Maybe it's "Authored" vs. "Emergent"

[Cheesegear]

It's actually very general game structure, for example a classic scout contest track follows the same rules: each activity point is marked on a map

The thing that still gets me, is that there is a very, very big difference between a map with fog of war, and a map with all locations on it.

In Fallout 1, for example, the map is entirely black. Locations show up as people tell you to go to them, and there is a fairly obvious trail you are supposed to follow. Given that the entirety of the map is black, and the only things you can see, are the locations you're 'supposed to' go to, that's where you go. Now, if you've played Fallout at least once, the game is not as linear as it first appears. You can make a beeline into the black parts of the map if you know where you're going. But, no player is really organically going to do that - not on their first playthrough. Sure, maybe some did. But not a lot.
1 & 2 effectively say 'You can go anywhere you want. There's nothing stopping you, from going into the black... You wont go, though.'

Similarly, in most TTRPGs, you only get to play an adventure once. They may be other solutions, but you're never going to know that, because it's not like the DM is ever going to go backwards and redo scenarios they've already done. You get one shot to go where you want to go.

In 3 and New Vegas, overland travel is very different. As an FPS, the game has a skybox and draw distance. The player can see certain landmarks, and can say 'I want to go to there.', and then...Go. But they are given those prompts; 'Look at this in the distance.' and a thing is shown to you. And something in your brain changes when you have a destination to go to. You make a choice to go somewhere you've already seen. A big part of the decision tree (e.g; Uncertainty of the unknown) is removed.

This is why I am so against maps. It's not so much that my players are limited in what they can do. They can go anywhere they want. It's an RPG. Do anything you want. You can go off 'into the black' immediately if you want...The whole map is black.

Maps limit the DM. The players can have their emergent gameplay when they reach a destination, sure. But this is why I'm such a strong advocate of the Quantum Ogre; If I don't fix things into the world, I can change it as long as the players haven't seen it, yet. I - the DM - get to have my emergent...World building. I can have authored world building...But what if I want to change it when the players do something...Weird. What happens when the players inspire me (shock), and I decide that the idea I had was actually dumb and I want to change it...But I actually wrote the location down on the map and I've already told the players what's there. And now when the players get there I have to play out the idea that I now think is stupid, because that's what I told them, is there.

There is a difference between a known sandbox, and an unknown sandbox. Not just for the players, but for the DM, too.

[Vahnavoi]

You're talking of perfect information versus imperfect information games. Preferring imperfect information games is a very feeble reason to be against maps, because it's trivial to hide parts of the map. Opposing maps on the basis that your own maps limit you... oh please. Avoiding putting down what you've already decided on the basis that you might change your mind, is a good way to end up in a situation where you don't even remember what you did decide and are left with less to work with.

Similarly, in most TTRPGs, you only get to play an adventure once. They may be other solutions, but you're never going to know that, because it's not like the DM is ever going to go backwards and redo scenarios they've already done. You get one shot to go where you want to go.

Sure, a lot of game masters never run replays. They are doing a disservice to both themselves and their players, because this practice prevents them from noticing various qualities their games actually have, especially emergent ones.

You can play a hundred games of Chess, or a hundred games of Go, all starting from the same position, and that doesn't exhaust those games. Not even close. It really isn't hard to design a roleplaying scenario where, even if always starting from the same situation with the same set of characters, the same holds true. And I'll remind you that Chess and Go are perfect information games where you know positions and legal moves of every game piece.

[Cheesegear]

Opposing maps on the basis that your own maps limit you... oh please. Avoiding putting down what you've already decided on the basis that you might change your mind, is a good way to end up in a situation where you don't even remember what you did decide and are left with less to work with.

Not really what I meant.

I've seen several times that when DMs homebrew, they show up with a map, several locations drawn, full backstories and histories written up, names of NPCs, random encounters that can happen in certain locations and the whole thing is...Filled. Very little can change on a pre-filled map, and even less can change once you've shown that map and explained everything to your players. If the players say that they want to go somewhere, you kind of have to let them go there, unless you're going to do some bull*...I'll come back to that.

I, on the other hand, start my games with a blank sheet of paper, that gets filled in as I go along, as the players ask - I've mentioned this process. Once something is placed, it's done. I can't undo that. But until such time as my players ask about it, until such time as my players go there, I don't have to put anything at all in an empty hex. I may want to Quantum Ogre them into a situation I've thought up...Actually they had a rough combat just now...Maybe not this session. Even if they go there, they'll find the hex blank, the hex will be marked blank, and I can save the Quantum Ogre for later, because I haven't told the players about the Quantum Ogre yet, so it can still be anywhere I want it to be, when I need it...But I don't want the lake scenario right now, so the lake isn't there, and it will be in another hex, in another session.

A map absolutely does limit what you can do. In a sense, it's a railroad that you tell your players about; 'If you go here, you will find this. There's a more or less unspoken rule that if I tell you something is true, then it's true. If I straight up lie to you and say something is there, when it isn't, or the thing that is there, isn't what I said it is; There must be both a narrative and mechanical reason for why that change has been made - even if you don't necessarily get to find out what those reasons were.'

Which ties back to Easy e's point; If you don't tell the players what's there in advance, the DM can put anything they want, there. Hence a DM gets freedom to do what they want, by not giving players information. By not giving the players information, the DM gets to have their own emergent gameplay - not the players - or, the DM can Quantum Ogre the players into authored content. That's up to the DM - because of course it is.

[Thrudd]

The thing that still gets me, is that there is a very, very big difference between a map with fog of war, and a map with all locations on it.

In Fallout 1, for example, the map is entirely black. Locations show up as people tell you to go to them, and there is a fairly obvious trail you are supposed to follow. Given that the entirety of the map is black, and the only things you can see, are the locations you're 'supposed to' go to, that's where you go. Now, if you've played Fallout at least once, the game is not as linear as it first appears. You can make a beeline into the black parts of the map if you know where you're going. But, no player is really organically going to do that - not on their first playthrough. Sure, maybe some did. But not a lot.
1 & 2 effectively say 'You can go anywhere you want. There's nothing stopping you, from going into the black... You wont go, though.'

Similarly, in most TTRPGs, you only get to play an adventure once. They may be other solutions, but you're never going to know that, because it's not like the DM is ever going to go backwards and redo scenarios they've already done. You get one shot to go where you want to go.

In 3 and New Vegas, overland travel is very different. As an FPS, the game has a skybox and draw distance. The player can see certain landmarks, and can say 'I want to go to there.', and then...Go. But they are given those prompts; 'Look at this in the distance.' and a thing is shown to you. And something in your brain changes when you have a destination to go to. You make a choice to go somewhere you've already seen. A big part of the decision tree (e.g; Uncertainty of the unknown) is removed.

This is why I am so against maps. It's not so much that my players are limited in what they can do. They can go anywhere they want. It's an RPG. Do anything you want. You can go off 'into the black' immediately if you want...The whole map is black.

Maps limit the DM. The players can have their emergent gameplay when they reach a destination, sure. But this is why I'm such a strong advocate of the Quantum Ogre; If I don't fix things into the world, I can change it as long as the players haven't seen it, yet. I - the DM - get to have my emergent...World building. I can have authored world building...But what if I want to change it when the players do something...Weird. What happens when the players inspire me (shock), and I decide that the idea I had was actually dumb and I want to change it...But I actually wrote the location down on the map and I've already told the players what's there. And now when the players get there I have to play out the idea that I now think is stupid, because that's what I told them, is there.

