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  1. - Top - End - #61
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Reminds me a lot of people talking about the difference between sandbox MMOs and themepark MMOs and their hybrids, sandparks and themeboxes.

    Joking aside, I feel like railroading is sort of similar to a themepark ride in which you are kinda stuck to a particular course and cannot deviate at all from it. The moment you have some opportunity to influence things, you aren't on a rollercoaster anymore (because it'd be unsafe) but you are maybe enjoying a good bumpercar ride, teacup spinner or maybe even jumping the horses in a merry-go-round. I don't think defining different tangents of railroading is very useful, because it actually makes conversations really dense and disguises proper meaning behind a veil of language that holds no proper context for newcomers that they can intuit from real-world relevance experiences. It becomes more important for an accurate analogy that best represents exactly you mean with your language and the constraints within it.

    Railroaded, then means stuck to a track you cannot move out of for fear of severe bodily harm. Rollercoaster would imply high-intensity scenarios with a build-up and a fear of things going out of control, while secretly being in complete control of the DM but to create exciting thrills, but still threatens bodily harm if ventured too far off script. Moving about even between wagons is probably going to kill the player.

    I don't think we need to be tied down to old analogies as long as the ones you can think up to best describe your game is both colorful and invocative.

  2. - Top - End - #62
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    One of the things I've seen with people that want lots and lots and lots of prep (and often railroady type stuff) is that they want to have the feeling that everything is prepared in advance, and that the GM doesn't just describe on-the-fly what's reasonable and what's not. You can only do that if you know where the PCs must go - which is often an indicator of railroading (unless you're doing a megadungeon or something of the like).
    This is why I prefer "simmy" rules and deep worldbuilding. The setting and the rules are then a consistent framework of what is reasonable and what is not, which doesn't require the GM to know where the PCs are going to go. Any specific detail the GM ads or ruling the GM makes just needs to be in line with the established lore and rules. You don't have to know everything about the setting when you start out, but what's established informs what you add. You don't have to have a rule for everything, but if the rules are consistent and sync with the setting, new rulings should flow from that without major inconsistency or unreasonableness.

    In contrast, "make it up as you go" and/or "do what's cool as you go" setting details, and rules not grounded in anything... seem very much more prone to inconsistencies and whim-of-the-moment.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    "I want you to make this like a video game, where we have to follow the clues, read your mind, and use trial and error to solve the adventure in the one and only one way that you have designed for the story."
    For me ''make like a video game'' and ''read the DMs mind'' go way beyond the railroad and fall under more ''bad ways to plat the game''. It's never a good idea to make an RPG like a video game, and no one can read my mind.

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    "I want you to heavy-handedly prevent any creative PC action that you hadn't planned for, no matter how obviously it ought to work. Ideally, you'll punish those players who dare to think and be more creative than you so hard that they'll quit the game."
    Again, this is more of a jerk Dm move then just railroading. Sure a weak DM might try and hide behind the railroad idea and say ''the railroad did it'', the same way a jerk player might hide behind optimization to not role play at all.

    After all remember, railroading advances the plot: it's not a hammer for the DM to knock down the Pcs. And it is a bit silly to say that, as the DM does not need anything special to be a jerk. Even if a DM ''used the rules'' and ''did a common sense game'' and all that...a jerk DM can still ''tweak'' things just a bit so a PC always fails.

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    "Adding in threats that are way above our pay grade, so that we really can't accomplish anything anyway, and need to constantly be bailed out by your super cool, nigh-omnipotent DMPCs, is an added bonus."
    Again, this is more jerk DM gaming, and not just railroading.

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post

    To me, those are examples of actual railroading.
    Hummm..I'd say none of them are Railroading.

    But it does make sense as to why everyone has such a keen jerk crazy reaction to ''railroading'' if they hear ''railroading'' and think ''super, super crazy evil jerk monster abusive DM''.

    [QUOTE=BRC;22400760When I run a game, I often have a pretty good idea of how it's going to go. I don't claim to be some sort of super genius chessmaster, but in my experience players are pretty easy to predict, and will often accept the challenge put in front of them, even if the solution is something as straightforwards as "Go Kill Things". In situations where the solution is less straightforward, it's not especially difficult to determine a handful of obvious solutions, and have some thoughts ready for whichever one they choose. [/QUOTE]

    I agree here. Even if I don't know the players at all, there are tons od obvious things to predict. Reading people and knowing people is just a social skill, and it is true in any social activity, not just a game. And if I know the players, even a bit, I know what they like and dislike and everything else.

    Though, I'd say I'm a X-Chess Master myself.

    Quote Originally Posted by ImNotTrevor View Post
    (GMs also don't have all the authority. You have as much as your players let you have. They have feet, and will travel.)
    Well, you can say ''as long as the players are there in the game the GM has all the authority.

    [QUOTE=Cluedrew;22401769]
    Put a different way, railroading is thinking you know the answer to the question "what happens next?" and when you are wrong, trying to make it come out that way. So not agreeing with what happened, but rolling with it anyways is the opposite of railroading.
    [QUOTE]

    Except it does not make sense that the DM could ever be wrong, as they can change anything into anything.

    Like take the classic newbee type DM that gets all ''shocked and awed'' when the players do something ''wacky and crazy''. Ok, so the players had a ''different answer'', but it does not really matter as the DM can alter game reality on a whim. And a clever DM can always have a counter prepared for ''anything'' the players might do. For example if a DM wants to keep a NPC alive they can just have the NPC have a clever escape plan..all ways.

    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    Note to Darth Ultron: The term "railroaded" meaning "coerced" existed before D&D, so in trying to define "railroading" as "GM directed" or "linear plot" you're fighting that.
    In what context? Like the word was commonly used in the late 19th century as: ''we got on the West Bound train and were Railroaded into going west." ?

