Choo-Choo yes? Is railroading REALLY that bad?

[Easy e]

Your point was to show a set of pre-defined elements, and to extrapolate how they could be viewed as similar to a dungeon, but without requiring linearity or railroading.

Shifting to "what if I didn't agree to that game, HUH?" is deflection, pure and simple.

Okay, if you guys say so.

However, a big theme of this thread has been to make sure that everyone knows what type of game it is before you start playing. You know, transparency. That is how you avoid railroading. V did not do that in his example. Hence, it doesn't seem like deflection to me, but what do I know. <shrug>

So, we have established that railroads and the illusion of choice are bad because they take away player agency, and the only way to avoid that is transparency in the type of game you are playing.

[Vahnavoi]

What, pray tell me, is a greater level of transparency for a game than explaining all its rules?

[Cheesegear]

Nearly a Real Conversation I've Had
Player: How do I play?

DM: You can go anywhere you want. Do anything you want.

Player: Okay, if I go somewhere, who decides what I find?

DM: I do.

Player: Anything you want?

DM: Yes.

Player: That seems unfair. What about what I want?

DM: That's up to my discretion.

Player. Okay. How do I do something?

DM: You roll a d20 and add the relevant modifier.

Player: How do I know if I succeed at something?

DM: I tell you.

Player: So you decide whether or not I succeed at something?

DM: Yes.

Player: How?

DM: I pick a number in my head and you have to beat it.

Player: How do I know what that number is?

DM: You don't.

Player: So from what I understand, you decide what I see? How do I know my choices matter?

DM: You don't.

Player: So if I have a +4 modifier, and roll a max. 20, for a total of 24...Can you set the number in your head to 25? More?

DM: Yes.

Player: ...This game seems unfair. Why do people play this?

DM: Cooperative storytelling with random outcomes is fun?

[elros]

Nearly a Real Conversation I've Had
Player: How do I play?

DM: You can go anywhere you want. Do anything you want.

Player: Okay, if I go somewhere, who decides what I find?

DM: I do.

Player: Anything you want?

DM: Yes.

Player: That seems unfair. What about what I want?

DM: That's up to my discretion.

Player. Okay. How do I do something?

DM: You roll a d20 and add the relevant modifier.

Player: How do I know if I succeed at something?

DM: I tell you.

Player: So you decide whether or not I succeed at something?

DM: Yes.

Player: How?

DM: I pick a number in my head and you have to beat it.

Player: How do I know what that number is?

DM: You don't.

Player: So from what I understand, you decide what I see? How do I know my choices matter?

DM: You don't.

Player: So if I have a +4 modifier, and roll a max. 20, for a total of 24...Can you set the number in your head to 25? More?

DM: Yes.

Player: ...This game seems unfair. Why do people play this?

DM: Cooperative storytelling with random outcomes is fun?

There are games with no GM, where each player takes turns describing what they do and what happens. I saw them online on some forums, and they relied on each person contributing to the story. Those campaigns could actually last years.

There are also some RPGs that don’t have GMs, either, but I am not as familiar with them.

[Cheesegear]

There are games with no GM, where each player takes turns describing what they do and what happens.

The point is that games with GMs tend to be inherently unfair, and in D&D specifically, it's actually written in the rules, that it's unfair, and a lot of players simply are unwilling or unable to reconcile that. You have to trust that your DM wont simply just shaft you.

Therefore, players should expect the GM to lie cheat do whatever they want, in some capacity - DM screens implicitly enable the DM to cheat straight up. If you expect your DM to shaft you, then the real questions are:
a) How often are they doing it?
b) To what end?

That's why the outrage against Quantum Ogre ('Soft Railroading') baffles me:
'But you're lying!'
...So?

[MoiMagnus]

Nearly a Real Conversation I've Had

I know you're trying to make a point with that conversation, but the DM could have been a little more collaborative in his explanations.

Player: How do I play?

DM: You can go anywhere you want. Do anything you want.

Player: Okay, if I go somewhere, who decides what I find?

DM: I do.

Player: Anything you want?

DM: Yes.

...but my goal if for your to feel like this is reasonable for you to find what you find where you find it. Either through following some guidelines from those books, or by building a consistent universe, or a consistent narrative, or on relying on stereotypes, etc. You'll probably understand as we play together, but feel free to ask more questions along the way.

Player: That seems unfair. What about what I want?

DM: That's up to my discretion.

...but we can talk about it outside of the session. For practical reason, arguing with the DM during a session tends to ruin the fun of everyone, but we can have some mature discussion in between sessions.

Player. Okay. How do I do something?

DM: You roll a d20 and add the relevant modifier.

Player: How do I know if I succeed at something?

DM: I tell you.

Player: So you decide whether or not I succeed at something?

DM: Yes.

Player: How?

DM: I pick a number in my head and you have to beat it.

Player: How do I know what that number is?

DM: You don't.

...But you can ask me how difficult the action seems to be. In general, you can ask me more information about the current situation in which your character is, that should help you to understand if I'll put a big number or a small ones. A lot of those numbers will remain the same along the session so you'll know them eventually.

Player: So from what I understand, you decide what I see? How do I know my choices matter?

DM: You don't.

...But the game is more interesting if you think they do. And I'll try my best to make them matter within my other constraints. Trust me, you'll not be a kid yelling at the TV for Dora to act, I'll actually listen to you and react.

Player: So if I have a +4 modifier, and roll a max. 20, for a total of 24...Can you set the number in your head to 25? More?

DM: Yes.

...But if you asked more about the situation beforehand I probably would have told you that the action seems impossible.

Player: ...This game seems unfair. Why do people play this?

DM: Cooperative storytelling with random outcomes is fun?

But it's not actually supposed to be a "game" in the sense of "you're here to win and it's supposed to be a fair competition like Chess". It's more alike playing with action figures when you were younger. We've added some math and more complex systems because some of us find them fun to play with to. Sure, it'll be less chaotic that whatever battles you had with your action figures because as grown-ups we learnt to like consistency and coherence, but the rules are still fuzzy and arbitrary. And like with action figures, if you think the kid you're playing with is ruining your fun, you should take your toys and go play with other peoples that better match your taste.

