation took the form of attacking the 'B requires A' part, which I think is because in many cases the association with railroading or even the sense of accusation of railroading is taken to be an attack - e.g. the term has a valence that makes it hard to say 'Yes, in this case one could argue that there are railroading elements; but so what?'. So there was a feeling of need to defend the idea that 'wanting something' could be criticized indirectly via association with the term railroading.

But if we just take all of this as you establishing a set of related definitions and looking at connections between them and strip off the value judgements, it's possible to say 'okay, that's Quertus' definition, is it useful for what we want to do?'. If it turns out not to be useful for people, or if it turns out to indeed be useful for people, either way we have the possibility of learning something.

Wow. Thank you for that detailed reply. I sadly doubt that I will understand everything that you have tried to say, but let me try again to sum up, and see if I am anywhere close to the right ballpark.

So, factually, you believe that it would be reasonable to take issue with my definition of railroading; but, once that definition is accepted, the rest of my analysis is by definition correct? And the reason one might take issue with my definition of railroading is that railroading is, in your mind, not a defined term?

If I've got that right, then... hmmm... I guess I fail to understand how my definition of railroading is contentious. For reference, my definition is "the GM changes game physics / facts to force or prevent a particular outcome". Whereas "a GM wanting a certain outcome and then forbidding alternatives through fiat" not only sounds the same to my ears, it actually sounds more biased to force the conclusion that "the GM wanting something" (which is actually included in your definition) is the cause of rails. So I fail to see how my bid to redefine the term (which, yes, I do redefine it to include not just forcing one answer, but also just preventing particular answers) could be seen as increasing the connection between "rails" and "the GM wanting something".

As to my bias...

I think I would word the bias-filled version of my stance as, "wanting things can lead to railroading, but railroading requires wanting things, so not wanting things removes the temptation to railroad. I - like many people / many Playgrounders - consider railroading bad. I place no value on the GM wanting things. Thus, I believe 'the GM not wanting things' is a solution to the 'railroading problem'."

But my bias is irrelevant to my assertion that "the GM wanting things" is part of "the nature of railroading".

Which is why I should probably learn to separate them - at the very least, put them in separate posts. :smallredface:


Some players actively want "guidance" as to what they should do. They want gentle rails to nudge them back onto a track. They don't have fun with sandboxes (heretical thought, I know). They want to follow someone else's story.

Others want radical freedom. Any hint of nudging from the DM is too much for them. Most people are somewhere in the middle and vary depending on the situation.

None of these are wrong or bad. The only bad comes when you have conflict over what is desired. When you have people with mixed, firmly-entrenched views (whether players or DM), you end up with a no-win situation. Someone(s) will have to compromise or leave the group.

I mean, I suppose that the GM could put some people on rails, and give others actual agency? It might be an odd game, but I don't see it as impossible.


Is it possible that some of the people who want guidance from the GM want that because they have been conditioned to believe that all rpg's have a story they are supposed to be following, a "right direction" they are supposed to be going? If they knew that there is literally no wrong thing they can do in the game and that everything they are able to choose will lead to adventure, would they still want/need so much guidance?

Absolutely. I've had to "reprogram" a great many such shell-shocked individuals.

I was thus quite shocked when, after I began posting in the Playground, I learned that there were people who actually preferred rails, as I had never, in my decades IRL, encountered anyone to espouse that stance.


In my experience, people who want "rails" do so because of one (or multiple) of a few considerations:
* they don't want to think very hard about things like plot. They want a fun ride and don't care if they don't get to choose. Some of these are the beer-and-pretzels type, there mostly for the sociality. Others are kill-and-loot types--they don't like worrying about things like that. Just point them to the next fight and give them shinies and they're happy.
* They get analysis paralysis. Too many options is just as useless as too few. It's like writer's block--the "blank page" makes it impossible to go on until that breaks.
* They don't know the world well enough to make sense of their options. They don't know what's reasonable to do.

Honestly, I'm not too fond of pure sandboxes myself, because they inevitably feel empty or random. Point me at a scenario, then let me start messing with things. Or heck, I happen to like playing JRPGs, despite the very tight rails. Different people are different--sandboxes are not inherently better than linear plots. It's all a matter of meeting the needs and matching the desires of the group.

There's a difference between "the empty room" and "a living sandbox, with lots of stuff going on".

I am quite curious how your players would fare with "oh, look, there's been a murder... which we are in no way shape or form obligated to respond to" - that "scenario" that you desire, yet devoid of rails.


I rather think that Quertus has a very outdated view on the relationship between setting, rules systems and the function of the GM.

Most people I've played with over the last couple of years are in the hobby are in it for the combination of escapism, entertaining stories and potential agency that comes along with most TTRPGs. They want the GM to provide cool stuff that they can participate in, along with the illusion that they are in complete control of their character, fully well knowing that this is an illusion, because it would break the game quite hard when their actions force a switch between prepped stuff and going full improv.

Setting and rules are just tools to facilitate all of that, they are not a means to an end by themselves. The thought that the GM should be a neutral arbiter of the rules/setting, while pitting the players characters agains the world/module/campaign harkens back to war-gaming roots and is simply not plausible in modern RPG environments.

(caveat emptor, unless we are talking about something like DSA/The Dark Eye or L5R, which are expressively build around the concept of being shared game worlds that should persistent along all tables)

Well, I clearly don't game where you do, as my "modern" tables look very much like my "classic" tables, my "modern players" look very much like my "classic players", in that most of my players are highly opposed to what you just described (much like numerous Playgrounders are).

I would like to think that Chess and Monopoly will endure, and that the niche fad of "GM story time" will either fade, or develop its own, separate identity. But I'm probably biased in that belief.

[AMFV]

As to my bias...

I think I would word the bias-filled version of my stance as, "wanting things can lead to railroading, but railroading requires wanting things, so not wanting things removes the temptation to railroad. I - like many people / many Playgrounders - consider railroading bad. I place no value on the GM wanting things. Thus, I believe 'the GM not wanting things' is a solution to the 'railroading problem'."

But my bias is irrelevant to my assertion that "the GM wanting things" is part of "the nature of railroading".

Which is why I should probably learn to separate them - at the very least, put them in separate posts. :smallredface:

The thing is that the "GM wanting something" is basically going to cause anything, rails and all. Yes, for the GM to railroad he has to want something by definition. The problem is that the solution "not wanting anything" basically means that you're holding up a giant middle finger to GMs. I mean I'd run a game for you where I didn't want anything, if you paid me to do so. Because me wanting things includes wanting to do things that I find fun, if it's a social activity then it has to be things that I enjoy, if I'm not enjoying it, then somebody had better be paying me.

I mean dude, there is already a shortage of GMs, now you want them to play just for your amusement, without actually wanting any enjoyment of the game themselves? That's a pretty selfish view, at least to my perspective, unless you are paying them.




Absolutely. I've had to "reprogram" a great many such shell-shocked individuals.

I was thus quite shocked when, after I began posting in the Playground, I learned that there were people who actually preferred rails, as I had never, in my decades IRL, encountered anyone to espouse that stance.

And you've never encountered anyone who enjoyed playing any prepublished module? Particularly those like Dragonlance or Ravenloft. Either you haven't gamed much, haven't spoken to gamers about their memorable adventures or have been mislead about what many people have enjoyed. For many people, those modules were the ones that they remember most.



There's a difference between "the empty room" and "a living sandbox, with lots of stuff going on".

I am quite curious how your players would fare with "oh, look, there's been a murder... which we are in no way shape or form obligated to respond to" - that "scenario" that you desire, yet devoid of rails.

But if the players choose to respond to that particular scenario, in what way is that any different than if they were encouraged to do so? How is it different than a game where the PCs are playing as members of the watch with an obligation, than if they're playing as concerned bystanders without? I don't think that the two games would functionally look any different.



Well, I clearly don't game where you do, as my "modern" tables look very much like my "classic" tables, my "modern players" look very much like my "classic players", in that most of my players are highly opposed to what you just described (much like numerous Playgrounders are).

I would like to think that Chess and Monopoly will endure, and that the niche fad of "GM story time" will either fade, or develop its own, separate identity. But I'm probably biased in that belief.

And wrong, since "GM Story Time" runs from about DL1 until present day. There are clearly people that want that, regardless of what your own limited experience might suggest. There's a reason why the most railroady modules from 1e are the most fondly remembered by most. Dragonlance and Ravenloft are both very rails driven narratives and they both regularly top "best module" lists from that era. That suggests that there are plenty of people who prefer more narrative adventurers to more sandboxy ones (notably the sandboxy ones also often top lists, so that suggests a strong preference for them as well).

[Florian]

But I'm probably biased in that belief.

Germany is the second-largest market for TTRPGs after the U.S.. This mode of gaming has been the dominant one for more more or less 30 years and everything that WW created also gave it a boost that is still lasting. I only know the difference because I grew up next to an U.S.Army base and started the hobby differently.

Consider this: The only reason why Pathfinder exists in the first place, is because Paizo needed a rules system to support their core business models, the selling of pre-packaged campaigns, aka. Adventure Paths. If WotC hadn't ****ed up at handling the transition between editions, there would be no need for a rival gaming system... to support telling compelling and crazy stories.

Pathfinder is available in a fully localized and supported german version, our Call of Cthulhu material is upgraded and reworked to a point that it looks like a deluxe version of the original Chaosium stuff, but also heavily reworked to fit the german palate (so to speak, tentacles are involved..) and the Dark Eye (DSA) being the leader of the pack, both in quality as well as in output. Notice that I don't mention D&D, with 5E being a success and all, it didn't manage to find any interesting partners for the local market and is only relevant in certain niche markets (3.5E and power gamers, for example). It doesn't look too different in other EU member states that are large enough to support an TTRPG industry.

Edit: As AMVF righty pointed out, people played, enjoyed and subsequently fondly remember the "big stories". DL1, Pharaoh, Castle Ravenloft, Red Hand of Doom for D&D, Rise of the Runelords and Kingmaker for PF, Jahr des Feuers for DSA, Harlequin I and II for ShadowRun and so on.

@Gallowglass:

You missed a subtle thing there. I explicitly wrote that first creating the illusion of freedom, then switching to the pre-planned sequence in contrast to that, this is railroading, even if the players don't notice anything. That difference is something that Pippa apparently can't grasp, therefore the example with the "Quantum Sequence".

[NichG]

Wow. Thank you for that detailed reply. I sadly doubt that I will understand everything that you have tried to say, but let me try again to sum up, and see if I am anywhere close to the right ballpark.

So, factually, you believe that it would be reasonable to take issue with my definition of railroading; but, once that definition is accepted, the rest of my analysis is by definition correct? And the reason one might take issue with my definition of railroading is that railroading is, in your mind, not a defined term?

This conversation is basically a semantic negotiation, about how the term railroading 'should' be defined in order to serve some particular end (that unfortunately, as often as not goes without being explicitly spoken by the participants). Is it there to define socially unacceptable behavior? Is it there to understand player psychological reactions? Is it there to understand a particular division in the philosophy of gaming that might exist at one table or another? Is it there to help establish a common point of reference for more nuanced discussions to follow?

You said 'Here's a thing I've experienced, which I call railroading; here is what I think is the essential part of this category, and what makes it distinct from other categories.' It turned out to be different than other posters' way of drawing those lines, but that's basically discussion functioning more or less as it's supposed to - so far so good. Then you made an observation 'based on how I define this, a necessary condition for it to occur seems to be desire on the part of the GM' which might not seem like it should be particularly contentious.

However, the problem is that if someone is approaching this conversation with the belief that the goal is to 'define socially unacceptable behavior' as opposed to 'understand player psychological reactions', then from that point of view you've just apparently proposed that GMs shouldn't be allowed to want anything from the game. Which is a contentious claim, because it involves renegotiating peoples' values or even suggesting that certain behaviors should be criticized, which other posters almost certainly have engaged in (based on how wide a net it casts) and don't feel are particularly bad.

If one reads your posts as definitional or explanatory of your point of view, it would be enough to say 'okay, I get that this is what you think of as railroading, lets move on' or go into specific reasons why it might be a less useful definition that others for the purpose of using the term towards specific ends. But if one reads your posts as establishing values, then if you don't agree with those values there's an imperative for everyone to defend their own. Which is where things can get confused, if you think you're just explaining your philosophy but others think you are accusing them and that they need to defend their views or attack your statements.

To put it more simply, your posts can give rise to a knee jerk feeling of 'that has to be wrong', but the thing that is wrong isn't a logical statement you've made but rather the apparent presumption of (implicitly) defining values without buy in from others.



If I've got that right, then... hmmm... I guess I fail to understand how my definition of railroading is contentious. For reference, my definition is "the GM changes game physics / facts to force or prevent a particular outcome". Whereas "a GM wanting a certain outcome and then forbidding alternatives through fiat" not only sounds the same to my ears, it actually sounds more biased to force the conclusion that "the GM wanting something" (which is actually included in your definition) is the cause of rails. So I fail to see how my bid to redefine the term (which, yes, I do redefine it to include not just forcing one answer, but also just preventing particular answers) could be seen as increasing the connection between "rails" and "the GM wanting something".


It's been pointed out by others, but take for example if I said: 'Only humans murder, murderers are humans who kill other humans; animals and forces of nature may kill, but do not murder.' I've emphasized the connection between being human and committing murder, even if I haven't said anything substantive there. Someome might read that and have the reaction 'I'm human, are you calling me a murderer?' - of course you can say 'no, I said murderers have to kill other humans', but if you combined that first statement with a lot of text about how humans cause problems that animals don't, one would get the feeling that there is something hinky going on in the conversation and start looking for logical errors. However, the problem in that case is not a logical error but rather that the text is manipulative via the use of biased patterns of emphasis.

In the particular case of your definition, the potentially manipulative thing is - why is it relevant to discuss a particular causal factor of railroading, rather than discussing railroading itself? Murder is caused by the existence of humans. If there were no humans, there would be no murder. Yet framing the discussion in that fashion in the context of asking 'what is the nature of murder?' is doing more than just leaving logical tautologies on the table - it's pushing the discussion towards the idea that (in the case of this somewhat silly example) whether maybe we should consider getting rid of all humans in order to prevent murders.



But my bias is irrelevant to my assertion that "the GM wanting things" is part of "the nature of railroading".


This particular phrasing actually is a bit problematic though. A being a necessary condition for B doesn't imply that A belongs in the definition of B or is a part of B. If I want to make water ice from liquid water, it is necessary to remove energy from it (the latent heat); but it would be unproductive to define ice as 'liquid water which has had a sufficient amount of energy removed from it', even if 'removing sufficient energy from liquid water makes ice' is a true statement.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It's a bit more wordy, but how about "improper agency denial" for the bad form of railroading and "linear adventure" for the unbad portion?

IMO railroading has developed serious bad connotations and is quite poisoned for use as a neutral term.

[Gallowglass]

"linear adventure" likewise has negative connotations.

"narrative adventure" is better. lol.

[OldTrees1]

As to my bias...

I think I would word the bias-filled version of my stance as, "wanting things can lead to railroading, but railroading requires wanting things, so not wanting things removes the temptation to railroad. I - like many people / many Playgrounders - consider railroading bad. I place no value on the GM wanting things. Thus, I believe 'the GM not wanting things' is a solution to the 'railroading problem'."

But my bias is irrelevant to my assertion that "the GM wanting things" is part of "the nature of railroading".

Which is why I should probably learn to separate them - at the very least, put them in separate posts. :smallredface:

The GM wanting things is one of the ways GMs get enjoyment out of the game. For example in Curse of Strahd, in addition to the metagame wants like wanting everyone to have fun, I want the characters to claw their way through horror (including full speed retreating at least once) until they final overcome the curse. I have some other minor wants as well.

Now "you can't always get what you want (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqMl5CRoFdk&ab_channel=TheRollingStones)" but if you try to balance for what everyone wants and use good communication then you can strike a good balance without resorting to railroading.


It's a bit more wordy, but how about "improper agency denial" for the bad form of railroading and "linear adventure" for the unbad portion?

IMO railroading has developed serious bad connotations and is quite poisoned for use as a neutral term.

I only have grammatical nitpicks. The actual point of your post is consistent with how I have seen the terms used by many others.

Violating player agency or improper agency denial are both verbs like railroading
Linear adventure or narrative adventure are both nouns like railroad
And we have seen people use the verb and noun slightly differently (because they are different parts of speech)

[PhoenixPhyre]

I only have grammatical nitpicks. The actual point of your post is consistent with how I have seen the terms used by many others.

Violating player agency or improper agency denial are both verbs like railroading
Linear adventure or narrative adventure are both nouns like railroad
And we have seen people use the verb and noun slightly differently (because they are different parts of speech)

To be precise (and pedantic), "railroading" is a gerund. And "railroad" can be a verb or a noun (you can railroad someone or you can build a railroad).

English is a weird language, and verbing weirds language (pace the great philosopher Calvin).

[MrSandman]

I only have grammatical nitpicks. The actual point of your post is consistent with how I have seen the terms used by many others.

Violating player agency or improper agency denial are both verbs like railroading
Linear adventure or narrative adventure are both nouns like railroad
And we have seen people use the verb and noun slightly differently (because they are different parts of speech)


To be precise (and pedantic), "railroading" is a gerund. And "railroad" can be a verb or a noun (you can railroad someone or you can build a railroad).

English is a weird language, and verbing weirds language (pace the great philosopher Calvin).

To add to the pedantry, "improper agency denial" is a noun phrase, which can function as any noun (subject, direct object, or indirect object, attribute or adverbial if preceeded by an appropriate preposition). If you want to turn it into a verb, it should be "to improperly deny agency".

[King of Nowhere]

I thought I was with you on your point until your example which, I feel, is a poor portrayal of railroading.

You see, to me, railroading is exactly what you said above. "players make a choice, DM overrides it even though it was a possible/plausible choice."

But your example is just fluid DMing.
......

To me, any of these are RESPONSIBLE DMing. Your job is to PROVIDE an ADVENTURE. If your pre-built adventure isn't panning out, you have to improvise. And the safest, simplest improvisation is to find a way to use what you pre-built with some modification rather than rolling random encounters or making it up whole-cloth on the side.

Railroading would be "uh, your potions all don't' work for no reason." or "a great gust of wind pushes you out of the sky and onto a trail through the woods." or forcing them to your unmodified, un-adapted original intended route.
...
In the "fly potion" scenario, the PCS cleverly and inadvertently found a way to bypass all your encounters. So to give them an adventure you have to modify or add different encounters. Otherwise, no encounters, boring adventure.

In the "scout a way around the troll" scenario, the PCS cleverly and ON PURPOSE found a way to bypass your encounter. Bonus points to them for finding a way to 'solve' the encounter you didn't plan on. But they still SOLVED the encounter. And had a fun time doing it.
...
And maybe, just maybe, The jerk PCS still refuse to engage. They throw the macguffins into a ditch and head off in yet a third direction.

At this point, personally, I give them a few more pointless random encounters then call it a day and call it a game. You can call that a "sandbox". I call it players that aren't playing the game, just want to break the DM. ...
great description. yes, the dm will often try to adapt his preplanned encounters to the situation. a pure sandbox does exactly the same, with the preplanned encounters being a table of random encounters. and players that don't engage the hooks thhe dm is presenting them... well, why are they at my table then? if tyey don't like my hooks, let them dm and come up with something better.


The thing is that the "GM wanting something" is basically going to cause anything, rails and all. Yes, for the GM to railroad he has to want something by definition. The problem is that the solution "not wanting anything" basically means that you're holding up a giant middle finger to GMs. I mean I'd run a game for you where I didn't want anything, if you paid me to do so. Because me wanting things includes wanting to do things that I find fun, if it's a social activity then it has to be things that I enjoy, if I'm not enjoying it, then somebody had better be paying me.

I mean dude, there is already a shortage of GMs, now you want them to play just for your amusement, without actually wanting any enjoyment of the game themselves? That's a pretty selfish view, at least to my perspective, unless you are paying them.


You hit spot on what I find most problematic about quertus arguments.

[Segev]

I've found that it mostly boils down to whether players' solutions that the GM didn't plan for are allowed a fair shot at succeeding. This can get very situational, precisely because the reason we play TTRPGs is to allow the situational solutions that no programmer could have come up with.

The more a game feels like it has arbitrary things that don't work, not because the setting rules wouldn't permit it, but because it would force invention of new content and abandonment of already-generated content, the more it feels like railroading. Because people often instinctively recognize the symptom of it is the "feeling" that it is arbitrary, a lot of railroading takes the form of in-setting conjurations of excuses as to why the de-railing action of the PCs doesn't work and doesn't accomplish anything. "No, um, you can't go to Northgate because the gate is locked, and won't open until the unrest here is dealt with." "No, you can't climb the wall, because you just never make the DC. Honest, there is one, and it's fair, really." "No, you can't fly over the wall, because they have archers with dispel-magic arrows that shoot you down." "You can't collect the dispel-magic arrows, because they lose their charge after being fired, and all of the pre-fired ones are in Northgate." "You can't sneak in with a supply shipment; they catch you." "You can't break down the wall/burrow through it; the wall's too tough to take damage from your digging tool of choice and goes too far down to dig under."

To a degree, some of this could actually be reasonable based on the setting and events. But as the players get increasingly creative and the defenses of the walls become more and more impressive, it starts to become clear that the DM is the one keeping them out, not the setting and its NPCs and their choices and abilities.

And this gets foggy at times. Sometimes, the DM won't even realize he's doing it, but he has specific solutions in mind, and anything else he comes up with reasons they can't possibly work. Because the only think he can think of as possibly working is what he's come up with.

[awa]

part of the problem is how many options powerful players have it makes it hard to direct or predict pcs.

Its easy to channel conan (aka mid level martial) without arbitrary restrictions can i chop through the stone wall no your sword will break first, can i dig under it no that would take forever, can i disguise myself and sneak in unlikely your like a foot taller than all the guards and also not the same ethnicity ect. In this case we can predict conan who is great at climbing may try and climb the wall and stick the adventure there

Its hard to channel dr strange (aka high level casters) they have so many ways to bypass a problem that predicting what they will do it is very difficult as is channeling them down a specific path.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Cutting off the GM wanting things is a terrible take away from railroading. That's like dealing with a brain tumor by cutting off someone's head.

Here's a story about a session I GMed once. The superhero PCs were on the trail of a human trafficking ring that was feeding test subjects to an evil corporation. They came up with the idea of infiltrating one of the shipments of people as a way to get into the building. I didn't think it was a particularly good plan, the contact they set it up with wasn't very reliable and I thought it was putting them in a vulnerable position, but that's the plan they went with. So I took that as a golden opportunity, I decided I wanted to capture the party, I thought it was a good opportunity to get some verbal interaction with some of their enemies for a change. I looked at the situation and thought to myself that it made sense for the corporation to gas the elevator with knockout gas to make it easier to sort a bunch of terrified victims, which would inadvertently hit the PCs at the same time. I knew their power set and I thought that there was a very good chance none of them would have the ability to deal with the gas. But still, I gave them their chance. I asked if any of them had anything that could do anything about it at the time and one of the players brought up that maybe his alien physiology might make him resistant to the gas. We talked for a bit and settled on a coin flip to see if it did. He ended up losing the coin flip, but I was fully prepared to let my plans go and turn the session into him desperately trying to revive his fallen comrades while fighting off the security forces.

I certainly wanted something in this. I took advantage of a golden opportunity to try to set things up so I'd get what I wanted. I don't think this was railroading at all because it followed from choices the PCs made. I didn't force them into the situation, I just took advantage of it. And I was demonstrably prepared to let what I wanted go if they found a clever way out of it.

[Willie the Duck]

If one reads your posts as definitional or explanatory of your point of view, it would be enough to say 'okay, I get that this is what you think of as railroading, lets move on' or go into specific reasons why it might be a less useful definition that others for the purpose of using the term towards specific ends.

And this is mostly where I land. I'm not particularly upset with Quertus' argument, position, or unique framing of the term railroading... I just don't know what we're supposed to do with it. I mean, I too can come up with a term, give it a non-standard definition (with or without the caveat that the term as used normally is a light pejorative and my definition covers things people who might consider themselves not doing something wrong might do), and ask that the implications of my definition might be explored, but I don't know why anyone would feel the desire to help out.

This thread is fairly esoteric as it is. Frozen_Feet pretty much called it --railroading is a simple metaphor: a train will travel along its rails with no input from a passenger and a game that is similar can quickly become unfun. Overanalysis hasn't really lead us much farther than that (where are we, analyzing what part of speech the word is?). Going ten miles down a side track (ha!) isn't going to add much.

[Pippa the Pixie]

but if you decide to break the established game rules as a means of violating player agency, then you are railroading.

BUT, what is breaking the game rules? WHAT ''can't" happen in a fictional fantasy game?


Railroading is always a force technique. It means that the players made a choice the GM doesn´t want and the GM choses to override that choice (assuming that the player choice is a legit move at that point). To stay with the metaphor, the GM changed a paved road into a set of tracks. Trying to hide that change is commonly called illusionism.

This is what I'm calling Clumsy Dming.

There simply is no reason, no reason what so ever....for a DM to EVER say ''the characters MUST fight the goblin bandits on Friday at 3pm!". And DMs that do so are setting themselves up for problems, and often to simply fail.



Where it gets tricky is when the GM first declares something to be true or not true, then starts adding stuff that will break with what has been declared. Declaring: "Time travel is absolutely impossible because the Dimension of Time is locked and can't be accessed" is a thing, especially when you are adding your time-eating plants afterwards, which violates the "in-game reality" you have created.

Seems that the DM should not say such absolutes.



We´re getting back into railroad-country when granting permission to use something, like fly, scry and teleport spells and then actively negating choices because they don't fit into the concept.

I guess there is a third trick here though: there are lots of Rules. Even more so Pathfinder then D&D....they have published like a ton ton of stuff.

So if a DM ''wants" to ''do something" to the characters scrying, flying or whatever....there are like AT LEAST five ways to do it in the rules, maybe ten or more.

AND the DM can always make new custom things.



The more a game feels like it has arbitrary things that don't work, not because the setting rules wouldn't permit it, but because it would force invention of new content and abandonment of already-generated content, the more it feels like railroading.

This is good point, and goes right back to my clumsy Dming example.

The DM has a ''thing"...that they have a toxic crazy attachment to. So if the players suddenly don't do the ''thing", the DM gets all bent out of shape and Railroads to make it happen.

But it never needs to happen in the first place. Anything can just happen some other time....it does not matter.



To a degree, some of this could actually be reasonable based on the setting and events. But as the players get increasingly creative and the defenses of the walls become more and more impressive, it starts to become clear that the DM is the one keeping them out, not the setting and its NPCs and their choices and abilities.


This really goes back to the DM skills and abilities and system mastery and imagination and many other things.

Again, the Clumsy DM.


part of the problem is how many options powerful players have it makes it hard to direct or predict pcs.

This is the exact matter of the above.

Being a DM is HARD. It is hard to run a game...fun, but hard. Just the role playing ''soap opera'' stuff can be hard.....but even worse is all the game rules for some really hard things.

It is possible to direct and predict PCs, but it takes a lot of work, skill and practice.

[OldTrees1]

BUT, what is breaking the game rules? WHAT ''can't" happen in a fictional fantasy game?

Wrong question. You are looking for the question: "What can/can't happen in this fictional world / game?" and related questions like "How does this fictional world / game work?", "What is the nature of this fictional world / game?", & "How do things work in this fictional world / game". Once the DM has answered that question (whether explicitly or implicitly), then those are the game rules. If the DM later breaks one of those rules in order to violate player agency, then their are railroading.


For example:

When I decide what kind of a campaign I want to run, I am establishing the fictional reality that the campaign will exist inside. I am establishing the metagame context (what rules affect interactions between players) and the game context (what rules affect interactions involving characters including interactions with the world).
Once I have established the game rules and the initial context, the player characters have some defined degree of player agency. Different games come with different degrees of player agency. Talk with your table to find the degree that is best for your table for that campaign. (Insert joke about consulting a doctor)
If the players try to exercise that player agency, I have the power to break the rules I established in an effort to violate that player agency. This is Railroading and generally seen as a jerk move.
Since it is generally (but not always) seen as a jerk move, I suggest not doing it when it is a jerk move. Also it is safer to err on the side of not being a jerk.

[awa]

This is the exact matter of the above.

Being a DM is HARD. It is hard to run a game...fun, but hard. Just the role playing ''soap opera'' stuff can be hard.....but even worse is all the game rules for some really hard things.

It is possible to direct and predict PCs, but it takes a lot of work, skill and practice.

Part of why I prefer lower level games when i play D&d they have fewer abilities you need to account for and its where I have the most "practice"

[Xuc Xac]

Wrong question. You are looking for the question: "What can/can't happen in this fictional world / game?" and related questions like "How does this fictional world / game work?", "What is the nature of this fictional world / game?", & "How do things work in this fictional world / game". Once the DM has answered that question (whether explicitly or implicitly), then those are the game rules. If the DM later breaks one of those rules in order to violate player agency, then their are railroading.


If you're playing a Star Trek game and you're about to capture or defeat the bad guy much earlier than the GM expected then the GM says "His ship uncloaks, beams him up, and warps away", that's B.S. but it's been established that that kind of thing can happen in Star Trek, so you just roll with it. If the GM pulled that in a Star Wars game, that's breaking the established conventions of the setting because Star Wars doesn't have transporters.

[Pippa the Pixie]

For example:


Can you give an example of this with detail?

Is it like you saying...very foolishly...''as DM I say there is no Teleporttion of any type in my world". And then later you....railroad and have a foe escape by teleporting?


If you're playing a Star Trek game and you're about to capture or defeat the bad guy much earlier than the GM expected then the GM says "His ship uncloaks, beams him up, and warps away", that's B.S. but it's been established that that kind of thing can happen in Star Trek, so you just roll with it. If the GM pulled that in a Star Wars game, that's breaking the established conventions of the setting because Star Wars doesn't have transporters.

Right, the better made fictional worlds, like D&D and Star Trek have the anything can happen bulit right in.

But what about just ''the bad guy escapes" , that is very common in most fiction......so that would mean the DM could do that? Right?

[Quertus]

I'm not particularly upset with Quertus' argument, position, or unique framing of the term railroading...

Huh. I really hadn't considered my definition to be as unique as most are taking it. That is, I figured "changing game physics / facts to force an outcome" was just adding definition (of the "how" variety) to "forcing an outcome", which I though was itself the established definition of railroading.

And, because it is IMO oft-overlooked, I believed that "changing game physics / facts to prevent an outcome" should fall under the same umbrella. Admittedly, that "same umbrella" could possibly just have railroading as a subset of its existence, rather than actually being the "railroading" umbrella itself, I suppose.

So, you know, since the thread is "the nature of railroading", how do other people actually define it? Where does my argument go "off the rails" of people's definitions / understanding of railroading?

[OldTrees1]

Can you give an example of this with detail?

Yes, but are you sure you want me to talk down to you? I can either leave the overlooked detail abstract in which case you can have it map to some detail you could overlook while DMing. OR I can use a concrete detailed we would not overlook and pretend the DM overlooked it. So either I rely on you being smart enough to understand abstract concepts (which is clearly true) or we both pretend that you could miss a detail you would not have overlooked in practice.

Give it a moment of thought.

Bob is DMing a Star Trek campaign and has established that shields block teleporters. Possibly because previously the PCs wondered if they could teleport onto the villain Jaboc's ship. Jaboc decides to sneak onto the PCs' ship to steal some steel (Jaboc thinks you can't buy steel. Jaboc is funny). The PCs activate their shields while Jaboc is on their ship and start firing at Jaboc's ship causing it to raise its shields. Bob wants Jaboc to escape by teleporter but Jaboc can't because "shields block teleporters". The Players used the choices and abilities their characters had to make a plan and the plan is consistent with the verisimilitude / game rules of the campaign. That was them exercising their player agency. Bob decides to retcon the hindering rule and has Jaboc teleport away through the shields. Bob changed the rules because Bob didn't like the outcome of the player agency they had granted to the players.

Now clearly you would be able to expect a circumstance like that and thus only have Jaboc board the ship if you were okay with the teleporter being blocked by shields. But this is not about your ability to expect this circumstance. This is about how you chose to react to the players having a valid but unexpected solution. If you change the rules when things don't go your way, that can be a jerk move.

The DM using retcons in order to renege on agency they gave the Players is a common subtype of Railroading.

[King of Nowhere]

So, you know, since the thread is "the nature of railroading", how do other people actually define it? Where does my argument go "off the rails" of people's definitions / understanding of railroading?

I prefer to not define it; for every definition, there are exceptions and border-line cases that can be made, or blatant examples of railroading that would not fall under the definition.
Ultimately you have to judge on a case-by-case basis.

[Frozen_Feet]

Cutting off the GM wanting things is a terrible take away from railroading. That's like dealing with a brain tumor by cutting off someone's head.

Well, Quertus is right insofar that wanting stems from desire and desire is at the root of suffering. :smalltongue: But slightly less esoterically:

The best "defense" against "railroading" is a GM who wants to run some other type of scenario, combined with players who want to play some other type of scenario.

A game only exists because the participants want it. If the GM does not want anything regarding the game, I must ask: who are you threatening with a gun to make them run the game for you?

On the flipside, a GM who has no pressing wants or needs is no guarantee of anything. Other players at the table have wants and needs as well and they can steamroll a GM with no vision easily. I've seen this happen many times in freeform play-by-posts and other "GMless" games. A dominating player or clique of players can lay the tracks and push everyone along them just as bad as any GM. Democracy is just tyranny of the majority and consensus is fertile soil for the Abilene paradox. Group pressure can make people miserable just as easily as a GM playing dictator.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Bob is DMing a Star Trek campaign and has established that shields block teleporters.

As a die hard Trekkie, I know this silly statment is not true.

And, again, any DM that is clumsy enough to say and establish anything..like shields block teleporters as an absloute is just asking for trouble.

After all, the smooth DM would say shields block teleporters most of the time, but not all of the time and there are a lot of known and unknow exceptions that depend on a lot of factors unique to each sistuation. Or, in short, Anything can happen.

And this is also on the bad, clumsy DM that send the foe onto the players ship with no escape plan. IF the DM really wanted the foe to escape, all they needed was a plan.




Now clearly you would be able to expect a circumstance like that and thus only have Jaboc board the ship if you were okay with the teleporter being blocked by shields. But this is not about your ability to expect this circumstance. This is about how you chose to react to the players having a valid but unexpected solution. If you change the rules when things don't go your way, that can be a jerk move.

The DM using retcons in order to renege on agency they gave the Players is a common subtype of Railroading.

This is still only about a Clumsy DM. Even if the poor foe did not have a plan, there are plenty of things they can still do to escape. It's not like the DM just sits back and says 'you players win".

The clumsy DM is the one that just does the railroading: the foe escapes no matter what the players do. The smooth DM has the foe escape by folling or out smaring or tricking or such the players.

Of course, either way, if the foe escapes....the players will whine and cry if they fail to stop it.

And if they are bad players, they will immeieadtly cry ''railroading".

[Quertus]

Well, Quertus is right insofar that wanting stems from desire and desire is at the root of suffering. :smalltongue: But slightly less esoterically:

A game only exists because the participants want it. If the GM does not want anything regarding the game, I must ask: who are you threatening with a gun to make them run the game for you?

On the flipside, a GM who has no pressing wants or needs is no guarantee of anything. Other players at the table have wants and needs as well and they can steamroll a GM with no vision easily. I've seen this happen many times in freeform play-by-posts and other "GMless" games. A dominating player or clique of players can lay the tracks and push everyone along them just as bad as any GM. Democracy is just tyranny of the majority and consensus is fertile soil for the Abilene paradox. Group pressure can make people miserable just as easily as a GM playing dictator.