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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    Hummm..I'd say none of them are Railroading.

    But it does make sense as to why everyone has such a keen jerk crazy reaction to ''railroading'' if they hear ''railroading'' and think ''super, super crazy evil jerk monster abusive DM''.
    They're all examples precisely what almost everyone (other than you) involved in TTRPGs means by "railroading".

    And yes, railroading GMs tend to be power-mongering jerkwads in proportion to how much and how badly they railroad.
    It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.

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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    I just deleted an earlier response where perhaps I was too snippy.

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    ...In what context? Like the word was commonly used in the late 19th century as: ''we got on the West Bound train and were Railroaded into going west." ?



    "Railroaded" is a 20th century idiom meaning.to convict (a person) in a hasty manner by means of false charges or insufficient evidence: The prisoner insisted he had been railroaded.

    Most of my waking hours are spent with inmates, guards, cops and attorney's (I do plumbing repairs for the City and County of San Francisco), and they way I hear the word "railroaded" still used is exclusively as a synonym for "framed", I renember hearing the word used that way as a kid back in the 1970's, and that meaning is still the only spoken usage I remember hearing in my 49 years of life.

    Other uses I've only read on the internet.

  6. - Top - End - #66
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    They're all examples precisely what almost everyone (other than you) involved in TTRPGs means by "railroading".

    And yes, railroading GMs tend to be power-mongering jerkwads in proportion to how much and how badly they railroad.
    This is why these threads will never go anywhere or accomplish anything until DU starts changing his definition of "railroading". (Not to say that you're incorrect or instigating anything, Max_Killjoy, just that you brought up the correct definition and hit the nail square.) If there is an agreed-upon jargon in a community and someone comes into that community and argues that said jargon is wrong because he doesn't agree with it, then bases nonsensical arguments off of that, then of course we're at an impasse.

    Granted, DU's general arguments tend to reveal other unsavory DMing practices and a generally hostile attitude toward players, but if we focus on just railroading as a concept, it's mostly a problem in communication.
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  7. - Top - End - #67
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    Like take the classic newbee type DM that gets all ''shocked and awed'' when the players do something ''wacky and crazy''. Ok, so the players had a ''different answer'', but it does not really matter as the DM can alter game reality on a whim. And a clever DM can always have a counter prepared for ''anything'' the players might do. For example if a DM wants to keep a NPC alive they can just have the NPC have a clever escape plan..all ways.
    Yep, that is the essence of lazy GMing. It's not clever, as you said the GM can alter the game reality on a whim. Okay the NPC has an escape plan, what happens if the PCs counter the escape plan? Do you alter reality to ensure that the NPC gets away anyway? Rest assured everyone knows that the GM can alter reality on a whim, the question is should you. Not letting your PCs affect the world at all aside from how you decided they should is the hallmark of a lazy GM.

    Tell me what is the incentive to play smarter and harder in such a world? Mere survival? I mean what you can do to the world and the plot is already pre-determined so they pretty much just need to tag along for the ride. Honestly it doesn't sound particularly engaging to me for the players or the GM. When I write up a plan for my NPC's I tend to write up plans upon plans. Not trying to anticipate what the players might do but rather just basic organizational stuff like "What happens if the BBEG dies?" I've definitely had the rare case where the PC's have won unexpectedly early, like around the halfway mark of the adventure.

    A famous example which springs to mind is that of the 2nd ed 1st level Wild Mage who accidentally killed an Ancient Red Wyrm. For those of you who don't know this is an old tale where the BBEG of the campaign was an ancient red wyrm. The party had just started out and the GM introduces the wyrm by having it flying over and torching the town which the party is in due to the town not paying it's tribute. The party's wild mage decides to take a pot shot at the dragon (EXTRAORDINARILY STUPID IDEA but...) and winds up getting a wild surge. The wild surge turns the 1st level spell into a petrify spell and the dragon botches it's magic resistance, botches it's saving throw, turns into a statue which crashes and shatters. How would you have handled the situation?
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    Well, you can say ''as long as the players are there in the game the GM has all the authority.
    You seem to be under the mistaken impression that players become unable to leave their seats once the game starts, and all capacity to call BS. Neither is true.

    When i was twelve i even got to witness players entirely hijack a game because the GM was being a wad. They just ignored him and eventually one of them just became the new GM. It was amazing, and i remembered henceforth that the idea of bGM authority is as sturdy as candyfloss.

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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Regardless of the terms you use (since there's controversy on definitions), I'll tell you how I would feel, as a player and as a DM, about the situations you describe. (I haven't read the three pages of the thread, btw, so I'm responding to the OP)
    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post

    A hook is a plot event that you may respond to (ie the town starts to sink).
    That's perfectly fine, something exciting is happening. As a player, I'm happy about it (although my character is not, obviously), and as a DM I use it all the time. No problem there.

    A net is a plot event that you have to respond to (ie town falls down a big hole into the underdark).
    I'm not sure what distinguishes this from the first example. Is it something like "it falls very fast so you can't do anything about it and you fall with it?". Anyway, that particular example strikes me as very weird unless there's a good in-game explanation, so as a player I'd raise eyebrows. But I'd go with it and wait to see where the DM wants to go. As a DM, I'm okay with doing this, but I check beforehand that my in-universe explanation for it is rock-solid so that the players get it and it doesn't feel like "uh, go to adventure location X because I want you to".

