Game Theory Musings: Levels of Railroading

[RazorChain]

Define "roleplaying".

Specifically, every story I've heard of playing with Gygax involved a *ton* of navigating the world *as the character*. If you mean "story", then that is a true statement. If you mean "taking the part of a character in an imaginary world", then I'd disagree. Heavily.

I mean, there's folks still active on the net that played with Gygax, including his son. I'm sure I can ask them if Gygax ever cared about "roleplaying". I highly suspect that their response would involve a hefty amount of laughter. Now, again, note that the answer might vary depending on how you define "roleplaying".

I'm not going to fall into the trap of defining anything on these forums.

Playing a role is done in lots of activities from cops and robbers to computer games. You can even name your chess pieces and do a little roleplaying while playing chess.

Just what I've read from Gygax and his collaborators (Tim Kask for instance) is that they treated their characters more like a play piece. By reading through Roleplaying Mastery and Master of the Game has led me to believe that me and Mr. Gygax had very different opinions on roleplaying.

Male Elf or Melf is infamous already and he was played by Gary's son.

In 2nd ed and beyond? Perhaps. Before DragonLance? No.

You can certainly make the argument that a good number of changes in 2nd ed were to support DragonLance-style play (note the decreased emphasis on xp for gp).



As far as I can tell, Greenwood didn't contribute anything until at least '87.

In the late 80s and through the 90s, railroading was fairly standard *across the industry*. It wasn't an early part of D&D but was added into it as this became the trend of the time (again, starting with DragonLance). As such, I don't think it's really fair to say that it's an inherent part of the system in any way, especially given that the presumptions of the game prior to DragonLance were very much about explorative play.

Now I can't speak much about my experience before '87. I can only speak of the gaming environment I grew up in which was dominated by D&D until 1990s when the gaming stores really started to florish and you could get your hands on Gurps, CoC, RuneQuest etc and didnt have to mail order things from the states (no internet only mail catalogs)

Of course we can summon 2D8HP for a history lesson and he'll kindly explain why it was a mistake to name D&D a Roleplaying game instead of adventure game

[kyoryu]

I'm not going to fall into the trap of defining anything on these forums.

That's not my point. My point is the fact that he was not doing the things you consider "roleplaying" does not mean that he wasn't roleplaying.

Just what I've read from Gygax and his collaborators (Tim Kask for instance) is that they treated their characters more like a play piece.

Based on conversations I've had with people that played with Gygax, I'd dispute this.

By reading through Roleplaying Mastery and Master of the Game has led me to believe that me and Mr. Gygax had very different opinions on roleplaying.

I do not dispute this at all.

Male Elf or Melf is infamous already and he was played by Gary's son.

As was Tenser (Ernest).

Now I can't speak much about my experience before '87. I can only speak of the gaming environment I grew up in which was dominated by D&D until 1990s when the gaming stores really started to florish and you could get your hands on Gurps, CoC, RuneQuest etc and didnt have to mail order things from the states (no internet only mail catalogs)

Of course we can summon 2D8HP for a history lesson and he'll kindly explain why it was a mistake to name D&D a Roleplaying game instead of adventure game

Well, I'm speaking about my experience before '87. And there wasn't really railroading in any appreciable way before DragonLance.

[2D8HP]

I've only skimmed the first, and the last two posts on this thread, so my apologies if I"m way off base.

Now I can't speak much about my experience before '87. I can only speak of the gaming environment I grew up in which was dominated by D&D until 1990s when the gaming stores really started to florish and you could get your hands on Gurps, CoC, RuneQuest etc and didnt have to mail order things from the states (no internet only mail catalogs)....

Well, at the shops I frequented, RPG's other than D&D were on the shelves in the late 1970's, and were most of the space on the shelves before the mid '80's (depending on the shop, more so than today!).

What I dimly remember about playing D&D from the late 1970's to the mid 1980's is that DM's running Campaigns were rare. Mostly I remember lots of relatively short low level adventures/dungeon explorations, and the DM would usually be whomever was having the game at their house that week, which would often rotate (I don't remember any system to deciding who would be DM that week beyond, "want to try my dungeon?).

I'd read of long campaigns with many players in magazines back then, but that wasn't my experience, usually it would just be two to five players per DM, and playing the same PC for more then a couple of months was rare. We'd try "modules" ever so often, but mostly the adventures were homebrewed, as were the "world's" (but the "world's" weren't that different usually).

By the late 1980's and definitely by the early 1990's there wasn't a problem finding regular GM's who ran long RPG "campaigns", but I did have a problem finding DM's and player's, as it seemed that few people around wanted to play D&D anymore, only other RPG's (I believe the last RPG I played was Cyberpunk sometime in the early 1990's, with no further gaming on my part for decades until after the publication of 5e DnD which brought me back to the hobby).

And after I rejoin RPG'ing, I find I've "Rip Van Winkle'd/Captain America'd" into a strange new world in which thanks to "The Adventures League", and the "Pathfinders Society" they're lots of willing players, but seemingly few DM's (I've also discovered that my ability to read and remember new rules is now terrible!).

Of course we can summon 2D8HP for a history lesson and he'll kindly explain why it was a mistake to name D&D a Roleplaying game instead of adventure game

And so I shall!

I assume you're referring to this old post:

Dungeons & Dragons came first. D&D is not "video-gamey", video games are "D&Die" (and many of them really were modelled on D&D).
Which is precisely what D&D started as! It said so on the box!
.While I'm ever grateful to Holmes for his work translating the game rules into English, perhaps he (an academic psychologist) is to be blamed for mis-labelling D&D with the abominable slander of "role-playing" (a psychological treatment technique).
It's too late now to correct the misnomer, but D&D is, was, and should be a fantasy adventure game, not role-playing, a label no good has come from!
.