Railroading MtG judge Bob loves the idea of the new kid making it to the finals, and ignores the rules of Magic in making rulings to ensure that he gets there.

Railroading MtG judge Dave wants games to be "close", so he'll sneak extra cards onto the board to make matches closer.

Railroading MtG judge Fred hates mill decks, and rules against them, regardless of the facts.

Fair judge Sam just makes rulings based on the rules of the game.

Why would you believe that Sam would be a pushover who would be easily swayed by the players?

Why would Sam need a gun to his head? Why would he need a reason beyond the game itself in order to give fair rulings?

[Frozen_Feet]

1) Your questions are predicated on Sam wanting to run a fair game and wanting to be a judge.

2) RPGs are not MtG, the GM is not just a referee, they are a player.

Corollary to 1) & 2): Sam is not an example of a GM who does not want things.

As for your questions:

If Sam has no pressing want or need to stay fair, he has no reason to push back against players who are vying for unfair advantage.

If Sam has no pressing want or need to serve as a judge, he will not serve as a judge. The game rules themselves have no obligating force whatsoever. The number of humans who consider rules of any game to be self-important are few and far between.

A more realistic expectation is that Sam has a reason to be a judge that precedes and goes beyond the game. For example, he might just want to have fun time with his friends. (The lamest, vilest and most common excuse given for such behaviour.) In which case, being fair, or playing the game at all, go out of the window the moment they conflict with those goals.

[OldTrees1]

As a die hard Trekkie, I know this silly statment is not true.

And, again, any DM that is clumsy enough to say and establish anything..like shields block teleporters as an absloute is just asking for trouble.

After all, the smooth DM would say shields block teleporters most of the time, but not all of the time and there are a lot of known and unknow exceptions that depend on a lot of factors unique to each sistuation. Or, in short, Anything can happen.

And this is also on the bad, clumsy DM that send the foe onto the players ship with no escape plan. IF the DM really wanted the foe to escape, all they needed was a plan.

This is still only about a Clumsy DM. Even if the poor foe did not have a plan, there are plenty of things they can still do to escape. It's not like the DM just sits back and says 'you players win".

The clumsy DM is the one that just does the railroading: the foe escapes no matter what the players do. The smooth DM has the foe escape by folling or out smaring or tricking or such the players.

Of course, either way, if the foe escapes....the players will whine and cry if they fail to stop it.

And if they are bad players, they will immeieadtly cry ''railroading".

Ah, I see. So you think the DM should never establish anything. But how do you fool/out smart/trick the players if the players know nothing about the campaign? For the players to be fooled/out smarted/tricked, they need to make informed decisions. For them to make informed decisions then there needs to be established information. If there is established information then the players can come up with unexpected solutions. When the players come up with an unexpected solution, do you act like what you called the "Clumsy DM" by railroading or do you acknowledge their plan is possible and works? OR do you avoid establishing anything and thus cannot fool/out smart/trick the players?

If literally anything can happen at any time, then there is no campaign.

But we are not done there. Establishing a fact does not require telling the players that fact. Each time the DM makes a decision about what is true for their campaign they are establishing things. If Jaboc sneaks onto the PC's ship, where is Jaboc? On the PC's ship. How does Jaboc's escape options work? The DM knows. If Jaboc becomes trapped, despite the PCs not knowing, then Jaboc is trapped. If the DM decides to retcon one of Jaboc's escape options to allow the trapped Jaboc to escape, then they have broken an established fact of their world. If the DM does that to violate the players agency then that is also railroading.

But you describe a "DM" that never establishes anything. So Jaboc never was established. All the "DM" is doing is making up things as they go but without using any logic to derive what they are making up. So in addition to the Players not being able to play, the "DM" is barely able to play themselves.

I would describe this as Nonsense Acting which is as far from a "Smooth DM" as you can possibly get. Have you met Darth Ultron recently?

[Pippa the Pixie]

Ah, I see. So you think the DM should never establish anything. But how do you fool/out smart/trick the players if the players know nothing about the campaign? For the players to be fooled/out smarted/tricked, they need to make informed decisions. For them to make informed decisions then there needs to be established information. If there is established information then the players can come up with unexpected solutions. When the players come up with an unexpected solution, do you act like what you called the "Clumsy DM" by railroading or do you acknowledge their plan is possible and works? OR do you avoid establishing anything and thus cannot fool/out smart/trick the players?


I thought I was clear that DMs should ''establish" complex things, not simple absolute things. A DM should never say things like "X is impossible absolutely forever!" and more like "X works like Y some of the time, BUT there is F and H and R, plus things like T that can change that...sometimes.

As I don't do such absolute things in my game, it's never a problem for me. Just take the Star Trek transporter example. I would NEVER say the ''you can't teleport through shields" as it's not true. I'm saying more: "Federation transporters(and only transporters), and ones from other related places at the same level of technological development can not, normally by default, move things through Federation and related shields. Though this is highly situational and can depend on many unique factors every time. Also both new and old and alien technologies and powers might be found or used or created that can allow such travel when shields are up. "



If literally anything can happen at any time, then there is no campaign.

The anything is literally what RPGs are all about.




But we are not done there. Establishing a fact does not require telling the players that fact. Each time the DM makes a decision about what is true for their campaign they are establishing things. If Jaboc sneaks onto the PC's ship, where is Jaboc? On the PC's ship. How does Jaboc's escape options work? The DM knows. If Jaboc becomes trapped, despite the PCs not knowing, then Jaboc is trapped. If the DM decides to retcon one of Jaboc's escape options to allow the trapped Jaboc to escape, then they have broken an established fact of their world. If the DM does that to violate the players agency then that is also railroading.

I'm not following here?

So the foe sneaks on to the ship. The players don't know? And the foe traps themselves? And the players don't know...still? So if the DM had an escape plan for the foe...well, they use it and get gone.

But...er...if the foe gets on the ship and gets trapped....and then the DM ''just" has them escape somehow....with the players never even knowing it happened...is railroading?!

And how is there any player agency when the players have done nothing?



But you describe a "DM" that never establishes anything. So Jaboc never was established. All the "DM" is doing is making up things as they go but without using any logic to derive what they are making up. So in addition to the Players not being able to play, the "DM" is barely able to play themselves.


Like I said above: have a complex game with no absolutes. Also have a DM with a lot of creativity and imagination and game system mastery.

[OldTrees1]

I thought I was clear that DMs should ''establish" complex things, not simple absolute things. A DM should never say things like "X is impossible absolutely forever!" and more like "X works like Y some of the time, BUT there is F and H and R, plus things like T that can change that...sometimes.

As I don't do such absolute things in my game, it's never a problem for me. Just take the Star Trek transporter example. I would NEVER say the ''you can't teleport through shields" as it's not true. I'm saying more: "Federation transporters(and only transporters), and ones from other related places at the same level of technological development can not, normally by default, move things through Federation and related shields. Though this is highly situational and can depend on many unique factors every time. Also both new and old and alien technologies and powers might be found or used or created that can allow such travel when shields are up. "

So let me get this straight:
1) I gave you the abstract example that referenced the concept of an overlooked unexpected solution
2) You wanted a concrete example
3) I knew it would be insulting to try to guess the exact level of complexity that you could find unexpected but could also comprehend.
4) I warned you that I was going to use a jokingly simple example in the concrete example to avoid insulting you.
5) You dishonestly ignored all of that. Which I did predict, hence the explicit qualifiers and notices that I could refer back to.

So let's start again with an abstract example to keep you honest. You ran a campaign. Because the campaign has complex established facts (even if only the DM was privy to some of those facts), the players can create unexpected solutions to scenarios. Yeah, in some other time/place/context/item the plan would not have worked because you do not use absolutes. However, in the current time/place/context/item, the unexpected plan is a valid solution that you did not expect to a scenario you did not want solved. Faced with an unexpected but valid solution to a scenario you did not want solved, do you:
A) Break those established facts to negate the unexpected solution
B) Let the unexpected solution play out
C) Avoid A when A is a jerk move. Otherwise it varies between A & B.

If you choose A, then that is a subtype of railroading and can be a jerk move.


The anything is literally what RPGs are all about.
In a game if literally anything can happen then the players have literally no reference frame and become unable to play. If the player tries to do something, then literally anything could happen (including nothing) and that is the exact same outcome as if the player was absent. No, an RPG campaign is not about literally anything can happen.

As JNA Productions points out immediately below, the term that was slipping my mind was Internal Consistency.

[JNAProductions]

In a game if literally anything can happen then the players have literally no reference frame and become unable to play. If the player tries to do something, then literally anything could happen (including nothing) and that is the exact same outcome as if the player was absent. No, an RPG campaign is not about literally anything can happen.

Internal consistency.

The most basic of, I would say, is "It's like real life, unless otherwise stated."

For instance, an ordinary human being cannot fly under their own power. If they're magical, have a magic item, or something like that, then they can, but you cannot declare "Bob the Human flies over the 200' chasm." You could, of course, play a different race-for instance, you could play a Winged Tiefling or something, in which case you CAN fly under your own power.

But the main point is that the setting has consistency. It doesn't have to be REALISTIC, but it has to be CONSISTENT. If, in your setting, humans can indeed fly without outside help, great! That's fine-but if flying trivializes an encounter, you shouldn't suddenly declare that humans can no longer fly. It's not consistent.

[OldTrees1]

Internal consistency.

Yes. That was the term that was slipping my mind.

Even a functional approximation of internal consistency is sufficient. Players can still interact with a game where figuratively anything could happen because a reference frame can be made that allows the Players to make informed decisions and differentiate between user input vs lack of input. However if literally anything could happen then you cannot create a internal consistency that allows for the Player to make informed decisions or even differentiate between user input vs lack of input.

It is also why I always use the word verisimilitude rather than realism when describing campaigns / game rules.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Faced with an unexpected but valid solution to a scenario you did not want solved, do you:
A) Break those established facts to negate the unexpected solution
B) Let the unexpected solution play out
C) Avoid A when A is a jerk move. Otherwise it varies between A & B.


B.

As I have said above: things don't matter and the DM can just do it next time.



In a game if literally anything can happen then the players have literally no reference frame and become unable to play. If the player tries to do something, then literally anything could happen (including nothing) and that is the exact same outcome as if the player was absent. No, an RPG campaign is not about literally anything can happen.


I've never seen a player unable to play as they are worried anything can happen. The idea that a player can at least try anything is a big draw for RPGs.


Yes. That was the term that was slipping my mind.

Even a functional approximation of internal consistency is sufficient. Players can still interact with a game where figuratively anything could happen because a reference frame can be made that allows the Players to make informed decisions and differentiate between user input vs lack of input. However if literally anything could happen then you cannot create a internal consistency that allows for the Player to make informed decisions or even differentiate between user input vs lack of input.


I think your going for the cartoon meaning of anything here: the Messy Jessie way. Or the kids make belive way.

Like:

Player Bob:The character swings his sword...
DM:Anything Happens! Your character's sword transfroms into a Giant Duck! And the Giant Duck goes QUACK! and that Quack blows up the world! Anything Happens!

And not the more reasonable, adult mature of anything:

Player Bob:With my sword strike my character kills our arch foe:Duke Sorn!
DM:The dukes dead body tumbles to the ground...and it's from shifts into that of a doppelganger
Player Bob:Woah....wonder if he was always one or if this is just a decoy...hummm

[Xuc Xac]

B.

As I have said above: things don't matter and the DM can just do it next time.


Like:

Player Bob:With my sword strike my character kills our arch foe:Duke Sorn!
DM:The dukes dead body tumbles to the ground...and it's from shifts into that of a doppelganger
Player Bob:Woah....wonder if he was always one or if this is just a decoy...hummm

Was that Duke Sorn a doppelganger before Player Bob hit him with a sword or did the railroading DM just say he was a doppelganger because RRDM didn't want Duke Sorn to die yet? Because that's not "option B: Let the unexpected solution play out".

[Pippa the Pixie]

Was that Duke Sorn a doppelganger before Player Bob hit him with a sword or did the railroading DM just say he was a doppelganger because RRDM didn't want Duke Sorn to die yet? Because that's not "option B: Let the unexpected solution play out".

This is true, and is also my point.

Clumsy DM Bob makes the NPC Duke Sorn. The NPC has all sorts of mencanical spam and the DM has carefully woven the NPC into each of the player characters back stories. And the DM plans for Duke Sorn to be a long time foe of the PCs.

A couple minutes into the game, the DM introduces Duke Sorn. So the Duke walks right up to the PCs, alone, stands five feet away and insults, taunts and threatens them. So the players simply have thier characters attack and kill Duke Sorn.

Clumsy DM Bob is all shocked and supprised as he never thought that would happen. That the players of heavily armed and armored battle ready murderhobo characters in a game with a huge focus on only COMBAT, might suddenly ''just kill a NPC" had never, ever occoured to DM Bob.

And the death of NPC Duke Sorn throws all of poor Clumsy DM Bob's plans for a long time foe for the PCs out the window.

So, yes this is where poor Clumsy DM Bob will RAILROAD to save his special NPC. And likely ''get caught" by the players.

Now my whole point is The Above Never Needs to Happen at All, Ever.

1.There is always a Next Time. So NPC Duke Sorn is killed. So what? There are still like...oh, 100,000 OTHER NPC's in the kingdom. So...how about one of THEM becomes the long time foe?

And even if it never happens in ''game 1"....the DM can always play in another game ''game 2" and have it happen. It's not like if the DM ''fails" to do something they are forbidden from ever doing it again for the rest of thier lives.

2.Common Sense If the DM wants a long time foe, quite often a non combative or distant or careful or even faceless works much better. And role playing ties like both the NPC and the PCs are members of the same group.

Though, most of all, there is NO reason for the NPC to just walk up to the PCs and be a target. And this is common sense: he should have protection and a way to escape IF the NPC does just walk up to the PCs.

3.Mechanics IF the DM really wants/needs NPC Duke Sorn to be a mechanical pure combat menace to the PCs: then the DM better have the rules and system mastery to make the NPC exactly that. To have the ''target duke" have like five hit points and be a weak as a kitten is not the way to go. He does not need to be an Epic Warlord, but should be as powerful as needed.

And this goes double for escapes: anyone who deals with heavily armed and armored battle ready murderhobo characters SHOULD have an escape plan to get away. And there are often a ton of mechanical ways to do this.

[OldTrees1]

B.

As I have said above: things don't matter and the DM can just do it next time.


Now if someone chooses A, that is the kind of railroading (which is sometimes a jerk move) that you wanted me to give an example of. That is the situation where a DM breaks the campaign rules they established in order to negate the consequence of player agency. And that is the subtype of railroading that -insert_person_before_me- was trying to explain to you.

Perhaps that was another accidental argument?



I think your going for the cartoon meaning of anything here: the Messy Jessie way. Or the kids make believe way.

I used the word "Literally" and I did not mean "Figuratively". I was shocked when you decided to argue for the "Messy Jessie" way even if it was apparently an accidental argument.

For example I mistakenly thought (past tense) that you meant
Player Bob:The character swings his sword...
DM: Anything Happens! The Sword swing causes the villian Jaboc to suddenly transforms into an Earth Elemental
DM: The Elemental Jaboc jumps. Anything Happens! Jaboc reincarnates 10 miles away.

[Florian]

Huh. I really hadn't considered my definition to be as unique as most are taking it. That is, I figured "changing game physics / facts to force an outcome" was just adding definition (of the "how" variety) to "forcing an outcome", which I though was itself the established definition of railroading.

And, because it is IMO oft-overlooked, I believed that "changing game physics / facts to prevent an outcome" should fall under the same umbrella. Admittedly, that "same umbrella" could possibly just have railroading as a subset of its existence, rather than actually being the "railroading" umbrella itself, I suppose.

So, you know, since the thread is "the nature of railroading", how do other people actually define it? Where does my argument go "off the rails" of people's definitions / understanding of railroading?

You're getting a lot of flak there because you put your definition before the social contract that defines agency (and power) for players and GMs, not after. For example, there's a huge difference between the statements "Ok, let's play Pathfinder" and "Ok, let's play Giantslayer using the Pathfinder rules". Context matters.

@Pippa:

You still don't get it.

All the talk about "player agency" is centered around a shared basis. All participants agree to stick to some things and declare them to be "true" before the game begins, so they all have a common shared ground as basis for their decision making process.

For example, saying setting: Golarion, rules: Pathfinder is a thing, adding campaign: Giantslayer drills it down further.

The combination of the two or three above should inform players what they can do and what rules support that in context of game play. I agree with you that he great strength of TTRPGs vs any other form lies in the GM been there as an additional player to react and improvise, the difference between using a game system vs. freeform is based on both sides agreeing on a common medium and tool that settles the what and how of it.

So what you want is your players to be able to act based on the common ground and within the set limits, not only force them to react to what you present them, this is where railroading comes in.

[Quertus]

You're getting a lot of flak there because you put your definition before the social contract that defines agency (and power) for players and GMs, not after. For example, there's a huge difference between the statements "Ok, let's play Pathfinder" and "Ok, let's play Giantslayer using the Pathfinder rules". Context matters.

"Dude, Chris needs to come to the game tonight."

"He can't - he's dead."

I have my definition of "dead" before the social contract of "showing up for game night". I don't see how that makes my definition wrong, or worthy of "flak".

So, in what way do you believe that the definition of "railroading" should change (from "changing game physics / facts to force an outcome", right?) based on the social contract?

[Jakinbandw]

"Dude, Chris needs to come to the game tonight."

"He can't - he's dead."

I have my definition of "dead" before the social contract of "showing up for game night". I don't see how that makes my definition wrong, or worthy of "flak".

So, in what way do you believe that the definition of "railroading" should change (from "changing game physics / facts to force an outcome", right?) based on the social contract?

From what I'm getting from you the ideal game is one where the GM uses nothing but random generation without ever checking it for balance or fairness (wanting balance and fairness is wanting something after all).

I have a question regarding your mtg compassion earlier. Would you call it railroading for the GM to bring a friend to a casual tourny they are running that has an expensive win turn 0 deck? It's following the rules and not making anything up.

[Pippa the Pixie]

All the talk about "player agency" is centered around a shared basis. All participants agree to stick to some things and declare them to be "true" before the game begins, so they all have a common shared ground as basis for their decision making process.


I guess I'm not getting your bias and your stuborn clinging to absolutes.

For any good, complex game all that ''true" stuff is a bit vague.

But even more so, beyond the rule books, DMs can create and add things to the game.

[Quertus]

From what I'm getting from you the ideal game is one where the GM uses nothing but random generation without ever checking it for balance or fairness (wanting balance and fairness is wanting something after all).

That depends.

Historically, as far as I know, I was the only person to dispute the "best" tag on the "best" group in my area - who did just that. So I'd say that there's a massive number of ancient gamers who believed the stance you just put forth.

Myself? If you say, "for x characters, level y-z", implicit in that statement is an expectation of a certain level of balance. If you don't? Following the map of Skyrim (or whatever) to the letter, and letting the PCs die to wandering into an epic fight at 1st level is not inherently bad GMing. However, what is required is the reasonable expectation of the group having fun. If fun is not had, expect to be grilled about just why you thought that this would be fun. The numerous morons why have ranted about game balance, then, 1st encounter TPK? Yeah, we talked. The GMs who promised a political sandbox, but secretly defined one or both of those terms in a "I think you mean the other thing" way? Yeah, we talked.


I have a question regarding your mtg compassion earlier. Would you call it railroading for the GM to bring a friend to a casual tourny they are running that has an expensive win turn 0 deck? It's following the rules and not making anything up.

No, I wouldn't. (Unless "casual" is secretly a reserved word in MtG parlance.)

It may be a jerk move, depending, but it's a different flavor of jerk move. Not all jerks are murders. Not all jerks are bullies. Not all jerks talk during movies. There are multiple flavors of jerk.

[NichG]

I guess I'm not getting your bias and your stuborn clinging to absolutes.

For any good, complex game all that ''true" stuff is a bit vague.

But even more so, beyond the rule books, DMs can create and add things to the game.

On the contrary, when "true" stuff is overly vague, it's the limiting factor on the practical complexity that can be achieved in a game. A game is complex only when the elaborations and details are meaningful, and un-resolvable uncertainty limits the degree to which meaning can propagate between elements of the game.

Taking the shields example, lets say you have two versions of the same campaign:

Version 1: The DM establishes 'Federation standard shields have an engine power draw rating, and can block transporters whose power draw is less than 4 orders of magnitude higher than that of the shield. An active transporter beacon placed within the shielded area drops this to parity. Talosian transporters are an exception, as they operate on a different physical principle; however, Talosian transporters require the presence of a conscious mind which is perceiving each end of the transit in order to transport something. This knowledge is exhaustive for Alpha-quadrant technology, but there are no guarantees outside of that.'

Version 2: The DM says 'Sometimes shields block transporters but not always, and there isn't really a way to know ahead of time - every alien civilization has a subtly different way of shielding and way of transporting, and you never know if the ship you're dealing with has acquired some previously unknown alien super-tech.'

In the first campaign, the players could make informed decisions about how their ship should be designed, how different ship systems should be prioritized, etc. They can make secondary plans in case they encounter a Talosian transporter (having everyone in the crew equipped with a centrally-controlled sensory shutoff chip, or just turning off all the lights). If they encounter a shielded station that they need to get through, they know that they can search out a Talosian transporter, or maybe make a massively overpowered transporter to force their way through the shields, or smuggle a transporter beacon in with the next food shipment to the station. Even though there is the possibility of something the players don't know coming in, that uncertainty can be bounded - the players can expect to be able to make a plan relying on their knowledge of how shields and transporters work in the Alpha quadrant, but not in the Delta quadrant, and so can make decisions about where to look for new tech (Delta) or perform a series of heists (Alpha) on the basis of that.

In the second campaign, they can try and see, and if it fails they can try to take the shields down, but that's about it. There's much less possibility for planning, strategy, or the sorts of interactions between decisions which create real complexity. It may be the case that the DM is just winging things, or that the DM has a very elaborate 100x100 matrix of interactions between shielding systems and transporter systems, but they're indistinguishable from the perspective of gameplay.

The GM being able to establish something as true and being able to be believed by the players is a very powerful tool. It comes with prerequisites for its continued use. You can run games which don't make use of that tool, but they're going to be a lot less complex as a result.

[Florian]

So, in what way do you believe that the definition of "railroading" should change (from "changing game physics / facts to force an outcome", right?) based on the social contract?

The Social Contract is what defines the nature of the game itself for that table.

Agreeing to play "Golarion" and agreeing to play "Giantslayer in Golarion" are two totally different matters. In the first case, Golarion is both stage and background, in the second case, Giantslayer is stage, Golarion is background. (And it is totally stupid to try to "surprise" your player by telling them "Golarion" an then playing "Giantslayer")

This is a radical change in player agency and all participants should know and understand that.

In quite of a lot of cases, this difference isn't made clear and most GMs will resort to "railroading" to enforce the Social Contract. This will inform what the GMs "wants", the point you're criticizing.

[Jakinbandw]

However, what is required is the reasonable expectation of the group having fun. If fun is not had, expect to be grilled about just why you thought that this would be fun.


Here is why I disagree with you. If I have a fully realized city ready to go and the players were planning to head there and change their minds at the last moment is it more fun for them to go to another town where I have nothing but an outline? This leaves the players with the option of either going to the town they originally planned to (and that counts as railroading because I am telling them to go there as a GM) or they have to wait an hour or so while I flesh out a new town and area for them. Is sitting around bored fun? No. I don't want my players bored and telling them to go to the town I design I think you would call railroading (I want them to go there so our session isn't wasted).

The same thing goes for other situations. Very few players I've played with want their characters to die, however most would complain if you changed how things worked to keep their character alive.

Just because things are more fun when the GM does something does not mean it's a good idea. Fun is not a good indicator of good gming if you believe that a GM is an impartial arbitrator. In fact I would argue that if you are having fun with a GM he is probably not being impartial enough and is caving to player desires instead of providing an impartial game. Sign of fun include fair fights, situations that the players can solve, and and the players actions mattering (because really, look at real life, how much does what we do matter anyway? Having things work out for the players is railroading things so the players live and can go on more adventures).

This is why I don't say railroading is gms wanting things, but instead have it as 'negating player agency'.

In my earlier example; is the reasons the players going to the new town because they are low on resources and can't make the journey to the other town safely? Why not have them come across a caravan? Or why not move the town they were going to to the town they are going to. Each of these preserves their agency (choosing to avoid a dangerous trip while low on supplies) while also allowing a fun session to happen instead of leaving the players bored.

[Segev]

If he players har off of the planned map to places unprepared, the Dm admitting he doesn’t have those places ready is fine. If the players want to metagame and go where here is stuff planned, that’s fine. If they are insistent on the chosen unprepped place, the DM is within rights to call it early to go plan for where the players decided to go next time.

[Florian]

I guess I'm not getting your bias and your stuborn clinging to absolutes.

For any good, complex game all that ''true" stuff is a bit vague.

But even more so, beyond the rule books, DMs can create and add things to the game.

I don´t think you understand how the whole "player agency" thing works.

The whole point is that the players can act on their own, not only react to what the GM places in front of them. For that, a shared basis is needed, so the players can make informed decisions based on things they can rely on, instead of trying to second guess the GM each time.

[Quertus]

(And it is totally stupid to try to "surprise" your player by telling them "Golarion" an then playing "Giantslayer")

This bit? I find it quite odd. IME, parties would often bounce from adventure to adventure, with little input from the players beyond answering questions like, "so, have you ever played Under mountain before?" if the planned adventure was a published module. This notion of getting player buy-in on a particular module is foreign to me (since they are all black boxes about which the player knows nothing, they have no agency to pick).


Here is why I disagree with you. If I have a fully realized city ready to go and the players were planning to head there and change their minds at the last moment is it more fun for them to go to another town where I have nothing but an outline? This leaves the players with the option of either going to the town they originally planned to (and that counts as railroading because I am telling them to go there as a GM) or they have to wait an hour or so while I flesh out a new town and area for them. Is sitting around bored fun? No. I don't want my players bored and telling them to go to the town I design I think you would call railroading (I want them to go there so our session isn't wasted).

Hmmm... Since it didn't involve changing game facts or physics, it doesn't hit my definition of railroading. Which may be an error in my definition. Playground?


If he players har off of the planned map to places unprepared, the Dm admitting he doesn’t have those places ready is fine. If the players want to metagame and go where here is stuff planned, that’s fine. If they are insistent on the chosen unprepped place, the DM is within rights to call it early to go plan for where the players decided to go next time.

Agreed. That is a perfectly valid - and, IMO, preferable - solution. Actions have consequences, and this is the logical consequence of the players changing their minds.


The same thing goes for other situations. Very few players I've played with want their characters to die, however most would complain if you changed how things worked to keep their character alive.

Just because things are more fun when the GM does something does not mean it's a good idea. Fun is not a good indicator of good gming if you believe that a GM is an impartial arbitrator.

Correct, fun does not indicate impartiality. In my example, it indicates the possibility of failure to be partial / wisely discriminating in choosing what would be fun for the group. "I know y'all just bought a lot of Magic cards you're itching to play. Tonight, you have the choice of Fatal or Russian Roulette." I think that guy would quickly be fired from the role of "activities director".

"The USS Enterprise encounters strange dimensional energy, activating and supercharging all systems. It warps through realities, until it stops above your home planet. Supercharged with dimensional energy, the transporters malfunction, and randomly beam your characters aboard… 3 seconds before the ship self-destructs."… is a perfectly *valid* scenario, but it's unlikely to be a *fun* scenario for almost any party.

Yes, the GM should be partial in selecting the scenario / populating the sandbox / whatever. But a failure to be impartial when running the game can result in all manner of things, from favoritism to railroading.

Although this brings up an interesting point. Suppose a player comments that they never get to use the ray gun that Minion made them, because combat is always over before it finishes warming up. So the GM tailor makes a scenario that they think will last long enough for the PC to use their cool toy. Now if another PC - or even that PC! - do something unexpected that ends the encounter before the gun warms up, and the GM negates their earned victory to force the encounter to last "long enough", everybody agrees that that's railroading, right? But what about the act of filling in part of the infinite blank space of the world with a particular goal in mind? Do people's definitions of "railroading" include or exclude that act? Or, more to the point, at what point does it move from… whatever it is… to railroading?


In fact I would argue that if you are having fun with a GM he is probably not impartial enough and is caving to player desires instead of providing an impartial game.

Strongly disagree. Let's see what you've got…


Sign of fun include fair fights,

Queue both "ancient dragon on the random encounter table, encountered by 1st level character" and "the module says "for level x" stories.


situations that the players can solve,

I agree, failure should be an option.


and and the players actions mattering (because really, look at real life, how much does what we do matter anyway?

Agreed, imperial evidence could suggest that we on an extremely grimdark world.

Personally, I prefer grimdark settings - so long as the PCs are among the few who actually matter. It's much harder for the GM to **** things up that way, IME.


Having things work out for the players is railroading things so the players live and can go on more adventures).

Agreed.


This is why I don't say railroading is gms wanting things, but instead have it as 'negating player agency'.

I *never* said railroading was the GM wanting things. Never. Just like I never said that photosynthesis was sunlight, or murder was living beings. I merely pointed out that, as part of the nature of x, Y was required for x.

Sigh.

I really ought to tally how many times I've had to repeat that in this thread.

Anyway… railroading = negating player agency? I don't think that that's a horrible definition, but I wonder a) if all negation of player agency is railroading; b) if granting unwarranted agency to force the plot to stay on the rails could not itself be a form of railroading?


In my earlier example; is the reasons the players going to the new town because they are low on resources and can't make the journey to the other town safely? Why not have them come across a caravan? Or why not move the town they were going to to the town they are going to. Each of these preserves their agency (choosing to avoid a dangerous trip while low on supplies) while also allowing a fun session to happen instead of leaving the players bored.

I am fairly certain that a Quantum Ogre (or, in this case, a whole Quantum City!) is kinda a classic example of a denial of player agency. And - oh look - it matches my definition of "changing game facts to force an outcome".

[Segev]

I would go so far as to allow that a "Quantum Ogre" or "Quantum City" or any such thing is actually just fine...as long as the players weren't deliberately trying to avoid just what you're putting in their path.

Let's take the PCs who decide to go "North" when the GM has all his plans for East, West, and South. If the PCs are going North because they think the scenery looks cooler up there, and you don't change around the scenery, you can feel perfectly fine for taking the plot hook encounter you had planned in the East and re-orienting it to the North. Provided you can move the plot up there and keep the thing the players were making a choice about in play.

Now, this isn't always easy or advisable, but it isn't inherently a bad thing. It also isn't stepping on player agency if their choice of direction did not meaningfully have anything to do with what your encounter plans were. This goes into "meaningful choices" versus "meaningless choices."

For instance, if you tell players there are doors to each of four directions, and give them no otehr information, they have agency to choose N, S, E, or W, but it's a meaningless choice because they have no idea what they're choosing. In such a case, it's fine to put whatever you want behind whichever door they choose, at least up until they gain enough information to make a meaningful choice to pursue or avoid what they're learning is behind door number [choice].

[Jakinbandw]

This bit? I find it quite odd. IME, parties would often bounce from adventure to adventure, with little input from the players beyond answering questions like, "so, have you ever played Under mountain before?" if the planned adventure was a published module. This notion of getting player buy-in on a particular module is foreign to me (since they are all black boxes about which the player knows nothing, they have no agency to pick).



Hmmm... Since it didn't involve changing game facts or physics, it doesn't hit my definition of railroading. Which may be an error in my definition. Playground?


So telling your players: "Either do this or no game" is not railroading. That's an interesting definition.




Correct, fun does not indicate impartiality. In my example, it indicates the possibility of failure to be partial / wisely discriminating in choosing what would be fun for the group. "I know y'all just bought a lot of Magic cards you're itching to play. Tonight, you have the choice of Fatal or Russian Roulette." I think that guy would quickly be fired from the role of "activities director".

"The USS Enterprise encounters strange dimensional energy, activating and supercharging all systems. It warps through realities, until it stops above your home planet. Supercharged with dimensional energy, the transporters malfunction, and randomly beam your characters aboard… 3 seconds before the ship self-destructs."… is a perfectly *valid* scenario, but it's unlikely to be a *fun* scenario for almost any party.

Yes, the GM should be partial in selecting the scenario / populating the sandbox / whatever. But a failure to be impartial when running the game can result in all manner of things, from favoritism to railroading.

Although this brings up an interesting point. Suppose a player comments that they never get to use the ray gun that Minion made them, because combat is always over before it finishes warming up. So the GM tailor makes a scenario that they think will last long enough for the PC to use their cool toy. Now if another PC - or even that PC! - do something unexpected that ends the encounter before the gun warms up, and the GM negates their earned victory to force the encounter to last "long enough", everybody agrees that that's railroading, right? But what about the act of filling in part of the infinite blank space of the world with a particular goal in mind? Do people's definitions of "railroading" include or exclude that act? Or, more to the point, at what point does it move from… whatever it is… to railroading?

So the player has a useless loot item (not character based or anything) that they want to use? Why do they want to use it? Does it have any advantages over other attacks? Could it allows them to take out a foe from stealth by having it spend 10 minutes charging up while their hiding? Could they pre charge it?
There are a lot of options for scenarios where the player can be given an opportunity to use it. Maybe they see someone at a long distance and aren't seen in return. Maybe their minion offers to upgrade it for some rare resource to make it so that it can hold a charge so they'll get one use an adventure with it.

I have one scenario I'm curious about though. I GM a game called exalted. In exalted the initiative rules are that players act first. Everyone else rolls and adds dex mod, but players always go first. In our games we have a younger player who is there for the combat and wants to do cool things. Generally then, when a foe is low on health I call on him when he as a good chance to end the encounter. The players can always choose a different order, but they usually defer to me. Is it railroading to call the player that gets the biggest kick out of killing things when things are about to get killed?





Strongly disagree. Let's see what you've got…



Queue both "ancient dragon on the random encounter table, encountered by 1st level character" and "the module says "for level x" stories.



I agree, failure should be an option.



Agreed, imperial evidence could suggest that we on an extremely grimdark world.

Personally, I prefer grimdark settings - so long as the PCs are among the few who actually matter. It's much harder for the GM to **** things up that way, IME.



Agreed.


Yeah, but having players that can do things that matter isn't realistic or fitting settings lore. When you have powerful gods and demons running around (or just people with personal armies and tons of money), characters by the rules of the setting shouldn't have any way to achieve anything important and may just end up dead because someone more powerful then them decided they were to uppity and sent overwhelming force at them. Since world lore is important to you, then this not happening is railroading, because it's breaking setting to allow for situations the GM wants (the game to continue).




I *never* said railroading was the GM wanting things. Never. Just like I never said that photosynthesis was sunlight, or murder was living beings. I merely pointed out that, as part of the nature of x, Y was required for x.

Sigh.

I really ought to tally how many times I've had to repeat that in this thread.

Anyway… railroading = negating player agency? I don't think that that's a horrible definition, but I wonder a) if all negation of player agency is railroading; b) if granting unwarranted agency to force the plot to stay on the rails could not itself be a form of railroading?

No, because it's allowing the players to do things. For me setting has always been less important than the choices players make and the reasons they make them.



I am fairly certain that a Quantum Ogre (or, in this case, a whole Quantum City!) is kinda a classic example of a denial of player agency. And - oh look - it matches my definition of "changing game facts to force an outcome".