    A railroad is a plot event that you have to respond to in a certain way (ie town falls down a hole and you are captured by drow slavers and fitted with collars that can't be tricked and kill you if you don't follow orders and are sent on missions.)
    Yeah, I agree, I would call that example railroading. But you skipped a few steps there: like, can the players fight the drow slavers to avoid getting captured? What if they find a clever way to escape or resist the collars that the DM didn't plan for, and it should logically work? What if they manage to use Diplomacy with the slavers or Charm them into letting them off easy? The degree of "no THINGS MUST HAPPEN THAT WAY" would determine how "bad" it is. I put "bad" in quotation marks because there's no bad way to play if people still have fun - but I consider it to be objectively bad GMing (failing at an important dimension of RPGs which is cooperative storytelling), just as there can be objectively bad roleplaying from players.
    As a player, I would find this very inelegant. If I perceive that the DM is trying to contrive a reason for us to do a cool adventure, I'd still go along with it for metagame reasons, because I believe that the game is more fun if we all work together - and I'm willing to relinquish some freedom of choice if the DM is more comfortable with planned sessions and sucks at improvising. But if it's that heavy-handed and if it's frequent, that would definitely hurt my enjoyment and might cause me to take it up with the DM, or possibly find another game.
    As a DM, I would avoid this. But if I did do it, I would go one of two ways. Either, just let the players be creative and make the session about them trying to fight the railroad: for example, if they tell me "I Charm the slavers" and I hadn't thought of that, I'll tell them "ah, well done", and improvise what should happen then, keeping in mind that my plans can always be repurposed or refluffed for the next session. If I can't do that - for example, if I have planned something specific and I am in no state to improvise, I'll go the metagame route and tell players: "Look, I'm sorry guys but I need the characters to be in situation X because I planned around it, would you mind doing it and I'll do my best to give you more freedom next time?". And it would work, because I game with my friends.

    In any case, I think that if a character realistically could do something, finding a weak in-game reason for not letting them do it is just bad GMing. I strive to be fair and let characters react how they should be able to. If for whatever reason it just derails your game too much, or destroys your prep for the session and you can't deal with it - which can happen, DMs are fallible humans - telling the players out-of-game is the best solution.
    Last edited by Seto; 2017-09-20 at 12:17 PM.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    How much "plot railroading?"

    If I see the rails, then the most forgivable "good railroading" is a "Skip Ahead to Awesome" I.e."Your at the entrance of the Dungeon.", or even "Your inside the Dungeon. ", but if there's no eventual player buy in to the skip, then it's just "Locked into Lameness" i.e. being forced to fight a conga-line of antagonists in an arena for an audience, and healing between bouts is provided to drive home the utter pointlesssness of your battles.", which feels like a "railroad".

    Locked into Lameness Railroad =
    Being captured and enslaved and forced to fight in a gladiatorial arena. Especially if the PC's are forced to fight each other. LAME!




    Doesn't feel like a Railroad/Awesome! =


    A motivation of treasure!



    I'd have to say that I would like to start the campaign In medias res, by the DM telling us something like:
    Spoiler: set up from 78 years ago!
    Show
    “In the Year of the Behemoth, the Month of the Hedgehog, The Day of the Toad."

    "Satisfied that they your near the goal of your quest, you think of how you had slit the interesting-looking vellum page from the ancient book on architecture that reposed in the library of the rapacious and overbearing Lord Rannarsh."

    “It was a page of thick vellum, ancient and curiously greenish. Three edges were frayed and worn; the fourth showed a clean and recent cut. It was inscribed with the intricate hieroglyphs of Lankhmarian writing, done in the black ink of the squid. Reading":
    "Let kings stack their treasure houses ceiling-high, and merchants burst their vaults with hoarded coin, and fools envy them. I have a treasure that outvalues theirs. A diamond as big as a man's skull. Twelve rubies each as big as the skull of a cat. Seventeen emeralds each as big as the skull of a mole. And certain rods of crystal and bars of orichalcum. Let Overlords swagger jewel-bedecked and queens load themselves with gems, and fools adore them. I have a treasure that will outlast theirs. A treasure house have I builded for it in the far southern forest, where the two hills hump double, like sleeping camels, a day's ride beyond the village of Soreev.

    "A great treasure house with a high tower, fit for a king's dwelling—yet no king may dwell there. Immediately below the keystone of the chief dome my treasure lies hid, eternal as the glittering stars. It will outlast me and my name,"


    Spoiler: set up from 40 years ago!
    Show
    100 years ago the sorcerer Zenopus built a tower on the low hills overlooking Portown. The tower was close to the sea cliffs west of the town and, appropriately, next door to the graveyard.
    Rumor has it that the magician made extensive cellars and tunnels underneath the tower. The town is located on the ruins of a much older city of doubtful history and Zenopus was said to excavate in his cellars in search of ancient treasures.

    Fifty years ago, on a cold wintry night, the wizard's tower was suddenly engulfed in green flame. Several of his human servants escaped the holocaust, saying their rnaster had been destroyed by some powerful force he had unleashed in the depths of the tower.
    Needless to say the tower stood vacant fora while afterthis, but then the neighbors and the night watchmen comploined that ghostly blue lights appeared in the windows at night, that ghastly screams could be heard emanating from the tower ot all hours, and goblin figures could be seen dancina on the tower roof in the moonlight. Finally the authorities had a catapult rolled through the streets of the town and the tower was battered to rubble. This stopped the hauntings but the townsfolk continue to shun the ruins. The entrance to the old dungeons can be easily located as a flight of broad stone steps leading down into darkness, but the few adventurous souls who hove descended into crypts below the ruin have either reported only empty stone corridors or have failed to return at all.
    Other magic-users have moved into the town but the site of the old tower remains abandoned.
    Whispered tales are told of fabulous treasure and unspeakable monsters in the underground passages below the hilltop, and the story tellers are always careful to point out that the reputed dungeons lie in close proximity to the foundations of the older, pre-human city, to the graveyard, and to the sea.
    Portown is a small but busy city 'linking the caravan routes from the south to the merchant ships that dare the pirate-infested waters of the Northern Sea. Humans and non-humans from all over the globe meet here.
    At he Green Dragon Inn, the players of the game gather their characters for an assault on the fabulous passages beneath the ruined Wizard's tower.