There is a difference between a known sandbox, and an unknown sandbox. Not just for the players, but for the DM, too.

I mean, you can draw the map and change it later, so long as you didn't show the players the full map. But yes, it's perfectly common, I think, to not draw the entire world all at once and not fill in too many details right away. If you don't want them to know something yet, you don't tell them about it...of course. That is not "quantum ogre" as most people mean it. Quantum Ogre means there is a particular encounter you've designed and no matter where they go or what they try to do, the thing you planned happens to be there. If you come up with the encounter in the moment, it makes sense according to where they are or what they're doing, then it wasn't a "quantum ogre". It may seem like a small distinction, but I think it's important. It's the intent behind the content you choose and the agreed upon parameters for the game overall, not just the fact that you choose the content, that determines if it's a "robbing player agency" situation. If the players did not expect to have that agency, then you didn't take it away from them - they never had it. So it isn't a "bad". If the players think what they do makes a difference but it really doesn't (because you let them believe that), that's the "bad". If you tell them they get to explore anywhere they want and choose any quest they want, but no matter what they say they want to do, you drop your own pre-planned world-ender plot on them anyways - that's the "railroad".
If you tell them there will be a broadly defined mission they need to pursue, but they can approach it however they want...it isn't taking away agency so long as you actually allow them to approach it however they want. They know ahead of time what the limits of the game will be. Not "bad".

I don't think it's very common for players to have complete and universal knowledge of the game world, unless you're playing a game set in the real, contemporary world, or using a published setting that everyone is extremely familiar with. I'm not sure if anyone does a "known" sandbox for the players - that seems very odd to me - usually one of the gameplay goals of a sandbox is exploration and discovery. People talking about running sandboxes are not talking about handing the players a completely filled-in map with a bunch of locations and never improvising or changing anything. To the players, almost everything is usually "dark", and they are responsible for creating their own map to keep track of what they have explored. Whether the DM details everything in advance or improvises it on the spot is opaque to the players - it's all in the presentation and implementation of your creation, not the timing of it. If you can make it seem like everything fits coherently when you present it to the players, you could even get away with rolling on tables to generate exploration content.

I agree, it is fun for me, as a DM, to discover what will happen, which is why I like to use a lot of RNG to decide what happens, and improvise a lot, as well. I just have an idea of what sorts of things might exist in different parts of my world, I like to have a map of the terrain and locations of some settlements and important places, and a few level appropriate dungeons mapped and stocked that the players can learn about. So, the players can potentially see a map of sections of the "overworld" with general terrain and known settlements, and maybe the location of one specific target, if they procure one somewhere in-character. It won't show them where monster lairs might be, where hidden or lost locations are, there's always wandering monsters/random encounters that no one can predict. The random encounters can prompt the creation of a whole new "plot line" or a major location to explore. I don't think any of that can be described as "quantum ogre" or "railroad", and if a player accused me of that, I'd happily explain how I'm doing things to assuage their concerns.

[Tanarii]

A map absolutely does limit what you can do. In a sense, it's a railroad that you tell your players about; 'If you go here, you will find this.

That is not a railroad. The players have agency to to decide where their PCs go, and can even research information in advance or scout it, because the GM knows what is there in advance before the decision is even made. The GM doesn't negate player agency in any way, so very clearly not a railroad.

Railoading is about a DM negating player agency, and player agency is about players decision making for what their PCs will attempt to do.

[Satinavian]

Maps limit the DM. The players can have their emergent gameplay when they reach a destination, sure. But this is why I'm such a strong advocate of the Quantum Ogre; If I don't fix things into the world, I can change it as long as the players haven't seen it, yet. I - the DM - get to have my emergent...World building. I can have authored world building...But what if I want to change it when the players do something...Weird. What happens when the players inspire me (shock), and I decide that the idea I had was actually dumb and I want to change it...But I actually wrote the location down on the map and I've already told the players what's there. And now when the players get there I have to play out the idea that I now think is stupid, because that's what I told them, is there.

There is a difference between a known sandbox, and an unknown sandbox. Not just for the players, but for the DM, too.

That might be true. Not revealing stuff allows you to make it up whenever you want.

However that does limit your players. Because they simply have far less of your gameworld to interact with, literally limiting what they can do. Furthermore, the world does look more bland and uninteresting because most of it just doesn't exist yet. Last but not least, not really knowing the gameworld means the players can't really make PCs grounded an engaged in that world leading to more bland PCs.

So there is a tradeoff. And many people don't think the GMs ability to wing it whenever is worth the cost. That is one reason why official settings are so common in use.

I'm not sure if anyone does a "known" sandbox for the players - that seems very odd to me - usually one of the gameplay goals of a sandbox is exploration and discovery. People talking about running sandboxes are not talking about handing the players a completely filled-in map with a bunch of locations and never improvising or changing anything. To the players, almost everything is usually "dark", and they are responsible for creating their own map to keep track of what they have explored. Whether the DM details everything in advance or improvises it on the spot is opaque to the players - it's all in the presentation and implementation of your creation, not the timing of it.

While the exploration hexcrawl has a really long tradition, "known" sandboxes do exist and are even quite common. It is kinda the more typical form for games based on politics and power struggles, for example if the group represents a patrician house in a big city or a warlord and compüanions during some nasty multi-faction civil war.
To be a competent actr in the field of politics and power you need to know the other faction and their relations, the geography, the general situation etc. Sure, there are alsay secrets or incomplet/wrong information, but that is always the minority.

[NichG]

Authored vs emergent isn't the same as the question of agency. For one thing, agency requires informed decisions - it's when consequences align with intent. You could have emergence in a zero-information game where every decision is made completely blind.

[Quertus]

I had a DM basically let each player define the entire universe their character came from and how that universe ended...

Sounds interesting. Got a link to the story on this one?

Having followed this discussion I like the terms authored and emergent but I would like to propose a third term to be used in conjunction with those two.

Divergent: An authored game where player choices have the ability to change any part of the pre-written story.

When I dm I know at a super macro and macro level what the story is going to be. When the campaign starts. I know at the start of a session what the story is going to be at a micro level as well, but having the story pre written doesn't prevent player choices from changing it at any level. The players often diverge from the authored narrative at the micro level and given the right choices could easily derail the story at a macro and super macro level. At which point the rest of the session will be improv and the story is re-authored at a macro and super macro level in response.

90% of the time they follow along with the authored content but that doesn't prevent them from diverging from it at any level.

So I purpose authored, emergent and divergent.

Spoiler: example

Show

As an example to divergent in the campaign I am currently running, if the players follow the authored content they will reach a point where the "villains" of the story try to present their case to recruit the players. The villains have been their enemies for a while now and the most likely case is that the players will reflect their proposal and fight to restore the imperial family to the throne after the way concludes. However, should they choose to accept the proposal I will reauthor the major points of the campaign based on an alternate direction where they fight to overthrow the imperial family and the end state of the setting is entirely different as a result. They could also choose to join niether side and go to an adjacent country at which point I would reauthor the entire story going forward to present them with a list of challenges and an interesting narrative in the new country. It is most definitely authored but the players can diverge from the authored content at any point

That's basically what I was getting at with my rambling. The story is authored (at some selection of levels), but that authorship can be thrown away and rebuilt at any point due to facts on the ground (ie the actions of the party and their consequences). So instead of being authored (ie set in stone), it's projected. There's a strong "if they follow the line I think they will", with allowance for limited variation within that while still staying "on the predicted path." Whether they slaughter every person in <group A> or merely cause them all to flee may matter in the short term (one to two session) but will only matter for the large scale under certain specific circumstances. But in those specific circumstances (which may be as frequent as you and the table desire), that difference in action can radically change the upcoming sessions out to asymptotic time.