Here's the interesting thing though. The reason the players don't want to go to the city they know nothing about is purely to avoid a challenge. They succeed (or fail depending on what happens and the other decisions they make) at that and their choice matters. After they've made it to the city they still get to play. Meanwhile your definition would end the game right there, or leave the players with a boring session ("Yeah you can go to this town to avoid danger, but nothing is going on here, you either go up north or stop adventuring").

If the players know something about the town and decide that they don't want to deal with it right now, and decide to go somewhere else, that is a completely different issue because the players decision is to avoid the city rather than the trip. But even at that point it's easier to build a new city when you can take a bunch of npc's from the old one and only have to work out a new problem bothering the city and a new look.

(I'm going to note right here that I don't have these problems any more. I wrote up a city generator based on the rules in godbound and I can now do this:
Power Structure
Figurehead. A public leader is actually controlled by one or more hidden figures.

Major Players
(M) Mathias of Blue Island: Official from outside world (Only they know a skill that’s vital to the community)
(F) Kennedi of Three Peaks: Mayor or chieftain (They have a powerful magical item at their disposal)
(M) Adan of Hill Bridge: Shaman or village priest (Only they know a skill that’s vital to the community)

Conflict
Vital resources are being depleted

Minor Players
(F) Destiny of Green Road: Outcast suspected of evil magic
(F) Melina of Blue Row: Naive farm lad or lass

Consequences of its Destruction
A now-unchecked threat will grow

Court Defenses
Trained guardian beastsThat's raw output right there. A single button click, and I can shuffle it into my notes. A minute or two and I have an entire town ready to go)

But I'm not the only person suggesting such things. let me quote Kevin Crawford who wrote the rules for that I use for my random generation.

Sandbox GM Techniques
One of the most insidious causes of failed sandbox campaigns is GM burnout. The sheer volume of preparation work crushes the GM, leaving them exhausted and unable to keep fleshing out a world that seems to have no borders. They feel an obligation to map out and detail everything that the PCs might choose to interact with, and unsurprisingly, they find the task beyond their powers.

The most critical skill a sandbox GM can learn is the skill of selective preparation. They need to understand what’s important to prepare and what can be ignored. They need to learn how to efficiently use their preparation time and how to get the maximum table utility out of the least amount of preparation work. These are not difficult skills to learn if the GM keeps a few basic tricks in mind.

The first is the golden rule of sandbox preparation. Every time you go to make something, ask yourself whether it’s certain to be needed for your very next game session. If it isn’t, ask yourself whether you’re having fun making it. If you answer no to that as well, stop making it. You need to have your next session prepped, but that’s all. You don’t actually need any more than that. If you’re wearing yourself out making something that isn’t immediately relevant and isn’t fun, you need to stop before you exhaust yourself on minutiae.

But how do you know what you’re going to need for the next session? It’s simple. You ask the players. At the end of every session, just ask the players what they plan to do next time. It doesn’t have to be a detailed agenda or a specific activity. Even something as general as, “We’re going to go look for a parasite god to beat down,” or “We’re going to look for a way to make a lot of money,” is enough for your purposes. You just need to know enough to make a session’s worth of challenges for them.

Some of those challenges and some of that content will go unused in the session that follows. The PCs might never find a particular ruin, or might ignore an aristocratic court you made, or might gloss over an NPC you fleshed out carefully. Don’t waste that content. Put it back in your folder and the next time you need something like it during a gaming session, just pull it out, change a few names and paint jobs, and use it. Eventually, you’ll have so many of these bits and scraps in your prep folder that you’ll be able to ad lib entire sessions out of them.



I would go so far as to allow that a "Quantum Ogre" or "Quantum City" or any such thing is actually just fine...as long as the players weren't deliberately trying to avoid just what you're putting in their path.

Let's take the PCs who decide to go "North" when the GM has all his plans for East, West, and South. If the PCs are going North because they think the scenery looks cooler up there, and you don't change around the scenery, you can feel perfectly fine for taking the plot hook encounter you had planned in the East and re-orienting it to the North. Provided you can move the plot up there and keep the thing the players were making a choice about in play.

Now, this isn't always easy or advisable, but it isn't inherently a bad thing. It also isn't stepping on player agency if their choice of direction did not meaningfully have anything to do with what your encounter plans were. This goes into "meaningful choices" versus "meaningless choices."

For instance, if you tell players there are doors to each of four directions, and give them no otehr information, they have agency to choose N, S, E, or W, but it's a meaningless choice because they have no idea what they're choosing. In such a case, it's fine to put whatever you want behind whichever door they choose, at least up until they gain enough information to make a meaningful choice to pursue or avoid what they're learning is behind door number [choice].
Well said! Exactly what I was trying to get at, and said better than I did!

[NichG]

Probably 'theft of agency' would be better than 'denial of agency' for those who want the word railroading to refer to 'strictly bad' behaviors. The word 'theft' then implies that any form of denial of agency that is accepted under the social contract would be excluded.

E.g. a monster casting 'Dominate Person' on a PC is attempted denial of agency, but takes the form of an agreed-upon dynamic.

Personally though, I tend to find strictly neutral terminology more productive. People forget too easily that as strongly as they feel about things, for the most part we are not stakeholders in eachothers' games and have no basis for pushing a particular value system onto eachother.

[Quertus]

Probably 'theft of agency' would be better than 'denial of agency' for those who want the word railroading to refer to 'strictly bad' behaviors. The word 'theft' then implies that any form of denial of agency that is accepted under the social contract would be excluded.

E.g. a monster casting 'Dominate Person' on a PC is attempted denial of agency, but takes the form of an agreed-upon dynamic.

Personally though, I tend to find strictly neutral terminology more productive. People forget too easily that as strongly as they feel about things, for the most part we are not stakeholders in eachothers' games and have no basis for pushing a particular value system onto eachother.

So, I'm in an interesting place on this one.

I would like to just agree with you. I really would. And I'd like it to come naturally for me to use neutral terminology, even for something that I, personally, hate.

However.

I *do* have a stake in everyone else's games, in that game design (especially(?) D&D game design) is highly reactionary. What idiots at other tables are doing can very directly impact my (future) games. 2e and earlier GMs were petty tyrants? 3e heavily emphasizes rules and game balance. People aren't smart enough to balance to the table? You get 4e. Etc etc.

I hate the fact that my game experience is absolutely dependent on how (and which type of) stupid other tables are. It absolutely behooves me to treat each game as though I have a stake in it, and to attempt to teach and learn from other gamers.

Please, please, prove me wrong.


So telling your players: "Either do this or no game" is not railroading. That's an interesting definition.

Yeah, you'll note I noted the potential fault in my definition there.


So the player has a useless loot item (not character based or anything) that they want to use? Why do they want to use it? Does it have any advantages over other attacks? Could it allows them to take out a foe from stealth by having it spend 10 minutes charging up while their hiding? Could they pre charge it?
There are a lot of options for scenarios where the player can be given an opportunity to use it. Maybe they see someone at a long distance and aren't seen in return. Maybe their minion offers to upgrade it for some rare resource to make it so that it can hold a charge so they'll get one use an adventure with it.

Not minion, Minion. It's his name. It's a Megamind reference.


I have one scenario I'm curious about though. I GM a game called exalted. In exalted the initiative rules are that players act first. Everyone else rolls and adds dex mod, but players always go first. In our games we have a younger player who is there for the combat and wants to do cool things. Generally then, when a foe is low on health I call on him when he as a good chance to end the encounter. The players can always choose a different order, but they usually defer to me. Is it railroading to call the player that gets the biggest kick out of killing things when things are about to get killed?

What version of Exalted works that way? Because that's not my experience with the game. (Or maybe I'm just being senile)


Yeah, but having players that can do things that matter isn't realistic or fitting settings lore. When you have powerful gods and demons running around (or just people with personal armies and tons of money), characters by the rules of the setting shouldn't have any way to achieve anything important and may just end up dead because someone more powerful then them decided they were to uppity and sent overwhelming force at them. Since world lore is important to you, then this not happening is railroading, because it's breaking setting to allow for situations the GM wants (the game to continue).

As I see it, you have 3 options:

1) admit that, sometimes, the little guy can make a difference, at least on a small scale, and play that scenario.

2) play as the gods

3) accept that you aren't going to make a difference.

But "just winding up dead" is absolutely a risk (to the extent that you let it be - some characters are better prepared for problems / better equipped to survive their world than others).


No, because it's allowing the players to do things. For me setting has always been less important than the choices players make and the reasons they make them.

Lost context... EDIT: so, my classic example goes like this: suppose that, after you clear the rats from the sewers, the GM has your character crowned King for their noble efforts.


Here's the interesting thing though. The reason the players don't want to go to the city they know nothing about is purely to avoid a challenge. They succeed (or fail depending on what happens and the other decisions they make) at that and their choice matters. After they've made it to the city they still get to play. Meanwhile your definition would end the game right there, or leave the players with a boring session ("Yeah you can go to this town to avoid danger, but nothing is going on here, you either go up north or stop adventuring").

If the players know something about the town and decide that they don't want to deal with it right now, and decide to go somewhere else, that is a completely different issue because the players decision is to avoid the city rather than the trip. But even at that point it's easier to build a new city when you can take a bunch of npc's from the old one and only have to work out a new problem bothering the city and a new look.

(I'm going to note right here that I don't have these problems any more. I wrote up a city generator based on the rules in godbound and I can now do this:That's raw output right there. A single button click, and I can shuffle it into my notes. A minute or two and I have an entire town ready to go)

But I'm not the only person suggesting such things. let me quote Kevin Crawford who wrote the rules for that I use for my random generation.

I suppose it depends on the level of interconnectedness of the world. If farmville only had the silks that the Wizard's robes are made from because of a particular merchant's route, and moving that city would change his route, then, yes, the location of the city that the party knows nothing about matters.

This is why I cannot just move cities, because, for the things that I build, everything is connected through game physics.

But, sure, if your world is a bunch of logically unconnected islands, you can establish facts after the fact. The map actually has white space.

[Florian]

This bit? I find it quite odd. IME, parties would often bounce from adventure to adventure, with little input from the players beyond answering questions like, "so, have you ever played Under mountain before?" if the planned adventure was a published module. This notion of getting player buy-in on a particular module is foreign to me (since they are all black boxes about which the player knows nothing, they have no agency to pick).

Funny. You straight up confirm that you don't understand the difference between the two options I presented. Golarion (Setting) and Giantslayer (Campaign), both using the Pathfinder rules, are two entirely different beasts. One is a place, the other is a story, both are using the same game system as an interface, but the underlying logic is vastly different.

[Earthwalker]

I *do* have a stake in everyone else's games, in that game design (especially(?) D&D game design) is highly reactionary. What idiots at other tables are doing can very directly impact my (future) games. 2e and earlier GMs were petty tyrants? 3e heavily emphasizes rules and game balance. People aren't smart enough to balance to the table? You get 4e. Etc etc.

I hate the fact that my game experience is absolutely dependent on how (and which type of) stupid other tables are. It absolutely behooves me to treat each game as though I have a stake in it, and to attempt to teach and learn from other gamers.

Please, please, prove me wrong.


You really are not a stake holder in my game nor will you ever be.

Now how I run my game may impact on your future gaming but that in no way makes you a stake holder in my game. Each game is run for the people that are playing (unless you plan on steaming your game or something). Games are not run for random people on the internet nor should they ever be.

[Jakinbandw]

Not minion, Minion. It's his name. It's a Megamind reference.
Missed that. Honestly though that thing would be really powerful against anyone that isn't on MMs level.



What version of Exalted works that way? Because that's not my experience with the game. (Or maybe I'm just being senile)
GODBOUND, GOUDBOUND, GODBOUND. I have to stop writing when I'm sleepy. It's an osr game. Really good.



As I see it, you have 3 options:

1) admit that, sometimes, the little guy can make a difference, at least on a small scale, and play that scenario.

2) play as the gods

3) accept that you aren't going to make a difference.

But "just winding up dead" is absolutely a risk (to the extent that you let it be - some characters are better prepared for problems / better equipped to survive their world than others).
I would argue that option 1 is railroading by your definition. It bends the logic of the world to something it's not. If the PC's can make a difference, why hasn't anyone else? If the PC's have foes to fight that are as strong or stronger then why does everyone else survive?

Put another way, imagine a classic lvl 1 scenario of going to fight goblins bothering a town. Why doesn't the town just do it? weight of numbers would let them kill the goblins with ease (do to the power of an overwhelming number of actions per round). Contriving some scenario where the players matter is a form of messing with the settings rules and lore.

Number 3 doesn't sound fun at all, and if you're trying to push that as one of a few ways to play, I'm going to hope you don't ever manage to get the setting and system builders listening to you. "You are a hero in a fantasy land, but nothing you to will ever matter and you'll wind up dead in a ditch never having accomplished anything," really isn't my cup of tea.



Lost context... EDIT: so, my classic example goes like this: suppose that, after you clear the rats from the sewers, the GM has your character crowned King for their noble efforts.
I would call that bad GMing, not railroading. Not all bad GMing is railroading though. The scenario could make sense even then though.

A lost heir to the throne, old and without children wants revenge on the current king for betrayal long ago. He poses as an innkeeper and knows that there are dangerous rats in the sewers (just one problem the current king isn't dealing with!). He hires adventurers to go down into the sewers and fight them in search of a signate ring he had lost down there long ago (magic, linked to him. Also is how he knows how dangerous the sewers really are). When the PCs kill all the rats (including the Rat King) and return his signate to him he asks for their help in reclaiming his rightful place on the throne. If they succeed, he promises to name one of them as his successor to the throne as he has no heir and doesn't want the current kings son taking the throne.




I suppose it depends on the level of interconnectedness of the world. If farmville only had the silks that the Wizard's robes are made from because of a particular merchant's route, and moving that city would change his route, then, yes, the location of the city that the party knows nothing about matters.

This is why I cannot just move cities, because, for the things that I build, everything is connected through game physics.

But, sure, if your world is a bunch of logically unconnected islands, you can establish facts after the fact. The map actually has white space.
You might have a part of a point, but if all that matters about farmville is the silk thing, then you can rip the map for the new town, the npcs, and just do one or two new ones, and sort out a new problem. It's much faster than making a new town map and all npcs from scratch, and allows for a game to happen.

[Quertus]

Funny. You straight up confirm that you don't understand the difference between the two options I presented. Golarion (Setting) and Giantslayer (Campaign), both using the Pathfinder rules, are two entirely different beasts. One is a place, the other is a story, both are using the same game system as an interface, but the underlying logic is vastly different.

You said, "And it is totally stupid to try to "surprise" your player by telling them "Golarion" an then playing "Giantslayer"". The gaming culture I'm accustomed to, one did not require specific buy-in from the players to play "Giantslayer" (module) after they had already agreed to play PF (System) Golarion (setting). So it's not me not recognizing that they are 3 different components, but me questioning the need for buy-in on a black box with no agency for giving that buy-in.

It's a subtle difference.


Missed that. Honestly though that thing would be really powerful against anyone that isn't on MMs level.

Sure. It replaces the combat minigame with the "somehow get someone to be standing on this giant 'X' 5 minutes after I press this button" minigame.


GODBOUND, GOUDBOUND, GODBOUND. I have to stop writing when I'm sleepy. It's an osr game. Really good.

Lol. Too many systems to keep track of them all :smallwink:


I would argue that option 1 is railroading by your definition. It bends the logic of the world to something it's not. If the PC's can make a difference, why hasn't anyone else? If the PC's have foes to fight that are as strong or stronger then why does everyone else survive?

Eh, that's not what I meant. Let me try again.

Who other than the upper echelon can actually make policy? Not many. So you usually cannot be impactful unless you are playing one of them.

However, if the GM has you play secret service agents when someone attempts to assassinate the president, then that is a moment for the plebeian to "shine".

It's setting up the scenario to where the players are playing a particular scenario at a particular time & place that provides them with that window to break through the status barriers and take a meaningful action.

Or, alternately, let them do things "in or below" their "status" range, but that are things that they, personally, care about. Like rescuing that beloved NPC, or something.

Bad examples, sure, but, hopefully, you see that I'm not talking about something that "bends the logic of the world to something it's not", but, rather, picking and choosing your scenario / sandbox / content / whatever to be "a place and time where the PCs can matter".


Put another way, imagine a classic lvl 1 scenario of going to fight goblins bothering a town. Why doesn't the town just do it? weight of numbers would let them kill the goblins with ease (do to the power of an overwhelming number of actions per round). Contriving some scenario where the players matter is a form of messing with the settings rules and lore.

Well, PCs are the idiots who are willing to risk their lives. Bob and I aren't. And, if you take NPC Fred with you, expect he'll run (or stab you in the back) when things get tough.


Number 3 doesn't sound fun at all, and if you're trying to push that as one of a few ways to play, I'm going to hope you don't ever manage to get the setting and system builders listening to you. "You are a hero in a fantasy land, but nothing you to will ever matter and you'll wind up dead in a ditch never having accomplished anything," really isn't my cup of tea.

Play a mortal in an Exalted game. Could be great roleplaying opportunities. Could be awesome seeing what all the Exalted do, and watching how the world changes. But nothing you do will ever really amount to anything in that setting.


I would call that bad GMing, not railroading. Not all bad GMing is railroading though. The scenario could make sense even then though.

Is not "Railroading" trying to force the game to remain on the rails? If those rails are, "PC becomes king", and the GM implements that by giving the PC kingship that they did not earn, how is that not (a very strange kind of) railroading?


You might have a part of a point, but if all that matters about farmville is the silk thing, then you can rip the map for the new town, the npcs, and just do one or two new ones, and sort out a new problem. It's much faster than making a new town map and all npcs from scratch, and allows for a game to happen.

No, the PCs came from / passed through farmville, and bought silk. They know where silk comes from (or, even if they don't, it's tied into the game physics, and cannot be moved without pulling on even more threads). So it's not that simple (in my way of writing content & running a game).

[Jakinbandw]

Eh, that's not what I meant. Let me try again.

Who other than the upper echelon can actually make policy? Not many. So you usually cannot be impactful unless you are playing one of them.

However, if the GM has you play secret service agents when someone attempts to assassinate the president, then that is a moment for the plebeian to "shine".

It's setting up the scenario to where the players are playing a particular scenario at a particular time & place that provides them with that window to break through the status barriers and take a meaningful action.
Which involves messing with the setting and mechanics to cause that situation to occur. Normally it doesn't happen so you're bending the world to allow the players to have an impact. Now if you worked out the rate of assassination attempts per decade, and then used that to generate a random table to randomly generate when the next would happen, role play nothing happening till the assassination attempt happens, andcheck to see if the pcs would actually be on guard, then you wouldn't be altering the setting to make it work for the pcs.



Bad examples, sure, but, hopefully, you see that I'm not talking about something that "bends the logic of the world to something it's not", but, rather, picking and choosing your scenario / sandbox / content / whatever to be "a place and time where the PCs can matter".
That's still bending the setting. If you want to argue for exceptions that's fine, but it's still bending the logic of the world to have the players matter. To be clear I'm fine with this and don't consider it railroading, but I do consider it bending the setting and logic of the world, which you do seem to consider railroading.




Well, PCs are the idiots who are willing to risk their lives. Bob and I aren't. And, if you take NPC Fred with you, expect he'll run (or stab you in the back) when things get tough.
Except it's the town that are idiots. In normal 3.5 if you got the entire town together throwing rocks they would statistically kill the goblins without taking damage. Even a small town of 500 people could easily wipe out the number of goblins that pcs can. And saying that people are too stupid to know this is dumb. Angry mobs have always been a thing.




Play a mortal in an Exalted game. Could be great roleplaying opportunities. Could be awesome seeing what all the Exalted do, and watching how the world changes. But nothing you do will ever really amount to anything in that setting.
Sitting back and not mattering while the GM's pet GMPCs run around and do awesome things. I'm sorry but that really isn't anything I would enjoy playing, let alone running.




Is not "Railroading" trying to force the game to remain on the rails? If those rails are, "PC becomes king", and the GM implements that by giving the PC kingship that they did not earn, how is that not (a very strange kind of) railroading?

For me it would only be railroading if the players were forced to accept the honor. If they could refuse (or abdicate if they found something like the Sword in the Stone down in the sewers) and the situation played itself out based on their decisions then I would not call it railroading.



No, the PCs came from / passed through farmville, and bought silk. They know where silk comes from (or, even if they don't, it's tied into the game physics, and cannot be moved without pulling on even more threads). So it's not that simple (in my way of writing content & running a game).
That's not the example we are talking about though. We are talking about the players deciding to go somewhere they haven't gone before and you prepping for it. You're moving the goalposts here and I don't appreciate it. Even if my players don't plan to go to a dungeon, I usually have 1 or 2 prepped at any given time so I can slot them into the area in a way that fits the setting (and if I didn't have a good way of making towns I'd do the same for them).

It really sounds like your way of playing requires players to follow the exact places you've mapped out and deal with the npc's you've designed without having the option to deviate from the script because you need to spend time building out every situation fully. You aren't able to adapt your work to fit what the players wish to do. I honestly would feel pretty constricted if I had to DM like that. I value my players ability to make decisions that have consequences over then a map and a bunch of rules. I think that's where we differ. You seem to view the game world as the most important thing, and I view my players choices as the most important thing.

[Quertus]

Funny. You straight up confirm that you don't understand the difference between the two options I presented. Golarion (Setting) and Giantslayer (Campaign), both using the Pathfinder rules, are two entirely different beasts. One is a place, the other is a story, both are using the same game system as an interface, but the underlying logic is vastly different.

So, I write "Necromancy on Bone Hill" as a Golarion module. I get players to agree to play on Golarion. I run them through NoBH. Why do you find this odd?


Which involves messing with the setting and mechanics to cause that situation to occur. Normally it doesn't happen so you're bending the world to allow the players to have an impact. Now if you worked out the rate of assassination attempts per decade, and then used that to generate a random table to randomly generate when the next would happen, role play nothing happening till the assassination attempt happens, andcheck to see if the pcs would actually be on guard, then you wouldn't be altering the setting to make it work for the pcs.

No, people who play games set in WWII are not "messing with the setting" to have the game occur during a world war.

It's a matter of choosing the time & place that has things of interest when pitching the game. Spending 3 sessions as secret service agents during a weekend when *nothing happens*, playing CoC during a high-school reunion with *nothing mythos related*? Sure, they're playable. But it would take quite the interesting pitch for them to not be a violation of expectations.

-----

On second read through… yeah, I used to do that. My players complained. They said, "if there's going to be an assassination attempt, *someone* will be on duty then. Here's a novel idea - how about we play *those* people?".

Shrug.

Also, IRL, "assassination attempts" don't hail from random tables, do they? They have "game physics" causes, right? Now, sure, it's fine for game physics to simplify things to a random table. Sure. But it's also fine for the GM to know an assassin's plans, and to say, "y'all are playing these guys".


That's still bending the setting. If you want to argue for exceptions that's fine, but it's still bending the logic of the world to have the players matter. To be clear I'm fine with this and don't consider it railroading, but I do consider it bending the setting and logic of the world, which you do seem to consider railroading.

Again, it's not railroading (or any other error state) to happen to set the WWII game during a world war, despite how rare they are, because they can happen.

It's not bending setting reality to say "we're going to be playing a murder mystery", because murders - even ones that are "interesting" (solvable but not obvious) do happen.


Except it's the town that are idiots. In normal 3.5 if you got the entire town together throwing rocks they would statistically kill the goblins without taking damage. Even a small town of 500 people could easily wipe out the number of goblins that pcs can. And saying that people are too stupid to know this is dumb. Angry mobs have always been a thing.

That's what Deadville down the road thought, too. Then they encountered too many goblins, or had a random encounter with a Shadow or something, and all died. We wisely send the expendable murderhobo squad. If they die, bonus.


Sitting back and not mattering while the GM's pet GMPCs run around and do awesome things. I'm sorry but that really isn't anything I would enjoy playing, let alone running.

Ouch, where'd this come from? I'll edit for context when i follow the chain…

EDIT: ah, mortals in Exalted. Kinda like most people IRL. Difference is, the PCs from the previous campaign are doing cool things, much more interesting than human cloning or traveling to the moon or Transhumanity. OK, maybe, maybe not - those are pretty cool. :smallwink:


That's not the example we are talking about though. We are talking about the players deciding to go somewhere they haven't gone before and you prepping for it. You're moving the goalposts here and I don't appreciate it. Even if my players don't plan to go to a dungeon, I usually have 1 or 2 prepped at any given time so I can slot them into the area in a way that fits the setting (and if I didn't have a good way of making towns I'd do the same for them).

No, no moving goal posts. I'm explaining why moving the city can or cannot work.

Or "moving the contents of the city, and changing its name" can or cannot work, if I need to explicitly bridge that extra step manually.


It really sounds like your way of playing requires players to follow the exact places you've mapped out and deal with the npc's you've designed without having the option to deviate from the script because you need to spend time building out every situation fully. You aren't able to adapt your work to fit what the players wish to do. I honestly would feel pretty constricted if I had to DM like that. I value my players ability to make decisions that have consequences over then a map and a bunch of rules. I think that's where we differ. You seem to view the game world as the most important thing, and I view my players choices as the most important thing.

These are all the cities in fantasy Imperia / WWII Romania / whatever. No, I will not pencil more in. Why do you feel constricted?

[Gnomo]

Not related to the discussion, but wanted to share an experience.

A decade ago I made an experiment with the players on my table, without they knowing a thing, nor realizing it during the experiment.

By the time this occurred I had been their recurrent DM in a very long D&D 3°/3.5 campaign (5 years and counting), so the experiment was very easy to implement for me.

At the time, the idea of railroading DMs was already a hot topic in most roleplaying forums, and we ended up discussing it heavily every other session, with most of the players having a strong opinion against railroading.

The experiment was very simple, for about 8 sessions (we played every other week so this was almost 4 months), I would go with pretty much nothing prepared except some monsters, some dungeons and a handful of pregenerated names (to create the illusion that everything was prepared). The trick was that I mentioned a few times that I, as a DM, railroaded my campaigns constantly so they keep been coherent to the main story. The truth was that there was no story, everything that happened during those sessions was what the players wanted to happen, if they wanted to interrogate an npc the npc had relevant information to provide, if they thought a dungeon was under that mountain indeed the lost dwarven city of brass was there, if the elf they didn't like looked like the bbeg in their eyes he was the vilest of the villains.

After all those sessions, they got pretty much anything they ever wanted for their characters, and have saved the kingdom from a menace created by their very own paranoid discussions, I asked them if I had railroaded too much the last few months.

Without fail, every single one of my players said yes. They assumed everything was set in stone from the beginning, and they just became really good at knowing where my campaigns went about, from all the years playing with me.

In the end, I came to the conclussion that there is no sweet spot between railroading and giving players free reign in your world.

[OldTrees1]

In the end, I came to the conclusion that there is no sweet spot between railroading and giving players free reign in your world.

I would draw an orthogonal conclusion:
Notice that you told them you were railroading. So they played under the assumption you were railroading. At the end of the experiment they communicated that they felt there was too much railroading. Could it be that they disliked the impression that there was railroading?

Personally I generally dislike both railroading (because it deny me valid options) and the impression of railroading (because I feel like I am being railroaded).


Without fail, every single one of my players said yes. They assumed everything was set in stone from the beginning, and they just became really good at knowing where my campaigns went about, from all the years playing with me.

And this speaks to another aspect. By telling them you were going to railroad, the player made a choice between trying to derail or submitting to the rails. As a result they self reported that the self censored themselves. Your experiment had the players railroad themselves. This would be similar to a PC that wants to try diplomacy on the orcs. However the player thinks they are railroaded into fighting the orcs. So the player has the PC avoid diplomacy and attack first.

From those 2 conclusions/observations I would instead conclude that there are two aspects to be controlled and improved communication can sync those issues.

[Florian]

From those 2 conclusions/observations I would instead conclude that there are two aspects to be controlled and improved communication can sync those issues.

Basically why I make such a fuss about differentiating between "Golarion" and "Giantslayer", to stick with the previous example. This is directly communicating what kind of exploration will be going on in that particular game (location vs. story), so the players can figure out how that will affect the agency they have.

In what Gnomo wrote, the term "railroading" was used to actually disguise a purely player-driven game as a GM-driven game, with, more importantly, a reverse situation of who acts and who reacts. The players most likely mistook the fact that everything went extremely smooth as a sign that they were right on track.

To expand that to the example I'm using, location-based exploration will most likely be coupled with a player-driven approach, while story-driven exploration will most likely be coupled with a GM-driven approach. A switch here will most likely have devastating results.

[Pelle]

It's not bending setting reality to say "we're going to be playing a murder mystery", because murders - even ones that are "interesting" (solvable but not obvious) do happen.


If you are playing a one-shot, choosing to play a murder mystery isn't bending setting reality. However, if you are playing a long running game with the same characters, and they keep running into new murder mysteries week after week, the GM is usually contriving reasons for that to happen (unless you play a group of detectives who are hired for those jobs, of course).




No, no moving goal posts. I'm explaining why moving the city can or cannot work.


Just curious, did you intend that Farmville was the city in question, or did you mean that the city's location indirectly affected what happened in Farmville (an other place)?

[Morgaln]

If you are playing a one-shot, choosing to play a murder mystery isn't bending setting reality. However, if you are playing a long running game with the same characters, and they keep running into new murder mysteries week after week, the GM is usually contriving reasons for that to happen (unless you play a group of detectives who are hired for those jobs, of course).



*cue theory about Jessica Fletcher being the real culprit behind all the murders she "solved"*

But in the hands of a skilled GM, the reasons don't necessarily need to be contrived. They can just point to a deeper mystery behind the unusually high number of murders.

[Jakinbandw]

Just curious, did you intend that Farmville was the city in question, or did you mean that the city's location indirectly affected what happened in Farmville (an other place)?

If you go back to my first post the idea was that the players were traveling to a city they had seen on a map and knew nothing about, but diverted because of the dangerous location.

Q replied by stating it wouldn't work because the town might produce silk, which I pointed out was no problem as you could still move 90% of the content to have you session really fast.

Q said that wouldn't work because the players had been to that town.

So first he broke the premise that the players didn't know anything about the town, by a little, then he changed it even more so my example couldn't work. That is why I accused him of shifting the goalposts. Because his latest objection was antithetical to my original example and he was trying to move the goalposts and force me into defending a stupid position.

[Segev]

Not related to the discussion, but wanted to share an experience.

A decade ago I made an experiment with the players on my table, without they knowing a thing, nor realizing it during the experiment.

By the time this occurred I had been their recurrent DM in a very long D&D 3°/3.5 campaign (5 years and counting), so the experiment was very easy to implement for me.

At the time, the idea of railroading DMs was already a hot topic in most roleplaying forums, and we ended up discussing it heavily every other session, with most of the players having a strong opinion against railroading.

The experiment was very simple, for about 8 sessions (we played every other week so this was almost 4 months), I would go with pretty much nothing prepared except some monsters, some dungeons and a handful of pregenerated names (to create the illusion that everything was prepared). The trick was that I mentioned a few times that I, as a DM, railroaded my campaigns constantly so they keep been coherent to the main story. The truth was that there was no story, everything that happened during those sessions was what the players wanted to happen, if they wanted to interrogate an npc the npc had relevant information to provide, if they thought a dungeon was under that mountain indeed the lost dwarven city of brass was there, if the elf they didn't like looked like the bbeg in their eyes he was the vilest of the villains.

After all those sessions, they got pretty much anything they ever wanted for their characters, and have saved the kingdom from a menace created by their very own paranoid discussions, I asked them if I had railroaded too much the last few months.

Without fail, every single one of my players said yes. They assumed everything was set in stone from the beginning, and they just became really good at knowing where my campaigns went about, from all the years playing with me.

In the end, I came to the conclussion that there is no sweet spot between railroading and giving players free reign in your world.
In a sense, you WERE railroading. Not particularly hard, but it was the "I have this one thing prepped, so that's what we're running today if we run anything" variety: you had a handful of names, NPCs, dungeons, and encounters prepared to create the illusion it was all pre-generated...and lo and behold, everything they encountered was pre-generated.

It was the Quantum Ogre scenario writ large.

Now, this isn't necessarily a PROBLEM, and diverges from "railroading" in the sense that you essentially let them build the campaign around what you had prepared. The Dwarven City of Brass was under that mountain because they decided it must be; if they'd instead decided there was a dungeon hidden in a cloud that once hosted a cloud giant's castle, the Dwarven City of Brass would have been its cellars within the cloud itself. Either way, they were going to the Dwarven City of Brass, because that's the dungeon you had prepared.

Where you probably weren't railroading is in the fact that, if they'd chosen not to go to that mountain after having determined the Dwarven City of Brass lay beneath its slopes, you probably wouldn't have forced them to do it...except that they'd encounter it as the next dungeon, anyway, assuming you hadn't told them specifically that it was THAT dungeon beneat the mountain they chose not to explore.

It actually sounds like quite the fun game, but if you tell your players that you're railroading them, and then you make sure that they hit what you ahve prepared as long as they take any action designed to get them to prepared encounters, they will assume you're railroading, because the elements where you're actually turning reins over to them are hidden, while the aspects that are legitimate railroading can be detected by a suspicious mind. "He had this prepared, so we must be on his rails."


In fact, I wager that, if you had a complete sandbox setting that was fully fleshed out and you told your players you were guilty of railroading an awful lot, they'd assume the fact that anything they encountered was already prepared meant you had managed to keep them on the rails. Especially if they run into areas that they're not high enough level for, yet: they'll assume you deliberately put that T-rex in their way to warn them back onto the rails.

I also bet that, if you'd run the same experiment, but assured the players that this was a sandbox campaign with things to find all over, they'd be convinced that you must have the most fleshed-out setting in existence with things to do anywhere they go, unless you happen to let them overflow your prepared stuff for the session.


Railroading being bad or good is at least partially about perception. Very few players complain if they bought into the general tour route at the beginning. "We're playing Return to the Tomb of Horrors!" says the DM, and all the players agree and build characters for it. They're unlikely to be too upset if they learn that the only stuff the DM has prepared is stuff related to following the bread crumbs to find out what evil Acererak has gotten up to this time. They're invested in the plot and eager to pick up the hooks, if not having worked with the DM to create hooks for their characters specifically.

That isn't to say it can't go too far. The Witchfire Trilogy from Iron Kingdoms is an excellent example of excessive railroading, even if you've bought into doing it. (Long story short: PC actions literally do not matter to the progression of the plot; the only thing PC choices and success/failure changes is whether the PCs are present to watch the next cut scene, or miss out on it.)


What Gnomo prepared sounds like a fun game, especially if the players aren't aware of how much of the setting they're creating. It is high on the railroad side of things in terms of sticking to prepped material, and probably higher on it than Gnomo thinks because his NPCs and monsters will shape perception and expectation, but it gives a ton of freedom to build the legend. It was a sandbox in a non-traditional way, too: the players actually were building the world (as opposed to having a built world they could reshape). They just didn't know it.

Gnomo, did your players enjoy the game, despite saying you railroaded too much?

[Pelle]

Q replied by stating it wouldn't work because the town might produce silk, which I pointed out was no problem as you could still move 90% of the content to have you session really fast.


I read that as a different town, not the one the players hadn't been to yet, but see how that can be interpreted differently and thereby goalpost shifting. Just wanted to check if you were talking past each other there...

[kyoryu]

Prep isn't necessarily railroading. It can be, but it's not necessarily.

If you think all prep is railroading, then I think you've cast the railroad definition so wide as to encompass 99.9% of games - and that makes it a fairly useless decision.