[Cheesegear]

I know you're trying to make a point with that conversation, but the DM could have been a little more collaborative in his explanations.

As I said, it's nearly a real conversation I've had before about a players' expectations of the game.

More or less;
Q. 'When does [a player] have power?'
A. Never, really.

Which has previously been brought up. When the player understands that the DM can effectively do whatever they want, and the players get no say, things can get pretty dicey (pun unintended) unless the player can accept that. It's up to the DM to not abuse the power that they have - which they can, and clearly have done at countless tables all over the world. Myself included. The difference is that when I do it, I try and go for the Sandbag approach; If I don't want a player to do something, there will usually be an in-narrative reason that makes sense for why they can't perform an action.

Is Railroading really that bad?
I feel like people have lost the train (again, pun unintended) of thought, and the only reason that this thread has gone on so long, is because people are forgetting the thesis question.

Of course railroading is okay...As long as your players are either a) Okay with it, or b) Don't find out.

If the players are okay with it? Thread over. Keep doing what you're doing.

A lot of players are okay with being on a railroad. But, the problem is that if they know they're on a railroad, they can look for the tracks and try to 'solve' the DM. If they don't know they're on a railroad, they're far, far, far less likely to try and solve the scenarios. Then of course there are players who are not okay with being on a railroad... But seriously DMing is a lot of work so let's just believe I haven't thought all of this through in advance and we can both be happy.

Now let's have a discussion about how a DM can hide the tracks. How can a DM hide the fact that they literally hold all of the cards, all of the time, facing themselves? Whilst still having an engaging, fun adventure?
- How do you make sure you create sandbags or hurdles, and not straight-up roadblocks?
- How do you Quantum Ogre? Can you make a variation Quantum Ogre, where the party encounters the same thing, but differently? This is very important to be able to do if you find you're leaving options open for your players to backtrack or they tend to scout a lot. You don't really want the choices to be 'Ogre or Nothing', because that's not hiding your tracks and that's overtly telling your players that their choice is Ogre or nothing.*
- How do you create engaging hostiles that your power-gaming party doesn't just one-round-KO it?
- How many sessions do - or should - you plan ahead?
- If the DM plans out five core player reactions (e.g; FROST), to any scenario, they can stay one step ahead of the players, the majority of the time. But the players will still feel like they have agency, even though the DM already planned for the five most likely things that they're going to do and already have their hand on the junction box controls ready to shift tracks.

*As I've previously said; Scouting and backtracking is a hard counter to the DM Quantum Ogre'ing you.

Player: So from what I understand, you decide what I see? How do I know my choices matter?

DM: You don't.

...But the game is more interesting if you think they do. And I'll try my best to make them matter within my other constraints.

...So we agree? Perfect.
The game is more interesting - and fun - if the players believe - rightly or wrongly - that their choices matter, and the DM's job, one way or another, to convince them of that. That's an argument in favour of the Quantum Ogre. Which is also the method of railroading that I'm most in favour of, because it's the version of railroading that most preserves the players' belief in their own agency. It's the version of the railroad that lets players believe - at least a little bit - that the DM doesn't hold all the cards, all the time, facing themselves.

I mentioned earlier that TTRPGs are not video games; The Dark Pictures anthology of video games tells you in the opening screen tells you that your choices totally matter. However, being a video game you can reply it, you can watch YouTube videos of other playthroughs, you can read Guides. It's obvious that in TDP video games, there are many, many, many instances where your choices absolutely don't matter.

D&D, isn't that. The players are going to think the Quantum Ogre they encountered was a result of them going left. They can't replay it. They can't reload. They can't read what other people did (at least, outside of a module): The party goes left, they encountered an Ogre. That's all there is to it. The party chose left, they chose to encounter the Ogre. The only way that the players ever - ever - find out that their choices didn't matter...Is if they read the DM's notes. Is it they get other information. What notes? What other information? There is no information except what's in the DM's head...Which the players simply are not privy to.

But it's not actually supposed to be a "game" in the sense of "you're here to win and it's supposed to be a fair competition like Chess".

It is a game. No, you can't 'win' or 'lose' in the strict definition. But there are definitely success and failure states.

A good success state is that the DM closes out the campaign, and everyone more or less finishes adventuring with a stack of magic items, a few thousand gold and some sort of defining Reputation and Renown that will set them up until that character dies of natural causes. The Lich is dead. Campaign over. We did it. Everybody claps. This is, more or less, the 'win' state of RPGs.

The vast majority of players - and even some DMs - will see a TPK near-universally - or even just a single character-death - as a failure state. A loss.

[OldTrees1]

Is Railroading really that bad?
I feel like people have lost the train (again, pun unintended) of thought, and the only reason that this thread has gone on so long, is because people are forgetting the thesis question.

Of course railroading is okay...As long as your players are either a) Okay with it, or b) Don't find out.

If the players are okay with it? Thread over. Keep doing what you're doing.

A) If the players are okay with it, then it is okay. Being honest lets you know when they are okay with it.
B) If the players are not okay with it, then it is not okay regardless of whether they find out.

"B" is the arrogant invalid excuse of a GM that does not care about whether the potential players are okay with a campaign before trying to trick them into playing a game they don't want to play.

[Satinavian]

Is Railroading really that bad?
I feel like people have lost the train (again, pun unintended) of thought, and the only reason that this thread has gone on so long, is because people are forgetting the thesis question.

Of course railroading is okay...As long as your players are either a) Okay with it, or b) Don't find out.

b) is what many people just don't agree with. That is why this thread is so long.

Aside from that i don't have much expectation about the abilities of GMs hiding railroading. Usually when one does seem to do so for a longer time, all his players actually know it and accept it and expect it and the only person the GM successfully fools is himself.

It is a game. No, you can't 'win' or 'lose' in the strict definition. But there are definitely success and failure states.

A good success state is that the DM closes out the campaign, and everyone more or less finishes adventuring with a stack of magic items, a few thousand gold and some sort of defining Reputation and Renown that will set them up until that character dies of natural causes. The Lich is dead. Campaign over. We did it. Everybody claps. This is, more or less, the 'win' state of RPGs.