Divergence (and convergence) is undoubtedly a real quality - if you know what a game (or decision) tree is and know what branching is, even a partial map of a game's movespace will make the matter self-evident- but using it alongside authored and emergent doesn't add all that much information. The simple reason is that divergent (and convergent) branching can be either authored or emergent and a player of an imperfect information game has no reliable way to tell which is the case while playing a game. Only the game designer can reliably make that distinction.

Shrug. "Divergent" is... the way I prefer to play, where I know what would happen if the PCs didn't interfere (and what happened when 1 or more sample parties did get involved) in the timeline. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with "Authored" vs "Emergent", but... in "Divergent", my hope is that the PCs will change things; I've seen many Railroad GMs desperately attempt to force the plot to Converge back into the story that they want to tell.

I think "Divergent" is just another sub-type of "Emergent", at least the way I run it.

OK, well assuming a hard line between the two*, so let's focus in on just the path.

Linear Path: All events are arranged in a single fixed sequence.
Sandbox Path: All events are available to experience in any order.

At these extremes I'm not sure either formula sounds pretty fun, with a lack of choices in the linear path and a lack of consequences in the sandbox. Maybe that gets fixed at the scene and sub-scene level while the inter-scene graph remains unchanged. Or maybe people decide to mix it up a bit.

New Linear Path: All events are arranged in order, but there are chains of alternate events that travel in sequence before rejoining.
New Sandbox Path: Events are arranged in many short linear chains, the chains are available in any order.

And then I can start coming up with more ways to hybridize these structures. (And that isn't even including a tree path, which is kind of like the linear path except it breaks off part way through.) I can make the chains in the sandbox longer, introduce side chains on the linear adventure that can be skipped or done later, or even have one primary chain of events in the sandbox with a bunch of little side chains off to the side that actually have most of the content in the game.

So in a giant flow chart a choice and a progression are fundamentally different structures, but over the entire campaign saying all games boil down to one of those two seems overly simplified.

* A bold assumption, but I think it is good enough for what I want to say here.

This seems like just another variable, about how much one's actions affect future scenes, rather than the pathing of said scenes. Although very important to my enjoyment of the game, I'm not sure that they impact whether a game is Emergent vs Authored - I think they're independent variables.

[Vahnavoi]

I've seen several times that when DMs homebrew, they show up with a map, several locations drawn, full backstories and histories written up, names of NPCs, random encounters that can happen in certain locations and the whole thing is...Filled. Very little can change on a pre-filled map, and even less can change once you've shown that map and explained everything to your players. If the players say that they want to go somewhere, you kind of have to let them go there, unless you're going to do some bull*...I'll come back to that.

And? The point of all that prep work, when done is properly, is to reduce cognitive workload during actual play. The game master doesn't actually lose ability to change any unrevealed detail. A game master is not meaningfully limited by records of their own past decisions.

As for players being able to go somewhere they see in on a map... this is called "giving players information" and them being able to act on that information is the desired quality and reason why a game master would give them a map in the first place. -_-

I, on the other hand, start my games with a blank sheet of paper, that gets filled in as I go along, as the players ask - I've mentioned this process. Once something is placed, it's done. I can't undo that. But until such time as my players ask about it, until such time as my players go there, I don't have to put anything at all in an empty hex. I may want to Quantum Ogre them into a situation I've thought up...Actually they had a rough combat just now...Maybe not this session. Even if they go there, they'll find the hex blank, the hex will be marked blank, and I can save the Quantum Ogre for later, because I haven't told the players about the Quantum Ogre yet, so it can still be anywhere I want it to be, when I need it...But I don't want the lake scenario right now, so the lake isn't there, and it will be in another hex, in another session.

I have nothing against imperfect information games where the map is generated as players progress, I play games with such rules all the time. However, the way you tie this very common map mechanic to "quantum ogre" and treat that as a positive shows you didn't understand the original article establishing the term. Not that the original article was much good and "quantum ogre" is bad term that everyone would be better off abandoning.

But hey, since you insist on using that term: what "quantum ogre" means is that a game master is using imperfect information as cover to hide the fact that player choices are false. An event is unavoidable just because a game master desired so.

Meanwhile, game masters who actually understand how maps work, fill their maps with things they want to happen, set up so that the map itself implies acceptable sequences of events. Again, a game master is not meaningfully limited by records of their own past decisions

A map absolutely does limit what you can do. In a sense, it's a railroad that you tell your players about; 'If you go here, you will find this. There's a more or less unspoken rule that if I tell you something is true, then it's true. If I straight up lie to you and say something is there, when it isn't, or the thing that is there, isn't what I said it is; There must be both a narrative and mechanical reason for why that change has been made - even if you don't necessarily get to find out what those reasons were.'

And now you show you don't understand what a "railroad" means. A railroad forces a specific path and specific outcome. Maps do not inherently do either. They have to be designed to railroad, to be railroads. Most maps achieve the exact opposite: by giving players more information, they allow players to plan more steps ahead and choose a route that fits their own objectives, rather than simply following path of least resistance based on immediate situation.

As for unreliable maps, those are trivial to implement. A game can just have a spoken rule that in-game maps are not perfectly trustworthy.

Which ties back to Easy e's point; If you don't tell the players what's there in advance, the DM can put anything they want, there. Hence a DM gets freedom to do what they want, by not giving players information. By not giving the players information, the DM gets to have their own emergent gameplay - not the players - or, the DM can Quantum Ogre the players into authored content. That's up to the DM - because of course it is.

Giving players more information does not actually prevent emergence - on either side of table. What usually changes is type of emergent gameplay. So the game design choice between giving players more versus less information is never straightforwardly "more information for players = more limits & less emergent gameplay for game master". And for the third time, a game master making records of their own decisions does not meaningfully limit them, so the idea that maps, notes and backgrounds a game master makes for themselves prevent emergence is outright wrong.

In short, your objection to maps mostly boils down to "I don't like to give information to my players because then they might realize how little precommitment I have to my own decisions". That's not a great reason to not give players maps, and it's not a great reason to use procedurally generated maps either.

[NichG]

Sounds interesting. Got a link to the story on this one?

There used to be a campaign wiki but the host went paid only and the content was lost aside from our own notes.

Briefly: cross-system massive gonzo game, play whomever you want from whatever you want. Everyone sees the end of their home setting universe, wakes up on a spit of rock at the end of time with the power to travel back to or even create anew any moment they can specify in exchange for a bit of XP (or equivalent). However, wherever or wherever they go, there's some kind of danger of eschaton - from speaking of the End summoning it to that time, to agents of the End interfering with things. Large scale campaign premise turns out to be something like, the characters are actually forces of primal fiction facing the fact that stories conclude, and can come to terms with that in various ways.

[Telok]

The thing that still gets me, is that there is a very, very big difference between a map with fog of war, and a map with all locations on it.