    See the difference is that in the arena example the DM has dropped the PC's into a situation that is lame with their having no choice in the matter, whereas in the treasure seeking examples, the DM has dropped the PC's into a situation that is AWESOME! so of course the players would choose it.


    Last year as a player I tried to get my PC to escape being "locked into lameness", in a mute room by stating that my PC, was having a delusional fit, and "forgetting where he is and his purpose there, arms himself and rides "Rocinante" to where he last battled the forces of the Queen", to which the DM responded:

    "I can figure out what he might encounter if you want, or you can decide for yourself. Up to you."


    Which showed me that, it was indeed a "shallow world" being created, instead of a "deep world" for my PC to explore. As a former DM I know that's often the case, but I disliked seeing "behind the curtain", as much as I dislike seeing "the rails".

    When I think about it, it's surprising that "Empty Room world's" aren't more common.

    Please hide the rails.

    Please hide thin facades



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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    For me ''make like a video game'' and ''read the DMs mind'' go way beyond the railroad and fall under more ''bad ways to plat the game''. It's never a good idea to make an RPG like a video game, and no one can read my mind.

    Again, this is more of a jerk Dm move then just railroading. Sure a weak DM might try and hide behind the railroad idea and say ''the railroad did it'', the same way a jerk player might hide behind optimization to not role play at all.

    After all remember, railroading advances the plot: it's not a hammer for the DM to knock down the Pcs. And it is a bit silly to say that, as the DM does not need anything special to be a jerk. Even if a DM ''used the rules'' and ''did a common sense game'' and all that...a jerk DM can still ''tweak'' things just a bit so a PC always fails.

    Again, this is more jerk DM gaming, and not just railroading.

    Hummm..I'd say none of them are Railroading.

    But it does make sense as to why everyone has such a keen jerk crazy reaction to ''railroading'' if they hear ''railroading'' and think ''super, super crazy evil jerk monster abusive DM''.
    Yes, this is how "everyone" uses the term.

    When I started programming, I invented everything from scratch, and made my own terms for everything. Then I started discovering that there were industry standard terms for some of what I was doing, and, to facilitate communication, I began learning and adopting those terms. Allow me to recommend you consider doing the same.

    That having been said, claiming that no examples of railroading are actually railroading is quite perplexing. Even with whatever definition you have been using, it seems disingenuous to draw the line at explicitly excluding such things. It'd be like saying, "No, Charles Manson, Luis Garavito, Pedro Lopez, and Darth Vader didn't commit Murder - they did horrible things that involved people dieing, yes, but only soldiers who give other soldiers honorable deaths actually commit Murder."

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    Cluedrew
    Put a different way, railroading is thinking you know the answer to the question "what happens next?" and when you are wrong, trying to make it come out that way. So not agreeing with what happened, but rolling with it anyways is the opposite of railroading.
    /Cluedraw

    Except it does not make sense that the DM could ever be wrong, as they can change anything into anything.

    Like take the classic newbee type DM that gets all ''shocked and awed'' when the players do something ''wacky and crazy''. Ok, so the players had a ''different answer'', but it does not really matter as the DM can alter game reality on a whim. And a clever DM can always have a counter prepared for ''anything'' the players might do. For example if a DM wants to keep a NPC alive they can just have the NPC have a clever escape plan..all ways.
    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    I agree here. Even if I don't know the players at all, there are tons od obvious things to predict. Reading people and knowing people is just a social skill, and it is true in any social activity, not just a game. And if I know the players, even a bit, I know what they like and dislike and everything else.

    Though, I'd say I'm a X-Chess Master myself.
    Sigh. A chess master doesn't need to change reality to keep an NPC alive. If they want the NPC alive, they will have read the players correctly, predicted the PCs' actions correctly, and the plans they put in place will successfully keep the NPC alive, no changes or fudging required.

    Imma get on the "railroading is the sign of weak GMing skills" bandwagon on this one. If you're trying to be a chess master GM*, every time you have to change things to railroad your plot is a sign of failure.

    *which, personally, I think is about as bad of a goal as trying to be a railroading GM

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    They're all examples precisely what almost everyone (other than you) involved in TTRPGs means by "railroading".

    And yes, railroading GMs tend to be power-mongering jerkwads in proportion to how much and how badly they railroad.
    Eh, I wouldn't go that far. Railroads can be a sign of several different things. They can indicate control freaks, power-mongering jerkwads, noob GMs, or even those who, despite a lot of experience, don't know any better (having never experienced any other style of game).

    Quote Originally Posted by Tinkerer View Post
    Tell me what is the incentive to play smarter and harder in such a world?
    There is none, IME. Or, rather, the value of the incentive is usually negative. Because smarter, more creative play gets you off the rails, which is punished.

    Quote Originally Posted by Tinkerer View Post
    "What happens if the BBEG dies?" I've definitely had the rare case where the PC's have won unexpectedly early, like around the halfway mark of the adventure.

    A famous example which springs to mind is that of the 2nd ed 1st level Wild Mage who accidentally killed an Ancient Red Wyrm. For those of you who don't know this is an old tale where the BBEG of the campaign was an ancient red wyrm. The party had just started out and the GM introduces the wyrm by having it flying over and torching the town which the party is in due to the town not paying it's tribute. The party's wild mage decides to take a pot shot at the dragon (EXTRAORDINARILY STUPID IDEA but...) and winds up getting a wild surge. The wild surge turns the 1st level spell into a petrify spell and the dragon botches it's magic resistance, botches it's saving throw, turns into a statue which crashes and shatters.
    And this is what great stories are made of!