The vast majority of players - and even some DMs - will see a TPK near-universally - or even just a single character-death - as a failure state. A loss.

One of the problems with railroading is that by moving all the power from the players to the GM, one also moves all the responsibility as well. There is no winning or losing. The GM just decides to have a TPK or a PC victory. The players don't have to try for victory anymore. Instead of trying to find a winning strategy, they better use their time roleplying their characters and have the story unfold.

[Cheesegear]

B) If the players are not okay with it, then it is not okay regardless of whether they find out.

Again, if the question you're really asking, is 'When is it okay to lie? Is it okay to lie at all?' We can't go down that road on this forum.

The most board-safe example that I don't have to explain, is Santa Claus.

trick them into playing a game they don't want to play.

If they're sitting at my table, they want to play.
If, after say, three months, they're still sitting at my table, they still want to play.

Either:
a) They're okay with the occasional Quantum Ogre and that I'm FROSTing every scenario, or
b) They didn't find out.

I haven't brought it up and neither have they; The system works.

[Satinavian]

A couple of decades ago in the local GM circles the opinion took hold that railroading (which before was extremely common) might be inelegant. This lead to several GMs deciding to tone it down. But because they all hid their railroading, they didn't inform their players of the change.

A couple of campaigns derailed. And every single time the players revealed that they fully had expecte the GM to keep them on rails and they often felt that the GM had failed in his duty here.

Now people continued to play, some groups now without railroading, others with informed railroading, but what had become apparent to everyone that the suppossedly "hidden" rails had always been obvious to everyone at every table for years and it was only seen as a politeness to not point them out.



I have yet to find a single GM hiding his railroading and a set of corresponding players believing they are not on rails.

[Vahnavoi]

The point is that games with GMs tend to be inherently unfair, and in D&D specifically, it's actually written in the rules, that it's unfair, and a lot of players simply are unwilling or unable to reconcile that. You have to trust that your DM wont simply just shaft you.

Humbug. It's perfectly possible for a game master to set up a fair scenario. The idea that games with a game master are inherently unfair just promotes lazy game design and lack of thinking about what it would actually take for a game master to be fair. Trust is, in fact, best build up when players perceive a game master as being fair and honest, and one of the easier ways to do this is to actually aspire towards being fair and honest.

Therefore, players should expect the GM to lie cheat do whatever they want, in some capacity - DM screens implicitly enable the DM to cheat straight up. If you expect your DM to shaft you, then the real questions are:
a) How often are they doing it?
b) To what end?

That's why the outrage against Quantum Ogre ('Soft Railroading') baffles me:
'But you're lying!'
...So?

You have never adequately answered the points both me and the Alexandrian made, about how players expecting their game masters to railroad and lie to them warp their decision making process and build up bad habits on both sides of the table. Satinavian can be added to the list as of their last line of posts. You just go back to "so?" and "but is it REALLY that bad?" It's just hilarious when you then try to appeal to trust as a method of getting over the problem. "It's not a crime if you don't get caught" is moral of a blatantly untrustworthy person and being open about following said moral when explaining how your games work just veers right into absurdity.

[OldTrees1]

Again, if the question you're really asking, is 'When is it okay to lie? Is it okay to lie at all?' We can't go down that road on this forum.

If the player is not okay with XYZ and does not want to play a game with XYZ, then trying to trick them into playing does not make it okay.

If you want to argue otherwise. If you want to defend the proposition that tricking someone into playing a game they don't want to play is okay as long as they don't notice the deception. Then defend that proposition.

Any reasonable defense of that proposition should be doable within the forum rules. Although I don't expect there is a reasonable defense to disrespecting the out of game agency of potential players being able to choose which games they want to play.

[Easy e]

What, pray tell me, is a greater level of transparency for a game than explaining all its rules?

Explaining its rules as intended as well as the rules as written.

And the intention of RPGs is not to "win", but to experience. Therefore, the players need to bring a set of expectations beyond the RAW, because RAW leaves them no power. They have to want to go on the journey in the first place.

It is this desire that helps them buy into the illusion of choice and the fact that mechanically they have no actual power in the game.

Look at Cheesegear's dialogue about the rules. If anyone was trying to win a game, they would never agree to those rules. Yet we have untold numbers of people agree to those rules to play D&D. Why? Because they want the experience and as Satinavian points out in their example, they want the illusion of choice, they expect it; because the rules do not give them agency. Perhaps worse, they are okay with that and tacitly agree to it when they play!


Railroading in RPGs is like the I-Go-U-Go system in miniature wargames. It is a terrible way to manage a game, but it is not inherently "wrong fun". A lot of people actual prefer it!

So, if the thesis of this entire thread; Is railroading that bad? The answer is NO, it is not that bad. It is simply a tool in the tool box. Like all tools it can be used incorrectly or overused, but it is not inherently wrong or bad, it just is.

If the player is not okay with XYZ and does not want to play a game with XYZ, then trying to trick them into playing does not make it okay.

If you want to argue otherwise.

I would argue, it is okay to trick them IF it is not done with malice. It's like when you fool a child into eating something they think they hate, but they don't really know they hate it until they have tried it.

For example, I tell someone that we are going to play a board game, and that board game is Heroquest. Heroquest is a dungeon crawler game. They agree. As they enter the dungeon, I ask the players to interact with a NPC character at the start, and the monsters they encounter are very chatty and want to bargain instead of fight all the time. Eventually, the players do not try to insta-kill everything they face and start with talking. Then, at the end of the game I have the adventurers leave the dungeon and join an NPC's army and have them play a tabletop miniature wargame against the enemy army with them leading key units.

Oh no, I lied to them! I tricked them into playing a board game, but it became an RPG and a wargame! I intended to follow this treacherous plot arc the whole time, because I wanted to bridge the players from board game, to RPG, and then into wargaming for my own nefarious purposes. I want more people to play wargames!

Now, this was not done in malice. Selfishness, YES! Is this wrong? Was this lying? Was this the road to hell paved with good intentions? Only if they decide to start playing Games Workshop wargames?