In Fallout 1, for example, the map is entirely black. Locations show up as people tell you to go to them, and there is a fairly obvious trail you are supposed to follow. Given that the entirety of the map is black, and the only things you can see, are the locations you're 'supposed to' go to, that's where you go. Now, if you've played Fallout at least once, the game is not as linear as it first appears. You can make a beeline into the black parts of the map if you know where you're going. But, no player is really organically going to do that - not on their first playthrough. Sure, maybe some did. But not a lot.
1 & 2 effectively say 'You can go anywhere you want. There's nothing stopping you, from going into the black... You wont go, though.'...

....In 3 and New Vegas, overland travel is very different. As an FPS, the game has a skybox and draw distance. The player can see certain landmarks, and can say 'I want to go to there.', and then...Go. But they are given those prompts; 'Look at this in the distance.' and a thing is shown to you. And something in your brain changes when you have a destination to go to....

I don't think its as cut and dried as you present it. In Fallout 1 you did uncover some additional map area as you traveled and there was a perk to expand that discovery radius. People like myself never took straight paths because I knew that there was more in the game than just the next scripted quest/fight, and we found those things. Then, once the initial quest time limit eased (by one or more of several options), I always just went exploring. Likewise when I first got TES Morrowind I didn't have a very powerful computer and had to crank my view distance down when outdoors. It was actually harder for me to explore in that game with that strict view limit than it had been in Fallout 1. Or you could go back to Fallout's predecessor, Wasteland, where the world map was already filled in except for one hidden end-game town. You could see and travel to Las Vegas at the very start (and get your butt kicked by death machines & landmines, dang scorpitron) without having to stumble across it during blind exploration.

Now that does fit your "some explore & some don't", but I'd call that player agency. The player can choose to do those things or they can choose to follow the script without thinking or talking to npcs they haven't been told to talk to. They have agency, the ability to do stuff outside the pre-planned script that affects the whole game (and for a hardcore playthrough, try killing literally everyone, not easy and forces exploration).

[Cheesegear]

I feel like at this point I need to start hyperlinking to every previous post.

Railoading is about a DM negating player agency, and player agency is about players decision making for what their PCs will attempt to do.

As I've repeatedly said, if you say that railroading is about player agency, then you immediately cloud their decisions by telling them what they they can do. Anything and everything the DM plans - and subsequently shows to the players - becomes a railroad. There become fixed points on a map; If you go here, you will encounter this. Fixed locations on a fixed map most certainly is a railroad.

'But that's just DMing.' Most people are okay with a map, because it's a map. Of course it's not a railroad, it's a sandbox.

...But you said that a railroad is about altering player agency. Which is exactly what a map does. That's why we keep going back to these asinine conversations.

If you want to say that a railroad is about pre-determined outcomes, no matter what the players do. That's...Something.

If you want to say that a railroad is about reducing and/or removing player agency...That's an entirely different framing, and includes so many things - including maps.

However that does limit your players. Because they simply have far less of your gameworld to interact with, literally limiting what they can do.

No map. If a players' choice makes no difference (to them), it doesn't have any meaning. While yes, they have agency, it doesn't mean anything. If it doesn't matter whether or not the players go north, south, east or west, then the decision (to them) is meaningless. Whether the DM is making it up, or has a map just to themselves behind the screen. The DM also has a lot of freedom to do whatever they want, too. 'Making it up as they go along', or 'Quantum Ogre' makes no difference to the players.

Map. Players have agency to choose which set of rails they want to be on. The 'linear sandbox'. Once you go on these tracks, we're going on these tracks. But you can choose to get on (or off) at any time...But those tracks, lead to there. Players are given ****tons of information, which allows them to make choices, which is good. However, observation changes the outcome. Now that the players have more-perfect information, they're going to make rational, 'smart' choices, rather than choices that allow them to fail. The players are likely to only take on scenarios and encounters they think they can win. Which means that the DM has to present them with only hard choices...But you've shown the players. If you present only hard choices to the players, they're going to know about that and become...Stuck. You've affected their decision tree, and altered their agency...

Which is the literal, dictionary definition of railroading, where you influence someone's behaviour (usually with negative connotations, obviously) to make them choose to make a choice they wouldn't have made if you'd done (or said) nothing at all. Not quite as bad as gaslighting. But hey, 'Better than gaslighting' isn't a high bar to clear.

Last but not least, not really knowing the gameworld means the players can't really make PCs grounded an engaged in that world leading to more bland PCs.

Didn't you write a backstory? You can make all kinds of connections.

And? The point of all that prep work, when done is properly, is to reduce cognitive workload during actual play.

As for players being able to go somewhere they see in on a map... this is called "giving players information" and them being able to act on that information is the desired quality and reason why a game master would give them a map in the first place.

Right. A map is part of DMing. We can all agree on that.

What we don't seem to agree on is how information changes player agency, and thus becomes a railroad by peoples' definitions of it. Because we all know railroading is bad, and we all know that influencing player agency is bad...But a map is a map, it's not that...Right. It's a map.

It's part of DMing. If it's just part of DMing, then we're not going to call it a 'fixed encounter in a fixed place that if they players make a choice they will interact with that encounter no matter what they else they do', because that makes it almost sound really close to that thing we don't like. No, no. Maps are DMing. Don't think about it.

But hey, since you insist on using that term: what "quantum ogre" means is that a game master is using imperfect information as cover to hide the fact that player choices are false. An event is unavoidable just because a game master desired so.

Then I am using the term correctly. That's what I do whenever I feel like it. No maps is a great source of non-information which means a land without maps can be seeded with Quantum Ogres. I know exactly what I'm saying. The trick is not to only fill your map with Quantum Ogres. The trick is to give your players information as they come across it (like Fallout 1/2), so that a map isn't entirely blank. You populate it as you need to, as the players...Do stuff.

But all through the middle, in all the black, is anything you want. Including Quantum Ogres.

And now you show you don't understand what a "railroad" means. A railroad forces a specific path and specific outcome. Maps do not inherently do either.

Yes they do. A fixed starting point, with pre-determined a terminus. A map creates...Well, a map. I've seen several maps of train lines in my life. If you just removed all the tracks on the map, the tracks would still be there, in the world. The fixed points and fixed locations would still be on the map, however. If you go in this direction, that's what's there. No questions. You can get there any way you want. But that's what's there.

Now of course, that's the description of a linear sandbox. But to me, I'm still conceptualising a linear sandbox as a centralised train station, because when I see a linear sandbox (such as Fallout 3), I immediately see a train station map (the fact that the subway also happens to be a major location in FO3 is just incidental).

Most maps achieve the exact opposite: by giving players more information, they allow players to plan more steps ahead and choose a route that fits their own objectives, rather than simply following path of least resistance based on immediate situation.

I guarantee that if I gave my players more, better, more-perfect information, they always choose the path of least resistance - nobody wants to fail, certainly nobody wants to die. I'm not sure why they haven't all built Stealth characters with super senses, which would enable them to skip encounters. Then again thinking about it for longer than not-at-all, my players want encounters, they just want the ones they can win. Derp.

Giving players more information does not actually prevent emergence - on either side of table.

Emergent gameplay. No, not really. Emergent decisions, it absolutely does.

And for the third time, a game master making records of their own decisions does not meaningfully limit them, so the idea that maps, notes and backgrounds a game master makes for themselves prevent emergence is outright wrong.

It doesn't prevent emergence; It limits and changes it.

Now again, if we want to say maps allow players to make better and/or safer decisions. That's true. Of course it does. Everyone wants to make good decisions.