    Quote Originally Posted by ImNotTrevor View Post
    You seem to be under the mistaken impression that players become unable to leave their seats once the game starts, and all capacity to call BS. Neither is true.

    When i was twelve i even got to witness players entirely hijack a game because the GM was being a wad. They just ignored him and eventually one of them just became the new GM. It was amazing, and i remembered henceforth that the idea of bGM authority is as sturdy as candyfloss.
    And this is what great stories are made of!
    Last edited by Quertus; 2017-09-20 at 06:31 PM. Reason: Autocorrect

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    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Sigh. A chess master doesn't need to change reality to keep an NPC alive. If they want the NPC alive, they will have read the players correctly, predicted the PCs' actions correctly, and the plans they put in place will successfully keep the NPC alive, no changes or fudging required.

    Imma get on the "railroading is the sign of weak GMing skills" bandwagon on this one. If you're trying to be a chess master GM*, every time you have to change things to railroad your plot is a sign of failure.

    *which, personally, I think is about as bad of a goal as trying to be a railroading GM
    A GM's goal should never be to dominate and manipulate the players.


    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    Eh, I wouldn't go that far. Railroads can be a sign of several different things. They can indicate control freaks, power-mongering jerkwads, noob GMs, or even those who, despite a lot of experience, don't know any better (having never experienced any other style of game).
    Which is why I used "tend to".

    Overall though, railroading is a sign that something has gone wrong. And this is one where I won't soften it as opinion or as "tastes vary". Misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance... whatever the underlying cause, railroading is bad stuff.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Seto View Post
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Darth Ultron View Post
    What do you feel qualifies as 'plot railroading', and do you think it's good/neccessary, or evil/abusable? Provide your opinions!

    Personally, I generally railroad my plots. I feel that's a good thing, and not, uh, bad.

    Beware of the difference between railroading (only to ever be used to get the players to the first adventure) and Neting.

    A hook is a plot event that you may respond to (ie the town starts to sink).

    A net is a plot event that you have to respond to (ie town falls down a big hole into the underdark).

    A railroad is a plot event that you have to respond to in a certain way (ie town falls down a hole and you are captured by drow slavers and fitted with collars that can't be tricked and kill you if you don't follow orders and are sent on missions.)

    Nets are fine and are interesting, what do you do if the city you are running a guild in goes to war?



    But I don't imagine that's everyone's experience with plot railroading. So, share.
    The way I play is to plan a situation. I plot out what happens if the players never get involved. Then, I present the situation to the players in the form of a hook. I literally give a cinematic description of something like you would see in a TV show. Their latest monster hunt started off with me saying this:
    "Channel 9 News brings you a miracle on Steven Street tonight about a man who walked away from a tumultuous tango with a truck. For more, we go over to Cindy McIntyre who is on the scene."

    "Thanks Jim! Cindy here on the scene at Steven Street! Witnesses say that the man crossed the street, but dropped something in the middle of the road. Without looking, he went back and a massive semi-truck collided with him head-on. Some witnesses say that they saw the man fly several feet through the air. The truck driver dialed 911, but before the paramedics could arrive, a mysterious stranger in white approached to offer assistance. They say that he chanted something over the victim and sprinkled dust or herbs over the man and then walked away. Just before the paramedics could arrive, the victim got up and walked off with a limp, still covered in blood. The police searched the area, but couldn't find him or the angel who saved him. Back to you Jim!"

    "Thank you Cindy. This is the third freak fatal accident this month where the victim has seemingly gotten up and walked away. Now we turn to Ron Johnson with sports!"
    The players can then ask for more details, I ask how they would find it out, and then they decide if they want to play that one or not. If they choose not to play the scenario, I come up with a new one. It takes 10 minutes or so, though if I have to come up with a teaser/hook on the spot, it probably won't be as planned out as the one above.

    As the players get more involved in the plot, it becomes harder for them to extract themselves from it. They start to foil the bad guy's plans and they might have agents of evil sent after them or they might find their residence destroyed and their stuff sabotaged. They will learn more about the monster/villain and the stakes will be higher. I won't tell them they have to finish what they started and they can always try to leave town. It might lead to the villain pursuing them at some future point or the fallout from the villain succeeding might impact them in other ways, but those are consequences of their (in)action.

    That said, that's not the only way to play. That's just the one that makes my friends and me happy.

    I like hooks. They present the most options for player involvement - take it or leave it. Nets are OK some of the time so long as every adventure doesn't start with a net and so long as there are multiple options to deal with the net. The players can fight off the drow and escape into the Underdark; the players can rally the townsfolk to stand up to the invading Drow army; the players can try to rescue as many townsfolk as necessary before starting a long march back to the surface fraught with dangers. Even a full on railroad where you go from A to B to C can be fun. That's basically a dungeon, though sometimes they vary it by having it go A to B, then choosing between C and D, both of which lead to E. Dungeons are as fun as anything else, but I want to have choices before I get to the dungeon.

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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    Last year as a player I tried to get my PC to escape being "locked into lameness", in a mute room by stating that my PC, was having a delusional fit, and "forgetting where he is and his purpose there, arms himself and rides "Rocinante" to where he last battled the forces of the Queen", to which the DM responded:

    "I can figure out what he might encounter if you want, or you can decide for yourself. Up to you."