DOWN WITH ROLEPLAY!

UP WITH ADVENTURE!

A longer version:

Spoiler: some history

Show

The first version of what became D&D was the rules system inside Dave Arneson's mind.

The rules are there because players want some idea of what the odds are first, and it's easier to choose from a catalog than write on a blank page.

When D&D started there was no mention of role-playing on the box!

While the 1977 Basic set did indeed say "FANTASY ROLE-PLAYING GAME"

The phrase "role-playing" was not part of the 1974 rules.

Notice that the cover says "Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames", not role-playing!
I believe the first use of the term "role-playing game" was in a Tunnels & Trolls supplement that was "compatible with other Fantasy role-playing games", but early D&D didn't seem any more or less combat focused than the later RPG's I've played, (in fact considering how fragile PC''s were avoiding combat was often the goal!) so I wouldn't say it was anymore of a "Wargame". I would however say it was more an exploration game, and was less character focused.
Frankly while role-playing is alright, it's the 'enjoying a "world" where the fantastic is fact' part that is much more interesting to me.

Dungeons & Dragons,
Book 1:
Men & Magic
These rules are strictly fantasy. Those wargamers who lack imagination, those who don't care for Burroughs'
Martian adventures where John Carter is groping through black pits, who feel no thrill upon reading Howard's Conan saga, who do not enjoy the de Camp & Pratt fantasies or Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser
pitting their swords against evil sorceries will not be likely to find Dungeons & Dragons to their taste. But those whose imaginations know no bounds will find that these rules are the answer to their prayers. With this last
bit of advice we invite you to read on and enjoy a "world" where the fantastic is fact and magic really works!
E. Gary Gygax
Tactical Studies Rules Editor
1 November 1973
Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

While I'm ever grateful to Holmes for his work translating the game rules into English, perhaps he (an academic psychologist) is to be blamed for mis-labelling D&D with the abominable slander of "role-playing" (a psychological treatment technique).
It's too late now to correct the misnomer, but D&D is, was, and should be a fantasy adventure game, not role-playing, a label no good has come from!

Ernest Gary Gygax on role-playing

“If I want to do that,” he said, “I’ll join an amateur theater group.” (see here)[/quote].
While Dave Arneson later had the innovation of having his players "roll up" characters, for his "homebrew" of Chainmail:
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index....ngeon-masters/

At first the players played themselves in a Fantastic medievalish world:
http://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.c...thday.html?m=1

So a wargame was made into a setting exploration game, and then was later labelled a "role-playing" game.
While it's still possible to play D&D as the wargame it once was, I'm glad that the game escaped the "wargame" appellation, which makes the game more attractive to those of us with 'less of an interest in tactics, however I argue (to beat a dead horse), that the labeling of D&D as a role-playing game is hurtful ("Your not role-playing, your roll-playing! etc.).
Just label D&D an adventure game, and people can be spared all the hand-wringing, and insults when acting and writing talents don't measure up to "role-playing" standards, and instead we can have fun exploring a fantastic world together.
Please?

Anyway, IIRC the games were always a mix of "railroad" and "sandbox", the railroad being "Your in a place", rather than "Stuff has happened"

By the time Dragonlace came out I rarely played D&D so I've no experience of it, but campaign "story arcs" were already a thing, such as with the 1982 Call of C'thullu adventure, Shadows of Yog-Sothoth, and by '83 I was playing more Rolemaster, RuneQuest, and other games, and GM-ing more CoC, Traveller, etc. than D&D, but in the 1978 to '82 D&D games I played as often as not we wouldn't bother to play the same PC's even if they survived the last session, if anyone's PC's died we'd all roll new one's in solidarity (and also because it was easier than saving the piece of paper from last session) at the tables I played at.

Our PC's were mostly disposable, and while I knew of "Campaigns" from issues of The Dragon, what I mostly played was one-shots.

[Darth Ultron]

Sure, but my point is that modules have a specific, well defined amount of content. You can navigate an encounter however you want, but there was always going to be an encounter there. The princess will always be in the highest room of the tallest tower, etcetera. They don't support abandoning the princess to go fight the kraken instead, or going to raise an army to storm the castle, or other such actions that would require going out of bounds.

I just don't get this reasoning.

The players pick to do the module....and you say that is bad as at a random point the players can't just say ''oh we stop doing the module and now what to do X"?

Adventure: the PCs go kill the Dragon and rescue the princess.

I would point out that this is a bad adventure premise. The much better one would just be ''Trouble in the Kingdom", where the DM would present the background and then the players pick what they want to do. The NPCs IN the adventure want the PCs to do set things, like the NPC king might want the characters to kill the dragon and save the princess, but this is not the DM saying it. And in no way does the fictional king force the players to do anything.

Adventure are rarely run through with perfect information. Usually, information is gained throughout the course of the adventure. Often, this new information will cause the PCs to change - or at least modify - their plans.

True. A very basic adventure trope(really for all of fiction), after all, is the twist. You know...the king that hires you to find the lost royal crown.....IS the guy that stole the crown...What a Twist!

Hmmm... I find it curious that I both strongly agree with you, and also disagree. Let me see if I can tease that apart.

Yup, that is me....

why you view modules as negatively as you do.

I'm not sure why many people have such a negative view. I don't get how people don't see the ''what ifs'' written on just about every page and somehow just ''think'' modules are a one way track.

*Grabs random adventure off shelf* Gets: Return of the Eight(from '98)
*Page three-The DMs notes gives some examples of how to work the PCs into the adventure and make it part of the game world. It does not anywhere say the Pcs must be forced to do anything.
*Page four-Has an encounter...with the word ''if'' used several times ''if the PCs'' do this or that." Again, no where does it say ''this one thing happens''.
*And so on...