If we want to frame the conversation around player agency, however. Then maps absolutely have the potential to negate player behaviour (dungeons are a great example), and they definitely alter player behaviour. However, if you're under the assumption that changing player behaviour is always bad, then you can't see it that way. You can only see it 'Well that's just DMing.' If players are only making certain decisions, or they're only making 'good' decisions, that's a railroad. At least in terms of how you - the DM - are influencing their behavior by giving them information before they even need it.

In short, your objection to maps mostly boils down to "I don't like to give information to my players because then they might realize how little precommitment I have to my own decisions."

**** me dead that's an assumption and a half.

I don't like giving my players information before they need it, because it influences my players' decisions, instead of them doing something they would normally do without said information that they shouldn't even have. I don't like maps because they change the way the game is played. Another upside to imperfect information is how I can see the ground with as many Quantum Ogre plants as I want.

The player can choose to do those things or they can choose to follow the script without thinking or talking to npcs they haven't been told to talk to. They have agency, the ability to do stuff outside the pre-planned script that affects the whole game (and for a hardcore playthrough, try killing literally everyone, not easy and forces exploration).

My point is about influencing player behaviour. Influencing player choices.

If a map is completely black, if there is no map, the player will just have to pick a direction and walk. Now, there's nothing particularly meaningful in which direction they walk since no direction makes a difference. But they are discovering things along the way and making decisions based only on the information they have. They know where they've been, they know what they've done. But they don't know where they're going. Should we take a left? Should we take a right? Who knows!? Just make a decision and let's walk.

If you want a magical sword you have to find it. Where would you like to start looking? Where do you think one might be? Let's play that out. This is hard emergent gameplay. The DM can only react to what the player does, and the player...Can do anything. Does the player think a Sword is buried in the mountains? The DM needs to start writing about mountains. Does the player think he can find a magical sword in a City? Time to get urban. Or, the DM can just Quantum Ogre the player into an encounter with a magical sword regardless of where the player goes...But the player is going to think the encounter is a result of their choices.

If a map has a few locations on it...With all the space in between blank. The players now have information. They know [x] is left, but they don't know what's right. If [x] is something they want, something they're interested in, then they have no reason to go right. Vice versa if [x] is something they don't want. Why the **** would we ever go left when we know what's waiting for us? The DM influences player behavior by showing them things they want - and don't want. And thus subtly - perhaps without even realising it - actually changes the players' decisions, usually without the players even knowing that they're doing it. After all, that's just DMing. That's just the way the game is played. That's not changing player agency. That's just like, the game, man.

But, inside all that black space? The stuff the players haven't been shown...Is a bunch of traps and lies. You've shown them the treasure chest at the end of the hallway. Now they have to make it through the hallway. The players have fallen for the DM's trap card. But they only fell for the trap because the DM put the chest at the end. If there was no chest at the end, would the players even want to go down the hallway in the first place? Of course not. Why would they? ...Again, but that's just the game, man. That's part of DMing. And it's not influencing player agency. Because that's the bad thing that no good DM would ever do.
(Even better, the players go down the hallway, avoiding and triggering a bunch of traps...And the chest is an illusion. That would just be...*thumbs up*.)

Magical Sword is in location. You have to go there, and scout it out and interact with whatever happens to be there, if you want that. If you don't want to take any risks, then there is no magical sword for you.

Then there's full, perfect maps with perfect information. You see the start. You see the destination. If you go to a location, you'll be fighting Goblins, because that's where the Goblin Camp is. I told you that's where it is. You know what's left, and you know what's right. Just make the decisions you want to make knowing all the risks in advance with very few surprises. Also note that it's very difficult for me - the DM - to actually change anything once I've told it you...But I told you at the start, when I gave you all the information. You actually know everything you need to know already.

Magical Sword is in location, however over time it was buried and on the top Goblins built a small village. These Goblins rose to a little bit of power and they have a Shaman, as well as wolves and a Worg or two. Oh well now you have the entire risk and reward...You want to know if I'll tell you about other risks and other rewards and you just want to choose whichever one is easiest for the highest reward? And you'll come back to the other ones if you feel like it after you've gained several levels and everything is way easier for the same reward? Yeah I thought you might say something like that.

[Tanarii]

As I've repeatedly said, if you say that railroading is about player agency, then you immediately cloud their decisions by telling them what they they can do. Anything and everything the DM plans - and subsequently shows to the players - becomes a railroad. There become fixed points on a map; If you go here, you will encounter this. Fixed locations on a fixed map most certainly is a railroad.

Okay, so we've solidly established at this point you just don't have any understanding of what player agency at all, which is why you don't understand what railroading actually is.

[Cheesegear]

Okay, so we've solidly established at this point you just don't have any understanding of what player agency at all, which is why you don't understand what railroading actually is.

I'm using your framing.
If you don't like the arguments against your own framing...Choose a different definition of what railroading is, and choose a different metric for what defines changing, altering, influencing and removing player agency actually means.

'That's removing player agency...But that isn't, that's just the game.' ...Oh, okay.

Before these threads, and this bizarre framing, I would've said that 'Railroading is when the DM says you can't do something, or something doesn't work, when you should be able to do something, or when it should work.' That would be my working definition of railroading. And that's clearly stupid because when a DM just says 'No.' red flags go up immediately and everyone freaks out.

When you frame railroading around 'altering or negating player agency'...Suddenly I have several problems. Because player agency is anything a player does - or doesn't - do. And there are several ways to mess with that, many of which are actually encouraged by the game design, and people don't freak out, because if it's part of the game.
But you can't admit to ****ing with player agency because everyone has apparently decided that ****ing with player agency, means railroading, and railroading is bad. Even though it's part of game design?

'That's not messing with player agency, that's the game. You're allowed to do that.'

At this point it's like...Messing with player agency is only bad when you think it's bad...Sometimes it's totally fine to mess with player agency, and sometimes it's not. Even though we framed the bad thing around messing with player agency being bad.

[Duff]

Interesting way to frame it, but there's still a middle ground somewhere, isn't there?
Maybe, "it's still a continuum, not an either/or choice" is a better way to get my thought across.

There most definitely is a continuum. And a game's position on that can vary over time and over scale.
One might have a mega dungeon where the story can be quite emergent, but some or even all the encounters are quite authored.

An authored encounter - "This room is haunted by 3 Wraiths. Once the whole party has entered the room, the wraiths will emerge from the floor and start to attack. Any wraith reduced below 30 hp will stop making direct attacks, instead, they will attempt to hide, then get close enough to make a surprise attack. If the PCs flee, the wraiths will not pursue.

Or a reasonable emergent encounter. "This is the entry to the goblin sector. The 4 goblins on guard will assess any intruder to work out how to respond. They may choose to fight, talk or flee and will use any tactics that seem appropriate. If a fight goes against them, 1 goblin will attempt to flee to warn others while any remaining goblins prepare to sell their lives dearly. They don't have the authority to make any promises for the tribe, but they can allow visitors past their gate if they accept the intruders aren't hostile."

[Hytheter]

As I've repeatedly said, if you say that railroading is about player agency, then you immediately cloud their decisions by telling them what they they can do. Anything and everything the DM plans - and subsequently shows to the players - becomes a railroad. There become fixed points on a map; If you go here, you will encounter this. Fixed locations on a fixed map most certainly is a railroad.

Is the menu at a restaurant a railroad?

...But you said that a railroad is about altering player agency. Which is exactly what a map does. That's why we keep going back to these asinine conversations.