Granted, this is a very dangerous and morally ambiguous road. It is easier to just say, never ever do X. However, I think we can all think of times when doing the exact thing you are never supposed to do IS the right thing to do.

[Cheesegear]

If you want to defend the proposition that tricking someone into playing a game they don't want to play is okay

The problem is your phrasing is wrong.

Players don't want choice. They want the illusion of choice.

Players want to believe that consequences are a result of actions they chose. If they believe that, they are playing a game they do want to play.

[Vahnavoi]

Explaining its rules as intended as well as the rules as written.

That's fair, but we're not going to get anywhere with this if you don't turn around and explain how you are applying this to the actual game I described. Which rule of the simple game was so obscure you needed its intent expained?

And the intention of RPGs is not to "win", but to experience. Therefore, the players need to bring a set of expectations beyond the RAW, because RAW leaves them no power. They have to want to go on the journey in the first place.

These sentences don't go together because again, the statement "RAW leaves players with no power" does not follow from anywhere and is actively defied by several existing rulesets. Furthermore, the juxtaposition between "winning" and "experiencing" is false. You know what's the general definition of winning in a strategic sense? Achieving goals. If intented goal of a game is to experience something, you win by succesfully experiencing just that. It's not even necessary to go that general, though, because roleplaying games frequently include recognizable victory conditions both on character and scenario level. The idea that "there's no winning or losing in roleplaying games" is just a blatant falsehood that persists due to hobbyists uncritically parroting it. It has never stood up to scrutiny.

It is this desire that helps them buy into the illusion of choice and the fact that mechanically they have no actual power in the game.

You have never shown players to be powerless in the simple game, nor, by extension, shown them to be powerless in any roleplaying game constructed according to the same principles.

Look at Cheesegear's dialogue about the rules. If anyone was trying to win a game, they would never agree to those rules. Yet we have untold numbers of people agree to those rules to play D&D. Why? Because they want the experience and as Satinavian points out in their example, they want the illusion of choice, they expect it; because the rules do not give them agency.

Cheesegear's dialogue only shows that they're bad at explaining D&D to new players, and even worse at explaining roleplaying games in general. Satinavian's example mostly shows that players who have been conditioned to expect railroading, expect railroading. Neither proves the point you want them to prove.

So, if the thesis of this entire thread; Is railroading that bad? The answer is NO, it is not that bad. It is simply a tool in the tool box. Like all tools it can be used incorrectly or overused, but it is not inherently wrong or bad, it just is.

Your answer would be more convincing if it actually followed from something.

---

Players want to believe that consequences are a result of actions they chose. If they believe that, they are playing a game they do want to play.

Did it cross your mind at any point that one of the easier ways to make people believe their choices have consequences in a game, is to implement the game so that their choices have consequences? Or that it's harder to have people maintain this belief in a game where their choices are illusory, because of the risk of them finding out?

Once again, you are banking entire functionality of your games on your Poker face and blatantly following "it's not a crime if you don't get caught" morality. Again, these don't really build up trust towards your game mastering abilities.

[Easy e]

I have all ready demonstrated that the GM has all the power due to Rule 1.

Prove to me that players have a power that overrides Rule 1 in an RPG game^?

*= To be more specific, since this is a D&D specific forum, there is no player choice in D&D, there could be a different game with a different construct to the game that the GM does not have Rule 1 power, but I am not familiar with them, and I have played a lot of RPGs. I find player power/control/agency is more common in non-RPGs.



However, it is clear to me that you and I will not agree, mostly because we have two completely different styles of thinking about things. That is cool, and I appreciate it. You have given me a lot to think about and I appreciate the diversity of thought.

[Thrudd]

If the player is not okay with XYZ and does not want to play a game with XYZ, then trying to trick them into playing does not make it okay.

If you want to argue otherwise. If you want to defend the proposition that tricking someone into playing a game they don't want to play is okay as long as they don't notice the deception. Then defend that proposition.

Any reasonable defense of that proposition should be doable within the forum rules. Although I don't expect there is a reasonable defense to disrespecting the out of game agency of potential players being able to choose which games they want to play.

I think the argument is more that it is unreasonable for players to expect or demand that there be no railroading in an RPG. Especially according to the ever-shifting definition of "railroading", which for some includes any unilateral decision made by the GM. So it isn't a "trick", by this definition, it's just how all RPGs are played, and therefore complaining about it is pointless.

IMO, the GM choosing an encounter not related to player choices or generated by RNG, prepping and directing the players to a location, or making decisions without using or ignoring the dice sometimes, or going easy on PCs when they seem to be having terrible luck, are not "railroading" when used in isolation. A railroad is a game almost entirely consisting of these things. The railroad is the whole process of getting players from start to finish, and not letting any of the actual game mechanics or player decisions get in the way of telling the story the GM wants to tell. No one can die, or at least anyone important to the story can't die, including NPC's and BBG's. There will be no failure. There will be no deviation from the plotted path. It will end the way the GM wants it to end. Note, it doesn't necessarily have to be an entirely pre-planned plot, it can be developing in the GM's mind from session to session - but there is definitely action on part of the GM to force certain outcomes at all critical stages of the game (like combat encounters), often believing this will be more "satisfying" than whatever might emerge organically from player interactions and game mechanics.

This more severe definition of railroading, I'd say the original intended definition, makes it something definitely deleterious to fair and enjoyable game play, without question. It is a thing most players would not want, unless they wanted to be told a story which did not react to their decisions or the mechanics of the game. And, admittedly, some players do believe that this is what an RPG is supposed to be and want that. However, for those interested in the game part of the RPG, who enjoy engaging with game mechanics and solving strategic/tactical challenges, and are playing games with mechanics clearly intended to be engaged with in this manner (like D&D)- you definitely should inform them ahead of time if you are not intending to engage with that aspect of the RPG.

In the past, it might not have been necessary to address things like this - however, things have changed over the decades. Largely thanks to the internet, live-play streams, and forums like this, people are much more aware of different sorts of games and GMing styles. Now, I think it is appropriate to indicate what sort of GM you are and how you intend to run your games when starting a new group or inviting players to your table.