Random encounter tables aren't railroading. They're just "if you're here, here's the other things in the area, you might encounter them."

People liken them to the Quantum Ogre because in each case, there's prepared content that's being used. But that's only the most superficial similarity.

For random tables, you might have the Ogre Mountains to the north, whose random table includes Ogres, wolves, trolls, and berserkers. You might have the Kobold Forest to the south, where you might encounter kobolds, wolves, pixies, and dryads.

So the players have a real choice here - if they go north, or go south, they will choose from a different encounter pool. And in either case, the GM doesn't know what, if anything, they will encounter, or even potentially what the context is.

With the Quantum Ogre, the players will encounter the Ogre when they leave town, no matter what. "Well, there's a chance that if you go north, you might encounter this thing" isn't in the same category.

[AMFV]

In the end, I came to the conclussion that there is no sweet spot between railroading and giving players free reign in your world.

The thing is that what matters here is player perception far more than if you are actually railroading. Honestly, if you're good enough and slick enough to hide things, you can railroad all day long and it's fine as long as the players believe that they have agency. If you're not then you can't. And if you're particularly awful then even the players might suspect they are being railroaded when they are actually not. It's all about managing perceptions not about what is actually happening.

[Helmet-kun]

To be honest, I have a pretty simple metric for what counts as railroading in my mind -

"Are you wasting my time?"

I don't mean in the sense of someone making wait around per say, but rather in the sense that 'Is my creative energy and effort wasted performing any action other than the one that's expected of me?'

The truth is that every game expects some buy in and some give from players, whether you're running a module or your own campaign. Rules are inherently limitations on what you can and cannot do, and thus by extension enforcement of those rules are in essence a way of telling you what to do. Settings perform a similar function for the role playing side of the experience; things like culture and society inflict pressures on player characters, though instead of being told "no, you can't do that," your actions instead create consequences that reward and/or punish players. Part of setting is the acknowledgement of other forces in play with certain long term goals (i.e. the big bad, dark shadowy organization) and of course they will do **** because like you, they too exert considerable influence over the world.

I don't think any of the above counts as "railroading." It's not a waste of my time for other people to exist and do things. It's not a waste of my time to be impacted by cultural norms, whether I choose to follow them or not. Losing options isn't inherently railroading - arguably, having options is in and of itself a reward.

It's when those options that do remain aren't really options or are a complete waste of time that it becomes railroading.

EXAMPLE #1
In a game I was in, the conflict was that we were going up against a really powerful god, more powerful than other gods in the setting. One of the players did some research and apparently if we wanted to avoid their grasp/influence, we had to pledge ourselves to other gods, which wasn't a great option because those gods were ****ing *****, but it was a perferable option when compared to our enemy.

Few sessions later, that was no longer true. Swearing ourselves to other gods did nothing and those of us who were in the grasp of the other god but resisting were just kind of ****ed.

In this example, the reason why I consider this railroading is because the GM gave us a possible option to solve a pretty big issue, only to retcon it out. And you could say, sure, the guy did the research, but research doesn't always provide the truth, and it could've always been the case that there was never a solution to the problem.

But then what the point in researching in the first place if it was all bull**** to begin with? What was the point in providing a solution for us to debate if it wasn't really a goddamn solution. Don't waste my time, either say there's no solution or there is one and stick with it.

EXAMPLE #2
In another game, a player was trying to ally themselves with a dying nation that was fighting back constant invasion. They did a lot of work to help this nation, including negotiating with other foreign powers to deliver a weapons and supplies.

After spending a long while on that (weeks worth of sessions), the moment of truth came, and the nation ****ing died because of a single bad roll.

Something determined randomly can sometimes show that what the player is doing doesn't actually, functionally matter. If you set up a treasure room in such away that taking a handful of gold after beating the dragon causes a roll to happen in which a bad one causes the entire treasure hoard to just fall down into a volcano below, then it didn't actually matter that they fought the dragon for it, did it?

This is why not everything in the rules has a d20 next to it.

So, sure, you could do something else for several sessions only for it to turn out that one bad roll could ruin it for you, or you can take the obvious path that will work out exactly the GM wants it too. Ignore the dying nation, ignore the dragon, and don't waste your time, tbh.

EXAMPLE #3
There was this one game where the GM was running off a module that we later found out wasn't even properly converted to 5e from 3.5 and wasn't balanced for our party either despite his claims. Fights became tedious and even discouraging; I was the Paladin and I got knocked off my feet and kept being knocked out and nearly killed several times in the same fight. Eventually we were just out and out killed and called it quits, each for our own reasons.

Here is the truth of D&D that most GMs don't seem to be getting: PCs are actually pretty special. Peasant McPeasant man is a 10 in all of his stats, maybe an 8 or 9 here and there. McPeasant will die in two seconds in a real fight with a giant rat. PCs can last longer than that and have the potential to be better in almost every way, if not out and out superior in specific areas.

So when your version of fairness is to make every fight an extremely possible TPK (as opposed to "Jesus Christ your dice hate you" nights where no one rolls above a 10) you are essentially making us out to not be heroes but be like starving decrepit hobos who decided fighting in a dungeon for riches would probably work out better for them than trying to win the local lottery. That is not typically the narrative I sign up for and it's not the narrative D&D tries to tell. And once you're in that depressing mindset of being a nameless nobody, you're basically stuck in a rut hoping things will get better but otherwise doing the things the GM expects you to do. Another fixture of railroading is feeling powerless to do much else IMO, and honestly at that point, I'm just wasting my time.



You may be noticing a pattern here. What I'm getting at is that for me, railroading at it's core is kind of an exercise in nihilism for the player. Nothing you do actually matters, things will just go according to keikaku. Things like random encounters, things going wrong, helpful coincidences? Whatever. It's about what I can do with or about those things that matters. And if I can't do anything then what am I even doing with my life?

[Quertus]

I made an experiment
, the idea of railroading DMs
I would go with pretty much nothing prepared except some monsters, some dungeons and a handful of pregenerated names (to create the illusion that everything was prepared). The trick was that I mentioned a few times that I, as a DM, railroaded my campaigns constantly so they keep been coherent to the main story. The truth was that there was no story, everything that happened during those sessions was what the players wanted to happen, if they wanted to interrogate an npc the npc had relevant information to provide, if they thought a dungeon was under that mountain indeed the lost dwarven city of brass was there, if the elf they didn't like looked like the bbeg in their eyes he was the vilest of the villains.

After all those sessions, they got pretty much anything they ever wanted for their characters, and have saved the kingdom from a menace created by their very own paranoid discussions, I asked them if I had railroaded too much the last few months.

Without fail, every single one of my players said yes. They assumed everything was set in stone from the beginning,

In the end, I came to the conclussion that there is no sweet spot between railroading and giving players free reign in your world.

Um… well, you didn't simply change game physics/facts, you didn't even establish them in the first place. So I'd call it a strange edge case of railroading, to force an outcome ("what the players 'want' / believe is correct").

But your players should have observed 0 instances of you negating their actions, so it's odd for your players to call "rails!".


Basically why I make such a fuss about differentiating between "Golarion" and "Giantslayer", to stick with the previous example. This is directly communicating what kind of exploration will be going on in that particular game (location vs. story), so the players can figure out how that will affect the agency they have.

In what Gnomo wrote, the term "railroading" was used to actually disguise a purely player-driven game as a GM-driven game, with, more importantly, a reverse situation of who acts and who reacts. The players most likely mistook the fact that everything went extremely smooth as a sign that they were right on track.

To expand that to the example I'm using, location-based exploration will most likely be coupled with a player-driven approach, while story-driven exploration will most likely be coupled with a GM-driven approach. A switch here will most likely have devastating results.

See, to me, those are separate data points. That is, we can run [Golarion, rails], or [Golarion, sandbox], or [Giantslayer, rails], or [Giantslayer, sandbox]. Because "Golarion" and "Giantslayer" are both content, not style.


If you are playing a one-shot, choosing to play a murder mystery isn't bending setting reality. However, if you are playing a long running game with the same characters, and they keep running into new murder mysteries week after week, the GM is usually contriving reasons for that to happen (unless you play a group of detectives who are hired for those jobs, of course).

Agreed.


Just curious, did you intend that Farmville was the city in question, or did you mean that the city's location indirectly affected what happened in Farmville (an other place)?

The latter. See below.


If you go back to my first post the idea was that the players were traveling to a city they had seen on a map and knew nothing about, but diverted because of the dangerous location.

Q replied by stating it wouldn't work because the town might produce silk, which I pointed out was no problem as you could still move 90% of the content to have you session really fast.

Q said that wouldn't work because the players had been to that town.

So first he broke the premise that the players didn't know anything about the town, by a little, then he changed it even more so my example couldn't work. That is why I accused him of shifting the goalposts. Because his latest objection was antithetical to my original example and he was trying to move the goalposts and force me into defending a stupid position.

No, you misunderstood me. If, in my game, the players wanted to go to Metropolis, then, after I had content for Metropolis prepared, changed their mind, and wanted to go to Metro City instead - that matches your scenario, right?- I probably couldn't just use my prep work on Metropolis for Metro City *even if the PCs knew nothing about either city* - which still matches your scenario, right? - because…

… because they bought silk in farmville.

Everything is connected. The merchant who brought the silk to farmville has a set route, which passes through Metropolis (and not Metro City), and which affects Metropolis. If you move Metropolis (ie, move the content you prepared) to Metro City, it suddenly doesn't make any sense there, because that merchant never went there. Or, if you "fix" that, he didn't pass through the surrounding area. Or, if you fix that, wait, there's not a river next to Metro City, how can they…

In short, when you build things based on interconnections through game physics, you can't just change things, even if the PCs know nothing about them.

[Jakinbandw]

No, you misunderstood me. If, in my game, the players wanted to go to Metropolis, then, after I had content for Metropolis prepared, changed their mind, and wanted to go to Metro City instead - that matches your scenario, right?- I probably couldn't just use my prep work on Metropolis for Metro City *even if the PCs knew nothing about either city* - which still matches your scenario, right? - because…

… because they bought silk in farmville.

Everything is connected. The merchant who brought the silk to farmville has a set route, which passes through Metropolis (and not Metro City), and which affects Metropolis. If you move Metropolis (ie, move the content you prepared) to Metro City, it suddenly didn't make any sense there, because that merchant never went there. Or, if you "fix" that, he didn't pass through the surrounding area. Or, if you fix that, wait, there's not a river next to Metro City, how can they…

In short, when you build things based on interconnections through game physics, you can't just change things, even if the PCs know nothing about them.

Why does an npc the players have never interacted with, and will never interact with matter? Also, why doesn't Metro city buy silk? It's a city. Also why can't Metro city buy silk. The players as you said know nothing about it, so what difference does it make? You're saying it's interconnected, but its really just you making up arbitrary things and refusing to allow any change to your setting, even if it doesn't matter to the players.

Because outside of the players and what affects them, nothing matters. You don't need to simulate thousands of npcs at all times because they aren't important.

You're making your GMing far harder than it needs to be.

[Pippa the Pixie]

The GM being able to establish something as true and being able to be believed by the players is a very powerful tool. It comes with prerequisites for its continued use. You can run games which don't make use of that tool, but they're going to be a lot less complex as a result.

You just want the rules metagame.

The bag guys have ''sheild 7" but the players have ''transporter 9" so they ignore them. And so on.


I don´t think you understand how the whole "player agency" thing works.

The whole point is that the players can act on their own, not only react to what the GM places in front of them. For that, a shared basis is needed, so the players can make informed decisions based on things they can rely on, instead of trying to second guess the GM each time.

So does that go for DMs too? Do they get this agency?

Why must the DM just sit there and only react to what the players do?


Now, this isn't always easy or advisable, but it isn't inherently a bad thing. It also isn't stepping on player agency if their choice of direction did not meaningfully have anything to do with what your encounter plans were. This goes into "meaningful choices" versus "meaningless choices."

I agree here....and this is why I say the players choices really don't matter.

The DM has a thing....the players go all out to avoid it....so what? The DM just uses the thing another time. It's not a big deal.



With the Quantum Ogre, the players will encounter the Ogre when they leave town, no matter what. "Well, there's a chance that if you go north, you might encounter this thing" isn't in the same category.

My point here is if the DM has a thing...an Encounter, NPC, Monster, Trap, Event, or Whatever the players can't avoid it.

The DM makes an encounter, Goblin Ambush 1, and puts it in Spot X. Ok, so the players learn about it and run away. So what? Goblin Ambush 1 can happen ANYWHERE in the world..universe really. It's not like the DM is forced to never, ever use the Goblin Ambush 1 EVER. That is just silly.

If the players have thier charqcters leave town....and no matter what way they go the DM stumbles all over themselves to say ''yuk yuk goblin ambush!" THAT is just clumsy DMing.

The smooth DM just saves the Goblin Ambush 1. Maybe for a week, maybe a month, maybe a whole year. IT does not really matter. Sooner or later the DM will get to use it.


The thing is that what matters here is player perception far more than if you are actually railroading. Honestly, if you're good enough and slick enough to hide things, you can railroad all day long and it's fine as long as the players believe that they have agency. If you're not then you can't. And if you're particularly awful then even the players might suspect they are being railroaded when they are actually not. It's all about managing perceptions not about what is actually happening.

Truer words have never been typed.

[Quertus]

Why does an npc the players have never interacted with, and will never interact with matter? Also, why doesn't Metro city buy silk? It's a city. Also why can't Metro city buy silk. The players as you said know nothing about it, so what difference does it make? You're saying it's interconnected, but its really just you making up arbitrary things and refusing to allow any change to your setting, even if it doesn't matter to the players.

Because outside of the players and what affects them, nothing matters. You don't need to simulate thousands of npcs at all times because they aren't important.

You're making your GMing far harder than it needs to be.

Or most people make it easier than it should be. "Everything should be as simple as it can be, and no simpler".

It's not a question of "why doesn't Metro City have silk?", but of "why did farmville have silk?". And the answer is, because of this merchant, who figures into Metropolis and the content that I've built for it.

A traveling merchant can be a source of many things, from goods to information to diseases. Some players care about this information - or events may make them suddenly care.

If I know that the BBEG is going to (or likely to, or even potentially going to) accidentally summon a plague demon, and that the PCs may care about the spread of the plague(s), I'd rather not just make up on the fly how it had happened. I prefer to have things follow from game physics, and know when which merchant passed by the demon, who traded them a cursed idol. And, preferably, have the PCs & players already have some or all of the information that they'll care about.

Which, if the PCs actions caused the unexpected death of one of the merchants, may also mean that the plague does not spread at all how I might have expected from my play through of the module, granting their actions their full agency.

And, even if there is no big "potential plague demon" plotline, I prefer knowing these things ahead of time, so that when it comes up for some other reason, I know how to respond. My players think I'm so good at improvising; the reality is, I rarely have to.

Or, to put it another way, why do all these languages that the readers will never care about matter to Tolkien?

[NichG]

You just want the rules metagame.

The bag guys have ''sheild 7" but the players have ''transporter 9" so they ignore them. And so on.


For complexity, some of the gameplay should extend into planning, not just reaction. For that to be feasible, 'what might happen' has to be possible to predict to at least some extent. The more predictable, the further the planning horizon.

The rules metagame is one way to obtain that predictability. Another is for the GM to be strongly self-consistent. The more freedom you want to have as a GM while preserving complexity, the more you have to offload consistency on external arbitration such as rules text.

[Gnomo]

I would draw an orthogonal conclusion:
Notice that you told them you were railroading. So they played under the assumption you were railroading. At the end of the experiment they communicated that they felt there was too much railroading. Could it be that they disliked the impression that there was railroading?
Personally I generally dislike both railroading (because it deny me valid options) and the impression of railroading (because I feel like I am being railroaded).
And this speaks to another aspect. By telling them you were going to railroad, the player made a choice between trying to derail or submitting to the rails. As a result they self reported that the self censored themselves. Your experiment had the players railroad themselves. This would be similar to a PC that wants to try diplomacy on the orcs. However the player thinks they are railroaded into fighting the orcs. So the player has the PC avoid diplomacy and attack first.
From those 2 conclusions/observations I would instead conclude that there are two aspects to be controlled and improved communication can sync those issues.
- I need to clarify something, I never told them directly I was railroading this particular campaign, otherwise what's the point in asking their opinion. What I did was to mention, during our regular discussions, that as a DM I railroad whatever seems necessary to me, in order to keep the main plot on check, and never admitted to do so in the current campaign, just hinted that my style favored railroading.
- They definately disliked the impression that there was railroading, as this supposedly meant that their choices were not relevant to the game, when in reality it was the opposite, their choices heavily and constantly directed the game, they just never realized it.
- I don't agree on your opinion about the players railroading themselves, they can't really railroad if they don't know for sure that what is going to happen, only I as the DM knew that for sure, but again that's my job as the arbiter of reality in the game, that's an unavoidable amount of control you can't escape as the DM.


In what Gnomo wrote, the term "railroading" was used to actually disguise a purely player-driven game as a GM-driven game, with, more importantly, a reverse situation of who acts and who reacts. The players most likely mistook the fact that everything went extremely smooth as a sign that they were right on track.
To expand that to the example I'm using, location-based exploration will most likely be coupled with a player-driven approach, while story-driven exploration will most likely be coupled with a GM-driven approach. A switch here will most likely have devastating results.
- Yes, they mistook the fact that everything went smoothly as a sign they were constantly on track, and actually felt good about it during the game, impressed at how fast-paced the game was.
- I don't think location-based vs story-driven exploration is related to what happened during those sessions, in fact, exploration and combat took the back seat during this period of the campaign, players focused heavily on social aspects of the campaign and their characters, and it was kinda difficult to add combats and exploration organically when they were easily getting things done through talking, convincing, intimidating and investigating. In fact I remember this to have been a complaint from one of the players, that there have been too few combats and dungeons.
- Regarding player-driven vs GM-driven approach, this was definately the case, in fact it was a challenge to pick up what the players were talking about and coherently add it to what was going on.


In a sense, you WERE railroading. Not particularly hard, but it was the "I have this one thing prepped, so that's what we're running today if we run anything" variety: you had a handful of names, NPCs, dungeons, and encounters prepared to create the illusion it was all pre-generated...and lo and behold, everything they encountered was pre-generated.
It was the Quantum Ogre scenario writ large.
Now, this isn't necessarily a PROBLEM, and diverges from "railroading" in the sense that you essentially let them build the campaign around what you had prepared. The Dwarven City of Brass was under that mountain because they decided it must be; if they'd instead decided there was a dungeon hidden in a cloud that once hosted a cloud giant's castle, the Dwarven City of Brass would have been its cellars within the cloud itself. Either way, they were going to the Dwarven City of Brass, because that's the dungeon you had prepared.
Where you probably weren't railroading is in the fact that, if they'd chosen not to go to that mountain after having determined the Dwarven City of Brass lay beneath its slopes, you probably wouldn't have forced them to do it...except that they'd encounter it as the next dungeon, anyway, assuming you hadn't told them specifically that it was THAT dungeon beneat the mountain they chose not to explore.
It actually sounds like quite the fun game, but if you tell your players that you're railroading them, and then you make sure that they hit what you have prepared as long as they take any action designed to get them to prepared encounters, they will assume you're railroading, because the elements where you're actually turning reins over to them are hidden, while the aspects that are legitimate railroading can be detected by a suspicious mind. "He had this prepared, so we must be on his rails."
In fact, I wager that, if you had a complete sandbox setting that was fully fleshed out and you told your players you were guilty of railroading an awful lot, they'd assume the fact that anything they encountered was already prepared meant you had managed to keep them on the rails. Especially if they run into areas that they're not high enough level for, yet: they'll assume you deliberately put that T-rex in their way to warn them back onto the rails.
I also bet that, if you'd run the same experiment, but assured the players that this was a sandbox campaign with things to find all over, they'd be convinced that you must have the most fleshed-out setting in existence with things to do anywhere they go, unless you happen to let them overflow your prepared stuff for the session.
Railroading being bad or good is at least partially about perception. Very few players complain if they bought into the general tour route at the beginning. "We're playing Return to the Tomb of Horrors!" says the DM, and all the players agree and build characters for it. They're unlikely to be too upset if they learn that the only stuff the DM has prepared is stuff related to following the bread crumbs to find out what evil Acererak has gotten up to this time. They're invested in the plot and eager to pick up the hooks, if not having worked with the DM to create hooks for their characters specifically.
That isn't to say it can't go too far. The Witchfire Trilogy from Iron Kingdoms is an excellent example of excessive railroading, even if you've bought into doing it. (Long story short: PC actions literally do not matter to the progression of the plot; the only thing PC choices and success/failure changes is whether the PCs are present to watch the next cut scene, or miss out on it.)
What Gnomo prepared sounds like a fun game, especially if the players aren't aware of how much of the setting they're creating. It is high on the railroad side of things in terms of sticking to prepped material, and probably higher on it than Gnomo thinks because his NPCs and monsters will shape perception and expectation, but it gives a ton of freedom to build the legend. It was a sandbox in a non-traditional way, too: the players actually were building the world (as opposed to having a built world they could reshape). They just didn't know it.

Gnomo, did your players enjoy the game, despite saying you railroaded too much?
- I remember using very little of what I prepared, particularly the dungeons. I don't remember everything all that well, but I think only one dungeon got used, and it was selected because it was the most fitting for the circumstances. I think it was the underground passages of a castle.
- Having names prepped, on the other hand, was incredibly useful. I assure you, the game revolved very little on what I had prepared. NPCs were mostly created on the fly, and the few monsters that got to be used, were of no particular importance for the story.
- I never directly told my players I was railroading this particular campaign, I just made clear to them that I was completely okay with doing it as the DM, and as players see no difference between a railroaded campaign and a free-reign one, there was no impact to the game, they thought differently indicating that players will notice the difference. Well, they actually didn't notice the difference, that was the whole point of the experiment.
- In the end, they told me there were some things that were a lot of fun, and some others they didn't like. In particular I remember that they found I had been very lenient with them and they were glad about that (lol), also how fast-paced the game felt was great for them as they easily created relationships with NPCs that always had relevant things to talk about with them, on the other hand there were too few combats and the game felt less challenging at several points as in things were less dangerous. I evaluated the experience as mostly fun for the players, but for me was very informative.

I actually recommend any DM to try it, at least one time/session with their players, the amount of information you get about what your players want from the game is impressive. Though there are a few challenges: You will need to listen to the players very carefully and select what becomes part of the game and what is discarded, you will also need to be quick to create NPCs on the fly and keep a good track of what you have created, and finally keeping coherence will be your job, players should not notice they are creating the story with their actions and keeping the story belieavable is the best way to do it.


Um… well, you didn't simply change game physics/facts, you didn't even establish them in the first place. So I'd call it a strange edge case of railroading, to force an outcome ("what the players 'want' / believe is correct").
But your players should have observed 0 instances of you negating their actions, so it's odd for your players to call "rails!".
Oh, I should have clarified this better, but not everything worked out, some of the (most stupid) things they tried or believed bare no fruit.
If everything worked out the moment they tried it, what I was doing would have been obvious, so some of the things, particularly the outrageous or too far-fetched ideas, just failed or were met with hardship.

[Earthwalker]

The thing is that what matters here is player perception far more than if you are actually railroading. Honestly, if you're good enough and slick enough to hide things, you can railroad all day long and it's fine as long as the players believe that they have agency. If you're not then you can't. And if you're particularly awful then even the players might suspect they are being railroaded when they are actually not. It's all about managing perceptions not about what is actually happening.

It also depends on playing the game a certain way. When you make it acceptable for the GM not to answer questions (because the players shouldn't know that)

Of course if you have players like myself who asks questions it becomes harder and more apparent. Like seeing that the GM does not allow questions.

For example knowing the stakes on a dice roll.

GM: Ok you try to jump the pit in front of you. Make a strength test with athletics proficiency. (I don't play 5e hopefully that statement there fools people into thinking I do)
Player: Cool what's the DC and stakes ?
GM: What ?
Player: What do I need to roll to make it, what happens if I don't make it.
GM: You cant know that.
Player: Why not ?

See to some people might think that's a bad player.
Others might be thinking, the GM isn't getting away with only appearing to give agency.

As a player its pretty easy to check if you can.

"Make informed decisions that effect the out come of the story. "


Simply by asking the GM, what are the stakes of things.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Insisting on making the DC and stakes clear before the roll is a good way to help GMs with bad habits better themselves.

[awa]

there are also instances where a person should be able to at least roughly tell how hard something is just by looking at it. Is this tree a hard to climb tree? I should be able to see by looking at its branches. Now i personally remind my players that sometimes looks can be misleading that some one hypothetically could have trapped the tree by covering the branches with grease or something.

[AMFV]

It also depends on playing the game a certain way. When you make it acceptable for the GM not to answer questions (because the players shouldn't know that)

Of course if you have players like myself who asks questions it becomes harder and more apparent. Like seeing that the GM does not allow questions.

For example knowing the stakes on a dice roll.

GM: Ok you try to jump the pit in front of you. Make a strength test with athletics proficiency. (I don't play 5e hopefully that statement there fools people into thinking I do)
Player: Cool what's the DC and stakes ?
GM: What ?
Player: What do I need to roll to make it, what happens if I don't make it.
GM: You cant know that.
Player: Why not ?

See to some people might think that's a bad player.
Others might be thinking, the GM isn't getting away with only appearing to give agency.

As a player its pretty easy to check if you can.

"Make informed decisions that effect the out come of the story. "


Simply by asking the GM, what are the stakes of things.

Not necessarily. If you're good at that sort of thing, then you're probably also good at bluffing and coming up with things on the fly. You're not going to know if the DM is consulting a table on setting DCs for things they hadn't thought of, or if they're consulting the table of DCs when they "look up" the DC for that particular challenge. That's the thing, it's a skill, and some people have it, others don't. I would say that for DMs that don't have that skill they have to run things differently, but if you do, then you can definitely have a lot more preplanned, if you're good enough that people don't necessarily catch on, or if they don't mind.

So my table version would be something like this:

Player: What's the DC and stakes?
Me: Hang on, let me look up the DC. The stakes you don't get to know but you can assume that if you fail your roll at least these obvious bad things will happen (like falling for failing a climb or jump check, or making somebody angry for failing a diplomacy check, the player doesn't get to know all the stakes though, because there may be unforeseen consequences and I'm not about to spoil those for a player)
*At which point I either look up the DC in the tables I have set up, the tables that already exist OR I make up a DC and glance over the guidelines for doing so while I come with the ad hoc DC*

And to be fair, I might not always give away the DC for something if it isn't immediately obvious. A person can probably gauge how far they can jump for instance, but a person might not be able to gauge how difficult it will be to persuade someone of something. I tend to decide what needs revealed based on what would work the best if it gets revealed.


Insisting on making the DC and stakes clear before the roll is a good way to help GMs with bad habits better themselves.

Not really, the Players might not always get to know the stakes of every roll. You can definitely give them what they should know though.


there are also instances where a person should be able to at least roughly tell how hard something is just by looking at it. Is this tree a hard to climb tree? I should be able to see by looking at its branches. Now i personally remind my players that sometimes looks can be misleading that some one hypothetically could have trapped the tree by covering the branches with grease or something.

Exactly! The Players can guess at how hard something is, and most of the time they'll be right. But something more obscure they might not be, if they aren't aware of all the factors. Which basically gives you some leeway as a DM to come up with things that would be more interesting than not.

[PhoenixPhyre]

As far as stakes, there are different types of them.

Obvious stakes are obvious. If you fail to jump across the pit, you're going to either fall or catch yourself. If you say <bad words> to the up-tight puritan priest, he's not going to like you. If you step on the obvious pressure plate, something is going to happen.

These should be stated.

Hidden stakes are short-term, but not observable. That pit might actually just be an illusion, so failing the check just means you hit the ground normally. That puritan priest might actually have a filthy mouth himself and like people who stand up to him. The obvious pressure plate may be a decoy.

These may require checks (or research) themselves to uncover.

Long-term stakes may have no immediate effects and not be identifiable up front. Stopping that war might let the (hidden) bad guy gain power. Setting off that trap might trigger a silent alarm elsewhere. Etc.

These should be telegraphed (so they don't seem arbitrary) but not told up front.

All of these IMO.

[awa]

though sometimes particularly if a group is new some degree of clarification is a good idea. Particularly for near failures.
For instance if you fail a climb check does that mean you fall take damage, fall try to catch yourself, make no progress, make no progress and are hanging by one hand and therefore vulnerable (more so I mean).

If you jump and fail by just a bit do you auto plummet, land prone, crash partway into the cliff and if so do you take subdual damage.

Letting players know that their are degrees of failure are good and frankly more realistic.

[PhoenixPhyre]

though sometimes particularly if a group is new some degree of clarification is a good idea. Particularly for near failures.
For instance if you fail a climb check does that mean you fall take damage, fall try to catch yourself, make no progress, make no progress and are hanging by one hand and therefore vulnerable (more so I mean).

If you jump and fail by just a bit do you auto plummet, land prone, crash partway into the cliff and if so do you take subdual damage.

Letting players know that their are degrees of failure are good and frankly more realistic.

I can agree with that.

[Gallowglass]

You know, its more nebulous than I originally gave it credit for, this nature of railroading. There's an entire "intent" aspect that is pliable and difficult to nail down.

First, I will never, in my life, have the kind of "sandbox" world Quertus seems to be describing. I don't have enough time in my life to build out every city, every dungeon, every npc, every detail of a world so its all in place and perfect and require no on-the-fly adjudication or rebuilding no matter what the PCs decide to do.

I don't think its possible. But I'm not going to say "Quertus is lying" because, to him, its not just possible its apparently the correct way to do it. So that's okay.

When I DM, actually DM, I usually don't bother building the campaign until after the PCs make the characters. That way I can build the world and the sketch of the plot around those characters. No one makes a cleric? Fine, no undead in this world. No fighters? Okay, the plot will have less beatstick enemies and more arcane challenges. The PCs that actually provide a backstory and motivation? Great, those are going to be central pieces to the plot rather than side quests. Three dwarves? Well I guess I'm make the dwarven people more important in this world than normal. And no reason for halflings to even exists.

Then I build enough of the world to service the first handful of sketched out adventures. And I have a vast stable of prebuilt content to slot in in emergencies.

So looking at one of the more recent examples. if the PCs have chosen "we want to find the city of brass" and they follow some clues I give them and come up with an alternate answer to where the city is I ask myself "does their explanation and story make more sense?" and/or "how invested are they in the search they did and how excited are they about the choice they made". And if both of those are "yes" then I have no problem moving the City of Brass to where they think it is rather than where I originally intended it.

If their choice makes no sense or contrasts with some vital detail (more vital than a silk merchant's route IMO) then they got it wrong and I slot in something to put them back on the right track or rule-of-three whatever evidence or clue they misses.

I don't consider that railroading on any level.

However, if the PCs looked at the world and said "we dont' want to go to the city of brass, so we are going to go here instead" and I moved the city of brass there and said "ah-ha! you end up there anyway". then that would be railroading.

the first example plays into and toward the PC choice and actions. The second negates it. Even though they look like the same thing to a observer.

The exception is when I have a gimmick I want to centerpiece a game. Then I provide a write up to the PCs of the gimmick before they make characters. The buy in I expect is that they agree to make characters that apply to that gimmick. Here's an example:

"Floating in the astral sea is a city called Maze. A vast dwarven necropolis from some prime material plane that was somehow shunted to the astral sea and now floats among the ether. The city is a waystation of sorts. Astral boats and ships dock there and there are three gates to other planes. One to the ninth circle of Hell, one to the air plane and one to the Kara-Tur Prime Material Plane. There is also a door to Sigil, city of doors, but it is controlled by a coalition of powers. Maze is divided into seven sections *describe the section* ruled by seven orders *describe the orders*. You will be playing a group of down on their luck scavengers working for a Harpy named Brash. Brash knows a wizard who can sell her pinpoint locations of astral bubbles of folded space. She goes out and slices them open and steals what's inside. Mostly bags of holding, but sometimes entire demiplanes or other things."

That might be the start I give them. And I would expect them to make characters that fit that story. They don't have to continue to work for Brash, or even stay in the citystate of Maze if they really really want, but I would expect them to want to interact with the concept or else why agree to play the game?

In that case, I would have a lot of the world I expect them to interact with built or fleshed out and several adventures planned at least in principle. And the characters they make, with their backstories and personal desires would be incorporated into that plot rather than building the plot around them. And I would ixnay any characters that simply would not work. But very few characters would not work, but in other scenarios maybe there would.*shrug*

[PhoenixPhyre]

I'll say that my campaigns, especially the school-club ones, start with the internal premise that whatever the kids try to do (their big goals) will generally succeed. TPKs and even horrific failure on their terms isn't usually on the table unless they actively undercut themselves. My job is to figure out the and then whats, both at a tactical level and at a strategic level. It's an ongoing persistent world, so lots of that is about figuring out how the world changes. And a lot of that is figuring out what was really there in the first place, in a way that allows the campaign to move, if not forward, then at least somewhere.

The trick is that the kids are pretty darn predictable past the first few sessions. And they start out small with a simple hook (an assignment to investigate and "deal with" a situation in the world), so the consequences during the unpredictable time are small.

That hook is transparently a hook to get them on location. After that, they can approach things in whatever way they want and the details of the world will fall into place. These details may push back against the players in various ways--making them change plans because they find out more about what's really going on or whatever.

I do "quantum" campaigns, but not inevitable campaigns. I don't know the details of everything until they act--it's in a state of superposition between a bunch of possibilities. I had a group of students who made backgrounds that fit. We ended up creating a village that both of them were from and how that village was destroyed. It's now a canon part of the world. When I started a campaign before, I had no clue that the Big Bad, canonically a major demon, was actually an alien creature waiting to be reborn and a sympathetic character, while someone else was the big bad. That was discovered by all of us as we went along, because that's what fit the unfolding events best. It's what retroactively explained why and what everyone was doing there.

[Quertus]

First, I will never, in my life, have the kind of "sandbox" world Quertus seems to be describing. I don't have enough time in my life to build out every city, every dungeon, every npc, every detail of a world so its all in place and perfect and require no on-the-fly adjudication or rebuilding no matter what the PCs decide to do.

I don't think its possible. But I'm not going to say "Quertus is lying" because, to him, its not just possible its apparently the correct way to do it. So that's okay.

I'll read (and maybe respond to) the rest of your post later, but I wanted to respond to this bit.

First, it's easy to run "my kind of sandbox" by building the sandbox walls around, say, a single town and a dozen dungeons. Or even smaller, like a group of a dozen politicians in a small political negotiation sandbox (more common for a murder mystery 1-shot).

Second, my players can rarely differentiate my pre-built from my built on demand from my extemporaneous content. Historically, most of players think that I'm so good at creating all this on the fly. Really, I hate making extemporaneous content. Plus, I like things to be tied together logically. I don't pre-built *everything* - I pre-built the interface, the way things are tied together, and *some* extra details. Because what else am I going to do *every moment of the day*?

Then, when the players declare their intent to go somewhere, yes, I'll fill in extra details that I think that they might be interested in. Then if necessary during the game, I'll ad-lib things that I haven't explicitly created.

But those silks in farmville? They got there through game physics. The interface between towns is part of what I create during the initial world-building. The materials town is made from? Their source is part of world-building. (Another reason I can't just move towns around.) Make a character who cares about art? I'll research architecture to describe what's already in my head, and try to remember to describe the art in various places (and add it in if it logically should be there, but i hadn't created it yet, just like I would if the party got the mayor killed, then searched his place).