Railroading is bad because it reduces or negates agency, not simply because it 'alters' it. A map (or more generally, information about the world state) only alters agency in the sense that it actually provides agency. It increases agency. That's good! We want that!

Stumbling blindly and randomly through an absolute fog of war isn't agency - the players have no capacity to make meaningful decisions or act in any deliberate manner, they are just being strung along by the whims of chance and fate (or the DM). This isn't railroading either but it might as well be when it comes to player agency.

No map. If a players' choice makes no difference (to them), it doesn't have any meaning. While yes, they have agency, it doesn't mean anything. If it doesn't matter whether or not the players go north, south, east or west, then the decision (to them) is meaningless.

And this is supposed to be... a good thing? Player choices shouldn't be meaningless. Making meaningful choices is literally the whole point of the game.

Map. Players have agency to choose which set of rails they want to be on.

If you were being railroaded there would only be one set of rails and you wouldn't get to choose. That's what railroading is.

But those tracks, lead to there.

Yes, once the players make a decision about what should happen, they will generally act in ways that brings that decision to reality. Brilliant observation.

Now that the players have more-perfect information, they're going to make rational, 'smart' choices, rather than choices that allow them to fail. The players are likely to only take on scenarios and encounters they think they can win.

Again, why do you say this like it's a bad thing? Making smart decisions and winning as a result feels good. That's what makes the game fun.

Which is the literal, dictionary definition of railroading, where you influence someone's behaviour (usually with negative connotations, obviously) to make them choose to make a choice they wouldn't have made if you'd done (or said) nothing at all.

No, that's an intentionally vague defintion you've concoted to fit your narrative. If you actually look in a dictionary you'll find that railroading isn't mere 'influence'. It's coercion. It's force. It's pushing someone towards the outcome you desire regardless of what they want. If you are at liberty to choose the outcome you desire then you are not being railroaded by definition, especially when you can choose 'none of the above'.

The menu at a restaurant isn't a railroad. You can order whatever you want, and you might even be able to order off-menu. What would be railroading is the restaurant only served a preset course meal. Or if the waiter hid the menu and only told you about the nightly special. Or declared that you have 5 seconds to order lest you be kicked out, essentially forcing you to pick whatever's at the top of the list. Or threatened to stab your wife if you don't order the steak.

Besides having a menu (analagous to a mapped or described world with multiple options) versus a set course (railroad) what other option is there, really? Random chance (blank slate with no information)? I'll take a menu, thanks - of the three it's the only one that actually gives me any agency to decide what I'm eating tonight.

[Vahnavoi]

@Cheesegear: open up any map of a railroad network and take a good look at it. Notice what doesn't happen?

You aren't forced to take any of those routes. Merely looking at the map won't move you one inch. Because you are not on a train.

That's what you perpetually miss about the railroading metaphor. Maps illustrate and imply routes. But they don't force you to take those routes. Whenever there's more than one route, you have to make a choice. The map is, straightforwardly, illustrating agency.

And it is trivial to make a map where every added point of interest increases the number of possible routes, and thus the number of choices, exponentially. This makes any protest involving rationality of your players ring hollow. Presence of a map only makes finding the best solution easy when the map is simple. Though given this discussion, your maps aren't even simple. They are non-existent, because you don't actually know what information to give your players to make them behave in a way acceptable to you.

[KorvinStarmast]

...But then you went for a weaksauce 'it depends', and now we're back to the piece of string where nobody is going to agree on how long that string should be. While we're at it, did anyone even decide on what colour the string is, yet?

Chartreuse. (If I am the DM it is, if I am a player it might be).

Have you managed to reconcile "player wanting to make decisions for the content" =/= player agency yet? If not, there's no further point in discussing what railroading is until you understand what player agency actually is.

Perhaps the discussion is fruitful in better finding common ground on definitions (although as I read through the following posts I am not so sure that was the destination reached).

The point, to some discussers here, would be this: don't confuse questions of player agency for questions of if a game is authored or emergent. Even if the dichtomy between authored and emergent games holds on some level, player agency is not dichtomous along the same line.

This I can wrap my arms around, and I'll pose this scenario with the above in mind. Two cases for the same adventuring party. There is a rumor that a century or so ago a singing sword (magical in some way, with the idea shamelessly stolen from a Bugs Bunny cartoon from years ago) was lost when the knight who wielded it went on errantry off in the Deep, Dark Forest. The party of players decide that they want to find that sword since (1) it's magical and (2) there may be other rumors of what the song can do and (3) one of them thinks that they might be able to score some income by having the sword and performing with it as a band/traveling troupe ...

a. Authored adventure: The old, crumbling tower has a basement, in the bottom floor of which is a chest, and inside that chest is the sword. The part has to find the tower, and figure out where in the tower it is, and then overcome whatever obstacles there are in the tower (mundane, magical, critters, traps, what have you). The sword will be there, waiting for them unless they all die in the process or flee since the dangers are too dangerous.
b. Emergent adventure: they head into the forest and what they encounter is a result of die rolls, their choice of what direction to head, and any treasure uncovered may or may not include that sword. The quest may take two sessions or fifteen.
c. Not sure which: the singing sword may not be in the forest anymore, and they may discover it during a completely different adventure arc (the sword is on a table of possible treasures that is randomly rolled) since a bandit chieftan has it now and they run into the bandits eventually as a result of various "what do we do now" choices that they have made.

Is that close to the mark of what the OP is aiming at?

And? The point of all that prep work, when done is properly, is to reduce cognitive workload during actual play. The game master doesn't actually lose ability to change any unrevealed detail. A game master is not meaningfully limited by records of their own past decisions.

Yes, GM's adapting on the fly is a part of that role at the table.

Giving players more information does not actually prevent emergence - on either side of table. What usually changes is type of emergent gameplay.

My players have the tried and true habit of ignoring a great deal of information that I provide to them. (Segue into Alexandrians's three clue rule and adapting it to multiple situations is probably not necessary here ...)

Before these threads, and this bizarre framing, I would've said that 'Railroading is when the DM says you can't do something, or something doesn't work, when you should be able to do something, or when it should work.' That would be my working definition of railroading. And that's clearly stupid because when a DM just says 'No.' red flags go up immediately and everyone freaks out.

I said no the other night. Early in the adventure they had a fight that was kind of tough, head back to an intersection (where the sphinx was who had let them into the dungeon) and decided to set up Leomund's Tiny Hut. About halfway through the ritual I informed the bard that "It's not working" (They didn't know that the sphinx cast dispel magic as he was doing that, nor did any of them pursue it. They took a short rest and proceeded on, and nobody freaked out).

There most definitely is a continuum. And a game's position on that can vary over time and over scale.
An authored encounter - "This room is haunted by 3 Wraiths. Once the whole party has entered the room, the wraiths will emerge from the floor and start to attack. Any wraith reduced below 30 hp will stop making direct attacks, instead, they will attempt to hide, then get close enough to make a surprise attack. If the PCs flee, the wraiths will not pursue.

Or a reasonable emergent encounter. "This is the entry to the goblin sector. The 4 goblins on guard will assess any intruder to work out how to respond. They may choose to fight, talk or flee and will use any tactics that seem appropriate. If a fight goes against them, 1 goblin will attempt to flee to warn others while any remaining goblins prepare to sell their lives dearly. They don't have the authority to make any promises for the tribe, but they can allow visitors past their gate if they accept the intruders aren't hostile."

Case two seems authored to me.

This leaves me with the feeling that the initial distinction is less useful than initially proposed.