    Which showed me that, it was indeed a "shallow world" being created, instead of a "deep world" for my PC to explore. As a former DM I know that's often the case, but I disliked seeing "behind the curtain", as much as I dislike seeing "the rails".
    All game worlds are thin. All of them. No game world can have more than a tiny fraction of it determined before gameplay. All the rest has to be made up on the spot.

    Now, you can absolutely hide that. What you're dealing with there is just a gameplay preference, that some people are deciding that they like the players to have more direct authorial control. That gets a little weird for me, too, at the extremes.

    But it's not a symptom of a thin world. It's a symptom of more player-authorship. All game worlds are thin. Yes, even that one.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    All game worlds are thin.....

    You speak true kyoryu, and in the back of my mind I always know it, but it's more fun for me to practice "doublethink", and try (as far as possible) to forget that, which is why I didn't like to be reminded in-game (though if I know at the beginning that it was going to be more collaborative I may have felt differently).

    Yes it is a personal preference of course, as far as I know there's no "platonic ideal essence" of game-playing, which is why we may get good and rancorous in our wonderfully continual debates.

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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    A GM's goal should never be to dominate and manipulate the players.

    Overall though, railroading is a sign that something has gone wrong. And this is one where I won't soften it as opinion or as "tastes vary". Misfeasance, malfeasance, nonfeasance... whatever the underlying cause, railroading is bad stuff.
    I mean, my goal as a player is to dominate the GM when they're being a **** (and I'll attack with my Birds of Paradise (for those unfamiliar with MtG, they deal no damage)) so I can scarcely in good faith call out all domination (or all manipulation) as being bad.

    Having never been in a group with players saying, "please railroad me", I agree that all railroading as I've experienced it is bad. But, just as some people like whips and chains and stuff, I'm willing to accept the possibility that some people like the freedom from responsibility and guaranteed success that a railroad provides. Not my thing, but as long as you're not trying to practice it on me, I won't declare it bad.

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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    ...Having never been in a group with players saying, "please railroad me....

    I can recall thinking "Please just skip this part", but no I have no memory of anyone ever saying "please railroad me" out-loud, (unless my requests to "just hand me a pre-gen count", as I find GURPS length character creation tedious) but I actually have never heard anyone say the word "railroad" at a game table ever, other than "I got the trees from a model train shop".

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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    How much "plot railroading?"

    Last year as a player I tried to get my PC to escape being "locked into lameness", in a mute room by stating that my PC, was having a delusional fit, and "forgetting where he is and his purpose there, arms himself and rides "Rocinante" to where he last battled the forces of the Queen", to which the DM responded:

    "I can figure out what he might encounter if you want, or you can decide for yourself. Up to you."


    Which showed me that, it was indeed a "shallow world" being created, instead of a "deep world" for my PC to explore. As a former DM I know that's often the case, but I disliked seeing "behind the curtain", as much as I dislike seeing "the rails".
    From the little bit you've given I can kind of see the sense in that decision, it's your (characters) dream, and different people like different amounts of control of their (characters) subconscious. However even in the case that it was strictly justified, clearly the credit had clearly been used up.

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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    I think that the recurring argument that "all games railroad to a certain extent" pretty much hinges on behaving as if a railroad is the same thing as a road.

    To pay attention to the actual thing that the term is coined from in a moment, railroads are notable for allowing about as little control as a mode of transportation can have. You can go forwards, you can go backwards, you can stop moving, and in very specific circumstances you can pick between one of two paths (which itself may not even be in your control).

    Narrative direction is not railroading. It's just regular roading. A roadsign reading "This Way to Adventure!" may be pointing you in a particular direction, but nothing is actually forcing you to follow that path. On a railroad, turning away is literally not an option. Example: you're walking down a dungeon corridor, which comes to a T-intersection with a door to the left and a door to the right.

    "We go left."
    The left door is locked.
    "I pick the lock."
    The lock is too complex to be picked.
    "I open the lock with a spell."
    The door is warded against magic.
    "I smash the door down."
    The door and the surrounding wall are both indestructible.
    "...we go right."

    That's railroading. Player choice should logically exist in the scenario, but all attempts to deviate from the path are categorically rejected. If you can deviate from the scripted scenario, it's by definition not a railroad. Not being able to leave a closed system until it stops being closed isn't railroading, so long as you still have choices within the system. If the party is on a ship, it stands to reason that until they reach land or at least another ship, there's not much point in attempting to leave the ship. If the current adventure involves breaking out of a prison, it's not railroading to not let the players leave whenever they feel like it. Not having content if the party randomly decides to leave the current plot and travel in a random direction isn't railroading either, it just means the DM doesn't have infinite free time to plan for every conceivable contingency.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    All game worlds are thin. All of them. No game world can have more than a tiny fraction of it determined before gameplay. All the rest has to be made up on the spot.

    Now, you can absolutely hide that. What you're dealing with there is just a gameplay preference, that some people are deciding that they like the players to have more direct authorial control. That gets a little weird for me, too, at the extremes.

    But it's not a symptom of a thin world. It's a symptom of more player-authorship. All game worlds are thin. Yes, even that one.
    I can see how that's true from a certain angle. But I also think there's a lot of variation inside that "thin".

    I've seen worlds that feel as if they could be real, and as if the known facts could form the bones upon which to flesh out any needed details as a natural extension of the known.

    I've also seen worlds that we obviously slapped together like the fake western-genre storefronts of an old movie set, out of a random grab-bag of "wouldn't it be cool if?" and/or a genre element checklist.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Drakevarg View Post
    I think that the recurring argument that "all games railroad to a certain extent" pretty much hinges on behaving as if a railroad is the same thing as a road.