[OldTrees1]

The problem is your phrasing is wrong.

Players don't want choice. They want the illusion of choice.

Players want to believe that consequences are a result of actions they chose. If they believe that, they are playing a game they do want to play.

I am not phrasing it wrong.

If a player is not okay with XYZ, then they are not okay with XYZ.
If a player is okay with ABC, then they are okay with ABC.

If a player is not okay with XYZ, and the GM does XYZ, then the player is not okay with it regardless of whether the player finds out. Not getting caught doing XYZ does not change the player's evaluation of XYZ being something they are not okay with.

Now if a player is okay with XYZ (provided there is ABC), then the GM does XYZ (provided there is ABC). That is okay. There is no need for the GM to invent fallacious excuses. The player is okay with XYZ (provided there is ABC).

There are players that want choice. There are players that don't want choice.
There are players that want the illusion of choice. There are players that don't want the illusion of choice.

These are all okay, if the player is okay with it. If the player is not okay with it, there is no excuse to try to force a potential player to play a game they don't want to play.

I think the argument is more that it is unreasonable for players to expect or demand that there be no railroading in an RPG. Especially according to the ever-shifting definition of "railroading", which for some includes any unilateral decision made by the GM. So it isn't a "trick", by this definition, it's just how all RPGs are played, and therefore complaining about it is pointless.

-snip for length-

In the past, it might not have been necessary to address things like this - however, things have changed over the decades. Largely thanks to the internet, live-play streams, and forums like this, people are much more aware of different sorts of games and GMing styles. Now, I think it is appropriate to indicate what sort of GM you are and how you intend to run your games when starting a new group or inviting players to your table.

This is resolved by "It is okay if the players are okay with it". Players that want to play sandboxes instead of illusion of choice linear games can coordinate with GMs that want to run sandboxes. And vice versa. As a sandbox GM it is equally unreasonable for me to trick a player into playing a game they would not want to play.

This is why the thread's dominant answer is "linear games are fine as long as the players are okay with it". Because you should not have to trick potential players by using "as long as I don't get caught, anything the players find not okay is suddenly magically okay".

My argument with Cheesegear is strictly over their belief in the "If I don't get caught then it is okay to do something the players are not okay with". The "If I don't get caught" excuse is invalid. If the players are not okay with something, they are still not okay with it even if you don't get caught.

[Cheesegear]

Cheesegear's dialogue only shows that they're bad at explaining D&D to new players

I explained exactly how D&D works. The players control where they go. Yep. Their agency. Fully intact.

That agency is immediately shattered by DM involvement. Because the DM controls basically actually everything. Including the players, to some degree.

'We go north.'

Do you run into a band of Goblins, an Orc, a wounded traveler on the side of the road, a merchant with a dead horse and now his cart doesn't work, a waterfall, a maximum entropy Ancient White Dragon? Who the **** knows? The only person who knows what's about to happen, is the DM, and the DM can decide anything they want.

Cool. Now you have a scenario - that the DM gave you. What do you do. You can do anything!

Well obviously we fight the Goblins. The sound of battle pricks the interest of a Quantum Ogre.
We'd like to talk to the Orc...The Orc bellows for a Quantum Ogre.

We make a Medicine check on the wounded traveler. It's a magical disease you've never heard of! You need to make a Medicine roll of 28. **** you!

As a Neutral Evil party we'd like to tell the stranded merchant to suck eggs and we steal his stuff. JUST KIDDING ****HEADS. It's a maximum entropy Ancient Gold Dragon and he de-Shape Changes and murders you all for beating him and stealing his stuff.

Nice waterfall. What's behind the falls...Surprise! It's a Quantum Ogre!

---

The only thing the players have going for them, is they have to hope that their DM is fair.

The DM controls the world. Literally. You can't make that not be true.

blatantly following "it's not a crime if you don't get caught" morality.

People get caught doing things all the time. It's not a crime if you don't get charged. Also...Something, something misdemeanor. But we don't need to talk about that.

As I said, I'm perfectly willing to accept that some - most? Maybe even all? - of my players know what I'm up to. I'm perfectly willing to accept that I've been caught, and I'm pretty sure that I know at least once or twice where I know I've been caught.

Nobody has complained. If nobody complains, if my players stay at my table - and they are - then there is no problem.

'Have a chat to your players and talk about the kind of game you're playing.' ...No. I never have, and I never will. I posted what I tell new players to my group earlier, nearly word-for-word. New players to the game get a slightly different version. But still relatively the same. They'll figure it out - or maybe they wont? Only one player in 7 years has left because of my DMing, and it had more to do with the fact that I basically 'Wasn't Matt Mercer,' which I was fine with.

[Vahnavoi]

I have all ready demonstrated that the GM has all the power due to Rule 1.

Prove to me that players have a power that overrides Rule 1 in an RPG game?

There is no universal "rule 1" of roleplaying games giving game master all the power. If you mean "rule zero" as in "game master has final say over game events", I have some bad news for you: not all roleplaying games even have a game master, proving "rule 0" is not universal either.

But the actual point, which I made pages ago, is that even when "game master has all the power" is true, it does not follow players have none. Players have exactly the amount of power a game master gives them. There doesn't need to be a rule allowing players to override game master's authority as a referee, because that's not necessary for players to have power.

---

I explained exactly how D&D works.

You most definitely did not. Your dialogue does not even include explanation of what characters are or that the dungeon master's authority is rooted in their role as a referee. No wonder the other person doesn't get why anyone would play the game.

[BRC]

I have all ready demonstrated that the GM has all the power due to Rule 1.

Prove to me that players have a power that overrides Rule 1 in an RPG game^?

*= To be more specific, since this is a D&D specific forum, there is no player choice in D&D, there could be a different game with a different construct to the game that the GM does not have Rule 1 power, but I am not familiar with them, and I have played a lot of RPGs. I find player power/control/agency is more common in non-RPGs.

"Actually, DM, that's dumb, we don't want that to happen"
*DM Does it anyway*
"You're clearly not interested in the same type of game we are, we are going to leave"

And the whole point is moot.