[Tanarii]

I'm using your framing.
If you don't like the arguments against your own framing...Choose a different definition of what railroading is, and choose a different metric for what defines changing, altering, influencing and removing player agency actually means.

No. You're just not understanding what player agency is, so you don't understand what railroading is. Until you understand player agency, you will never understand what railroading is, you'll continue to put forward definitionally wrong use of both terms, continue to expand those into wildly incorrect hypothesis and theories on gaming, and everyone will continue to push back on you.

Or you can do some basic research on the term, and that'll stop happening.

[Cheesegear]

I said no the other night. Early in the adventure they had a fight that was kind of tough, head back to an intersection (where the sphinx was who had let them into the dungeon) and decided to set up Leomund's Tiny Hut. About halfway through the ritual I informed the bard that "It's not working" (They didn't know that the sphinx cast dispel magic as he was doing that, nor did any of them pursue it. They took a short rest and proceeded on, and nobody freaked out).

In my stupid doodoo brain, there were two kinds of railroad before these threads.

The 'hard' railroad where your DM says 'You can't do that', and forces you back on the tracks. No but seriously... My character can jump 12 ft., so why can't I jump over this 10 ft. hole? This doesn't make sense. The DM has arbitrarily decided that you can't go east - Invisible walls for some reason.

Then there's the 'soft' railroad, where the DM says 'You can't do that because...' The magical lock needs the magical key. You can't go left because you need the key from the right. Please do the right door, first. You can't solve this problem using spells because there's an Antimagic Field, please find a different solution. The NPC isn't willing to talk to you unless you have the thing...Get the thing. These hostiles fight to the death, you can't talk them out of this without magic. As long as the DM seems reasonable, a lot of people don't even realise the DM is influencing the outcomes of scenarios. Because that's just...The scenario. It's obvious we couldn't solve the scenario the way we wanted to because the DM said that thing. It makes sense. We beat the scenario/adventure in the way we chose...Didn't we?

That's all I thought railroading was. Until I hit these threads and started asking questions.

Or you can do some basic research on the term, and that'll stop happening.

1. Player agency is anything a player chooses to do, chooses to say, or anywhere the player goes. Player agency, is the player's ability to make choices. Dice notwithstanding.
2. Player agency is their ability to impact the story and/or the world. That is, their choices have consequences.

So far, so good.

In regards to the first, specifically; Making choices is dependent on the amount of information the player has. Reducing the amount of information that a player has, reduces their ability to make choices, until such point as you have no information at all, and no real way of getting it, and thus choices are meaningless. That is, information is tied to agency. Or rather, information is tied to meaningful agency, and meaningless agency. Not necessarily 'more' or 'less'. But that certainly is part of it. More information allows for a better decision tree.

A railroad, or forms of railroading, is when you reduce or remove player agency. Now, I'd be happy if removing player agency was the definition (i.e; The DM says you can't do something, when you can.). I know what that is. You know what that is. It's always bad, and it's almost always blatantly obvious.

But more than one person has put the word 'reduce' in there as well; If you define railroading as not simply a removal of player agency, but also a reduction in player agency...Then almost everything a DM does, reduces player agency. The fact that there is a DM at the table at all, is a reduction in player agency because a player's ability to impact the world is always reduced by some factor that the DM can't make up or isn't willing to do:

You can have chocolate or vanilla.
**** you. I want peppermint.
I don't have peppermint. I can't give you that.
My agency has been reduced where I can't make the choice I want; Railroad.

Then of course the DM provides false choices via misinformation. Hostile monsters that can do undetectable tricks, NPCs lying, or simply being wrong. Remember, information - and especially accurate information - is a key component of making agency matter. Now, when a DM does this, he is not necessarily removing or reducing player agency. But he is ****ing with player agency in order to drive to the outcome he has already set up; If an NPC lies to a player, and the players act on that information...The DM has engineered the outcome through the lie. When a DM deliberately sets up a conclusion by providing bad or straight-up false information; That's certainly a loss of player agency.

'You start in a tavern.' The player(s) did not choose to be there. The DM forced them there. The players' ability to choose where to go has already been undermined in the first sentence of the first session.

If reduction - but not necessarily removal - of player agency, doesn't count as a railroad. Then this whole thing has been a waste of time. Just like the other time. C'est la vie.

[OldTrees1]

A railroad, or forms of railroading, is when you reduce or remove player agency. Now, I'd be happy if removing player agency was the definition (i.e; The DM says you can't do something, when you can.). I know what that is. You know what that is. It's always bad, and it's almost always blatantly obvious.

But more than one person has put the word 'reduce' in there as well; If you define railroading as not simply a removal of player agency, but also a reduction in player agency...Then almost everything a DM does, reduces player agency. The fact that there is a DM at the table at all, is a reduction in player agency because a player's ability to impact the world is always reduced by some factor that the DM can't make up or isn't willing to do:

You can have chocolate or vanilla.
**** you. I want peppermint.
I don't have peppermint. I can't give you that.
My agency has been reduced where I can't make the choice I want; Railroad.

How do you differentiate between reduce and remove?

NPC: You can have chocolate, vanilla, or peppermint.
PC: I want peppermint.
GM: No. Pick between chocolate or vanilla.

Hmm. The PC can still pick between chocolate and vanilla despite being offered peppermint as an option. They still have agency without this choice, but it is less than they had before the DM negated the choice.

GM: Your PC can pick what icecream they will receive but they get no other decisions this campaign.

Hmm. The PC can still pick what icecream they will receive so they still have some agency in the scope of the campaign as a whole. However that is the only agency they will have. This hypothetical campaign has significantly reduced agency but agency was not entirely removed.

People use the word "reduce" because just using "remove" lead to semantic arguments. Also notice Tanarii is using the word "negates" which is subtly different from remove. From my understanding Tanarii uses the word "negates" to highlight the agency was granted and then revoked/removed. That would also highlight a difference between my 1st and 2nd examples.

[KorvinStarmast]

'You start in a tavern.' The player(s) did not choose to be there. The DM forced them there. The players' ability to choose where to go has already been undermined in the first sentence of the first session.

But it's a trope, not railroading. You have to start the game somewhere.

I've been started on ships at sea, at the dockside in a riverside village, in prison, riding a covered wagon in a caravan, in a library in a major town, in the duke's private chambers thanks to his chamberlain having found the six of us as the most likely prospects for this delicate mission he needs done on the down low...and in non D&D games we've started at a starport, fishing by a river, in a harbor waiting for immigration to process our paperwork, as the next one up in the arena ...

[BRC]

But it's a trope, not railroading. You have to start the game somewhere. (I've been started on ships at sea, at the dockside in a riverside village, in prison, riding a covered wagon in a caravan, in a library in a major town, in the duke's private chambers thanks to his chamberlain having found the six of us as the most likely prospects for this delicate mission he needs done on the down low...)

I think Cheesegear's point is that if your definition of Railroading is as wide as "Player agency is negated or restrained" then even the classic "Start in a tavern" is Railroading, because Player Agency has been removed/reduced by the simple act of picking where the campaign starts.

[Vahnavoi]

The real reason why initial game position isn't railroading is because it's something players agree to when they choose to play a game. That's not reduction of agency, it is exercise of it. For there to be any forcing, the game master has to, get this, use actual force and coercion to get players to play. In absence of such behaviour, using "railroading" to describe initial position of a game is a pretty good sign you are using the term badly.