    To pay attention to the actual thing that the term is coined from in a moment, railroads are notable for allowing about as little control as a mode of transportation can have. You can go forwards, you can go backwards, you can stop moving, and in very specific circumstances you can pick between one of two paths (which itself may not even be in your control).

    Narrative direction is not railroading. It's just regular roading. A roadsign reading "This Way to Adventure!" may be pointing you in a particular direction, but nothing is actually forcing you to follow that path. On a railroad, turning away is literally not an option. Example: you're walking down a dungeon corridor, which comes to a T-intersection with a door to the left and a door to the right.

    "We go left."
    The left door is locked.
    "I pick the lock."
    The lock is too complex to be picked.
    "I open the lock with a spell."
    The door is warded against magic.
    "I smash the door down."
    The door and the surrounding wall are both indestructible.
    "...we go right."

    That's railroading. Player choice should logically exist in the scenario, but all attempts to deviate from the path are categorically rejected. If you can deviate from the scripted scenario, it's by definition not a railroad. Not being able to leave a closed system until it stops being closed isn't railroading, so long as you still have choices within the system. If the party is on a ship, it stands to reason that until they reach land or at least another ship, there's not much point in attempting to leave the ship. If the current adventure involves breaking out of a prison, it's not railroading to not let the players leave whenever they feel like it. Not having content if the party randomly decides to leave the current plot and travel in a random direction isn't railroading either, it just means the DM doesn't have infinite free time to plan for every conceivable contingency.
    You know, I'm one of those people who argue that "every game has some railroad element", but I can get behind what you're saying. I do actually mean "road" and "adventure direction". Your post presents things very clearly.
    What matters to me is to define railroad as part of a spectrum that includes sandbox on the opposite side. I guess the spectrum could go like "sandbox (extreme) / open world / balanced / paved roads / railroad (extreme)".
    Last edited by Seto; 2017-09-20 at 03:48 PM.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Drakevarg View Post
    I think that the recurring argument that "all games railroad to a certain extent" pretty much hinges on behaving as if a railroad is the same thing as a road.

    To pay attention to the actual thing that the term is coined from in a moment, railroads are notable for allowing about as little control as a mode of transportation can have. You can go forwards, you can go backwards, you can stop moving, and in very specific circumstances you can pick between one of two paths (which itself may not even be in your control).

    Narrative direction is not railroading. It's just regular roading. A roadsign reading "This Way to Adventure!" may be pointing you in a particular direction, but nothing is actually forcing you to follow that path. On a railroad, turning away is literally not an option. Example: you're walking down a dungeon corridor, which comes to a T-intersection with a door to the left and a door to the right.

    "We go left."
    The left door is locked.
    "I pick the lock."
    The lock is too complex to be picked.
    "I open the lock with a spell."
    The door is warded against magic.
    "I smash the door down."
    The door and the surrounding wall are both indestructible.
    "...we go right."

    That's railroading. Player choice should logically exist in the scenario, but all attempts to deviate from the path are categorically rejected. If you can deviate from the scripted scenario, it's by definition not a railroad. Not being able to leave a closed system until it stops being closed isn't railroading, so long as you still have choices within the system. If the party is on a ship, it stands to reason that until they reach land or at least another ship, there's not much point in attempting to leave the ship. If the current adventure involves breaking out of a prison, it's not railroading to not let the players leave whenever they feel like it. Not having content if the party randomly decides to leave the current plot and travel in a random direction isn't railroading either, it just means the DM doesn't have infinite free time to plan for every conceivable contingency.
    So whats the difference between this and just not having a door on the left? Is all linearity railroading?

    This whole thread just shows my issue with the term railroading. No one can agree on a single definition of it, just that its "bad". People have a preference for the amount of control they want in the game, and anything less than that is railroading. Some people want a lot, others not so much.

    There's not anything wrong with the term, or using, but accepting that its a statement of personal preference and not an absolute rule keeps discussions civil when you realize that not everyone games like you do.

    There are a lot of bad practices centered around player agency that novice or uncaring GM's can use when creating games, but there are bad practices abound that bad or new GM's use all the time and we dont throw out perfectly good knobs we can tune for games.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by The Extinguisher View Post
    So whats the difference between this and just not having a door on the left? Is all linearity railroading?
    Depends. If you uncategorically said yes, literally every single hallway you ever walked down would be railroading you. Sometimes a lack of options makes sense. The ship example I used earlier, for instance. You can't really go anywhere but the ship because there's nothing but water for miles and miles, because that's what happens when you sail on a ship. Given this, I would probably say that railroading only occurs when player agency logically should exist given the circumstances, but is denied arbitrarily.

    ...if it weren't for the fact that you could simply set the entire game in a series of linear corridors, thereby denying player agency before it ever rears its head. In some contexts this is a good thing - in video games, doing this can keep the player on-task without having to pull them out of the experience by slamming an invisible wall in their face. They'll never stop to wonder why they can't go over that hill if there's no hill. But tabletop gaming isn't video gaming. The game doesn't literally break if the DM doesn't codify everything ahead of time. In which case the constant linearity becomes a conscious design choice which artificially restricts player agency - ergo, railroading.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by The Extinguisher View Post
    So whats the difference between this and just not having a door on the left? Is all linearity railroading?

    This whole thread just shows my issue with the term railroading. No one can agree on a single definition of it, just that its "bad".
    I don't think we even agree on that, actually. I mean, I find it horrible for me, but I can see the appeal in knowing that, no matter how horrible the other players are, no matter what crazy build I run, no matter how badly we fail at life, the rails guarantee us a success at the end. Personally, I enjoy my characters getting a well-earned failure, but I can see how that might not be everyone's cup of tea.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Extinguisher View Post
    There are a lot of bad practices centered around player agency that novice or uncaring GM's can use when creating games, but there are bad practices abound that bad or new GM's use all the time and we dont throw out perfectly good knobs we can tune for games.
    So, uh, what's your example of removing player agency for better gaming? Why do you contend that this is a good knob to keep around?