Put another way, everything of any logical importance has already been created before the game starts. As has anything I needed when I ran my sample party/parties through the module. Details of immediate importance (like where the bandits that the party let live ended up) can be generated as needed (I knew that there were abandoned buildings somewhere in town; now they're actually labeled on my mental map).

[Gallowglass]

First, it's easy to run "my kind of sandbox" by building the sandbox walls around, say, a single town and a dozen dungeons. Or even smaller, like a group of a dozen politicians in a small political negotiation sandbox (more common for a murder mystery 1-shot).

Second, my players can rarely differentiate my pre-built from my built on demand from my extemporaneous content. Historically, most of players think that I'm so good at creating all this on the fly. Really, I hate making extemporaneous content. Plus, I like things to be tied together logically. I don't pre-built *everything* - I pre-built the interface, the way things are tied together, and *some* extra details. Because what else am I going to do *every moment of the day*?

Then, when the players declare their intent to go somewhere, yes, I'll fill in extra details that I think that they might be interested in. Then if necessary during the game, I'll ad-lib things that I haven't explicitly created.

But those silks in farmville? They got there through game physics. The interface between towns is part of what I create during the initial world-building. The materials town is made from? Their source is part of world-building. (Another reason I can't just move towns around.) Make a character who cares about art? I'll research architecture to describe what's already in my head, and try to remember to describe the art in various places (and add it in if it logically should be there, but i hadn't created it yet, just like I would if the party got the mayor killed, then searched his place).

Put another way, everything of any logical importance has already been created before the game starts. As has anything I needed when I ran my sample party/parties through the module. Details of immediate importance (like where the bandits that the party let live ended up) can be generated as needed (I knew that there were abandoned buildings somewhere in town; now they're actually labeled on my mental map).

Ah, see, your prior posts don't signal any of this, or perhaps I just missed or or we are talking past each other. Your posts up to now seem to suggest that you NEVER have extemporous content, that you always know where the bandits are and would never move them around as needed and would never make up something on the spot. And you seem to have an extreme hard line about it. And, frankly, you seem to look down on anyone who suggests that its not "normal" or "correct" to do it that way.

So, it seems I have been reading incorrectly between your lines and I'm sorry for that.

I'm glad you are human like the rest of us!

[PhoenixPhyre]

Put another way, everything of any logical importance has already been created before the game starts. As has anything I needed when I ran my sample party/parties through the module.

I find that my parties find very different things of "logical importance". Each time I run the same scenario, different things are important. To say otherwise is the worst kind of railroading--the kind that believes it isn't railroading at all!

[Pippa the Pixie]

However, if the PCs looked at the world and said "we dont' want to go to the city of brass, so we are going to go here instead" and I moved the city of brass there and said "ah-ha! you end up there anyway". then that would be railroading.

It's also being a clumsy DM. There is really no reason to force the players to do anything.

If the DM had some encounter planned for City A, there is no reason it can't be moved to city B. Or city C. No matter what city the characters go to....or really no matter what spot they go to, they will have the encounter.

[Xuc Xac]

If the DM had some encounter planned for City A, there is no reason it can't be moved to city B. Or city C. No matter what city the characters go to....or really no matter what spot they go to, they will have the encounter.

Most people call that "railroading", but you don't like to use the same words as "the everyone collective" so you called it "being a bad/clumsy DM". In fact, you just said that two sentences before this.


However, if the PCs looked at the world and said "we dont' want to go to the city of brass, so we are going to go here instead" and I moved the city of brass there and said "ah-ha! you end up there anyway". then that would be railroading.



It's also being a clumsy DM. There is really no reason to force the players to do anything.


So "no reason to force them to do anything" is immediately contradicted by your quantum encounter.

Let's say the DM asks "Do you go through the door on the left or the right?" and hopes the PCs open the left door to fight the ogre before the right door with the treasure chest. If the players say "We open the right door" and the DM swaps the locations of the ogre and the treasure and says "Roll for initiative! There's an angry ogre!", that's still forcing the encounter. The DM doesn't have to point a gun at the players and say "Wrong answer! Say the left door!" for it to be forced.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Most people call that "railroading", but you don't like to use the same words as "the everyone collective" so you called it "being a bad/clumsy DM". In fact, you just said that two sentences before this.

Most people are wrong about a lot of things.

A DM makes and encounter and puts it on the map. Ok, so the players get all scared and have thier characters run to the other side of the world.

So what does the DM do? Well....they just stick the encounter back into the folder to be used later.






So "no reason to force them to do anything" is immediately contradicted by your quantum encounter.

Let's say the DM asks "Do you go through the door on the left or the right?" and hopes the PCs open the left door to fight the ogre before the right door with the treasure chest. If the players say "We open the right door" and the DM swaps the locations of the ogre and the treasure and says "Roll for initiative! There's an angry ogre!", that's still forcing the encounter. The DM doesn't have to point a gun at the players and say "Wrong answer! Say the left door!" for it to be forced.

Right, but all of what you typed was just clumsy DMing.....the whole set up is just bad.

How about the DM does: Right is an empty room, and left is a ogre guarding a treasure chest. See, it's an easy fix.

Try my example:

The DM makes orc thug encounter 1 :Sarg Hood..an orc bandit that attacks folks on the road north of the town of Plan. The charcters learn about Sarg.....and the cowardly players have the character run away to the south....say a 1000 miles to the town of High Crest.

So the game rolls on for a couple weeks and things happen as the characters travel.

And just to the east of the town of High Crest...the characters encounter Klong Hood...an orc bandit, that is 'orc thug encounter 1', of course.

So the DM is using the exact same 'orc encounter', just with a name change. So do you count that as ''railroading"?

Should a DM immediately throw out an encounter if the players avoid it?

[kyoryu]

Most people call that "railroading", but you don't like to use the same words as "the everyone collective" so you called it "being a bad/clumsy DM". In fact, you just said that two sentences before this.

Did Sock Ultron actually use the term “The everyone collective?” That’s a multi account smoking gun right there.

[Florian]

@Darth Pippa:

As for your prior question: No, the GM doesn't need that kind of agency because he acts as the interface to the game.
But if you want your player to be able to make informed decisions and act as well as react to a given situation in a natural way, the GM should at least try to keep that interface as stable as possible. How that looks exactly will change based on the actual system used, depending on what kind of "player empowerment" and "GM power" is hardcoded into the rules and mechanics.

As for your last question, it will depend on what your actual game, you know, the social contract thingie, is and why you do it. Take a look at some open world type video games: They feature major and minor storylines and are build in such a way, that they use passive means to steer the player at least towards the plot, as in, you could go anywhere you want, but north of your starting location is giant country, while in the south are the goblin tribes... No hard choice for freshly created starting characters where to go, so you have the illusion of freedom, but in reality, there're tracks gently leading along the storyline.

So it basically comes to this: If you only have one city prepared, but a map featuring ten, anticipating that the players will only manage to visit one city for this (or several) session, then no big deal. You now have established the in-game fact what city 1 is, rinse and repeat with the other 9, as long as they stay consistent.

On the other hand, if you want to showcase something, like the conflict between a city of paladins and a city of necromancers, then having those being city 1 and 2 on your map and make it so that the players have to visit them in this order, than it is railroading.

[Earthwalker]

As far as stakes, there are different types of them.

Obvious stakes are obvious. If you fail to jump across the pit, you're going to either fall or catch yourself. If you say <bad words> to the up-tight puritan priest, he's not going to like you. If you step on the obvious pressure plate, something is going to happen.

These should be stated.

Hidden stakes are short-term, but not observable. That pit might actually just be an illusion, so failing the check just means you hit the ground normally. That puritan priest might actually have a filthy mouth himself and like people who stand up to him. The obvious pressure plate may be a decoy.

These may require checks (or research) themselves to uncover.

Long-term stakes may have no immediate effects and not be identifiable up front. Stopping that war might let the (hidden) bad guy gain power. Setting off that trap might trigger a silent alarm elsewhere. Etc.

These should be telegraphed (so they don't seem arbitrary) but not told up front.

All of these IMO.


I think I am being too cynical but the more I am presented with "Hidden Stakes" or "Long Term Stakes" the more I feel I am losing agency.

If I find I am not making any informed decisions about the outcome of the story then I feel I am being railroaded. (This is back to the concept as railroading being linked to the removal of player agency)

So when it comes to do I notice my agency being ignored / removed. Well its pretty easy to count the number of times in a session I have been able to make an informed decision. The lower the number the less agency I have.

Removing the informed part does allow players to choose things
I just think that as a player I would spot that I wasn't informed so would still see the loss of agency.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think I am being too cynical but the more I am presented with "Hidden Stakes" or "Long Term Stakes" the more I feel I am losing agency.

If I find I am not making any informed decisions about the outcome of the story then I feel I am being railroaded. (This is back to the concept as railroading being linked to the removal of player agency)

So when it comes to do I notice my agency being ignored / removed. Well its pretty easy to count the number of times in a session I have been able to make an informed decision. The lower the number the less agency I have.

Removing the informed part does allow players to choose things
I just think that as a player I would spot that I wasn't informed so would still see the loss of agency.

To say that is to say that you don't have agency in your own life, because there are hidden stakes and long term stakes (as I defined them) all around us. All we can claim to know are the immediate consequences and a few of the obvious long-term ones. There are a whole chain of consequences that we can't know in advance (or even ever) for many seemingly innocuous actions.

Now I definitely try to make the long-term and hidden ones more of a "yes and" or a "no but" than a "yes but" or "no and". By that I mean they either extend the positive consequences of the players direct actions or ameliorate the negative ones rather than negating positive ones or worsen the negative ones. But that's not agency-related but personal preference.

[Earthwalker]

To say that is to say that you don't have agency in your own life, because there are hidden stakes and long term stakes (as I defined them) all around us. All we can claim to know are the immediate consequences and a few of the obvious long-term ones. There are a whole chain of consequences that we can't know in advance (or even ever) for many seemingly innocuous actions.
Now I definitely try to make the long-term and hidden ones more of a "yes and" or a "no but" than a "yes but" or "no and". By that I mean they either extend the positive consequences of the players direct actions or ameliorate the negative ones rather than negating positive ones or worsen the negative ones. But that's not agency-related but personal preference.

Yes you are correct I lose agency from my real life all the time. Also I have no meta currency to allow me to influence the flow of the narrative of my life. Two things I find very annoying about my life.
While we are at it, I would love to see a copy of the rule book for this real life game as I can see some really stupid world building choices that I think need fixing!!

(That was supposed to be amusing, no offense is meant)

This all comes down to what are people wanting from their gaming. What is important to them. If I find agency important I may not care that we are mapping to real life, and visa-versa.
Now this is going to my original point I was trying to make. Now the GM is limiting my agency.. this could be because…

He is a silly poo poo head control freak.
He is wanting to better map the game to real life.
He doesn’t even understand what player agency is
The system he uses encourages a particular game style.

Now I can’t tell the reason but I am pretty sure I can tell that my agency is being limited. Which was my original point. Most forms of illusionism are designed to look like they are giving agency but it’s pretty easy to spot if as a player you are able to make informed choices or not.
In closing, I enjoy high and low player agency games. I know a lot of the reason why certain games are played like they are and don’t think any version of them is bad. My comments just relate illusionism and how to spot it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yes you are correct I lose agency from my real life all the time. Also I have no meta currency to allow me to influence the flow of the narrative of my life. Two things I find very annoying about my life.
While we are at it, I would love to see a copy of the rule book for this real life game as I can see some really stupid world building choices that I think need fixing!!

(That was supposed to be amusing, no offense is meant)

This all comes down to what are people wanting from their gaming. What is important to them. If I find agency important I may not care that we are mapping to real life, and visa-versa.
Now this is going to my original point I was trying to make. Now the GM is limiting my agency.. this could be because…

He is a silly poo poo head control freak.
He is wanting to better map the game to real life.
He doesn’t even understand what player agency is
The system he uses encourages a particular game style.

Now I can’t tell the reason but I am pretty sure I can tell that my agency is being limited. Which was my original point. Most forms of illusionism are designed to look like they are giving agency but it’s pretty easy to spot if as a player you are able to make informed choices or not.
In closing, I enjoy high and low player agency games. I know a lot of the reason why certain games are played like they are and don’t think any version of them is bad. My comments just relate illusionism and how to spot it.

With that understood, not all limitations on agency are nefarious or railroading. Or even illusionism. You don't have to be omniscient to be able to act meaningfully. As long as you know enough and the consequences follow naturally from the action, you can act with agency. Unlimited agency only exists if you are the sole author and have no constraints. So to me, talking about this as "limiting agency" feels like it's trying to smuggle in a fallacy.

I only have issues when the agency denials impinge on my ability to portray the character or impinge strongly on the believability of the world. So things like scraping off the identifying marks from a prepared city to reuse parts of it later is not an issue. Telling me directly "Your character wouldn't do that" is an issue.

[Willie the Duck]

Ah, see, your prior posts don't signal any of this, or perhaps I just missed or or we are talking past each other. Your posts up to now seem to suggest that you NEVER have extemporous content, that you always know where the bandits are and would never move them around as needed and would never make up something on the spot. And you seem to have an extreme hard line about it. And, frankly, you seem to look down on anyone who suggests that its not "normal" or "correct" to do it that way.

So, it seems I have been reading incorrectly between your lines and I'm sorry for that.

I'm glad you are human like the rest of us!

My reading of this thread is that Quertus has telegraphed that they (he?) are very human, including some significant communication stumbles. However, other than making sure we all know that their players think they are the bee's knees as a DM and some other reasonable failures of communicated humility, they've all been in the 'treating one's grand theory as though it were consistently followed' vein. And we all do that. Whatever our grand theory of game design, DMing, or worldbuilding, we talk a big game, but in reality, that's our aspirational goal. We all also try to keep our prep time to no more than 10X our gaming time, and as much as we don't want to take away player agency, also don't want to start out four thousandth campaign with, 'you're all drinking at the inn. There's a job board at the end, a shifty looking guy in the corner, and the bartender knows everything that happens in town. What do you want to do?' (cue: all the players going, "I don't know. What looks/sounds most interesting?").

[Earthwalker]

[Snip]
So to me, talking about this as "limiting agency" feels like it's trying to smuggle in a fallacy.
[snip]


I may well be using some fallacy but if I am, I have no idea what the Fallacy is. I am going to try an example with me GMing a FATE game and me GMing a Shadowrun game. (now when you give examples within games generally it turns into...but thems not the rules for system x... lets see what happens)

Shadowrun

Earthwalker: So you have your fake ID and are trying to pass yourself off as Billy Club. As soon as you walk into the bar your ID is verified by the Bars automated system. Roll your Fake ID.

Player Rolls.. Two Success.

Earthwalker Rolls behind a screen. Three Success. "Hmmmm" he says looking at the player. Scribbles down in notes. Billy Club fake ID spotted. Information sent the Mad Henry.




Fate

Earthwalker. So you have your fake ID and are trying to pass yourself off as Billy Club. As soon as you walk into the bar your ID is verified by the Bars automated system. Roll your Burglary skill, lets see how good that Fake ID is. The Bar system is good, so you need a +3. If you pass you get in without trouble (gaining a favorable aspect). If you fail then Mad Henry is going to know who you are.

Player Rolls. Hmmm +2. Of course I am a computer genius, no way my fake id would be so poor. Hands over a fate point. Now its +4.

Earthwalker: Ok for this scene you gain the aspect fitting in. What do you want to now now?

Player: Whos in the Bar ?

[King of Nowhere]

While we are at it, I would love to see a copy of the rule book for this real life game


I suggest you take a major in quantum physics. those are the basic rules. but they hardly matter for your gaming level. Actually, those rules are written in an arcane language called "mathematics", which you need to learn first, because it can't really be translated.
then there is rules compendium I, which is natural sciences. this rules compendium illustrates the basic interactions between those rules. It has some more practical applications, but still doesn't cover most situations you'll find your character in.
then there is rules compendium II, which is social sciences, which is interactions among even more complex systems. It gets a bit iffy, though.

Nobody knows for certain the game master. Some people try to get on his good side to get favors, but they all disagree on the best way to do so. Ancient people tried to bribe him with food, in what they called sacrifices, but the practice has fallen out of favor. Lately there's been a resurgence of players trying to please him by fighting others, although most insist that this gm does not approve of PvP. Some people even don't think there is a gm in the first place, and believe this is just one huge sandbox made with nothing but random encounter tables.

I agree it's a crappy system, but on the bright side, the rules cover pretty much everything you can think of, and allow for a great variety. You can leave the table if you don't like it, but unfortunately you have no guarantee that you'll be admitted to another.

Wow. I'm amazed by how well rpg can work as a metaphor for real life.

[Pippa the Pixie]

On the other hand, if you want to showcase something, like the conflict between a city of paladins and a city of necromancers, then having those being city 1 and 2 on your map and make it so that the players have to visit them in this order, than it is railroading.

Right, I agree.

My point is still that it never needs to happen. The DM does not HAVE to stay locked into City A and City B will go it war. The DM can have ANY two citys in the world go to war and have the same story plot.


I think I am being too cynical but the more I am presented with "Hidden Stakes" or "Long Term Stakes" the more I feel I am losing agency.

If I find I am not making any informed decisions about the outcome of the story then I feel I am being railroaded. (This is back to the concept as railroading being linked to the removal of player agency)

So when it comes to do I notice my agency being ignored / removed. Well its pretty easy to count the number of times in a session I have been able to make an informed decision. The lower the number the less agency I have.

Removing the informed part does allow players to choose things
I just think that as a player I would spot that I wasn't informed so would still see the loss of agency.


But what your saying simply makes no sense.

As a player in most RPGs you are limited to the ''street level" point of view of your character. You can only see and interact with a limited part of the game world.

And it's impossible for a player to know EVERYTHING about a game world in detail. Unless you don't play the game and just have the DM explain things in the game world....for days.

But most of all, a player character can only effect thier immediate area...and only a tiny bit...and mostly only personaly. In most RPGs a character can't just wave a hand and obliterate an empire.


Just take a simple adventure: the mayor of Dot hires the PCs to kill the orc bandits north of town. So simple seak and destroy combat adventure. Head north, kill orcs. And as a player, you will NEVER know all the endless geo polotics/social stuff of the land.

For example...the mayor hired the bandits to have a 'problem' to fix and look good. But as a player...with your PC fighting the orc bandits...you will not know this.

Now, sure, the DM might just toss it out there and tell you. But it's still only one partial fact. To tell you even just a couple hundred facts about the land would take hours...of not playing the game, of course.

And, sure, maybe you choose to not fight the orcs and hang around town just making 'information rolls' to learn things. For hours. This is fine, but it's not really a typical RPG.

The only way it works is if the DM has a simple easy world with only like five facts to know. Then the DM can tell you all five facts, and you are not an informaed expert on the world.

The RPG you are descripbing is more like Simi Earth or a game like that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I may well be using some fallacy but if I am, I have no idea what the Fallacy is. I am going to try an example with me GMing a FATE game and me GMing a Shadowrun game. (now when you give examples within games generally it turns into...but thems not the rules for system x... lets see what happens)

Shadowrun

Earthwalker: So you have your fake ID and are trying to pass yourself off as Billy Club. As soon as you walk into the bar your ID is verified by the Bars automated system. Roll your Fake ID.

Player Rolls.. Two Success.

Earthwalker Rolls behind a screen. Three Success. "Hmmmm" he says looking at the player. Scribbles down in notes. Billy Club fake ID spotted. Information sent the Mad Henry.


Fate

Earthwalker. So you have your fake ID and are trying to pass yourself off as Billy Club. As soon as you walk into the bar your ID is verified by the Bars automated system. Roll your Burglary skill, lets see how good that Fake ID is. The Bar system is good, so you need a +3. If you pass you get in without trouble (gaining a favorable aspect). If you fail then Mad Henry is going to know who you are.

Player Rolls. Hmmm +2. Of course I am a computer genius, no way my fake id would be so poor. Hands over a fate point. Now its +4.

Earthwalker: Ok for this scene you gain the aspect fitting in. What do you want to now now?

Player: Whos in the Bar ?

To me, both are fitting and neither one is a problem, as long as it fits the game, the genre, and the setting. One emphasizes the dark/gritty/uncertain/antagonistic nature of Shadowrun (where limited/incorrect/malicious information is the big bad of the setting, in a sense). The other emphasizes the action-hero/"meta" nature of Fate.

So there's not a setting/system/genre-neutral setting for how much information players should get. Not only that, some tables play differently than others.

As a person, I'm pretty open about information that might be relevant. I'd rather give more information than less. To the point where no one gets a "you don't know" answer from an INT check unless it's really just unknowable. And even then you get information you could deduce, which often provides clues as to where to look next. But I don't consider this a necessity, just personal preference.

[Morgaln]

I may well be using some fallacy but if I am, I have no idea what the Fallacy is. I am going to try an example with me GMing a FATE game and me GMing a Shadowrun game. (now when you give examples within games generally it turns into...but thems not the rules for system x... lets see what happens)

Shadowrun

Earthwalker: So you have your fake ID and are trying to pass yourself off as Billy Club. As soon as you walk into the bar your ID is verified by the Bars automated system. Roll your Fake ID.

Player Rolls.. Two Success.

Earthwalker Rolls behind a screen. Three Success. "Hmmmm" he says looking at the player. Scribbles down in notes. Billy Club fake ID spotted. Information sent the Mad Henry.




Fate

Earthwalker. So you have your fake ID and are trying to pass yourself off as Billy Club. As soon as you walk into the bar your ID is verified by the Bars automated system. Roll your Burglary skill, lets see how good that Fake ID is. The Bar system is good, so you need a +3. If you pass you get in without trouble (gaining a favorable aspect). If you fail then Mad Henry is going to know who you are.

Player Rolls. Hmmm +2. Of course I am a computer genius, no way my fake id would be so poor. Hands over a fate point. Now its +4.

Earthwalker: Ok for this scene you gain the aspect fitting in. What do you want to now now?

Player: Whos in the Bar ?

To me, neither of this examples limits agency in any way. They just put different emphasis on versimillitude and metagaming.
Both as a player and as a GM, I personally would vastly prefer the first approach. I seriously dislike having an option like those fate points, that allows a player (including myself) to affect an outcome from a purely metagaming perspective with no in-game effect to explain it.

[Segev]

I suggest you take a major in quantum physics. those are the basic rules. but they hardly matter for your gaming level. Actually, those rules are written in an arcane language called "mathematics", which you need to learn first, because it can't really be translated.
then there is rules compendium I, which is natural sciences. this rules compendium illustrates the basic interactions between those rules. It has some more practical applications, but still doesn't cover most situations you'll find your character in.
then there is rules compendium II, which is social sciences, which is interactions among even more complex systems. It gets a bit iffy, though.

Nobody knows for certain the game master. Some people try to get on his good side to get favors, but they all disagree on the best way to do so. Ancient people tried to bribe him with food, in what they called sacrifices, but the practice has fallen out of favor. Lately there's been a resurgence of players trying to please him by fighting others, although most insist that this gm does not approve of PvP. Some people even don't think there is a gm in the first place, and believe this is just one huge sandbox made with nothing but random encounter tables.

I agree it's a crappy system, but on the bright side, the rules cover pretty much everything you can think of, and allow for a great variety. You can leave the table if you don't like it, but unfortunately you have no guarantee that you'll be admitted to another.

Wow. I'm amazed by how well rpg can work as a metaphor for real life.
And here I was going to make a joke about handing copies of the Koran, Torah, Bible, Book of Mormon, and a few other major religious scriptures over and saying, "I'm sure the rulebook is in there somewhere."

But this turns it around and amuses me by imagining a religion in a D&D or similar game where their holy book is the PHB. With forbidden text: the DMG.

[Earthwalker]

To me, both are fitting and neither one is a problem, as long as it fits the game, the genre, and the setting. One emphasizes the dark/gritty/uncertain/antagonistic nature of Shadowrun (where limited/incorrect/malicious information is the big bad of the setting, in a sense). The other emphasizes the action-hero/"meta" nature of Fate.

So there's not a setting/system/genre-neutral setting for how much information players should get. Not only that, some tables play differently than others.

As a person, I'm pretty open about information that might be relevant. I'd rather give more information than less. To the point where no one gets a "you don't know" answer from an INT check unless it's really just unknowable. And even then you get information you could deduce, which often provides clues as to where to look next. But I don't consider this a necessity, just personal preference.


To me, neither of this examples limits agency in any way. They just put different emphasis on versimillitude and metagaming.
Both as a player and as a GM, I personally would vastly prefer the first approach. I seriously dislike having an option like those fate points, that allows a player (including myself) to affect an outcome from a purely metagaming perspective with no in-game effect to explain it.

The examples were in response to the idea that there is no way that you can play with the players knowing the long term consequences of their actions / dice rolls. So the second example provides a way to play doing just that.

As well as comments on illusionism where you try to fool the players into thinking they have agency when they don't. In the second example how does the GM do that ? For me they cant. Which is why I bring it up in this thread.

Now both of you have said you don't like the second example its metagamey and I can see why you would have personal objections to that sort of game (we all get different things from games). At the same time I hope you can see that for me that I don't mind those elements, that type of game is very enjoyable for me.

I say all this because you don't want to be in a place where someone is saying that kind of game is impossible or makes no sense. When I know for a fact its possible as I have played it.
How crazy would it be someone trying to tell me its impossible ?



[snip]
But what your saying simply makes no sense.

As a player in most RPGs you are limited to the ''street level" point of view of your character. You can only see and interact with a limited part of the game world.

And it's impossible for a player to know EVERYTHING about a game world in detail. Unless you don't play the game and just have the DM explain things in the game world....for days.
[snip]

[PhoenixPhyre]

I didn't say I don't like the meta option. It's not one I use, but if I were in that type of game it works fine.

I'm just pointing out that the default can't be "full knowledge, anything else is railroad" for every game. Multiple games, multiple appropriate approaches.

[Earthwalker]

I didn't say I don't like the meta option. It's not one I use, but if I were in that type of game it works fine.
I think I was replying to two people at once. So may have confused thing apologies.

I'm just pointing out that the default can't be "full knowledge, anything else is railroad" for every game. Multiple games, multiple appropriate approaches.
I agree that this can't be the default. (So I may have to clear some of my head space :) )
I also agree that this seems to be the idea I have got my self arguing for and I don't want to be, because I don't think that idea is right :)


Let me try it this way when thinking about illusionism and assumptions.

If I play three session (a arbitrary number) in a game and notice I never once to go make an informed decision then I would just start seeing it as railroad. Now it might not be. It might be all the decisions just have consequences its not possible for me to see.

Its just after so long if that's all I got, then I start seeing railroad.

[Segev]

"Informed decision" doesn't mean "with perfect information." It means "could gather some information on which to base an estimate of consequences." There is a sliding scale, here, related to amount and accuracy of information, and especially to ability to choose to take action to gather it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

"Informed decision" doesn't mean "with perfect information." It means "could gather some information on which to base an estimate of consequences." There is a sliding scale, here, related to amount and accuracy of information, and especially to ability to choose to take action to gather it.

Agreed. A lot of times, the "proper" choice is obvious even with minimal information just based on the character itself. I tend to worry less about what's the "right" choice and more about what the character would do that isn't party-hostile.

[Pippa the Pixie]

"Informed decision" doesn't mean "with perfect information." It means "could gather some information on which to base an estimate of consequences." There is a sliding scale, here, related to amount and accuracy of information, and especially to ability to choose to take action to gather it.

I guess this is saying very little information. But as long as it is enough for the players....


If I play three session (a arbitrary number) in a game and notice I never once to go make an informed decision then I would just start seeing it as railroad. Now it might not be. It might be all the decisions just have consequences its not possible for me to see.

Its just after so long if that's all I got, then I start seeing railroad.

Are you sure? This sounds a lot like your looking for a railroad, so as soon as you see something you don't like, you will say ''railroad! Ha I found it and knew it was there all along!"

And what are you counting as not an informed decision? How do you notice this in the game play?

And do you require the DM to metagame the game novel story so you, the player, know everything that is going on?

Do you have an example of an uninformed decision in a game you noticed and cryied railroad about?

[Jakinbandw]

No, you misunderstood me. If, in my game, the players wanted to go to Metropolis, then, after I had content for Metropolis prepared, changed their mind, and wanted to go to Metro City instead - that matches your scenario, right?- I probably couldn't just use my prep work on Metropolis for Metro City *even if the PCs knew nothing about either city* - which still matches your scenario, right? - because…

… because they bought silk in farmville.

Everything is connected. The merchant who brought the silk to farmville has a set route, which passes through Metropolis (and not Metro City), and which affects Metropolis. If you move Metropolis (ie, move the content you prepared) to Metro City, it suddenly doesn't make any sense there, because that merchant never went there. Or, if you "fix" that, he didn't pass through the surrounding area. Or, if you fix that, wait, there's not a river next to Metro City, how can they…

In short, when you build things based on interconnections through game physics, you can't just change things, even if the PCs know nothing about them.


Okay, I've wanted to respond to this for a while, but it's going to take a bit and I haven't had time, but let's do this. I'm going to work with examples of how this works so you can see the steps involved and we can be sure we are talking about the same things. I'm doing this because I feel that I'm not on the same page as you because your merchant thing makes no sense to me at all. Maybe if I go over what I am talking about (And I'll even include a merchant!) we can figure out where our sticking point is, or maybe you can better explain your position to me.

So first off lets talk about towns. For this example I'm going to have Farmville and Port City. The players were planning to head to Farmville and redirected. These would be my notes on Farmville (and I'm going to admit right now I don't do town maps ahead of time. I draw them out if the players need them on the spot). (Also note that I'm taking my pure random rolls for this, so this is all on the fly and not just me cherry picking things.)
Power Structure
Autocratic. One person has largely unchallenged control over the court. ((F) Genevieve of Gold Way)

Major Players
(F) Giselle of Purple River: Keeper of local relics (They have a huge family that backs them) (Holds Holy item needed to get into a nearby dungeon)
(F) Raegan of Four Pines Temple: Rich trader or merchant (They know secret magic or forbidden arts) (Has been trying to buy holy item for some time. Giving up and planning to assalt Giselle to claim it)
(F) Sabrina of Forest Field: Wealthy outsider (They’re related to several important families or people)(Has a lot of sway in the town and outside it. Willing to put pressure on people if PCs do him a favor (Caravan duty on leaving town to protect grain))

Conflict
Someone wants to attack a rival group (Raegan wants Gisell's holy item)

Minor Players
(F) Catalina of Forest Peak: Part-time prostitute (Heard about the deal in a back ally)
(M) Alan Explorer: Local miller or tanner (Will be blamed for crime if committed. In wrong place at wrong time and then framed)

Consequences of its Destruction
Kin-related villages will be furious (Sabrina of Forest Field will call on family ties to hunt the destroyer of this village down)

Court Defenses
A guardian spirit or entity (There is a spirit bound in the holy item that Giselle Can summon if town attacked)

But hey, they decided that they need magic items instead at the start of the session and decide to head for Port City where they suspect there will be more magic items for sale. I don't have time to roll on 7 different tables to gen a new town (or the effort to put in figuring out a bunch of new things on the fly, I've had a rough day at work). I relook over the stuff I have with the eyes of a major city.

Power Structure
Autocratic. One person has largely unchallenged control over the court. ((F) Genevieve of Gold Way)

Major Players
(F) Giselle of Purple River: Keeper of local relics (They have a huge family that backs them) (A magic item merchant with the backing of the Gold Way Family)
(F) Raegan Lost: Rich trader or merchant (They know secret magic or forbidden arts) (Seedy back alley merchant of forbidden magic objects)
(F) Sabrina of Forest Field: Wealthy outsider (They’re related to several important families or people)(An investigator of the crown searching for contraband magic)

Conflict
Someone wants to attack a rival group (Reagan plans to plant elicit magic item on Giselle so that Sabrina takes her in thinking shes been the one supplying illegal magic)

Minor Players
(F) Catalina of Forest Peak: Part-time prostitute (Knows how to get in touch with Raegan (for the right price))
(M) Alan Explorer: Local miller or tanner (Witness to the planting of the magic that no one believes (but will hire the pc's to sort things out))

Consequences of its Destruction
Kin-related villages will be furious (The Crown will not forgive a city being wiped out and he along with all cities in the kingdom will search relentlessly for the destroyers.)

Court Defenses
A guardian spirit or entity (There are spirits of the dead floating around town that a few people can talk to. They can be a source of info, or if the town is wiped out they will point investigators towards the pcs. They are benevolent, but not very strong.)

There, that took me about 5 minutes to alter slightly. I didn't have to rewrite the npcs, or do much of anything, just a few touch ups and the session can continue. (In case you can't tell, my personal notes are in italics). I'm respecting the PC's decision to go to a different place to gain different rewards for their time, but that doesn't mean I can't reuse my work.

Now I'm curious if you consider this railroading, and why or why not. After this I kinda want to do a dungeon example as well, even though it would be similar.

[OldTrees1]

informed decisions?

Would it be better to start from a simpler case?

I have a game for you. In this game the game loop is you will roll a d6 and then choose to keep or discard it.

At the end of the first session I pack up and say it will continue next week. At the end of next week's session I say the game concluded.

What about this game, with respect to your choices, did you not like? Obviously you did not like the simplicity but we are going to have an honest discussion, so you will accept the simplicity premise for now. So what else about this game, with respect to your choices, did you not like?

[Pippa the Pixie]

So what else about this game, with respect to your choices, did you not like?

Well, I don't like the game as I don't understand it. It does not even seem like a game. Your example might be too obtuse.

Maybe you can give an example that is a game, maybe even a RPG?

[JNAProductions]

Well, I don't like the game as I don't understand it. It does not even seem like a game. Your example might be too obtuse.

Maybe you can give an example that is a game, maybe even a RPG?

Exactly the point.

Without information needed to make decisions, it's no fun-one could say it's not even a game.

In the same fashion, let's say you have a game of D&D that starts with the players being presented two doors. Both doors are exactly the same, and there is no indication as to what might be behind them. Even if the DM has already pre-set the encounters behind each door, the players have no information needed to ascertain which door is better for them, and so might as well be rolling a die to decide.

[OldTrees1]

Well, I don't like the game as I don't understand it. It does not even seem like a game. Your example might be too obtuse.

Maybe you can give an example that is a game, maybe even a RPG?

I am using the simplified game for a reason (PS: it is a RPG despite being a fictional and bad one). Your questioning if it even is a game is reasonable because this is not a good game. You intuition says there is something wrong, now you brain must figure out what you dislike about it and why.

Here is the game defined. It is a very simple game.
1) On your turn you roll a d6.
2) You choose to keep or discard the roll.
3) Repeat 1-2 until the end of the session.
4) The GM says the session is over and when the next session will be.
5) Repeat 1-3 until the game concludes.
6) The GM says the game has concluded.

So besides its simplicity, what about the choices in this game did you not like?

[Pippa the Pixie]

I am using the simplified game for a reason. Your questioning if it even is a game is reasonable. Here is the game defined.

It is a very simple game.
1) On your turn you roll a d6.
2) You choose to keep or discard the roll.
3) Repeat 1-2 until the end of the session.
4) The GM says the session is over and when the next session will be.
5) Repeat 1-3 until the game concludes.
6) The GM says the game has concluded.

So besides its simplicity, what about the choices in this game did you not like?

Fine.....be that way....I'll play YOUR game.

There is nothing about the game you mentioned that I don't like.

[OldTrees1]

Fine.....be that way....I'll play YOUR game.

There is nothing about the game you mentioned that I don't like.