[BRC]

The real reason why initial game position isn't railroading is because it's something players agree to when they choose to play a game. That's not reduction of agency, it is exercise of it. For there to be any forcing, the game master has to, get this, use actual force and coercion to get players to play. In absence of such behaviour, using "railroading" to describe initial position of a game is a pretty good sign you are using the term badly.

I don't think we're going to settle this, but that's a good point.

So, the image of "Railroading" is some Railroad Tracks. With that in mind, I think any reasonable definition of Railroading needs to include there only being a single path forwards. It is possible to have a game or scenario with less freedom than you would like that is not necessarily "Railroading".

Unless we just want to go with a purely subjective definition of "Railroading is when the DM stops you from doing something you think you should have been able to do".

I'd say that "Railroading", specifically, needs to include the following factors.

1) The DM has a pre-written path, at least at the Micro level, for the campaign to follow
And
2) That path is actively enforced by the DM.

"You start in a tavern" is not Railroading because that's only one scene.

The DM having a plan, but letting you go elsewhere is no railroading, because that DM is not enforcing the path they have pre-written.


This does leave a lot of room for things that people may not consider "Not enough Agency" that wouldn't be specifically "Railroading", but I'm okay with that.

The goal here is to say that, if you are being Railroaded, then you have no meaningful way to affect the story being told (Hence "Pre-written at least at the Micro level"). Generally, even if a campaign is pre-written at the Macro level, there's still more then enough room for the PC's to dramatically change the nature of the story, with their earlier actions changing the context of the later stages, even if those later stages have their general outlines sketched out.

[Vahnavoi]

If you don't think we can settle on a meaning for "railroading", the right choice, as noted earlier, is to drop the metaphor, for it's useless.

Once you ditch the term, what are you left with? An observation that initial position of a game places limits to player agency. That's true. However, it is a trivial truth that doesn't prove anything about quality of a game, before you do the next step and count the agency players have. Agency is counted in number of meaningful moves, where "meaningful" means leading to mutually exclusive game states. In a game of imperfect information with incomplete rules, such as most tabletop roleplaying games, you can't actually finish this step, but even a partial count rapidly and trivially distinquishes between linear, multilinear, and non-linear structures. In a map-based game, the only thing you need for proof is using the map to move around.

Or, put differently: don't count down from infinity and think of game design in terms of reducing agency. Count up from zero and think of game design in terms of constructing it.

[Cluedrew]

This seems like just another variable, about how much one's actions affect future scenes, rather than the pathing of said scenes. Although very important to my enjoyment of the game, I'm not sure that they impact whether a game is Emergent vs Authored - I think they're independent variables.

Besides the motivating example about why you might want to mix these structures, I think everything I said was about the order in which you go through, or can go through, scenes. kyoryu seemed to be trying to get at that* matter.

When you have one scene you it sits alone. But if you have two scenes are they ordered (A and then B), unordered (A and B, or B and A) or branching (A or B, but only one)? I'm still debating if optional (maybe A then B) is its own thing or not, it might be branching plus ordered where only one branch has a scene ((- or A) then B). And none of this is getting into any effects on scenes beyond when and if they are visited.

Spoiler: Footnote

Show

*

No, when I refer to "authored" I don't mean the world - I mean the path that hte players take.

[Cheesegear]

Unless we just want to go with a purely subjective definition of "Railroading is when the DM stops you from doing something you think you should have been able to do".

Well, to be fair, that's the only time that it shows its head.

'Hey DM, I want to cast a spell.'
You're Grappled, you can't.
'But that's not what Grappled, does.'
You can't cast any spells because I said so.

I'd say that "Railroading", specifically, needs to include the following factors.

1) The DM has a pre-written path, at least at the Micro level, for the campaign to follow
And
2) That path is actively enforced by the DM.

Well that usually applies to the above.
The DM wants something to happen, and if you try and deviate, they wont let you.

I should be able to cast spells whilst Grappled.
The DM wont let me though, because he's forcing me to watch the scene happen.

The DM having a plan, but letting you go elsewhere is no railroading, because that DM is not enforcing the path they have pre-written.

Now we start getting into muddy waters, which down this path lies ruin:
What if the DM has two pre-written paths? If you pick one, are you still on a railroad?

---

I think I have an idea:

How much Agency is Not Enough?

1a. You go to an ice-cream store, you must buy ice-cream. They only have one flavour.
1b. You go to an ice-cream store, you must buy ice-cream. They only have one flavour, but it's the one you want.

2a. You go to an ice-cream store, you must buy ice-cream. They only two flavours. Neither of them are the flavour you want.
2b. You go to an ice-cream store, you must buy ice-cream. They only two flavours. You want both, you flip a coin.

3. You go to an ice-cream store, you must buy ice-cream. You can have any flavour...Except your favourite.

4. You go to an ice-cream store. You must buy ice-cream. You can have anything you want.

5a. You go to an ice-cream store. You don't want ice-cream. You get nothing. You stand around for a while because the staff wont let you leave until you buy something.
5b. ...The staff kick you out for not buying anything, and stop stealing the wi-fi.

6. Ice-cream is stupid. You walk past the store and go for something else. Your friends get mad because they want ice-cream and want you to stop at the ice-cream store.

7. You go to an ice-cream store, and demand waffles. You get upset when people ask you to leave.

8. You walk around town, anywhere you want. You don't even see the ice-cream store. Why would you even want to?

9. This hypothetical is dumb. I want to buy shoes.

[Vahnavoi]

Not enough agency for what?

1a) I have no agency once I step into the store, as far as buying icecream goes.
1b) same as above, things are just going my way regardless.

2a) I have one choice with two mutually exclusive options, so my agency is 2. I have no agency to get the exact flavor of icecream I want.
2b) Same as above, except I cede the decision to random chance to choose between second best options.

3) I have one option with N mutually exclusive potions, where N stands for total number of flavors available. My agency is N. I have no agency to get the exact flavor I want.

4) I have one option with N mutually exclusive potions, where N stands for total number of flavors available, so my total agency of N. I do have agency to get the exact flavor I want.

5a) I have agency when it comes to buying icecream, which I'm not exercising because I don't want any. I don't have agency to leave the store. The situation says nothing else about my agency.
5b) I exercised my agency to be a petty freeloader. Store staff exercised their agency to punish me for bad behaviour. My agency to be a freeloader was hence limited by store staff. The situation says nothing else about my agency.

6) I had one choice with two mutually exclusive options: go into the store or not, so my agency is 2. I exercised my agency to not go. My friends have negative opinion of my choice. The situation says nothing else about my agency.

7) For whatever reasons the people at the shop are refusing to serve me waffles, so I have no agency to get waffles there. I have a negative opinion about it, but the situation says nothing else about my agency.

8) The size and contents of the town as well as my own objectives are unknown. There is no way to count my agency in any shape or form.

9) None of the above situations say anything about your agency to get you some shoes.

---

None of these hypotheticals involve weighing multiple objectives, most of them involve just one choice and lists of options are short, incomplete or trivial. None of them are formulated as games are sparse in detail. For these reasons, they can say very little beyond utterly trivial.

[Talakeal]

I have always used railroading as the GM warping the setting / rules of the game to stop the PCs from doing something.

It doesn't have to be a single path, or even a linear scenario.

There can be a thousand open doors, but if one of them is barred to the players, it is still a railroad. Assuming that the barricade is put there by DM FIAT and defended with paper thin excuses of course.


Agree? Disagree?