Yes, "Technically" in-game the thing the DM decreed STILL happened, but it's not especially relevant now. The player's don't want to play anymore, the game is over. The DM only has that power because the players granted it to them as part of the social contract of the game.

With no game, there is no DM, and the almighty Rule 0 is less relevant than whose going to clean up the snack bowls.


Yes, the Players only technically have the power the GM allows them to have, but the GM only has that power because the Players gave it to them, and the Players can take it back quite easily.

Yes, you could say that it's not relevant to discuss the dynamics if the game has ended. I'd say that if, as you posit, the Players have zero power because the GM can technically contradict anything they try to do, if we reach the theoretical point that the players are not making ANY decisions that affect the game or story, then the game has ALREADY ended.


The basic principles of a roleplaying game involve the exercise of Player Agency. Rulebooks are mostly just "Here are decisions the Players can make". Yes, the DM can block our counter or negate any given decision, but that goes against the basic principle of the game.


Imagine a restaurant with one of those "We refer the right to refuse service to anybody" signs.

You can sit down, and anything you pick on the menu, the Restaurant has the right to say "No, we will not serve that to you". They can, theoretically, refuse to serve you any food, or refuse to serve you anything but one specific menu item. This is true of basically every restaurant.

Would you say that the Customer has No Agency in what they eat, simply because the Restuarant must agree to let their choice matter?

If I walk into a restaurant and order a cheeseburger, and they cook and bring me a cheeseburger because I ordered it what does that mean? Does the fact that they can theoretically refuse to serve me that cheeseburger mean that I didn't really choose a cheeseburger?

[Cheesegear]

You most definitely did not. Your dialogue does not even include explanation of what characters are or that the dungeon master's authority is rooted in their role as a referee. No wonder the other person doesn't get why anyone would play the game.

Well. No. It wasn't a conversation I had with a new player. I think it was second session, or third maybe? She knew mostly what D&D was by that point. She was getting mad that 'I seemed to be able to make stuff up as I go along', which of course is 100% true. That's exactly what I do (or maybe I don't ). But, when does she get to decide what happens to herself? How come I get to decide everything that happens?

She is sort of in control of herself, she can go anywhere she wants, and do anything she wants - within reason and within the rules (the fact that the I could just make up DCs [in D&D] to prevent her from doing things blew her mind. 'Well now I know that, why don't you just make everything 25s.' ...Uhh...Not really how that's supposed to work. I could. But you just have to trust that I wont do that). The DM is in charge of everything else. The player doesn't get to really choose anything, at least in regards to what's where when they get there, and she definitely doesn't get to choose how the world reacts when she does something.

'You can't choose what happens, you can only choose how you react.' - some quote from somebody.

That doesn't seem fair. It's almost like all of the power is in the hands of the DM. Huh. Weird, that.

[PhoenixPhyre]

For me there's a big difference between

1. You can choose where you go, but no matter where you go you get the same thing (maybe with palette swaps), so there's no choice.
2. You can choose where you go and each place is different (in ways that have at least some relationship to the choices), but the ultimate choice of what is there/what happens isn't in your control.

#1 denies agency entirely. Two choices that have the same outcome are the same choice from an agency perspective.
#2 accepts that you don't have complete control, but does let you get different experiences by different choices.

And there is, of course, a spectrum between the two.

Also of note: #1 describes most "procedurally generated" content. The less influence your choices have on how things turn out or what you encounter, the less agency you have. Whether the content is being provided by a dice roll against a table, a third party (ie module designer) or the DM sitting in front of you, it's the disconnect between choice and consequence that diminishes agency. And DM-provided material can absolutely prove connections between choice and consequence, thus affirming agency.

So "the DM has the final say" can be true and "Players have no agency" can be false simultaneously--one does not imply the other.

[Cheesegear]

1. You can choose where you go, but no matter where you go you get the same thing (maybe with palette swaps), so there's no choice.

Anywhere you go, you have to go somewhere first. You can't be in five places at once, so you can only encounter what the DM lets you, in the order than the DM chooses. If you're walking around blindly your agency doesn't really mean anything. But also it does, because you're choosing to walk around blindly. More on that later.

You can choose where you go and each place is different

But this only matters - agency-wise - if you have foreknowledge of each place, and you choose which one you want to encounter.

Here's a spectrum:
Three closed doors; Without any information, opening any single door is more or less meaningless. The players have no way of knowing which door is the most important, they have no way of knowing what's behind each door. So just open one, and the DM will tell you want happens. You could face an Ogre, nothing, or a Minotaur Skeleton. But it's more or less the DM's choice what you face. At this stage, the DM can effectively do anything they want - maybe that entropy dragon?

You use some kind of Divination, and see beyond one of the doors. It contains an Ogre. The Divination magic runs out. What's behind the other two? More Ogres? Who knows? We still wont know unless we open them. What we do know, is that that one contains an Ogre. Yes, there's an Ogre. But technically the DM can still change their mind about what's behind the other two. As I said, the other doors might contain more Ogres... You see a Quantum Ogre fighting an Entropy Dragon?

You blow a bunch of spells and bore a hole through the wall. We know one room contains nothing but an empty hallway (obviously definitely not trapped), another contains a pile of bison bones that could come alive any second, and the last contains an Ogre. We now know what's behind all three doors and we can choose to open one of them...Or more than one in a specific order. Or y'know. Just walk away.

Agency, in a very real way, in contingent on knowledge. Which the DM doesn't really have to give. Then again, making choices based on no knowledge at all (Just kick in the door and stop crying about it) is still agency...Just not very good agency. But you also have the choice to long rest outside the doors and see what happens. Who knows? You can do anything you want, regardless of the amount of information you have, really.

The less knowledge the players have, the more power the DM has.
...Huh.
There might be something to that. Will think on it.

[Easy e]

"Actually, DM, that's dumb, we don't want that to happen"
*DM Does it anyway*
"You're clearly not interested in the same type of game we are, we are going to leave"

And the whole point is moot.