Really? You questioned if it even was a game and now you are saying you like everything about the choices in the game. What do you like about those choices?

PS: Since you liked the game, we could start a session. Feel free to start rolling.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Really? You questioned if it even was a game and now you are saying you like everything about the choices in the game. What do you like about those choices?

Wait, I though a game rule was that I could not question the game, right?

Though I don't ''like'' or ''dislike" the game choices...I just make them as it's part of the game.

[OldTrees1]

Wait, I though a game rule was that I could not question the game, right?

Though I don't ''like'' or ''dislike" the game choices...I just make them as it's part of the game.

You, a person outside of the game, are allowed to like or dislike the kinds of choices in the game. The game made no restrictions on your opinions. I, another person outside of the game, specifically asked your opinion.

I did say, we both know you don't like the simplicity. So rather than having you type that repeatedly, what other aspects of the choices did you like / dislike. Surely there is something you disliked other than the simplicity.

However if you, a person outside of the game, have no opinion at all about these kinds of choices. Then start playing the game. You have 10 rolls this session.

[Pippa the Pixie]

However if you, a person outside of the game, have no opinion at all about these kinds of choices. Then start playing the game. You have 10 rolls this session.

I'm not sure what your trying to prove with your hostility. So maybe you should just play your game yourself.

If, you'd like to post about the Nature of Railroading, that is what I'm here for.....

[JNAProductions]

I'm not sure what your trying to prove with your hostility. So maybe you should just play your game yourself.

If, you'd like to post about the Nature of Railroading, that is what I'm here for.....

There wasn't any hostility-at least, not from Old Trees. Just an example that you seem to have missed the point of.

[Pippa the Pixie]

There wasn't any hostility-at least, not from Old Trees. Just an example that you seem to have missed the point of.

The part where he is trying to force me to play his game sure feels hostile to me.

[OldTrees1]

I'm not sure what your trying to prove with your hostility. So maybe you should just play your game yourself.

If, you'd like to post about the Nature of Railroading, that is what I'm here for.....

I am posting about the Nature of Railroading and there was no hostility there. I am discussing choices with you. I gave you Simple-d6 as a sample game where you have not context before the choices, no context about the options of the choices, and no context of the outcome of the choices. Simple-d6 is comprised solely of those kind of choices.

You indicated that, with respect to a game made solely of choices with those 3 characteristics, you neither liked nor disliked such choices (baring probably disliking the simplicity). I want an honest discussion and I am still a little bit shocked that you did not dislike such a game.

Apparently you felt that asking you to play the game (to experimentally test if you actually neither like nor dislike the choices) was some kind of hostility. That tells me that you don't like the choices in the game.

What about the choices, besides the simplicity, do you not like?

[Pippa the Pixie]

I am posting about the Nature of Railroading and there was no hostility there. I am discussing choices with you. I gave you Simple-d6 as a sample game where you have not context before the choices, no context about the options of the choices, and no context of the outcome of the choices. Simple-d6 is comprised solely of those kind of choices.

You indicated that, with respect to a game made solely of choices with those 3 characteristics, you neither liked nor disliked such choices (baring probably disliking the simplicity). I want an honest discussion and I am still a little bit shocked that you did not dislike such a game.

However since you did not dislike such a game. We can move on to the 2nd example. In this example I run one of two possible versions of Simple-d6. Either I run the version where your choices have no impact on the game, or I run the version where you choices shape the game. After the game, you are asked which version of the game was used. How do you tell the difference?

Nah...your example is just too simple for my complex mind. Sorry I just can't do it.

Maybe we can just jump ahead to where you try your ''Gottccha!" to prove your point?




What about the choices, besides the simplicity, do you not like?

Again, there was nothing to like or dislike....I just made them as part of the game. I dislike the game and the DM though...

[DdarkED]

The part where he is trying to force me to play his game sure feels hostile to me.

then the correct way would have been to say that first instead of making a accusation of hostility. "i feel you are being hostile" is not the same as "you are being hostile"

[JNAProductions]

Nah...your example is just too simple for my complex mind. Sorry I just can't do it.

Maybe we can just jump ahead to where you try your ''Gottccha!" to prove your point?

Again, there was nothing to like or dislike....I just made them as part of the game. I dislike the game and the DM though...

So what about the game do you dislike? Why do you dislike it? Can you articulate your reasoning?

[Pippa the Pixie]

So what about the game do you dislike? Why do you dislike it? Can you articulate your reasoning?

It's like I wandered into some Black Mirror corner of the Dark Web....

[JNAProductions]

It's like I wandered into some Black Mirror corner of the Dark Web....

Is that a "No, I cannot articulate my position"? You say you're a smart person-I don't think it'd be too hard to articulate why you dislike it.

If you'd like, I can say why I don't like it and you can see if you agree or disagree with me.

[OldTrees1]

Nah...your example is just too simple for my complex mind. Sorry I just can't do it.

Maybe we can just jump ahead to where you try your ''Gottccha!" to prove your point?
There is no "Gottccha!". You have been asking questions and posters have been giving answers. That loop of repeated questions and answers demonstrated a communication barrier. So I tried to circumvent that barrier by attempting an honest discussion using a much simpler example. That way the other poster's answers will get around the barrier OR your questions will get around the barrier. Like a satellite allowing communication between two people on opposite sides of a mountain.


Again, there was nothing to like or dislike....I just made them as part of the game. I dislike the game and the DM though...
You dislike the game despite neither liking or disliking the game loop. Care to elaborate? Maybe this will help draw parallels & connections to things other posters have tried and failed to communicate.

[Pippa the Pixie]

There is no "Gottccha!". You have been asking questions that demonstrated a communication barrier. So I tried to circumvent that barrier by attempting an honest discussion using a much simpler example.

The communication barrier here is you won't talk about the topic and refuse to help me out by answeing my asked, posted questions....instead you are ''playing some sort of game".



You dislike the game despite neither liking or disliking the game loop. Care to elaborate? Maybe this will help draw parallels & connections to things other posters have tried and failed to communicate.

Well, I don't know what a game loop is....so you'd have to tell me that first.


I would really like a Complex RPG example of something that happened to a player during a game session where the player felt that they had made and uninformed choice and were railroaded.

[DdarkED]

the game is designed to show agency is important. the game specifically is a DM fiat on every aspect (or potentially is we cant know for sure)

you roll dice. do u know what your rolling for? no. do you know if higher is better then lower? or if neither of those are true? how do u know if you should keep one one of these rolled d6's w/o some of the information? when is the adventure over? when is the game over.


how can you make any Agency adjacent choices in such a game?

is it the lack of player agency you find lacking and dislike?

[OldTrees1]

The communication barrier here is you won't talk about the topic and refuse to help me out by answeing my asked, posted questions....instead you are ''playing some sort of game".

I am explicitly talking about RPGs.
I am answers your question but, rather than answering in the way that wasted 10+ pages, I am having a discussion with you.


Well, I don't know what a game loop is....so you'd have to tell me that first.
A game loop is the loop of states that gameplay goes through. So Simple-d6 is made of a game loop of rolling the d6 and then choosing to keep or discard the result.

You have said that you neither like nor dislike the choices in Simple-d6. The loop of making those choices in the game loop of Simple-d6. You have also said you dislike Simple-d6. Can you elaborate on what/why/how you dislike Simple-d6 without liking/disliking the game loop?


I would really like a Complex RPG example of something that happened to a player during a game session where the player felt that they had made and uninformed choice and were railroaded.
People are more honest when the characteristics being discussed are visible rather than muddled in complexity. If we are discussing informed choices then it is better if the example is clear on whether the choice is informed or uninformed. We can build back up to complex nuances after we can understand each other on the simple fundamentals.

You can see DdarkED and JNAProductions feel like they can communicate when talking about Simple-d6. If they can, you can too.

[Pippa the Pixie]

how can you make any Agency adjacent choices in such a game?

is it the lack of player agency you find lacking and dislike?

I'm not even sure what player agency is...or if it even exists....but that is another topic.

But there is no agency in following the game rules right? Agency only applies to the role playing side of the game?





You can see DdarkED and JNAProductions feel like they can communicate when talking about Simple-d6. If they can, you can too.

Guess I'm just too complex.

[OldTrees1]

I'm not even sure what player agency is...or if it even exists....but that is another topic.

But there is no agency in following the game rules right? Agency only applies to the role playing side of the game?

Guess I'm just too complex.

Your questions indicate you want to understand the fundamentals. Therefore you are not too complex.

So, elaborate on why you dislike Simple-d6. Doing that will help the other posters answer your questions.

[JNAProductions]

You keep saying "Complex" as if it's good. Rube Goldberg Machines are highly complex, and also incredibly inefficient for anything other than spectacle.

Complexity is something to be avoided. The simpler, the better.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Your questions indicate you want to understand the fundamentals. Therefore you are not too complex.

So, elaborate on why you dislike Simple-d6. Doing that will help the other posters answer your questions.

Ok...so I guess the Gottchha answer your looking for is that I'm going to say that game is dumb, stupid and pointless....and that there is no reason at all, ever, to play that game.

This is of course also true of all games...even RPGs....so your point that playing a pointless game is pointless is.....well, pointless.

[OldTrees1]

Ok...so I guess the Gottchha answer your looking for is that I'm going to say that game is dumb, stupid and pointless....and that there is no reason at all, ever, to play that game.

This is of course also true of all games...even RPGs....so your point that playing a pointless game is pointless is.....well, pointless.

Again, there is no "Gottchha". Sometimes people are honestly looking for a discussion.

Since you are posting on this forum I assume there are RPGs that you don't find "dumb, stupid, and pointless". So something about Simple-d6 is missing what makes those other RPGs enjoyable.

Maybe it is the story? What if the DM of Simple-d6 read Lord of the Rings out loud while you were rolling?
Maybe it is the outcome? What if the DM of Simple-d6 mentions if you won when the game ends?
Maybe it is knowing your choices have an impact? What if the DM of Simple-d6 promises your choices have an impact?

Personally I still don't like any of these 3 variants despite them all being better than the original Simple-d6.

What if all 3 changes are added?

I still dislike this version. It is better than the 3 variants above, but it is still missing something. Personally I am not satisfied with that game loop. In my opinion the loop of "Roll a d6 without context. Then keep or discard the result without context. Finally don't get any context of the result." is not one that catches my interest.

What about you? How do you feel about those 4 variants? Do you think the game loop needs improvement too?

[Pippa the Pixie]

What about you? How do you feel about those 4 variants? Do you think the game loop needs improvement too?

Right...jump ahead with me: your game is pointless. Playing your game is a waste of time.

And...ok....follow me here: ALL games are wastes of time.

So....pointless point.

[JNAProductions]

If you have fun playing a game, it’s not a waste of time. It’s entertainment.

Why is Simple d6 not fun?

[OldTrees1]

Right...jump ahead with me: your game is pointless. Playing your game is a waste of time.

And...ok....follow me here: ALL games are wastes of time.

So....pointless point.

If you like some games, you dislike Simple-d6, and you think all games are pointless / wastes of time, then Simple-d6 being pointless is not why you dislike Simple-d6.

So why do you dislike Simple-d6?

I know why I dislike Simple-d6. JNAProductions and DarkER know why they dislike Simple-d6. All 3 of us can articulate why we dislike Simple-d6 and the reason is fundamental to the topic of Railroads & Informed/Uninformed choices. So you are in good company, nobody is going to criticize you for disliking Simple-d6.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Why is Simple d6 not fun?

It's too simple.


If you like some games, you dislike Simple-d6, and you think all games are pointless / wastes of time, then Simple-d6 being pointless is not why you dislike Simple-d6.

So why do you dislike Simple-d6?

I know why I dislike Simple-d6. JNAProductions and D

Soooo...what your saying is this:

1.Players come over to play a RPG. During the game they make the choice to kill Faz the Red Dragon.
2.They are happy as clams as their immiganray characters are now Dragonslayers
3.Right before everyone leaves for the night the DM says "oh, pop, Paz is back alive!"

4.Oh no! The players are devastated and their lives are ruined...because some imaginary thing happened in a game..

[OldTrees1]

It's too simple.

Is that the only reason?

Complex-d6:
1) On your turn you roll 5d6.
2) You may reroll any number of dice.
3) You may reroll any number of dice.
4) You choose to keep or discard the roll.
5) Repeat 1-2 until the end of the session.
6) The GM says the session is over and when the next session will be.
7) Repeat 1-3 until the game concludes.
8) The GM says the game has concluded.

Even More Complex-d6:
1) On your turn you roll 17d13b7.
2) You may reroll any number of dice but use a d31 instead.
3) You may reroll any number of dice but use 16 coins to simulate a d(2^16) instead.
4) You choose to keep or discard the roll. However you must perform Hamlet each time.
5) Repeat 1-2 until the end of the session.
6) The GM says the session is over and gives you a riddle for when the next session will be.
7) Repeat 1-3 until the game concludes.
8) The GM says the game has concluded but does not say it to you. You hear it later on the gossip grapevine.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Is that the only reason?
.

Well...um...it's not a game? It's creator is a dishonest jerk?

[OldTrees1]

Well...um...it's not a game?

Well, how is it not a game? Elaborate on how the game loop is not sufficient for it to be a game. What is missing? What makes it not a game?

The player rolls dice and makes decisions. But we agree that is not enough for it to be a game. Why is that not enough?

[Pippa the Pixie]

Well, how is it not a game? Elaborate on how the game loop is not sufficient for it to be a game. What is missing? What makes it not a game?

The player rolls dice and makes decisions. But we agree that is not enough for it to be a game. Why is that not enough?

A game is an activity engaged in for diversion or amusement...your activitity does not meet that requirement for me.

[JNAProductions]

What makes it fail? Why isn’t it fun to you?

[OldTrees1]

A game is an activity engaged in for diversion or amusement...your activitity does not meet that requirement for me.

So you are saying: Simple-d6 is not fun because it is not a game and it is not a game because it is not fun.

Circular logic. Try again.

We all agree with you that Simple-d6 is not fun and does not feel like a game. It is safe for you to actually answer the question. There is no "Gottchha". We are just trying to establish a connection that a discussion can grow from. A discussion that can answer your questions unlike the last 10 pages.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Circular logic. Try again.

.

Ok...it's just no fun. Have I jumpped through enough of your hoops yet?

[OldTrees1]

Ok...it's just no fun. Have I jumpped through enough of your hoops yet?

Why is Simple-d6 not fun?

Pippa the Pixie, these are not "hoops". These are questions trying to establish a connection. Or more accurately it is 1 question and you have a surprisingly high post:answer ratio. Almost a page without you answering the question.

This is not a controversial question. This is not a hostile question. It is safe to answer and yet you are resisting answering it for some reason. I want an honest discussion. Everyone in this thread wants an honest discussion. Can we have an honest discussion?

Edit: Although I will admit that introspection and analysis is not always easy. So I do not claim it to be an easy question. Even if we can all say our answers at a drop of a hat, those answer sometimes take thought to come up with initially. So if the answer does not come to you quickly, that too is okay. Just answer the question.

--------------------------
Edit 2: For everyone else here are some more variants

Simple-d8: The GM narrates a story that is interrupted occasionally with the player rolling a d8. The player decides to keep or discard that roll. Then the GM continues narrating the story.

Simple-d10: The GM is silent. Occasionally they ask the player to roll a d10 and then keep/discard. Immediately after the player makes their decision, the GM tells them what the roll did. Then the GM is silent until the next time the player needs to make a roll.

[Pippa the Pixie]

Why is Simple-d6 not fun?


Well I don't have all night to play your stupid game.

We could just jump to your stupid point of:

What about the poor cry baby players that put all thier hopes and dreams into a game? And you'd say it's the DMs job to cuddle the poor players and bend over backward to prop them up and make them feel good.

And I'd say how silly that was...and you would not get it.

Maybe someone else will post and answer my question.

[OldTrees1]

Well, Pippa the Pixie refuses to answer a simple question and has thrice attempted ad hominem (claiming hostility, dishonest, and the post immediately above).

There was no "Gottchha", Pippa the Pixie. However you decided to make your own. If you resort to ad hominems in order to escape from honest discussion, then you make your own behaviour crystal clear.

[Pippa the Pixie]

So, back to my question:

I would like an example from an RPG session where a player knew or felt that they had made an uninformed desscision and knew or felt railroaded by the DM.

[Florian]

So, back to my question:

No.

Before we continue this, the burden of proof is up to you to show us that you can actually understand what is discussed here, which you can do by answering the question that OldTrees posed to you. Should be a simple task for someone claiming to have a complex mind, really.

[AMFV]

I'm not really sure that "simple D6" is adding anything of value to the discussion except for allowing people to pile onto an already disliked poster, which isn't super useful to discuss in terms of the nature of railroading. I would also add that there are plenty of simple dice games like that which have been enormously popular over the centuries.

The thing is that D&D, and RPGs in general aren't "simple D6", it's not "I roll dice various amounts of times to control outcome" players have narrative involvement. Hell, even in a campaign like Dragonlance or Ravenloft (which were both extremely railroaded) players had a good sense of enjoyment. Those modules are routinely thought of very highly by almost everybody who has played them.

This suggests that it isn't the actual degree of agency that is the most relevant detail to player enjoyment or even to whether or not players believe they are railroaded. In the original example (which most people have forgotten), the players had a bunch of agency and options that they chose not to utilize and they complained because of perceived railroading, rather than actual railroading. I think that we need to look at player perceptions to have a useful discussion.

We have a few scenarios:

1.) Complete tables or preset world, in which the DM has a preset world that the players can explore at their discretion or utilizes random tables. This is probably the least amount of direct DM involvement (especially if the world is constructed largely at random), and if players are aware of the tables, they are unlikely to perceive railroading (though they may claim the tables are unfair). However, upthread we had (what I read as) an example of this, without telling the PCs, where they believed that they were railroading, since this option is basically anti-railroading, it's clear (to me at least) that it's not the DM involvement in actuality that matters.

2.) Complete Railroad, a la Dragonlance modules or Ravenloft Modules, here the players have few choices, but that's not really relevant because the goal of the module isn't to make choices that are interesting it's to mechanically defeat the end-boss, the shift in paradigm makes railroading less of an issue here. So even if the players perceive that their RP choices aren't going to make that much of a difference in the end, their tactical choices certainly will.

So again, it's all about perspective. Which is why DM skill comes up so much. While I might not agree with Pippa on most things (I'm not going to speculate on possible "sock accounts" and I would like to remind people that publicly accusing other posters of violating rules of the board is in fact a violation of the rules of the board, one which I am getting very close to reporting since it is basically shutting down completely any possibility for discussion) I do agree that DM skill is actually an important element here. Railroading perception can result from a lack of perceived autonomy, and you can have situations where players believe they make all the choices, but they've really made no choices at all. So the key element is to honestly evaluate your skill on these things and then come to a decision about how much you're going to do in terms of guiding things along.

[OldTrees1]

I'm not really sure that "simple D6" is adding anything of value to the discussion except for allowing people to pile onto an already disliked poster, which isn't super useful to discuss in terms of the nature of railroading. I would also add that there are plenty of simple dice games like that which have been enormously popular over the centuries.

What is an informed choice? How many choices should be informed choices? Those are the questions that I was trying to answer by first establishing a consensus on the simple case and then adding information back to the example. See Simple-d8 and Simple-d10 for the next step. Eventually along that line we get to an area where you and I might not know the answer or might have a difference in opinion.

As for dice games, I did reference yahtzee in one of the examples.


This suggests that it isn't the actual degree of agency that is the most relevant detail to player enjoyment or even to whether or not players believe they are railroaded. In the original example (which most people have forgotten), the players had a bunch of agency and options that they chose not to utilize and they complained because of perceived railroading, rather than actual railroading. I think that we need to look at player perceptions to have a useful discussion.

I have found that both the actual agency and the perception of agency have impact on my enjoyment. And I agree that the example you are citing (the DM experiment with no railroad but said there was one) indicates that the perception of a railroad / perception of agency can impact the enjoyment. And you are right that DM skill in communicating / signalling the agency can impact the perception of the players.

Mentally I summarize this as:
They want to have meaningful choices. They will enjoy themselves if they perceive meaningful choices. I can best deliver that if I include and can communicate meaningful choices.

[Florian]

@AMFV:

Gonna disagree with you a bit there. Agency needs a bit of context, else it is a meaningless/hollow term, like Quertus uses Railroad as a hollow term, because of only accepting one context for it, as it seems.

You only ever have agency within set boundaries. These can be as wide as "Krynn, the sandbox", or as narrow as "Dragonlance, with Krynn as background and the war of the lance as being told". For all practical purposes, the difference here is negligent, as long as there is a stage and as long as the players have agency to act thereupon.

Unless you try to disguise one as the other, all is fine. Someone signing up for Dragons of Despair should not complain that it isn't Krynn, the sandbox, when everything was open, clear and transparent, when declaring the nature of the game to be.

And no, the "simple-d6" example is a good one, not a means to dog pile on DU, whom I occasionally tend to agree with.

[RedWarlock]

Yeah, the whole "simple-d6" discussion has done nothing for my view of the conversation but generate sympathy for Pippa, who is obviously frustrated by what seems to be a very directed flow of conversation, which could be interpretable as an attack, on her. (Is it "her"? I'm assuming from avatar and naming convention, but there's no gender indicator on the profile.)

To answer your "simple-d6" query, the "game" has no visible purpose or goal, nor do the mechanics have any impact. (Even Yahtzee has specific rolls which are trying to be made within certain constraints, but your roll/keep mechanic doesn't achieve or negate anything.) Games need a win condition or goal to pursue. Roll or Keep gives no apparent progress towards such. Railroading a plot shifts that goal to "survive the DM's story" rather than "seek the goal the GM presents", but your "game" does neither.

"Reading Lord of the Rings" while rolling is not at all the same thing, and you very well know it. Claiming otherwise is being obtuse for your own amusement, and at some point insisting on the topic, when your primary target is not interested in debating the point (and understandably frustrated by it), is just trolling anyone who wants to pursue a different line of thinking in the conversation thread. Don't sealion other posters, please.

[NichG]

I'm on the fence about the sd6 example. On the one hand, it's definitely revealing dysfunction in the structure of this conversation, and Pippa's responses read a bit to me as 'no, I want to go back to the conversation where I'm attacking and everybody else is defensive'.

On the other hand, what if I were to answer: I would not play Simple d6 because it would be impossible to experience anything that I could not anticipate just by reading the rules.

Or: I could not learn a skill from playing Simple d6, so I would not want to play it.

I think it's also a bad faith move for OldTrees1 to propose that this example doesn't have a 'correct answer' that it is intended to evoke.

[OldTrees1]

RedWarlock, did you miss the important premise that Simple-d6 (and the listed variants) were intentionally bad? I was trying to establish a point of common and explicit agreement. I can list several criticism I have for it that make it not a game in my eyes. You can too. If I picked one of those reasons at random I have a decent chance of you also agreeing with that principle. So if I tried to address one of your questions I could rely on many of those shared premises. On the other hand, Pippa the Pixie has a new set of premises that don't have as much overlap and I was trying to establish 1 premise they have so then I could answer their question from that premise. You know, understand the other position so you can discuss rather than argue?

I don't know what "sealion" is slag for, but this was not it.


NichG
Any answer would have been accepted since my goal was to understand a premise of Pippa the Pixie's and build off of that premise. Even your "no skill can be learned" answer. All it needed to be was an answer from them so that I could work off of one of their premises (aka a discussion) instead of expecting them to accept an answer derived from non shared premises (aka an argument).

I even accepted the answer "no sd6 is fine" for the short period where I misread one of their posts as saying that.

However, I consider the subthread closed. It was asking them a question and they have stated conclusively they will not answer the question.

[NichG]

Well, it was certainly effective in exposing bad faith elements of the discussion that immediately preceded it. Now that we know that, what's the way forward?

[Florian]

Yeah, the whole "simple-d6" discussion has done nothing for my view of the conversation but generate sympathy for Pippa, who is obviously frustrated by what seems to be a very directed flow of conversation, which could be interpretable as an attack, on her. (Is it "her"? I'm assuming from avatar and naming convention, but there's no gender indicator on the profile.)

To answer your "simple-d6" query, the "game" has no visible purpose or goal, nor do the mechanics have any impact. (Even Yahtzee has specific rolls which are trying to be made within certain constraints, but your roll/keep mechanic doesn't achieve or negate anything.) Games need a win condition or goal to pursue. Roll or Keep gives no apparent progress towards such. Railroading a plot shifts that goal to "survive the DM's story" rather than "seek the goal the GM presents", but your "game" does neither.

"Reading Lord of the Rings" while rolling is not at all the same thing, and you very well know it. Claiming otherwise is being obtuse for your own amusement, and at some point insisting on the topic, when your primary target is not interested in debating the point (and understandably frustrated by it), is just trolling anyone who wants to pursue a different line of thinking in the conversation thread. Don't sealion other posters, please.

No need to have any sympathy with Darth Pippa Potter. That particular forum user is pronouncing his or her particular GM style as being superior and aggressively denigrating everyone else for some years now, including being proud about kicking player that not agree from the table, all the while not being able to articulate in a meaningful way what makes their particular GM style so functionally superior.

Ok, I'm going to disagree with your second paragraph. There can be a marked difference between the actual game and the mechanics that are used to play it. There are multiple cases of using conflict resolution mechanics that don't map to task resolution mechanics and lead nowhere on a mechanical level, simply because it is accepted that the game itself happens on a higher level and the mechanical parts are only used fro conflict resolution between the participants. Think a bit further than that. Keeping the player/GM divide in mind, the whole point of setting up rules in such a way that they empower players is preserving their agency and their ability to act, not just react. The "simple-d6" example hits set spot in the case that a GM wants to tell a story and the mechanics are rendered pretty meaningless as part of that.

[Pelle]

I'm doing this because I feel that I'm not on the same page as you because your merchant thing makes no sense to me at all.
[...]
So first off lets talk about towns. For this example I'm going to have Farmville and Port City. The players were planning to head to Farmville and redirected.

In Quertus' example they had been in Farmville already, and bought silk there that came from 'Port City' (don't remember the name that was used). So the notes of 'Port City' already contains "silk producer (exporting to Farmville via merchant)". If you are doing a palette swap, you need to remove the "silk producer" info. In Quertus' case, I assume he also needs to do a lot of iterations and updates because you can't remove "silk producer" from the city without changing the social dynamic, npcs and external connections of the city.

In your example, the cities don't have any (relevant) established external connections, so you are free to palette swap without it affecting the rest of the setting.

[Jakinbandw]

In Quertus' example they had been in Farmville already, and bought silk there that came from 'Port City' (don't remember the name that was used). So the notes of 'Port City' already contains "silk producer (exporting to Farmville via merchant)". If you are doing a palette swap, you need to remove the "silk producer" info. In Quertus' case, I assume he also needs to do a lot of iterations and updates because you can't remove "silk producer" from the city without changing the social dynamic, npcs and external connections of the city.

In your example, the cities don't have any (relevant) established external connections, so you are free to palette swap without it affecting the rest of the setting.

Honestly it was probably a mistake to use those names. When I came up with them the idea was to make the two places as differant as possible. One a giant city of trade on the ocean, the other a small rural town inland. The results I rolled didn't make that a big deal.

I think I finally get the point Q was trying to make, but it still not an issue for me.

So you meet an NPC in Farmville that you talk to and find out that he is from Port City. Your players plan to go to Port city, but divert to Metro city. The silk merchant doesn't show up.

Why? Because he is a part of farmville and doest have stats or anything in Port City. Now if the player go to Port city they will run into him, and can have him as a part of their schemes, but his stats and impact on events is in Farmville.

But what if we aren't talking about a silk merchant, what if we are talking about a major villain instead? Same rules apply. The villain is on a separate sheet and is noted to be in Port city. The city sheet doesn't include him because he operates everywhere and has his hand in most events. This means that notes I wrote for towns will likely reference this villain, but those can be quickly switched around if I need the town to be a city somewhere else instead.

Or to boil this down: towns are self contained. They list problems and people that affect themselves and other larger info is contained on another sheet where it matters.

[Pelle]

Or to boil this down: towns are self contained.

Yeah, that's the main difference in assumptions.

[Segev]

Simple-d6 is not fun because the choices are meaningless. Even if the DM is strictly bound by rules hidden from the players, the players have no idea what the results of any given roll will have, nor what the consequences of keeping or discarding those rolls might be.

The sliding scale of meaningfulness of choices is positively correlated to the accuracy with which players can predict the outcome of each alternative in their list of choices. It can be exciting to play an educated guessing game. To have twists that change the outcome from what you expect. But the less the outcome has to do with the information the player has going on to the decision, the less meaningful the decision is.

Simple-d6 (and the facetious “complex” variations) offers no way for the players to know what - or indeed whether they have - effects on the game state based on their choices, and less ability to to make decisions that lead to a desired outcome.

Simple-d8, the one with the narration, could be an interesting exercise in discerning the way the choices and rolls impact the story. The game would be a meta game of learning those rules and applying them to get a narrative that is as close to pleasing to the player as possible.

[Frozen_Feet]

So, back to my question:

I would like an example from an RPG session where a player knew or felt that they had made an uninformed desscision and knew or felt railroaded by the DM.

Sure, okay.

Example from my convention campaign that lasted 11 games spread over 4 conventions during 2012 and 2013:

1) Players were navigating a dungeon, specifically, a set if dwarven mines.
2) They had map and notes left behind by the last group of players.
3) However, they could not read the map and could not correlate the described environment to symbols on the map.
4) Due to this, they'd been wandering in a wide circle for 2.5 hours out of a 4 hour session, with no idea where they were and no ability to plan where to go.
5) The players were (erroneously) laboring under the belief that they were being railroaded & that they'd automatically achieve goal of the campaign (finding a magic ring)
6) At around the 2.5 hour mark, they finally realized where they were on the map, realized that they'd ended up there because of their own choices, realized they were NOT being railroaded and realized they would NOT be able to achieve their goal within the 1.5 hours they had left.
7) This lead to a complete paradigm shift: instead of passively wandering around and listening to the GM's descriptions, the players started to actively think of how their actions would impact the NEXT group of players.
8) this lead to them sabotaging the map they'd been using with false warnings about dragons & such
9) I don't remember what happened after that as I don't have my session notes with me.

...

Remind me, what is anyone supposed to gather from an example such as this?

[Florian]

So, back to my question:

I would like an example from an RPG session where a player knew or felt that they had made an uninformed desscision and knew or felt railroaded by the DM.

Well, ok, since someone already answered this...

Three of four years back, I actually had the chance to play and not be the GM in an anime-inspired game. You know, young high school students in an academy of magic and so on, the typical tropes. It was also a highly political game that had us deal with various (hidden) factions and our actions and choices directly tied in to how these factions act and react.

Thing is, we had no knowledge of these factions and no way to gain any knowledge about them, so our character were constantly pushed along certain paths directed by outside powers that we, as players, had no control of. Without knowing the factions and the reach of their power/control, we couldn't make any informed decisions on how to interact with them. After the fifth session, we decided to end this campaign and I got to be the GM for that group again.

[AMFV]

I have found that both the actual agency and the perception of agency have impact on my enjoyment. And I agree that the example you are citing (the DM experiment with no railroad but said there was one) indicates that the perception of a railroad / perception of agency can impact the enjoyment. And you are right that DM skill in communicating / signalling the agency can impact the perception of the players.

Mentally I summarize this as:
They want to have meaningful choices. They will enjoy themselves if they perceive meaningful choices. I can best deliver that if I include and can communicate meaningful choices.

How do you know though? If you were aware that you did not have agency, even though your perceptions were telling you that you did, how were you aware of this? The thing is that you cannot be aware that you don't actually have agency without a tell or a hint. Now of course, it is probably impossible to play without any kind of tell or hint, but there are points where lack of agency is not a problem. I would argue that perception of agency is ALWAYS more important than the actual agency presented.

Let's take a look at an analog, most people perceive that they have some kind of "freedom" in their lives. But very few people have tried to exercise this in a way that would be meaningful. If I suddenly decided that I wanted to emigrate to Tanzania, I might discover that I have a lot less freedom to move around than I previously thought. That's the thing, a railroad doesn't seem like a railroad if you're in the train in viewing car, you might not have any idea about the structure of the tracks or the direction of the train. It's only when you try and veer a different way or try something unexpected that it matters.

So I would argue that "meaningfulness" of choice isn't a good metric, because again everything comes back to perception. If you perceive you have choice, the actual choice you have is irrelevant. I might make myself happy with the thought that I could choose not to go to work and quit, but that choice would have a lot of negatives for me, so it's less a choice than the illusion of one. Unless I go out of my way to make that choice.

I think that in terms of railroading and DM prep, it's useful to look at what the players are likely to do and prep some "moving to Tanzania and Quitting my job stuff as well"

So for example if you have a bunch of rumors about orcs near a town, in most games players will choose to investigate them, generally speaking. By putting those rumors in the game you have fundamentally altered the likelihood of players doing something. So you are robbing them of some agency right off the bat, because you are using your understanding of them to predict their actions and therefore present them with something that they are going to believe they chose even if it was what you wanted all along.

I would argue that very few choices in games or in real life are truly meaningful, because we don't take meaningful choices, they are dangerous. Most people don't quit their jobs at least not without a lot of work. Most players choose fairly specific courses of action. Meaning is usually very artificial in terms of choices.

Edit:

Tl;dr Basically the point is that if the Quantum Ogre is working there is no way for the players to tell the difference between a quantum ogre or a regular ogre. And if they are later told, there is no way to stop their views on railroading from impacting how they are remembering that experience. If it works they will believe that that they had a meaningful choice, and if they are told that they didn't, there is no way for them to realistically look back on that experience and really evaluate how well they enjoyed it, since their biases are going to sneak in.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think that to get anywhere with "meaningful" choices we'd have to have a solid, agreed-on definition of what makes a choice meaningful.

My contention: A choice is meaningful and represents an exercise of agency to the degree[1] that the following elements are present.

I. The existence of choice itself. Obviously you can't make a meaningful choice if there are no choices to be made. This can be violated by a Hobson's Choice situation or one where there is only one option that doesn't lead to obvious failure.

II. The existence of reasonable consequences for that choice. Being told you have a choice between vanilla and chocolate ice cream is not meaningful if you get vanilla (or chocolate) no matter what you chose. Those consequences do not have to be huge, but the must be there and must be visible to the chooser, even if only in retrospect.

III. The existence of sufficient information to distinguish between the consequences of the choices. This could be explicitly stated information ("Here are the stakes...") or merely reasonable information ("It seems likely, given what we know that...") or anything in between. Total information is not necessary--you need enough to be able to know that I and II above hold in this case and to be able to predict enough of the consequences to choose what the character would do.

Some railroading (improper denial of agency) takes the form of breaking condition II, but not all. An example of this is MMO conversation choices. Eventually, they loop around until you choose the right one (or cut off conversation but with no real consequence other than walking through the dialogue tree again). Some railroading results from denying enough information (denying condition III), others results from structuring the scenario so that condition I is materially violated (you theoretically have a choice, but the obvious consequences are so horrible as to make it a non-choice).

Note that all of these conditions can be broken without changing the underlying rules of the scenario (the "physics" in Quertus-speak). You can build a world that chugs merrily along to a final destination on a single track, where nothing the party can do will break that because you've compensated for those choices and built structures to prevent them. These, in fact, are the worst railroads. The ones where the DM can in all honestly say that they're playing neutrally. Because the rails were laid before anything got started; to switch metaphors, they've dug a canyon so deep and steep that there's no (or virtually no) way to climb those cliffs. The potential barrier is insurmountable.