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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by The Extinguisher View Post
    So whats the difference between this and just not having a door on the left?

    The difference is one shows the tracks.

    ....but accepting that its a statement of personal preference and not an absolute rule keeps discussions civil when you realize that not everyone games like you do...

    That's fine as long as my preferences are what triumphs as my preferences are true, good, and beautiful wheras preferences contrary to mine are almost as foul as sarcasm!!!

    THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS!!!

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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
    I don't think we even agree on that, actually. I mean, I find it horrible for me, but I can see the appeal in knowing that, no matter how horrible the other players are, no matter what crazy build I run, no matter how badly we fail at life, the rails guarantee us a success at the end. Personally, I enjoy my characters getting a well-earned failure, but I can see how that might not be everyone's cup of tea.



    So, uh, what's your example of removing player agency for better gaming? Why do you contend that this is a good knob to keep around?
    No thats fair a kind of what i was getting at right. Railroading is a bad word because the person using it almost always means "this is less agency then i want in my game". Sure not everyone will connect that to "therefore its a bad game" but terms like railroading that are subjective and wholey negative certainly dont help



    But yeah, player agency can be really fun when you remove it. For example, horror as a genre needs player agency to be a low, because it needs threats to be scary and punishments to be harsh. Any game built around solving a puzzle needs to build toward the solution to that puzzle, and you can't have any solution be the right one. Even dungeon crawling removes player agency. The dungeon has a start and a finish and you need to game within that dungeon to finish it.

    Not all of these remove it completely for every scenario, but they can certainly be tweaked for player preference and enjoyment.

    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    The difference is one shows the tracks.




    That's fine as long as my preferences are what triumphs as my preferences are true, good, and beautiful wheras preferences contrary to mine are almost as foul as sarcasm!!!

    THIS IS SERIOUS BUSINESS!!!
    Sure, so you dont actually care about the fact that the tracks are there, just that less skilled GM's lay them poorly?

    And you joke, but thats basically what these kinds of discussions come down to.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    You speak true kyoryu, and in the back of my mind I always know it, but it's more fun for me to practice "doublethink", and try (as far as possible) to forget that, which is why I didn't like to be reminded in-game (though if I know at the beginning that it was going to be more collaborative I may have felt differently).
    Right. Which is saying you don't like direct, obvious player authorship in games. That's fine. You can have player authorship in games with lots of predetermined bits, and no player authorship in games with very little determined up front.

    Personally, I usually go for "implicit player authorship". Which basically means that I don't ask you to author, but your actions *implicitly* author things. If you say you go to the Mage Guild, then of course you do, unless i have determined that there absolutely isn't one. And the answer to most questions of "is there an <xyz>" will be yes, for reasonable <xyz> elements.

    Quote Originally Posted by 2D8HP View Post
    Yes it is a personal preference of course, as far as I know there's no "platonic ideal essence" of game-playing, which is why we may get good and rancorous in our wonderfully continual debates.
    Of course not. And I embrace that. If anything, I aim for precision.

    Quote Originally Posted by The Extinguisher View Post
    So whats the difference between this and just not having a door on the left? Is all linearity railroading?

    This whole thread just shows my issue with the term railroading. No one can agree on a single definition of it, just that its "bad". People have a preference for the amount of control they want in the game, and anything less than that is railroading. Some people want a lot, others not so much.
    Here's my basic definition of railroading:

    A railroad is a game where the GM will determine the contents and ordering of all important scenes/encounters in the game. So, the GM decides you'll go here, then here, then there. The players may get to decide "okay, we go to the market", or "okay we look in this place", but the important things will be determined by the GM - if you look in an unimportant place, you won't find anything useful. You can change some of the fluff, but not the meat.

    Note that in some cases the GM will determine what the scenes are - but you might determine the order. Or something similar. It's possible for a game to be railroady without being a pure railroad.

    Note that this isn't a value judgement at all, but rather descriptive, and there's certainly value in the GM getting to prep all the scenes before a game! It means the prep can be far more detailed, and encounters can be better customized.

    It also doesn't talk about "forcing" or illusionism. If everyone agrees to get on the train, you're still on a railroad.

    To reiterate - there's nothing inherently wrong with railroads. They're just not why I play games. They're perfectly awesome for a number of people.

    Now, I will argue against illusionism pretty directly, because of the element of lying involved.

    Quote Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy View Post
    I can see how that's true from a certain angle. But I also think there's a lot of variation inside that "thin".

    I've seen worlds that feel as if they could be real, and as if the known facts could form the bones upon which to flesh out any needed details as a natural extension of the known.

    I've also seen worlds that we obviously slapped together like the fake western-genre storefronts of an old movie set, out of a random grab-bag of "wouldn't it be cool if?" and/or a genre element checklist.
    I think those are fairly orthogonal. You can have a detailed, well-prepped, but ultimately nonsensical world, and you can have one that is more generated on the fly but which still has a great deal of internal consistency. More prep (at least the right type) probably helps consistency, to be fair.
    Last edited by kyoryu; 2017-09-20 at 08:47 PM.
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    Default Re: Plot Railroading: How much?

    When the DM runs a module or creates an adventure I go with it. I'm there to play the game, and the DM needs to know what's going on. I'm ok with hopping on that train as long as the players get to drive it. Let us deal with the plot in our own way, and if we outsmart the DM let us.
    Last edited by Pex; 2017-09-21 at 11:48 AM.
    Quote Originally Posted by OvisCaedo View Post
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