Yes! As I have said, the only power a player has is not to play the game in the first place. Once they decide to play the game, and continue with the game they will be playing in a world where all power comes from what the GM allows you to do. When they are not playing the game, the GM obviously has no power over them as the rules of the game do not apply to the non-game world.

With Rule 0 (Thanks Vahnavoi, I was mistakenly referring to it as Rule 1), the GM sets up everything. The question is, how comfortable is a player with that? It appears some in this thread like to resist the idea that Rule 0 is a thing, and as Vahnavoi points out; whole games have been built trying to minimize or remove the GMs rule 0 powers.

D&D and the vast majority of RPGs are NOT those games, and RPGs that use Rule 0 require GM fiat to function. In a system with Rule 0 as a big component, the only player agency is that which the GM allows. Why they allow it is irrelevant. This is not a bug, it is a feature.

(There Vahnovai, you beat me. I agree with you and hence had to modify my argument somewhat to encompass only RPGs that function on Rule 0. Everyone I have played uses it, but I am sure in the universe of RPGs there are ones that do not. Enjoy the victory, it is well earned. )

So, to get back to the point of this thread.

Is Railroading that bad? No, it is a tool that can be used. Like all tools it can be overused or poorly used. It is not inherently good or bad. It simply is. There are a lot of judgements around said tool, but ultimately it is just a tool. Use it as and when needed, and keep it in the box when it is not needed.

At the end of the day, we are all just playing a overly complex version of make believe anyway.

[BRC]

D&D and the vast majority of RPGs are NOT those games, and RPGs that use Rule 0 require GM fiat to function. In a system with Rule 0 as a big component, the only player agency is that which the GM allows. Why they allow it is irrelevant. This is not a bug, it is a feature. :

True, but I would argue this doesn't mean that player agency is an illusion.

Going back to the restaurant metaphor, I can only order what the restuarant wants to make me, but that doesn't mean I don't have agency.

Anywhere you go, you have to go somewhere first. You can't be in five places at once, so you can only encounter what the DM lets you, in the order than the DM chooses. If you're walking around blindly your agency doesn't really mean anything. But also it does, because you're choosing to walk around blindly. More on that later.



But this only matters - agency-wise - if you have foreknowledge of each place, and you choose which one you want to encounter.

Here's a spectrum:
Three closed doors; Without any information, opening any single door is more or less meaningless. The players have no way of knowing which door is the most important, they have no way of knowing what's behind each door. So just open one, and the DM will tell you want happens. You could face an Ogre, nothing, or a Minotaur Skeleton. But it's more or less the DM's choice what you face. At this stage, the DM can effectively do anything they want - maybe that entropy dragon?

You use some kind of Divination, and see beyond one of the doors. It contains an Ogre. The Divination magic runs out. What's behind the other two? More Ogres? Who knows? We still wont know unless we open them. What we do know, is that that one contains an Ogre. Yes, there's an Ogre. But technically the DM can still change their mind about what's behind the other two. As I said, the other doors might contain more Ogres... You see a Quantum Ogre fighting an Entropy Dragon?

You blow a bunch of spells and bore a hole through the wall. We know one room contains nothing but an empty hallway (obviously definitely not trapped), another contains a pile of bison bones that could come alive any second, and the last contains an Ogre. We now know what's behind all three doors and we can choose to open one of them...Or more than one in a specific order. Or y'know. Just walk away.

Agency, in a very real way, in contingent on knowledge. Which the DM doesn't really have to give. Then again, making choices based on no knowledge at all (Just kick in the door and stop crying about it) is still agency...Just not very good agency. But you also have the choice to long rest outside the doors and see what happens. Who knows? You can do anything you want, regardless of the amount of information you have, really.

The less knowledge the players have, the more power the DM has.
...Huh.
There might be something to that. Will think on it.

So, there is an interesting point here, which is What Agency Means.

I think about it in three ways, an event can reflect agency in a Positive, Neutral, or Negative manner.

Scenario: There are three doors. A, B, and C.
The PC's are told that Door A contains The Captured Princess.

Door B contains The Sword of Power

Door C is unknown.

They can also hear the distinctive sound of an Ogre through Door A. They expect some sort of enemy behind the other doors, but don't know exactly what.

Positive Agency means that the decisions the players make affect what happens in the game. If they open Door A and find The Princess and an Ogre, that's Positive Agency. It's also positive agency if they open Door B and find six skeletons and the Sword of Power.

If they open Door C and find literally anything that ISN'T The Captured Princess or The Sword of Power, that's positive agency as well.

Neutral Agency means that something happens that is completely unrelated to a decision the PC's made. If they open Door B and find An Ogre and the Sword of Power, then the ogre being there is Neutral Agency. They picked an unknown door, and found an Ogre, and it was perfectly reasonable that an Ogre might be behind that door. Sure, they chose not to pick the door with the Guaranteed Ogre behind it, but it's not countering their agency to find an Ogre behind Door B.

Negative Agency means the players made a decision, but that decision was specifically negated.

The PC's decide "We want the Sword of Power", and open Door B, only to find that Door B, despite their prior knowledge, is just a side tunnel that connects back up to the prison behind Door A. They ordered Coke and got Pepsi.

It's also negative agency if they use divination to detect all Ogres, see no Ogres behind Door C, decide "Well, we don't know what we'll find, but it certainly won't be an Ogre", and open Door C only to find an Ogre crouching behind a lead sheet. Or if they open Door A and found twelve goblins with an "Ogre Noises" soundboard.

It's negative agency if they pick Door C, told that it will also have a reward and encounter, and find a broom closet, being sent back to "Choose A or B". That's less egregious, since they're at least walking into the door with their eyes open.


Hrmmm. Does the Player Agency equation change dramatically between the following three scenarios?

In all Scenarios, each door contains a unique reward (Captured princess, Sword of Power, Giant pile of Gold), and an Ogre

1) The players know about the Reward, but not the Monster behind each door.

2) The players know the rewards, and that Door A has an Ogre, but don't know about the other two Ogres.

3) The Players know that each door has it's Reward, and an Ogre.