Category III violations often (but not always) are the result of inadvertent misunderstandings. It's very easy for a DM to believe that the consequences and choices are obvious (because they themselves can see them so clearly). But verbal communication is a lossy medium, and things that are obvious to one person probably aren't to most others. This is where the Rule of Three (give each hint at least 3 times) comes in, as do other maxims that attempt to encourage seemingly over-abundant sharing of information.

Also note that none of these depend on the scale of the choice. Large-scale choices can be meaningless; seemingly minor ones can be the most meaningful. That's a subjective matter.

[1] Agency is a spectrum, not a binary. You can have more or less agency. Only rarely does someone have total agency or none at all, at least in a game context.

[AMFV]

I think that to get anywhere with "meaningful" choices we'd have to have a solid, agreed-on definition of what makes a choice meaningful.
I. The existence of choice itself. Obviously you can't make a meaningful choice if there are no choices to be made. This can be violated by a Hobson's Choice situation or one where there is only one option that doesn't lead to obvious failure.

II. The existence of reasonable consequences for that choice. Being told you have a choice between vanilla and chocolate ice cream is not meaningful if you get vanilla (or chocolate) no matter what you chose. Those consequences do not have to be huge, but the must be there and must be visible to the chooser, even if only in retrospect.

III. The existence of sufficient information to distinguish between the consequences of the choices. This could be explicitly stated information ("Here are the stakes...") or merely reasonable information ("It seems likely, given what we know that...") or anything in between. Total information is not necessary--you need enough to be able to know that I and II above hold in this case and to be able to predict enough of the consequences to choose what the character would do.

My point here is that unless you can literally travel through time and see what the effects of your other choice would be you literally cannot know (unless you were told, and then you're assuming the other person is being entirely honest, not always a solid bet). There is no way to know the consequences of a choice you didn't make. You can certainly make reasonable assumptions about the consequences of a choice, but how would you know that putting off getting your horse shod would lead to you losing an empire? That's not a typical consequence of that choice.

The thing is that you are making the assumption that your prior assumptions about consequences were correct in your assumption that those particular choices were meaningful. If you think "This choice would have led to this other outcome" you are already wrong, because you have no real way of knowing that. That's part of why I think "meaningfulness" is a big giant red herring, it's perception that matters.

If the Quantum Ogre is one room or the other, you have literally no way of knowing (unless the DM tells you) that you'd have encountered the ogre either direction. So your perception is that the choice was a meaningful one, if the DM has run the scenario correctly. And it's the exact same for you (perception-wise) as a scenario where in one room there is an Ogre and in another room there is not in which you choose the Ogre room.

The thing is that people are VASTLY overstating both their ability to estimate the consequences of a particular choice, and refusing to allow for any sense of error in this. When you look back at a choice it might seem meaningful when it is not, or seem pointless when it is meaningful.

I do think that players should have access to any information their characters should have, and as much information as pertains to the metagame as they can, so that they can make informed choices. But I'm not going to necessarily refrain from giving them illusion of greater (or lesser) choice than there actually is.

[Florian]

@AMVF:

Our hobby is a bit unique in that it does not require any published rules systems, modules or campaigns, out of convenience, we still use them. While I might not notice being railroaded playing the Year of Fire campaign using the DSA rules, I can compare my experience to others who have played the same campaign using the same rules.

Being a GM for most of the time in the last three decades, I can also be honest when it comes to using force techniques and why I used them.

[Koo Rehtorb]

The only person these "My players will never know they've been railroaded" GMs are fooling is themselves.

[AMFV]

@AMVF:

Our hobby is a bit unique in that it does not require any published rules systems, modules or campaigns, out of convenience, we still use them. While I might not notice being railroaded playing the Year of Fire campaign using the DSA rules, I can compare my experience to others who have played the same campaign using the same rules.


Quite so, but any published module is probably going to involve inherently a large degree of railroading and so the exceptions would be cases where a DM improvised to avoid having to railroad, so it's not necessarily a good marker for whether railroading is bad or good.

Again, the railroad heavy original module are often better remembered than the really intense sandbox ones. Because we like stories, and it's harder for a sandboxy module to produce a story than one prewritten by professional authors. So the story that players come up with doing random things is probably going to be not as interesting as Tracy Hickman's, at least unless you have very gifted players.



Being a GM for most of the time in the last three decades, I can also be honest when it comes to using force techniques and why I used them.

The thing is that being honest in that case results in a markedly less enjoyable experience for your players. It's like the magician coming up at the beginning of their act and passing around explanations of their tricks with diagrams. That's going to be significantly less fun than if you don't have a thorough understanding of the trick beforehand.

I would tell players that I might do that, but I'm not going to tell them about specific instances, because it's not necessary and it may even be detrimental, since they might be able to deduce from that other instances, which limits me, and they would enjoy it less, which sucks for them.


The only person these "My players will never know they've been railroaded" GMs are fooling is themselves.

Is that so? So you always know instantly whether or not somebody is being honest, even in games? That's super impressive.

[OldTrees1]

How do you know though? If you were aware that you did not have agency, even though your perceptions were telling you that you did, how were you aware of this? The thing is that you cannot be aware that you don't actually have agency without a tell or a hint. Now of course, it is probably impossible to play without any kind of tell or hint, but there are points where lack of agency is not a problem. I would argue that perception of agency is ALWAYS more important than the actual agency presented.

How do I know? I try to have my perceptions of reality map to reality. So if there is/is not agency that is likely to impact my perception of if there is/is not agency which is going to impact my enjoyment. That is how I know reality impacts my enjoyment. This supports your theory in that perception of agency has a bigger impact on enjoyment.

I would agree that the perception of agency tends to have a bigger impact on the enjoyment of a player, however I would also suspect the players value agency more than the perception of agency. So I find it hard to label either as "ALWAYS more important" despite probably agreeing with what you meant.


So I would argue that "meaningfulness" of choice isn't a good metric, because again everything comes back to perception. If you perceive you have choice, the actual choice you have is irrelevant. I might make myself happy with the thought that I could choose not to go to work and quit, but that choice would have a lot of negatives for me, so it's less a choice than the illusion of one. Unless I go out of my way to make that choice.

This is the same argument as with Agency. They mostly value the actual thing but are primarily impacted by the perception of the thing.

So I, as a DM, try to provide both.

PS: You say people tend to not take meaningful choices. I have found it is much easier to allow for / choose meaningful choices in RPGs. Although I do have a lot of practice running games centered around the PCs making meaningful choices. So that might be skewing my sample.


Tl;dr Basically the point is that if the Quantum Ogre is working there is no way for the players to tell the difference between a quantum ogre or a regular ogre. And if they are later told, there is no way to stop their views on railroading from impacting how they are remembering that experience. If it works they will believe that that they had a meaningful choice, and if they are told that they didn't, there is no way for them to realistically look back on that experience and really evaluate how well they enjoyed it, since their biases are going to sneak in.

You describe it as their biases sneaking in. I see it as them evaluating their experience based on both how their past self experienced it and based on how it satisfied their values. Maybe that is their biases sneaking in, however it is the nature of values that they can amend judgements after the fact.

Summary: Yes, perception of agency impacts enjoyment more, but the people involved value agency more. Therefore you are right in the importance of perception, but both are more important than the other.

[MrSandman]

Is that so? So you always know instantly whether or not somebody is being honest, even in games? That's super impressive.

I think a key word there is "never". If the statement "I'm never caught" is false, that still doesn't make the statement "I'm always caught" true.


My point here is that unless you can literally travel through time and see what the effects of your other choice would be you literally cannot know (unless you were told, and then you're assuming the other person is being entirely honest, not always a solid bet). There is no way to know the consequences of a choice you didn't make. You can certainly make reasonable assumptions about the consequences of a choice, but how would you know that putting off getting your horse shod would lead to you losing an empire? That's not a typical consequence of that choice.

You can't know, but you should be able to have a pretty good idea. If your PCs decide to join the cult that is trying to wake up a powerful entity that will destroy the world instead of uprooting it, the game should play very differently than if they choose to destroy the cult, regardless of whether the entity ends up/would have ended up waking and destroying the world.

[AMFV]

How do I know? I try to have my perceptions of reality map to reality. So if there is/is not agency that is likely to impact my perception of if there is/is not agency which is going to impact my enjoyment. That is how I know reality impacts my enjoyment. This supports your theory in that perception of agency has a bigger impact on enjoyment.

I would agree that the perception of agency tends to have a bigger impact on the enjoyment of a player, however I would also suspect the players value agency more than the perception of agency. So I find it hard to label either as "ALWAYS more important" despite probably agreeing with what you meant.

I think that many players certainly believe that they value agency more than the perception of agency. This is because they believe they are supposed to value agency in a game and because the current vogue is to tell people aggressively to dislike story and narrative games in favor of sandboxes (it rotates about every two to three years). The thing is that as a DM your responsibility is to help them enjoy the game as much as possible, a little illusionism can go a long way in that regard.

Basically that involves not removing options that might be considered "agency limiting" from your DM toolbox, of course rely too heavily on those and you'll have a problem, but you (as the DM) have access to a lot more information than the PCs or the Players do about what's likely to happen next. It doesn't mean that you should make all the decisions, but sometimes you might know what they're going to enjoy more and you should nudge them in that direction.

Also taking agency away can make it seem a lot more meaningful when they do have agency. A person who has not been allowed to eat food for days for example is going to be a lot more interested in meal choices than a person who has gorged themselves. And if your players are allowed complete freedom all the time, they generally will wind up not knowing what to do, they'll do all the things they think they want, and then get paralyzed. So there is a reason to not just open up the choice valve one-hundred percent of the time. Of course, you shouldn't take all the choices away from the players, just pay attention and know when choice is hurting more than it's helping.



This is the same argument as with Agency. They mostly value the actual thing but are primarily impacted by the perception of the thing.

So I, as a DM, try to provide both.

And I would argue that's going to not always provide as positive an experience as being able to control choices some of the time and make them meaningful (or at least introduce the perception of meaning) the rest of the time. For me, what I find the players actually value (regardless of what people say, since they usually say what they think they are supposed to) is a good gaming experience, and the best gaming experience allows the DM more tools to provide that, rather than less.



PS: You say people tend to not take meaningful choices. I have found it is much easier to allow for / choose meaningful choices in RPGs. Although I do have a lot of practice running games centered around the PCs making meaningful choices. So that might be skewing my sample.

I think people tend to overstate the meaningfulness of their choices on the outcomes they observe later. If you're running a published module where they were on the rails the whole time, players tend to assign meaning to choices that may not have actually impacted things, I've noticed this is a pretty constant phenomenon. Which again tells me that the actual choice is less relevant than their perception.



You describe it as their biases sneaking in. I see it as them evaluating their experience based on both how their past self experienced it and based on how it satisfied their values. Maybe that is their biases sneaking in, however it is the nature of values that they can amend judgements after the fact.

And it is the nature of humans that they tend to skew judgement based on what they think they ought to believe or not believe. And I would say that trying to be a VIRTUOUS GM who always lets their players choose provides a worse experience than being an effective DM who uses all the tools in their toolbox.



Summary: Yes, perception of agency impacts enjoyment more, but the people involved value agency more. Therefore you are right in the importance of perception, but both are more important than the other.

Again, only perception is really important here. This isn't a moral quandary, this isn't really a values thing. The only goal in the game is to have a better game, and it's not freedom or tyranny, it's whatever makes the best game. The problem is that people are conflating something with a serious moral question that isn't really.


I think a key word there is "never". If the statement "I'm never caught" is false, that still doesn't make the statement "I'm always caught" true.

Right, but nobody was making the statement "never". Except for maybe Pippa and I'm pretty sure people already have a solid idea about Pippa in terms of what they claim. I only said "when it works it's better than not using it at all would be". Effectively it's a tool, and it's not a difficult one to use well.



You can't know, but you should be able to have a pretty good idea. If your PCs decide to join the cult that is trying to wake up a powerful entity that will destroy the world instead of uprooting it, the game should play very differently than if they choose to destroy the cult, regardless of whether the entity ends up/would have ended up waking and destroying the world.

You would assume that you have a pretty good idea. But it's possible that the DM would have the players get kicked out of the cult in the next session or be forced to join the cult in the next session. You have no idea what would have happened, only guesswork and reasonable assumptions. That's the thing, you don't know how it would have turned out, nobody ever gets to know that about anything.

[Pelle]

If the Quantum Ogre is one room or the other, you have literally no way of knowing (unless the DM tells you) that you'd have encountered the ogre either direction. So your perception is that the choice was a meaningful one, if the DM has run the scenario correctly. And it's the exact same for you (perception-wise) as a scenario where in one room there is an Ogre and in another room there is not in which you choose the Ogre room.


Do you find that players consider that as meaningfully "making decisions"? To me those are simply flipping a coin situations. And even though your action to go in one room has consequences (Quantum Ogre or not), without it being an informed choice I don't think most people remember that situation as really activating their agency, since they know they had no reason to predict what they got (an ogre).

Quantum Ogres may not be railroading, but the problem with it is that it doesn't offer any new decisions to the players. Do you go east or west? Who cares, since we don't know anything about those directions, this question isn't adding anything interesting to the game. The issue isn't attacking the players with an ogre no matter which direction they pick, but it's having them pick a direction at random instead of taking the opportunity to present a interesting choice.

[AMFV]

Do you find that players consider that as meaningfully "making decisions"? To me those are simply flipping a coin situations. And even though your action to go in one room has consequences (Quantum Ogre or not), without it being an informed choice I don't think most people remember that situation as really activating their agency, since they know they had no reason to predict what they got (an ogre).

If your players know that you're altering things, then obviously it's random to them, but they shouldn't. And you shouldn't alter already established details (any more than you have to). So I wouldn't teleport a town the players have seen for example. That would be not good usage of this sort of thing. But you could rename the cast and move them, with a few personality alterations if you had an adventure planned in one town and the players went to a different town. This is why it's good to understand the exact roles that your NPCs are playing in a given adventure or hook, and why it's good to have tables of personality quirks and things so you can rapidly come up with something similar to what you had without necessarily having all the towns be a bunch of nameswapped characters.



Quantum Ogres may not be railroading, but the problem with it is that it doesn't offer any new decisions to the players. Do you go east or west? Who cares, since we don't know anything about those directions, this question isn't adding anything interesting to the game. The issue isn't attacking the players with an ogre no matter which direction they pick, but it's having them pick a direction at random instead of taking the opportunity to present a interesting choice.

You're misunderstanding how the Quantum Ogre works when it is used properly. You give the players information to make a choice. You describe what they imagine in both cases. For example you describe the doors to the rooms, and their position in the hallway and what they hear behind them. You give them the material to think they're making a choice, and to assign significance to it, you just ensure that if you're using the Quantum Ogre that all of the information you're giving could lead to an ogre in either door (or you play the ogre as a surprise, since not all information is perfect).

It's not that you have the players in a featureless hallway with a bunch of doors, it's that you give them the illusion of a meaningful choice, but then you have the actual controls as to how that choice ends up. You should balance this though by occasionally doing improvisation, especially if your players do something creative and unexpected. It's a tool, and a very useful one.

[Pelle]

If your players know that you're altering things, then obviously it's random to them, but they shouldn't. And you shouldn't alter already established details (any more than you have to). So I wouldn't teleport a town the players have seen for example. That would be not good usage of this sort of thing. But you could rename the cast and move them, with a few personality alterations if you had an adventure planned in one town and the players went to a different town. This is why it's good to understand the exact roles that your NPCs are playing in a given adventure or hook, and why it's good to have tables of personality quirks and things so you can rapidly come up with something similar to what you had without necessarily having all the towns be a bunch of nameswapped characters.


I get all this, and don't really mind it, it's just retconning the setting, though it shouldn't contradict with established stuff. I just don't consider it as offering decisions, and don't think players do either, since that's stuff they are not making their decision based on.



You're misunderstanding how the Quantum Ogre works when it is used properly. You give the players information to make a choice. You describe what they imagine in both cases. For example you describe the doors to the rooms, and their position in the hallway and what they hear behind them. You give them the material to think they're making a choice, and to assign significance to it, you just ensure that if you're using the Quantum Ogre that all of the information you're giving could lead to an ogre in either door (or you play the ogre as a surprise, since not all information is perfect).

It's not that you have the players in a featureless hallway with a bunch of doors, it's that you give them the illusion of a meaningful choice, but then you have the actual controls as to how that choice ends up. You should balance this though by occasionally doing improvisation, especially if your players do something creative and unexpected. It's a tool, and a very useful one.

Allright, I guess you can present things kind of like a horoscope, broad enough to match out no matter what happens and people may interpret it to be accurate. After facing the ogre in one of the rooms, the hints make sense retroactively. But since the hints for the other door make just as much sense, I guess my players will not put much weight into that situation overall. They made a semi-blind decision and got something, nothing special. My point is, if they knew they were choosing between an ogre in one room and 10 orcs in another, that would be a much more empowering decision for the players. If making the QO really convincing, it sounds like just as much work as just presenting two real things...

[PhoenixPhyre]

I get all this, and don't really mind it, it's just retconning the setting, though it shouldn't contradict with established stuff. I just don't consider it as offering decisions, and don't think players do either, since that's stuff they are not making their decision based on.

Allright, I guess you can present things kind of like a horoscope, broad enough to match out no matter what happens and people may interpret it to be accurate. After facing the ogre in one of the rooms, the hints make sense retroactively. But since the hints for the other door make just as much sense, I guess my players will not put much weight into that situation overall. They made a semi-blind decision and got something, nothing special. My point is, if they knew they were choosing between an ogre in one room and 10 orcs in another, that would be a much more empowering decision for the players. If making the QO really convincing, it sounds like just as much work as just presenting two real things...

Yeah. I don't mind (or consider it an agency violation) if things I don't know/can't know about get re-used. If I consciously avoided the Ogre Valley, ending up there is a problem. If I didn't know that there was an ogre valley (choosing directions based on other criteria), then it showing up whichever way I go doesn't really bother me.

[AMFV]

I get all this, and don't really mind it, it's just retconning the setting, though it shouldn't contradict with established stuff. I just don't consider it as offering decisions, and don't think players do either, since that's stuff they are not making their decision based on.

Well the players have the decision about where they are going. But I'm still probably going to have a similar sort of adventure happen wherever they are going (unless they get really excited about something different).



Allright, I guess you can present things kind of like a horoscope, broad enough to match out no matter what happens and people may interpret it to be accurate. After facing the ogre in one of the rooms, the hints make sense retroactively. But since the hints for the other door make just as much sense, I guess my players will not put much weight into that situation overall. They made a semi-blind decision and got something, nothing special. My point is, if they knew they were choosing between an ogre in one room and 10 orcs in another, that would be a much more empowering decision for the players. If making the QO really convincing, it sounds like just as much work as just presenting two real things...

It's more work. It is more work to make the QO convincing than it is to present two real things. The QO isn't a tool of ease, but it is a tool. Let's say that you want the players to capture and interrogate this Ogre, or find evidence of a great ogre conspiracy on his person (since you have planned an entire campaign around him and his Ogre brothers) then you want to make sure that they encounter said Ogre, that's when you would use QO, when you need to have a particular thing happen to move the story forward or to establish something important. It's more work to do it, which is why if you're just choosing between two combat encounters say 10 Orcs and 1 ogre, it's easier just to have those encounters happen as they will.

The QO is a DM tool, that's the thing, it's not the only tool and you shouldn't be using it at the expense of every other DM tool, it's just a useful tool. The thing is that you don't want to have a campaign where you the DM making all of the choices (cause that's exhausting) and it's less fun, you want to have a game where the DM makes some of the choices, especially when they have better knowledge, and lets the players make some of the choices (especially when they offer up something very creative). The key is to be able to do both, there's not really hard and fast rules as to degree, cause it's so table dependent.

As far as "empowering" sometimes you want your players to be empowered but sometimes you need them to feel a little bit helpless. Unless you're playing a game that is exclusively wish fulfillment fantasy, then the world needs to not have their choices go the way they expect, at least some percentage of the time. That's the thing if the players think they're going into a room with ten orcs, ninety percent of the time it should be ten orcs (as long as they did their due diligence) but some of the time it shouldn't be, if all decisions are predictable the game will become boring. And if the players have all the power, the game will eventually become boring as well. So be careful with empowerment, it too can be overdone.

[Segev]

The only way you can have a fully convincing illusion of Agency when there isn't any is for the GM to know you so well that he knew in advance what choices you'd make and designed his game to exactly follow them.

Humans are very good at detecting divergence from expected results in real events. It's one of the ways we learn. We are excellent at recognizing patterns.

Railroads are patterns. They are a pattern wherein you can identify that there is an end goal and can recognize that your input actions have little to no impact on the output results, save in the very short term. It's often most obvious when the short-term responsive results reset a status quo or otherwise demonstrate the futility of proposed courses of action, until the One True Path is followed.

Quantum ogres are harder to detect, and are really only (bad and detectable) rails if they're of the "oops, you guessed wrong" style. That is, no matter what choice the party makes to try to avoid a circumstance, they're going to find that the choice they made drops them into it. It's still rails if it's a "yay, you just happened to guess right" style of quantum ogre, but it's rarely seen as bad and is also harder to detect. It's rarely seen as bad because it does give the players what they wanted. It's harder to detect because the players usually will have made what seems to them to be an educated guess or logical deduction which made their choice have the highest possible chance of being "right." So when the GM surreptitiously says "because you made that choice, that's where the quantum ogre happens to be," what the players perceive is that they made a good deduction and weren't unlucky.

The latter case tends only to be a problem if the players gave up and threw a proverbial dart at a wall. Unfortunately, even lacking a quantum ogre, if they lucked into finding the ogre they were looking for with that metaphorical dart, they may misperceive the ogre as having been quantum if they have reason to believe the GM is willing to use quantum ogres.


There is little you can do about misperception of amount of agency. Usually, however, players will pick up over time on just how much or how little they really have, as long as it's consistent.

[AMFV]

The only way you can have a fully convincing illusion of Agency when there isn't any is for the GM to know you so well that he knew in advance what choices you'd make and designed his game to exactly follow them.

That is true if the game is completely stripped of agency. The key is to have enough wiggle room in designing a campaign or an adventure that the players can make some number of actual choices that don't drive your campaign off the road/rails, at least in a narrative campaign. So you want to have some differences there in terms of how much actual agency you allow at any given time. Also you can act as though agency is limited when it's not, like in a Tomb of Horrors or Grimdark appearing scenario, basically the more you're consistent the less likely they are to see things.



Humans are very good at detecting divergence from expected results in real events. It's one of the ways we learn. We are excellent at recognizing patterns.

Which is why you need to introduce enough variation to cloud whatever it is that you're doing, also why you shouldn't tell the players when you limited their agency and when you improvised to match their creativity.



Quantum ogres are harder to detect, and are really only (bad and detectable) rails if they're of the "oops, you guessed wrong" style. That is, no matter what choice the party makes to try to avoid a circumstance, they're going to find that the choice they made drops them into it. It's still rails if it's a "yay, you just happened to guess right" style of quantum ogre, but it's rarely seen as bad and is also harder to detect. It's rarely seen as bad because it does give the players what they wanted. It's harder to detect because the players usually will have made what seems to them to be an educated guess or logical deduction which made their choice have the highest possible chance of being "right." So when the GM surreptitiously says "because you made that choice, that's where the quantum ogre happens to be," what the players perceive is that they made a good deduction and weren't unlucky.

I agree that using a QO for a "gotcha" scenario should be very heavily avoided unless it is really is necessary to advance the story and then only used very very sparingly. Generally you shouldn't have your campaign/AP/story/narrative contingent on something bad happening to the players, unless there's some kind of silver lining to it.



The latter case tends only to be a problem if the players gave up and threw a proverbial dart at a wall. Unfortunately, even lacking a quantum ogre, if they lucked into finding the ogre they were looking for with that metaphorical dart, they may misperceive the ogre as having been quantum if they have reason to believe the GM is willing to use quantum ogres.


Right, which is why you need to have preplanned encounters, random encounters, improvised encounters, and a variety so that way the players don't understand what kind of encounter happened. If you use all encounters of one type and then abruptly vary things up, they'll see a difference, but if you have a wide variety they're not going to be able to pick up a pattern.



There is little you can do about misperception of amount of agency. Usually, however, players will pick up over time on just how much or how little they really have, as long as it's consistent.

Which is exactly why you should be inconsistent with that. Exactly what I was getting at earlier, you vary things so that it becomes more difficult for them to guess at what is going on.

[Segev]

That is true if the game is completely stripped of agency. The key is to have enough wiggle room in designing a campaign or an adventure that the players can make some number of actual choices that don't drive your campaign off the road/rails, at least in a narrative campaign. So you want to have some differences there in terms of how much actual agency you allow at any given time. Also you can act as though agency is limited when it's not, like in a Tomb of Horrors or Grimdark appearing scenario, basically the more you're consistent the less likely they are to see things.



Which is why you need to introduce enough variation to cloud whatever it is that you're doing, also why you shouldn't tell the players when you limited their agency and when you improvised to match their creativity.

(...)

Which is exactly why you should be inconsistent with that. Exactly what I was getting at earlier, you vary things so that it becomes more difficult for them to guess at what is going on.
The moment you vary the amount of agency they have, you no longer have the "no agency" case posited at the beginning of my post. In other words: yes, when you allow some agency, it becomes harder to see when they lack it.

That said, just as people are good at detecting overall patterns, they're pretty good at picking up signal from noise. If there is a clear Plot that is being followed, it won't matter that the PCs can make meaningful choices on matters which will have little bearing on the long-term plot's major beats; they'll be able to tell when they've shifted to The Plot and are no longer doing side quests, and their agency dries up.

The key is that agency is not about perfect information, or every possible desire being possible to achieve: it's about there being no hidden inabilities of the PCs, and about the PCs (and their players) having enough information that making choices available to them leads to foreseeable outcomes. Surprises can happen, but there should be at least reasonable connection.

The reason QOs sometimes work without violating agency is because they can be used in the darkness where players already knew they had none, or where there is little functional difference between a random encounter and a planned one that can happen anywhere.

Let's take a quantum ogre who is a literal ogre that provides a key clue to the Ogre's Omlet plot that you've planned out. It is not uncommon for random encounter tables to include individual encounters with seeds for more adventures. If you just put the ogre in question on the random encounter tables for a region, no matter how the players try to leave it, and they happen across it, this represents this clue-bearing ogre wandering about rather independently (i.e. not being in a fixed location) and the PCs happening across him at this time.

If, instead, you decide that their third "random" encounter on the road will be this ogre, they have no real way or reason to know the difference.

It doesn't deny them agency, because ogres are all over this region, so their choice to leave by one direction or another doesn't reduce the likelihood of this encounter, and they weren't trying to avoid it.

Agency, again, is about meaningful choices. If they had "We want to avoid ogres" as a goal, and took steps to do so (remaining in town, finding a mage to teleport them, or something else that should reasonably work), you're denying their agency when you give them a QO encounter. But if they don't make such choices, or have no way of knowing there are ogres to avoid, you're not denying agency. They didn't have any to begin with, but it's not a denial so much as simply a lack.

Players are generally okay with reasonable gaps in agency, particularly when it's due to lack of information. It's what options they're permitted when they encounter evidence of the unexpected that defines their experience of agency, at that point.

[Pelle]

Let's say that you want the players to capture and interrogate this Ogre, or find evidence of a great ogre conspiracy on his person (since you have planned an entire campaign around him and his Ogre brothers) then you want to make sure that they encounter said Ogre, that's when you would use QO, when you need to have a particular thing happen to move the story forward or to establish something important.

But here, the purpose of using the QO "tool" is to be able to "move the story forward", initiate a scenario you want to run, etc. It's using QO with the main purpose of increasing the perception of agency that's misguided.

[OldTrees1]

I think that many players certainly believe that they value agency more than the perception of agency. This is because they believe they are supposed to value agency in a game and because the current vogue is to tell people aggressively to dislike story and narrative games in favor of sandboxes (it rotates about every two to three years).

You think that. I don't think that. I believe that people tend to value facts about reality more than they value the appearance of those facts because they value the appearance as a consequence of valuing the fact.


The thing is that as a DM your responsibility is to help them enjoy the game as much as possible, a little illusionism can go a long way in that regard.

Eh. You and I have been DMing different campaigns. I have not seen a situation where illusionism would have increased the perception of agency in my game.


Basically that involves not removing options that might be considered "agency limiting" from your DM toolbox, of course rely too heavily on those and you'll have a problem, but you (as the DM) have access to a lot more information than the PCs or the Players do about what's likely to happen next. It doesn't mean that you should make all the decisions, but sometimes you might know what they're going to enjoy more and you should nudge them in that direction.

Also taking agency away can make it seem a lot more meaningful when they do have agency. A person who has not been allowed to eat food for days for example is going to be a lot more interested in meal choices than a person who has gorged themselves. And if your players are allowed complete freedom all the time, they generally will wind up not knowing what to do, they'll do all the things they think they want, and then get paralyzed. So there is a reason to not just open up the choice valve one-hundred percent of the time. Of course, you shouldn't take all the choices away from the players, just pay attention and know when choice is hurting more than it's helping.

I will agree that without using illusionism my toolbox has fewer tools in it. However I have not needed those tools. I can create the initial state and then allow player agency and verisimilitude to create interesting situations and meaningful choices. Logical consequences of player choices is a tool that works better when the world is more consistent.

You worry about choice paralysis. It is less common than you think (partially due to your hyperbole leading you astray). Often the logical consequences of player choices have a stabilizing effect on the number of options available (rarely too few or too many). Additionally the greater verisimilitude in worlds without Illusionism results in easier judgements between options in a choice if the number of options is the same in both cases. Finally I found the DM can talk to the players and that helps just like it helps IRL when someone is facing choice paralysis.


And I would argue that's going to not always provide as positive an experience as being able to control choices some of the time and make them meaningful (or at least introduce the perception of meaning) the rest of the time. For me, what I find the players actually value (regardless of what people say, since they usually say what they think they are supposed to) is a good gaming experience, and the best gaming experience allows the DM more tools to provide that, rather than less.

I have not witnessed evidence to that effect. I have not seen a place where illusionism would have improved the enjoyment of one of my campaigns.


I think people tend to overstate the meaningfulness of their choices on the outcomes they observe later. If you're running a published module where they were on the rails the whole time, players tend to assign meaning to choices that may not have actually impacted things, I've noticed this is a pretty constant phenomenon. Which again tells me that the actual choice is less relevant than their perception.

We already talked about how perception impacts enjoyment more and the reality impacts the values more. This prevents me from claiming one is more/less in all contexts.


And it is the nature of humans that they tend to skew judgement based on what they think they ought to believe or not believe. And I would say that trying to be a VIRTUOUS GM who always lets their players choose provides a worse experience than being an effective DM who uses all the tools in their toolbox.

Again, only perception is really important here. This isn't a moral quandary, this isn't really a values thing. The only goal in the game is to have a better game, and it's not freedom or tyranny, it's whatever makes the best game. The problem is that people are conflating something with a serious moral question that isn't really.

Dude, not all values are about morality (at least under most moral theories). You can safely get down off your soapbox without being attacked.

I value being healthy. I don't value it very much, but I do value it. However I will never know if I am healthy because I am only able to observe the appearance of health. I also value the appearance of health, but primarily because it is an indicator about if I am healthy. When I go to a doctor, they try to address my actual health in addition to my appearance of health because they know I value my health and am willing to give them money when they promise to temporarily share that value in my actual health.

So when I DM I try to satisfy the values of all the people involved. This is merely explaining why I can't dismiss values as being always less important than the perceptions and explaining why I make the choices I do about how I DM. This is not a prescriptive statement about your styles or choices.

[Segev]

THere's nothing wrong with a rail shooter. There's nothing wrong with a rail plot, as long as the players bought into it. Agency is on a sliding scale, and it's okay to have agency slid pretty far to the "railroad" side of things, as long as the players buy into it. The Exalted game I'm running isn't a sandbox; it's a mystery and an adventure and, while I'm happy to let the players pursue things that interest them, I have key points and things I expect they'll probably want to do. I do try to make their choices at those key junctures meaningful; they hold Creation's fate in their hands. But if I don't set up the rails clearly enough, they get frustrated because I also haven't provided a sufficient sandbox to let them get interested in going "anywhere" to do "anything."

I'm about to run Tomb of Annihilation for people who haven't played 5e before. I'm finding, as I read it, that it's an excellent sandbox "adventure path." There are things that largely do the Final Fantasy thing of waiting for the PCs to get around to them, but for the most part, it's a hex crawl with a lot of things to discover and do, and a reasonably good set of sparks to get them out and exploring from the starting city. There is a mystery to uncover (and, if you use the recommended means of getting the PCs into the adventure, they know exactly what they're trying to do to progress the plot), but there are lots of ways to go about it and lots of things that help point them to the ultimate goal if they look.

I'm actually planning not to use the standard opener, because they wouldn't know nor care who Sylvanna Silverstream (or whatever her name is; I am AFB at the moment) and thus having her explain her problem to them and hire them is even sillier than having them meet in a tavern with a leperous figure in a cloak hiring them for a mission. And the module provides a number of things to do, several of which can also point towards the main plot, so I'm doctoring it a bit with them all starting in Port Nyanzaru for their own reasons, and giving them hooks to explore the city and the surrounding environs and eventually get other reasons to be read in on the major plot driver.

This will have a ton of agency, because the goal is to get them as much information about their choices as possible, while giving steadily more as they explore and learn, until they're choosing how and whetehr to pursue any given aspect of the plot or subplot.

The Exalted game, on the other hand, is on rails with the approval of the players because they're happy to buy in to the Creation-shaking story and figure out how to execute their roles therein. If anything, I'm engaging in illusionism by allowing them to define things by how they decide to pursue it at times, hiding the fact that their agency is, as players, shaping the direction of the plot in ways their characters wouldn't, directly. Much like the example campaign where whatever they said went, another poster mentioned. Though not nearly to that extreme.

[Florian]

I tend to agree with AMFV on this one. I'm a working adult and I tend to only play with other working adults these days, so time is at a premium. There is nothing wrong with using the whole toolset to keep the game moving and the players entertained and it makes little to no difference to give or take agency when the situation warrants it and using illusionism to cover that up. Ok, for context, I must also add that I tend to prep details, not plots, so while a whole prepped plot for a session might look like "Two dead down at the docks, looks like a ritual lovers suicide", I have extensive notes on places, NPC and interesting scenes/scenarios at hand, so I don't have a problem "switching gears" there.

[Quertus]

Ah, see, your prior posts don't signal any of this, or perhaps I just missed or or we are talking past each other. Your posts up to now seem to suggest that you NEVER have extemporous content, that you always know where the bandits are and would never move them around as needed and would never make up something on the spot. And you seem to have an extreme hard line about it. And, frankly, you seem to look down on anyone who suggests that its not "normal" or "correct" to do it that way.

So, it seems I have been reading incorrectly between your lines and I'm sorry for that.

I'm glad you are human like the rest of us!

They're a difference between a dungeon and a world; the more extreme version of my stance is more aimed at the former.


I find that my parties find very different things of "logical importance". Each time I run the same scenario, different things are important. To say otherwise is the worst kind of railroading--the kind that believes it isn't railroading at all!

If I were going to run, eh, ocean's 11, I'd want to know all the people working for dude, what their *planned* day looked like, the layout of the casino, etc. If the players decide to 9-11 hijack a plane and crash it into the casino, the plane schedule is not something inherently of "logical importance" to the heist.


Quertus

making sure we all know that their players think they are the bee's knees as a DM

Well, no. My players think I'm great at improvising. Whether that's because they cannot imagine that I could have planned all these details in advance, or because even my "planned" facts come off as "off the cuff" is open to debate.

Neither implies that they think that I'm a *good* GM, and one arguably implies the opposite.


Okay, I've wanted to respond to this for a while, but it's going to take a bit and I haven't had time, but let's do this. I'm going to work with examples of how this works so you can see the steps involved and we can be sure we are talking about the same things. I'm doing this because I feel that I'm not on the same page as you because your merchant thing makes no sense to me at all. Maybe if I go over what I am talking about (And I'll even include a merchant!) we can figure out where our sticking point is, or maybe you can better explain your position to me.

So first off lets talk about towns. For this example I'm going to have Farmville and Port City. The players were planning to head to Farmville and redirected. These would be my notes on Farmville (and I'm going to admit right now I don't do town maps ahead of time. I draw them out if the players need them on the spot). (Also note that I'm taking my pure random rolls for this, so this is all on the fly and not just me cherry picking things.)
Power Structure
Autocratic. One person has largely unchallenged control over the court. ((F) Genevieve of Gold Way)

Major Players
(F) Giselle of Purple River: Keeper of local relics (They have a huge family that backs them) (Holds Holy item needed to get into a nearby dungeon)
(F) Raegan of Four Pines Temple: Rich trader or merchant (They know secret magic or forbidden arts) (Has been trying to buy holy item for some time. Giving up and planning to assalt Giselle to claim it)
(F) Sabrina of Forest Field: Wealthy outsider (They’re related to several important families or people)(Has a lot of sway in the town and outside it. Willing to put pressure on people if PCs do him a favor (Caravan duty on leaving town to protect grain))

Conflict
Someone wants to attack a rival group (Raegan wants Gisell's holy item)

Minor Players
(F) Catalina of Forest Peak: Part-time prostitute (Heard about the deal in a back ally)
(M) Alan Explorer: Local miller or tanner (Will be blamed for crime if committed. In wrong place at wrong time and then framed)

Consequences of its Destruction
Kin-related villages will be furious (Sabrina of Forest Field will call on family ties to hunt the destroyer of this village down)

Court Defenses
A guardian spirit or entity (There is a spirit bound in the holy item that Giselle Can summon if town attacked)

But hey, they decided that they need magic items instead at the start of the session and decide to head for Port City where they suspect there will be more magic items for sale. I don't have time to roll on 7 different tables to gen a new town (or the effort to put in figuring out a bunch of new things on the fly, I've had a rough day at work). I relook over the stuff I have with the eyes of a major city.

Power Structure
Autocratic. One person has largely unchallenged control over the court. ((F) Genevieve of Gold Way)

Major Players
(F) Giselle of Purple River: Keeper of local relics (They have a huge family that backs them) (A magic item merchant with the backing of the Gold Way Family)
(F) Raegan Lost: Rich trader or merchant (They know secret magic or forbidden arts) (Seedy back alley merchant of forbidden magic objects)
(F) Sabrina of Forest Field: Wealthy outsider (They’re related to several important families or people)(An investigator of the crown searching for contraband magic)

Conflict
Someone wants to attack a rival group (Reagan plans to plant elicit magic item on Giselle so that Sabrina takes her in thinking shes been the one supplying illegal magic)

Minor Players
(F) Catalina of Forest Peak: Part-time prostitute (Knows how to get in touch with Raegan (for the right price))
(M) Alan Explorer: Local miller or tanner (Witness to the planting of the magic that no one believes (but will hire the pc's to sort things out))

Consequences of its Destruction
Kin-related villages will be furious (The Crown will not forgive a city being wiped out and he along with all cities in the kingdom will search relentlessly for the destroyers.)

Court Defenses
A guardian spirit or entity (There are spirits of the dead floating around town that a few people can talk to. They can be a source of info, or if the town is wiped out they will point investigators towards the pcs. They are benevolent, but not very strong.)

There, that took me about 5 minutes to alter slightly. I didn't have to rewrite the npcs, or do much of anything, just a few touch ups and the session can continue. (In case you can't tell, my personal notes are in italics). I'm respecting the PC's decision to go to a different place to gain different rewards for their time, but that doesn't mean I can't reuse my work.

Now I'm curious if you consider this railroading, and why or why not. After this I kinda want to do a dungeon example as well, even though it would be similar.


In Quertus' example they had been in Farmville already, and bought silk there that came from 'Port City' (don't remember the name that was used). So the notes of 'Port City' already contains "silk producer (exporting to Farmville via merchant)". If you are doing a palette swap, you need to remove the "silk producer" info. In Quertus' case, I assume he also needs to do a lot of iterations and updates because you can't remove "silk producer" from the city without changing the social dynamic, npcs and external connections of the city.

In your example, the cities don't have any (relevant) established external connections, so you are free to palette swap without it affecting the rest of the setting.

Pelle has the right of it.

If you design your cities as silos, as independent dungeons, then they are easier to transplant. I don't do that.

I build an interconnected world, that could run independent of the existence of the PCs. My PCs come from these worlds. And, occasionally, I'm like, "oh, the events at this point in time & space look like they would be interesting for the PCs to interact with", and I'll run an adventure set then/there.


Quertus uses Railroad as a hollow term, because of only accepting one context for it, as it seems.

I (currently, and I believe consistently throughout this thread) define railroading as changing game physics or facts to force or prevent an outcome. In what way is that "a hollow term"?

[Florian]

I (currently, and I believe consistently throughout this thread) define railroading as changing game physics or facts to force or prevent an outcome. In what way is that "a hollow term"?

Game physics and facts only matter to certain kinds of game where those are also understood as the lingua franca of said games. That is not universally true as there are games whose main appeal lies within those being negotiable right from the get-go, but which are still considered to be in the same category - TTRPGs.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I (currently, and I believe consistently throughout this thread) define railroading as changing game physics or facts to force or prevent an outcome. In what way is that "a hollow term"?

As I showed, that definition is neither necessary nor sufficient.

There are many types of railroading that don't change a thing after the fact--they merely establish only one way to go and raise such barriers as to be insurmountable. Call it "railroading by setup". The rails are pre-loaded and ironclad. The characters are by design deprived of anything that could let them change that. Whether this involves not allowing certain spells or abilities (which is a DM's prerogative and isn't a change in the physics, as it only exists if the DM says it does), establishing inescapable consequences for deviation, or whatever.

And not all changing of facts is railroading. You could change the (unseen) facts to establish that what they're trying to do is possible, without regard to what you had planned.

[OldTrees1]

There are many types of railroading that don't change a thing after the fact--they merely establish only one way to go and raise such barriers as to be insurmountable. Call it "railroading by setup". The rails are pre-loaded and ironclad. The characters are by design deprived of anything that could let them change that. Whether this involves not allowing certain spells or abilities (which is a DM's prerogative and isn't a change in the physics, as it only exists if the DM says it does), establishing inescapable consequences for deviation, or whatever.

How does this differ from other limitations that are set during setup? From your description I notice you highlighted the resilience of the limitations with words like "insurmountable" or "ironclad" and emphasized intent behind the limitation with the phrase "by design". So I suspect those concepts are central to how you differentiate.

In Ravenloft there are the Mists that prevent / restrict exit from Ravenloft. They are created at setup, are designed to be insurmountable, and are intended to keep the PCs in Ravenloft. I think this counts as what you are describing.

In Chult there is a Jungle which is hazardous. As a result of the mechanics, some strategies will not work regardless of luck. However I don't think it was designed with the intent to stop those specific strategies. Does this count?

In Chult there is a place that is meant to be filled with too many enemies for the party to face in combat. At least one party faced them in combat and succeeded. Does this count?

[NichG]

As I showed, that definition is neither necessary nor sufficient.

There are many types of railroading that don't change a thing after the fact--they merely establish only one way to go and raise such barriers as to be insurmountable. Call it "railroading by setup". The rails are pre-loaded and ironclad. The characters are by design deprived of anything that could let them change that. Whether this involves not allowing certain spells or abilities (which is a DM's prerogative and isn't a change in the physics, as it only exists if the DM says it does), establishing inescapable consequences for deviation, or whatever.

And not all changing of facts is railroading. You could change the (unseen) facts to establish that what they're trying to do is possible, without regard to what you had planned.

The thing I liked about Quertus definition was that, rather than relying on whether the players had the ability to control particular outcomes or directions, it identified a matter of the direction of causation - which is in some ways cleaner.

Specifically, if we say for every setting element or GM decision 'is this here because of something that came before it, or something that is to come after it' then the things which exist because of their future consequences are Q-roads. Someone other than the GM can't necessarily identify unambiguously whether something is a Q-road, but at least In principle the GM always can.

So if you put the starting location at the end a valley between mountain ranges with a next destination up the valley, it's a Q-road if your thought process was 'I need them to go here, so therefore it's a valley' but it wouldn't be a Q-road if your thought process was e.g. 'I drew a map and, oh look, here's a stretch of temperate arable land along a river valley up in the mountains. I guess there should be a bunch of settlements along the river. '

Under the Q-road definition, every single game designer or world builder necessarily engages in Q-roading at some point (at the level of 'I want to run a fantasy game, so there should be dragons' for example). But if it's taken as a neutral term, that isn't problematic.

The argument is then that Q-roading once the players have become involved can collide with player agency because it operates by fiat on the outcome (reverse control), which the players at that point have stake in on the basis of forward control - determining the outcome via choosing actions. But it doesn't have to collide with agency if e.g. Q-roading is used on things the players could not have legitimately influenced through intentional action ('I want an antagonist, so therefore there will be a murderer who commits their first kill as the PCs arrive to their next destination'). So that would be a Q-road but not a theft of agency - that is to say, not a traditional railroad.

[geppetto]

I get all this, and don't really mind it, it's just retconning the setting, though it shouldn't contradict with established stuff. I just don't consider it as offering decisions, and don't think players do either, since that's stuff they are not making their decision based on.



Allright, I guess you can present things kind of like a horoscope, broad enough to match out no matter what happens and people may interpret it to be accurate. After facing the ogre in one of the rooms, the hints make sense retroactively. But since the hints for the other door make just as much sense, I guess my players will not put much weight into that situation overall. They made a semi-blind decision and got something, nothing special. My point is, if they knew they were choosing between an ogre in one room and 10 orcs in another, that would be a much more empowering decision for the players. If making the QO really convincing, it sounds like just as much work as just presenting two real things...

Not all decisions need to be informed or empowering. Sometimes they are just decisions. Sometimes its do you save the world or not, and sometimes its whats for breakfast. Usually its something in the middle.

A good campaign not only has room for both, it needs both. Verisimilitude suffers when every decision is extremely important and made with full knowledge of the consequences thereof.

If your really doing things right the players wont actually know for sure which decisions were extremely important and which werent. Just like in real life we have no idea what would have happened if we took the path not traveled.

[Florian]

I (currently, and I believe consistently throughout this thread) define railroading as changing game physics or facts to force or prevent an outcome. In what way is that "a hollow term"?

Ok, I think I have to clarify and expand my previous answer to your question (having slept over it a bit).

Your definition is tied to certain assumptions about the nature of the game. Quite a lot of your examples seem to be based on "neutrality" and "naturalism", like creating a game world with internal consistency in mind, while trying to avoid purpose-driven design.

That works fine with an old-school sandbox, mega-dungeon and such, but tends to break down with other types of game, or style variations within an old-school game.

A lot of game types and styles rely on purpose-driven design, tho, to the point that the actual world building can be skipped. For example, genre emulation relies on the constant inclusion and enforcement of genre conventions and tropes, while "drama" needs an active handling of the adversary to keep the desired level of tension up. An "Adventure of the week" format can safely ignore or alter an established game world to make room for said adventure, because the game world is not necessary for that style, just being mere background and so on.

While "agency" is in a sense a binary affair, you either have it or you don't, the type of game defines the boundaries of and the shape that agency can take in that particular game. The more you get into the region of games being "about something", the clearer this will get.

[kyoryu]

The thing I liked about Quertus definition was that, rather than relying on whether the players had the ability to control particular outcomes or directions, it identified a matter of the direction of causation - which is in some ways cleaner.

That's why I like my definition - it doesn't rely on any of that.

It relies on whether or not there is a predetermined set of scenes/encounters that the players will go through, that they do not have power to change.

The funny thing about all the "railroading is good" arguments is that, well, sure, okay. For some types of games, there's nothing wrong with it.

But if I say "I don't want to play that type of game", and you say you're not, it doesn't really matter why. You're explicitly doing things that I asked you to not do. Don't do that (and vice versa).

It's weird because this doesn't come up in other situations.

"I'm vegan."
"Okay, I won't feed you meat."
"Hey, I think this has meat..."
"No it doesn't, and even if it did, it's for your own good!"

"Let's see a movie!"
"Cool, but I don't like horror movies!"
"Okay, we won't see one then."
"Hey, this is a horror movie, I told you I don't like them!"
"It's really not"
"It's got a guy slashing up a family!"
"It's a drama. And even if it was a horror movie, it's to make it more interesting. I mean, horror's just a technique, why would I want to not include that?"

[Florian]

@kyoryu:

I can't really agree with your approach to it. What you describe is a total breach of the social contract, the gm trying to sneak a different kind of game past the players than what was agreed upon. Beyond that, it reads like you understand it in the terms of the sandbox - linear axis, which doesn't have to be the case. Linear design doesn't mean the removal of agency, but simply different kind of agency.

As in, you could build a perfect sandbox and start with a limited set of agency to get the game going, like having the starting situation of being trapped on a small island to get the group together, the players to know each other and teach them how a player-driven, exploration-based game works. Or you can use a map of Varisia, dump all the Runelords-related AP material into it and have the players discover a very linear story in a completely nonlinear way because they can pierce it together only after the fact.

That's why it is better to understand "railroading" as a direct action, removal/negation of agency right now.

[OldTrees1]

@kyoryu:

I can't really agree with your approach to it. What you describe is a total breach of the social contract

kyoryu's post had 2 sections to it.

Section 1 was 2 paragraphs long and included defining railroading.

Section 2 starts at paragraph 3 and talks about a breach of social contract.

[Florian]

kyoryu's post had 2 sections to it.

Section 1 was 2 paragraphs long and included defining railroading.

Section 2 starts at paragraph 3 and talks about a breach of social contract.

Section 1 only makes sense when you go at it from the basis of a purely player-driven game that will exclude GM input as the default state. It already breaks down when you go with the assumption that actions have consequences and the GM is the one modeling these consequences as part of the game. They anger the duke now, the next time they will try to enter the city, X and Y will happen - which is predetermined scene that can't be avoided and is a direct consequence of the players using their agency, twice, actually, once for angering the duke, the second time for deciding to go back to that city.

Without being able to mind read the GM, there's no knowing whether that apparent breach of the social contract was intentional right from the start (the GM wanted to play that scene), or the scene was included as a result of the actual game play.

Read the sections in reverse order. I agree that we have a breach of the social contract when we agree on a player-driven game and I, as GM, decide that decide that a good plot is in order to provide more fun, secretly turning it into a GM-driven game and using illusionism to cover up the switch.

But unless you reduce the GM to the pure function of interface to the game world / arbiter of the rules and decide to play a purely static game world that doesn't react in any meaningful way (which also negates agency by making it meaningless), there's no way to avoid the creation and inclusion of pre-planned stuff.

[MrSandman]

I think that key in kyoryu's definition is where it talks about preset stuff that the players don't have the power to change.

Now I'm going to talk about my personal approach and let kyoryu speak for himself. I do not think that no railroading means no GM agency/input/proactivity. As a GM you're entitled to wanting things to happen and to choose how the world behaves. But I pretty much agree with kyoryu's definition. Railroading is when there are predetermined outcomes that the players don't have any power to change. Proactively having things happen as a GM doesn't mean you're railroading.

Using Florian's example, the party could have to face the Duke's henchmen when they get back to the city because they've angered him. But as long as they have the choice not to go to the city or to gather information about the Duke's feelings towards them and try to avoid the encounter or to do whatever they want, it's not railroading. It is an encounter that may or may not happen and the terms on which it happens depend on the party's choices (you'd expect it to be different if the party decided to sneak in during the night or to disguise themselves, for instance.)

Railroading would be if the henchmen had to try and arrest the party regardless of what they do or where they go.

Then again, the GM has the right to decide that the duke will send his henchmen to track down and capture the party. But it is very different to say "the party will encounter the henchmen at the middle of the next session" than to say "these are the methods that the henchmen have to track down the party, these are the party's defenses against it, let's play it out."

It is true that railroading isn't always immediately evident. It also isn't inherently bad or wrong.

What I personally have a strong distate for is illusionism. If we're going to railroad, let's railroad alright. If we're not going to railroad, let's not pretend that previously determined outcomes are the result of the party's actions. That, to me, seems dishonest.

[OldTrees1]

Section 1 only makes sense when you go at it from the basis of a purely player-driven game that will exclude GM input as the default state. It already breaks down when you go with the assumption that actions have consequences and the GM is the one modeling these consequences as part of the game. They anger the duke now, the next time they will try to enter the city, X and Y will happen - which is predetermined scene that can't be avoided and is a direct consequence of the players using their agency, twice, actually, once for angering the duke, the second time for deciding to go back to that city.

I suspect that scenes the players cause do not count as scenes the players have no power to change. However that is getting deep enough in the semantics that I don't trust my interpretation to necessarily map to kyoryu's intent.

Imagine for a moment the players did not decide to go back to that city but the GM decided the scene needed to happen so the PCs do go back to the city. That would be closer to an example of a predetermined scene (predetermined meaning it will happen) that the players will go through(because the PCs are going through it), and have no power to change (the players had no power to prevent the PCs from returning).

I still see substantial differences between how you two define railroading so I would be shocked if you agreed on the same definition, but I don't see them as THAT distant.


Without being able to mind read the GM, there's no knowing whether that apparent breach of the social contract was intentional right from the start (the GM wanted to play that scene), or the scene was included as a result of the actual game play.

Read the sections in reverse order. I agree that we have a breach of the social contract when we agree on a player-driven game and I, as GM, decide that decide that a good plot is in order to provide more fun, secretly turning it into a GM-driven game and using illusionism to cover up the switch.

But unless you reduce the GM to the pure function of interface to the game world / arbiter of the rules and decide to play a purely static game world that doesn't react in any meaningful way (which also negates agency by making it meaningless), there's no way to avoid the creation and inclusion of pre-planned stuff.

Reading the sections in reverse order is a neat idea. I will go do that.
Paraphrasing a summary of my rereading in reverse order: "Broken promise. Broken promise. Lying when promising about game style is a broken promise. Railroading is sometimes okay. Defining railroading as predetermined scenes that the players will go through and have no power to change."

I could make a scene where the duke's guards are checking people entering the city to see if they are the PCs. That would be a pre-planned scene. I could say that scene will take place at the gates of the city, during the day, every day, for the next year.
Is it predetermined? No. Pre-planned + immutable future = predetermined. Although it is likely to happen.
Will the players go through it? Not necessarily. They could avoid the city, or scale the wall, or prevent the scene.
Do the PCs have no power to change the scene? No. The PCs could settle things before returning to the city. Or the PCs could distract the guards before the PCs arrive.

Maybe that was a bad example. The duke trusts his guards but the duchess does not. She hires a messenger to go track down the PCs. This particular messenger will find the PCs no matter what they do. (That last sentence was key and could easily be modified to have a fallible messenger).
Is it predetermined? Yes, the messenger will reach them wherever they go.
Will the players go through it? Yes, the messenger will reach them wherever they go.
Do the PCs have no power to change the scene? Yes, the messenger will reach them wherever they go.

[NichG]

That's why I like my definition - it doesn't rely on any of that.

It relies on whether or not there is a predetermined set of scenes/encounters that the players will go through, that they do not have power to change.

The funny thing about all the "railroading is good" arguments is that, well, sure, okay. For some types of games, there's nothing wrong with it.

But if I say "I don't want to play that type of game", and you say you're not, it doesn't really matter why. You're explicitly doing things that I asked you to not do. Don't do that (and vice versa).

It's weird because this doesn't come up in other situations.

"I'm vegan."
"Okay, I won't feed you meat."
"Hey, I think this has meat..."
"No it doesn't, and even if it did, it's for your own good!"

"Let's see a movie!"
"Cool, but I don't like horror movies!"
"Okay, we won't see one then."
"Hey, this is a horror movie, I told you I don't like them!"
"It's really not"
"It's got a guy slashing up a family!"
"It's a drama. And even if it was a horror movie, it's to make it more interesting. I mean, horror's just a technique, why would I want to not include that?"

The difficulty in this thread is that, this isn't some posters trying to run a game for other posters that involves railroading when they said they don't want it; it's a discussion about the nature of railroading. In terms of your example conversations this would be like:

"I like vegetables and hate fruit."
"But... you just ate a tomato salad."
"So?"
"Tomatoes are fruits, not vegetables."
"No, tomatoes can't be fruits because I like them, and I don't like fruits."
"In terms of talking about the biology of it though, 'fruit' means something specific..."
"But that's really inconvenient. That means that if I go to a restaurant and say 'no fruit', they won't give me tomatoes, but I want to get tomatoes, just not fruit."

The fruit-hater is entitled to have a set of things that they like or dislike, to communicate those things, and hopefully to have what they ask for acknowledged. But it causes problems if they want the term to refer to specifically the things they don't like. That is, if 'railroading must only refer to the things that I think are bad, because I want to be able to say to a GM that I hate railroading and have that be understood', then it becomes hard to actually have a meaningful discussion about something like 'the nature of railroading' beyond just people listing off their likes and dislikes.

[Segev]

How does this differ from other limitations that are set during setup? From your description I notice you highlighted the resilience of the limitations with words like "insurmountable" or "ironclad" and emphasized intent behind the limitation with the phrase "by design". So I suspect those concepts are central to how you differentiate.

In Ravenloft there are the Mists that prevent / restrict exit from Ravenloft. They are created at setup, are designed to be insurmountable, and are intended to keep the PCs in Ravenloft. I think this counts as what you are describing.

In Chult there is a Jungle which is hazardous. As a result of the mechanics, some strategies will not work regardless of luck. However I don't think it was designed with the intent to stop those specific strategies. Does this count?

In Chult there is a place that is meant to be filled with too many enemies for the party to face in combat. At least one party faced them in combat and succeeded. Does this count?

If I understand what he's saying, the Mists are a form of railroading, but generally are also part of the buy-in. They keep you from deciding to up and leave the campaign area, just as effectively as "impassable wilderness" or "uncharted seas with no boats able to handle them." They're less rails and more walls, possibly defining the boundaries of the sandbox.

The difference between walls defining a sandbox and rails is not subtle, but exists on a continuum which permits pedants who want to pull a Darth Ultron to claim anything they want is one or the other, and anything they don't want is the opposite.

Horror games inherently use narrower boundaries, if only to put pressure on the PCs. It isn't really "rails" to have pressure as long as you still can make meaningful choices. It is, however, rails when your only way to escape the pressure before it kills you is to take the train to the next pressure chamber.

Chult's jungle isn't a railroad; it's very much a sandbox. The challenges of the jungle require strategies to overcome, and some strategies don't work, but you aren't locked into just One True Way. There are normal, expected ways of dealing with it, which are how most NPCs do, but creative players have options. These options can dramatically change the way it goes. Heck, there's evidence in Tomb of Annihilation that it's possible - albeit not necessarily safe - to fly over the jungle rather than explore below the canopy. And that's definitely not one of the "suggested" ways (of which there are at least 3: sail around the peninsula, walk through the jungle the whole way, or ride a canoe most of the way up a river).

"The players aren't meant to be able to defeat all these enemies, but they can if they manage it," is not a railroad, though it may be an attempt at one. In the latter case, it's the DM finally giving up when the players push hard enough against the rails to derail the train, and just letting them do it. In the former, it's got a strong desire to push one way, but that desire is probably more about thematic immersion than anything else.

A true railroad would have an infinite number of enemies that just keep spawning until the players cooperate or are compelled back onto the rails (e.g. by being KO'd and captured and dragged to the next station). Railroads are defined by lack of meaningful choices. "But thou must!" conversations, unwinnable fights where the only choice is to surrender to spare yourself the time and pain or to fight until the game finally beats through all your defense and skill and patience and makes you lose (or even ramps up difficulty until you literally can't keep surviving), etc.

"Railroad by design" has those insurmountable walls/barriers/whatever defined in every direction except the one down which the rails lead you. The further back those barriers are, and the more meaningfully your choices can carry forward and determine outcomes - or evne direction - of the campaign, the less of a railroad it is.

[kyoryu]

Section 1 only makes sense when you go at it from the basis of a purely player-driven game that will exclude GM input as the default state.

Of course the GM has input. And for the first scene, they will likely have most of, if not all of the input (though ideally this is in conjunction with what the players have come up with their characters and the results of Session Zero).

Having a single predetermined scene, especially at the start, is not a railroad. And the GM will always have some input into what happens, since they control all of the NPCs, the NPC reactions to things, and the things that do and do not exist in the world.

Input is not binary. The choices are not "all player input" and "all GM input"..


It already breaks down when you go with the assumption that actions have consequences and the GM is the one modeling these consequences as part of the game. They anger the duke now, the next time they will try to enter the city, X and Y will happen - which is predetermined scene that can't be avoided and is a direct consequence of the players using their agency, twice, actually, once for angering the duke, the second time for deciding to go back to that city.

Things happen. If you anger the Duke, then, yes, bad things will happen. But the GM didn't plan for that up front, it's a result of your actions. And it may well be avoidable depending on what happens with the city, how you enter, etc.

Note that I talk about the game being a sequence of predetermined scenes. The key being sequence - We go from A to B to C to D etc. (with some potential reordering, etc.). In the cases you're giving, the GM is having to come up with scenes as a response to player actions, not funneling the players into the predetermined scenes.


Without being able to mind read the GM, there's no knowing whether that apparent breach of the social contract was intentional right from the start (the GM wanted to play that scene), or the scene was included as a result of the actual game play.

True, but the GM knows. If you've agreed not to railroad, don't railroad.


Read the sections in reverse order. I agree that we have a breach of the social contract when we agree on a player-driven game and I, as GM, decide that decide that a good plot is in order to provide more fun, secretly turning it into a GM-driven game and using illusionism to cover up the switch.

Yup! And yet some people (AMFV) argue for that vehemently. Railroads can be a fine style of play, for people that are mostly concerned about having a story told to them, the combat sections, character advancement, and don't really care about the types of decisions you get in non-railroad play. This may be the vast majority of roleplayers! And I'm not one to poop on someone's fun.


But unless you reduce the GM to the pure function of interface to the game world / arbiter of the rules and decide to play a purely static game world that doesn't react in any meaningful way (which also negates agency by making it meaningless), there's no way to avoid the creation and inclusion of pre-planned stuff.

Of course you plan stuff (I mean, a small number of games/sessions are completely off the cuff, but that's crazy rare.). The question is: are you planning a sequence of scenes/encounters that the players will play through, with no ability to deviate or enter into meaningful scenes that were not preplanned. The point of planning in non-railroad games is that it gives you a solid base to improvise when players call for doing things, and for how the world might react. Of course you plan in non-railroads. You just don't plan a sequence of scenes the players will go through.

The difference is basically:

Railroad: "The players will do A, B, C, D, etc. They may be able to change some of the ordering of these, but these things will all happen, and nothing not in this list either will happen or have any real meaning"

Not railroad: "The players can do things, and approach problems however they want. As a GM, I don't really know what they will do. I do know that should this set of circumstances develop, that this particular thing is the likely result."


I think that key in kyoryu's definition is where it talks about preset stuff that the players don't have the power to change.

Now I'm going to talk about my personal approach and let kyoryu speak for himself. I do not think that no railroading means no GM agency/input/proactivity. As a GM you're entitled to wanting things to happen and to choose how the world behaves. But I pretty much agree with kyoryu's definition. Railroading is when there are predetermined outcomes that the players don't have any power to change. Proactively having things happen as a GM doesn't mean you're railroading.

100%.


Using Florian's example, the party could have to face the Duke's henchmen when they get back to the city because they've angered him. But as long as they have the choice not to go to the city or to gather information about the Duke's feelings towards them and try to avoid the encounter or to do whatever they want, it's not railroading. It is an encounter that may or may not happen and the terms on which it happens depend on the party's choices (you'd expect it to be different if the party decided to sneak in during the night or to disguise themselves, for instance.)

Railroading would be if the henchmen had to try and arrest the party regardless of what they do or where they go.

Exactly. The Duke has the ability to say "I will alert the gate guards to these ne'er-do-wells, with instructions to capture them if they return!" That's the GM playing the Duke, which, well, they're supposed to do.

This isn't railroading because it's a result of PC actions (unless the GM set up the situation so angering the duke was unavoidable), and the PCs will have multiple options for dealing with this, as described above.


Then again, the GM has the right to decide that the duke will send his henchmen to track down and capture the party. But it is very different to say "the party will encounter the henchmen at the middle of the next session" than to say "these are the methods that the henchmen have to track down the party, these are the party's defenses against it, let's play it out."

"Let's play it out" is 100% correct. As PbtA games say, "play to find out what happens". If the GM knows what happens, you're not doing that. The GM gets to say "the Duke sends out a search party" or whatever. They don't get to say "and therefore you will be captured three scenes from now so that we can have the jail scene, leading to the jail arena scene, which you will win but create an enemy in when you kill the reigning champion who is the brother of the local Thieve's Guild head, but will also make you allies with the local resistance, starting you on the quest to overthrow the Duke, the first action of which will be...."


It is true that railroading isn't always immediately evident. It also isn't inherently bad or wrong.

I think most players are better at picking up railroading than people give them credit for. Even if they don't consciously realize it, there's this kind of bored state that people get, I think, where at some level they realize they'e just passing time until the next fight.

I also think that there's a style of game that's more common than many people realize, where the GM believes that they are successfully using illusionism, while the players are fully aware of what's going on and just go with it, either because they don't mind or they don't want to cause a stink, or because they realize that fighting the rails is impossible.

But no, railroading is totally fine if everybody is on board with it. And for some people it is a superior style of play. It's just not for me, and for some others. And I might even agree to join a railroad game if I know what I'm getting into.


What I personally have a strong distate for is illusionism. If we're going to railroad, let's railroad alright. If we're not going to railroad, let's not pretend that previously determined outcomes are the result of the party's actions. That, to me, seems dishonest.

Absolutely. To use the other analogy, if you want to get me to go to a horror movie with you, get me to agree to go to a horror movie. Don't tell me that the movie isn't a horror movie when it actually is.


I suspect that scenes the players cause do not count as scenes the players have no power to change. However that is getting deep enough in the semantics that I don't trust my interpretation to necessarily map to kyoryu's intent.

If it's a scene the players cause, it is not part of a preplanned sequence of scenes the players will go through.


Imagine for a moment the players did not decide to go back to that city but the GM decided the scene needed to happen so the PCs do go back to the city. That would be closer to an example of a predetermined scene (predetermined meaning it will happen) that the players will go through(because the PCs are going through it), and have no power to change (the players had no power to prevent the PCs from returning).

Looking at it on the single scene level is somewhat of an issue, as it really is about the overall structure. A railroad isn't just one scene. It's the whole sequence. You will do A->B->C->D->E, etc. (allowing slight shuffling of order doesn't really change it). Is there a preplanned scene? Could be railroading, could be not railroading. Is every scene the players encounter pre-planned? Railroad.

(Note that I don't consider dungeons railroads, even though every room is likely planned out. The dungeon layout and setup describes the initial layout of the dungeon, but player actions should cause reactions from the denizens, and a good-sized dungeon will also have enough rooms that there would be little way for the GM to determine what the players will and will not encounter)


I still see substantial differences between how you two define railroading so I would be shocked if you agreed on the same definition, but I don't see them as THAT distant.

It's really all about the overall sequence. That's why I don't like the "usage of planned material" types definitions. The difference between a Quantum Ogre and an Ogre random encounter, as I've said elsewhere in this thread, is that the QO is part of a sequence of events, while the random Ogre may or may not be encountered, depending on what the players do. There's a lot of things that can be used for non-railroading purposes, but also can be used for railroading.

For clarity, perhaps: A railroad is a sequence of preplanned scenes that go from one to another, that the players are expected to go through in order (with, in some cases, some reordering allowed). Railroading is enforcing that sequence.


Reading the sections in reverse order is a neat idea. I will go do that.
Paraphrasing a summary of my rereading in reverse order: "Broken promise. Broken promise. Lying when promising about game style is a broken promise.

Strangely these statements are often controversial.


Railroading is sometimes okay. Defining railroading as predetermined scenes that the players will go through and have no power to change."

A sequence.


I could make a scene where the duke's guards are checking people entering the city to see if they are the PCs. That would be a pre-planned scene. I could say that scene will take place at the gates of the city, during the day, every day, for the next year.
Is it predetermined? No. Pre-planned + immutable future = predetermined. Although it is likely to happen.
Will the players go through it? Not necessarily. They could avoid the city, or scale the wall, or prevent the scene.
Do the PCs have no power to change the scene? No. The PCs could settle things before returning to the city. Or the PCs could distract the guards before the PCs arrive.

Not a bad example, though in the railroad case, this scene is not only going to be something that the players have to go through, but then will lead to the next scene, and so on and so forth.


Maybe that was a bad example. The duke trusts his guards but the duchess does not. She hires a messenger to go track down the PCs. This particular messenger will find the PCs no matter what they do. (That last sentence was key and could easily be modified to have a fallible messenger).
Is it predetermined? Yes, the messenger will reach them wherever they go.
Will the players go through it? Yes, the messenger will reach them wherever they go.
Do the PCs have no power to change the scene? Yes, the messenger will reach them wherever they go.

Is it reasonable that this messenger is infallible? Then still not necessarily railroading - provided that the PCs can determine how they deal with the messenger. They can listen to the messenger, and return to the Duchess. They can listen to the messenger, and inform the Duke. They can kill the messenger. They can listen to the messenger and then ignore them and go do something else, which means that the situation back in the city will evolve in some way that may not be to their liking.

The PCs in this case may not be able to escape the scene occurring - but they still have a choice on how to deal with it. In other words, scene A (messenger) doesn't necessarily lead to scene B (guards at the gates capturing them). Scene A can lead to a wide variety of possible scenes, many of which the GM has not planned. Forcing a decision is not railroading, unless you're forcing a particular decision, or the decisions all lead to the same result.

Consider this situation:

You're in town. A giant meteor is about to hit the town. You have to leave.

Is this railroading? I'd say it's not. You can't avoid the meteor, you have to do something. one choice has been removed. But you can still choose how you exit the town and where you go.

Now, let's say the GM comes up with arguments why all the exits except the north one are blocked. Starting to sound like railroading, especially if there's a planned encounter to the north, which leads to another one and so on.

If the exits aren't all blocked, but will then reroute you back north, same thing. You're still enforcing that sequence. If you'll hit the same encounter whichever way you go (starting the same sequence), then still railroading - you've changed the scenery, but that's nothing more than set dressing.

Addendum:


@kyoryu:

I can't really agree with your approach to it. What you describe is a total breach of the social contract, the gm trying to sneak a different kind of game past the players than what was agreed upon.

Right, which is why that section wasn't defining railroading, but rather expressing bewilderment at people arguing that telling people you won't railroad them, but then railroading them was a perfectly cromulent thing. As others pointed out, two separate posts, really.



That's why it is better to understand "railroading" as a direct action, removal/negation of agency right now.

All railroading involves removal of agency. But not all removal of agency is railroading.