Edit:


I brought up Neutral Agency as a way to say "You don't need to give the players perfect information about the consequences of every possible decision ahead of time". But, a game run with nothing but Neutral agency still feels like being Railroaded. You don't have the slap in the face of your choices getting blocked or countermanded by the GM, but you're still not able to make meaningful decisions.

[kyoryu]

At this point, the convo seems to be:

Side A: "I know what I do and don't like. Please don't give me what I don't like, and be honest about what you're doing. I'm not even saying you're wrong, just please let me choose what I do and don't want."
Side B: "No. I'll give you whatever I want to give you. I know what you want more than you do."

True, but I would argue this doesn't mean that player agency is an illusion.

Going back to the restaurant metaphor, I can only order what the restuarant wants to make me, but that doesn't mean I don't have agency.

To expand on it, the restaurant can deny service. They can ignore your order and bring you whatever. There is nothing "forcing" them to do anything.

Does that mean that ordering food at a restaurant is an illusion?

[Easy e]

Imagine a restaurant with one of those "We refer the right to refuse service to anybody" signs.

You can sit down, and anything you pick on the menu, the Restaurant has the right to say "No, we will not serve that to you". They can, theoretically, refuse to serve you any food, or refuse to serve you anything but one specific menu item. This is true of basically every restaurant.

Would you say that the Customer has No Agency in what they eat, simply because the Restuarant must agree to let their choice matter?

If I walk into a restaurant and order a cheeseburger, and they cook and bring me a cheeseburger because I ordered it what does that mean? Does the fact that they can theoretically refuse to serve me that cheeseburger mean that I didn't really choose a cheeseburger?

and.....

To expand on it, the restaurant can deny service. They can ignore your order and bring you whatever. There is nothing "forcing" them to do anything.

Does that mean that ordering food at a restaurant is an illusion?

No, you order real food.

However, you only have the illusion of choice, because you do not have limitless agency.

Most restaurants give you a limited menu to avoid the paradox of choice. The more and different options they give you the less likely you are to actually order something. Therefore, they limit the menu for your benefit, and to ensure you order something. You have the illusion of choice, but your actual agency is very limited.... just like our RPGs.

The restaurant has all ready told you what you will be ordering when you sit down and pick up the menu, based on what is on it. Your agency is limited and they control what you can have, your only other option is not to order at all. You have been railroaded as the choices you make are constrained by hidden rails of logistics, supply, profit motives, and other factors beyond your control.

[QUOTE=kyoryu;25426964]At this point, the convo seems to be:

Side A: "I know what I do and don't like. Please don't give me what I don't like, and be honest about what you're doing. I'm not even saying you're wrong, just please let me choose what I do and don't want."
Side B: "No. I'll give you whatever I want to give you. I know what you want more than you do."/QUOTE]

LOL.

Side B: You will eat your vegetables, and you will like them!

In practice, all Side A and Side B do is play the game. I bet if we played at each others tables, we would have a ton of fun! This is all just friction with a high noise to signal ration because this is the internet, the place to argue consequence free!

If you played at my table, you would be building the plot arcs because I am really too lazy to do it myself. However, is it agency if I let you decide who the NPC is, why they matter to you, and then tell me the McGuffin/goal and why you want it? You told me all the relevant information.

Does that mean you have ultimate player agency? Your choices built the entire adventure you are playing, yet you are still trapped within the limits the GM places on you and the adventure. Some have more limits than others, but ultimately the GM sets the bounds or reality and thereby sets what is on your menu.

You beat the bad guy..... but did you? You have the McGuffin.. but is it? You reconciled with your father..... but did you? The GM can turn it all around by saying, "Tell me why you and your father have drifted apart again?" And now all those gains you worked for, the GM has taken away, but I am asking you to choose why it happened.

Despite constructing the entire world, the GM still has the power to make anything happen with a sentence. Did I just railroad you by asking that question? Yes I did, you had made the choice that you and your father would have reconciled! Is it bad? Maybe? Do you have agency? Who has the power?

There is no spoon in an RPG!

[OldTrees1]

D&D and the vast majority of RPGs are NOT those games, and RPGs that use Rule 0 require GM fiat to function. In a system with Rule 0 as a big component, the only player agency is that which the GM allows. Why they allow it is irrelevant. This is not a bug, it is a feature.

True, but I would argue this doesn't mean that player agency is an illusion.

Going back to the restaurant metaphor, I can only order what the restaurant wants to make me, but that doesn't mean I don't have agency.

To expand on it, the restaurant can deny service. They can ignore your order and bring you whatever. There is nothing "forcing" them to do anything.

Does that mean that ordering food at a restaurant is an illusion?

Hold up, Easy e's point still holds. I don't know where they want to go after that point, but the point holds.

First, despite the GM acting first (offering the choice), they also act last (decide if the choice happens). This means they have full discretion to change their mind. This applies to rational actors and irrational actors.

In game theory there is a concept of "precommitment".

Precommitment is a technique where you intentionally limit the future options available to you, to ensure your commitment to some course of action. Generally, precommitment involves eliminating options that you want to avoid, making those options more difficult to choose, or by associating negative consequences with those options. source

The GM can use precommitment to penalize changing their mind. However most of the precommitment is relatively toothless AND the GM can choose to be irrational to ignore what little teeth remain.

This means player agency is never 100% guaranteed to exist as advertised. The GM retains the power to change their mind.

However if we don't require 100%, or if we assume the GM will be rational, then there is a lot the GM can do to grant Player Agency.
1) A lot of player agency is granted by trusting the GM's credible assertion that the player will have the agency. Most of the agency GMs grant is agency they are okay with the Players acting upon. The GM has no incentive to change their mind.
2) In other cases merely offering a choice is a precommitment. A GM might prefer option A over option B but prefers option B over granting the choice and then enforcing A. ("A" > "B" but "B->B" > "B->A"). Thus while the GM does not prefer option B, they can precommit to the agency by changing the GM's option from "A vs B" to "A vs B given the player chose B".

This does not mean the GM can't revoke the granted agency. It just means the GM can make it irrational for them to revoke the granted agency.

What was your next point Easy E?