Results 241 to 270 of 947
Thread: Plot Railroading: How much?
-
2017-09-24, 08:59 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
- Location
- Ebonwood
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
If asked the question "how can I do this within this system?" answering with "use a different system" is never a helpful or appreciated answer.
ENBY
-
2017-09-24, 09:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2015
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Two things:
- What is the point? (Yes, I know, we all ask ourselves that.)
- You can call it a what if, but I've seen it come up quite naturally in campaigns.
Well, this is a bit of an odd question as A) I would have done the set up way better and B) that I somehow don't know the players at all. But:
[...]
4.Sure.
-
2017-09-24, 09:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2014
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Your strawmen are inaccurate and tiresome.
Not to mention ineffective.
But everyone all ways goes for full ''think like a Jerk DM'' mode and thinks that if even one thing in one game ever is ''set'', then everything in all games will be ''set'' forever badwrongfun!
Previously, you argued that defining railroading as a particular bad thing is only occuring for the minority.
Now it's everyone.
Hmmmmmm....
But I think of it more like ''time travel theory'' where some things are set, and somethings are not.
In fact, there are entire lists of Paradoxes that come up due to the fact that even the tiniest change has large-scale ramifications going forward, and these changes would cause the future you're coming back from to stop existing. So, ironically, actual timetravel theories have more in common with how people run sandboxes than what you describe here. Hilarious.
-
2017-09-24, 10:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2017
- Location
- Where I'll never be found
- Gender
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
I, as PC, I just have two things to say:
Let us do something unexpected. For instance, as long as slaying the vampire without using it's secret weakness that would have taken me months to find otherwise doesn't give me control of the universe, it's fine, right?
Roleplaying games are better than video games because they allow creativity. When there is only one solution to a problem, creativity is gone and you may as well play on your phone.
-
2017-09-24, 11:57 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
-
2017-09-25, 07:17 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
So when people say ''players must have player agency all the time'', what are they saying? And if your answer will be the vague ''they must be able to make beautiful, meaningfull contributions to the game'', you will also need to explain what you mean by that .
The problem is: DM says X and player cries railroad! you are taking away my special agency...the only thing this can mean is the DM can't do X and must do Y(whatever the player demands).
The point I was making is that some things in a game will be set. X is X, Y is Y and that is it. No amount of whining or complain will change that. I used the example of ''Fighter Kon'', who will never, ever surrender. Lets call it example A. Then you suggest example B ''what if this and that'', and it is valid and you can have infinite more examples. But it does not take away from example A. You could have example b, c, d, and on and on.....but example a still stands.
The ''spin'' gets more into the paladin problem of ''once someone sets something, someone will come up with a way to abuse it''. It's the classic ''well ok your paladin kill a helpless innocent good person to save a world"
The problem with such discussions is often the what ifs , as person A says something and instead of responding to that, they go way off and say what about B? And sure B is great and all, but what about A.
A better way would be to respond to A (like to say I agree and can except that a character might never surrender and that is set) and then say what about B?
Gosh so your Word Lord of the 'Net and a time travel expert...wow.
You might want to go back to time travel school......lots of fictional time travel has the ''fate/meant to be'' idea of ''fixed points'' that can not be changed. To name some fiction that does this is Quantum Leap, Doctor Who and Timeless.
I agree. The thing is that it is not just about ''creative'' players, it is about an over all fun game.
Well, again, people do say (demand) that players must (at all times) be able to make ''creative'' choices that specifically target the DMs choices, attack them and invalidate them in favor of the players choice. Just about everyone says this (but they don't use the ''big words''). Scroll up and surf around.
Example from above: DM makes a vampire with a secret weakness for the characters to find and use (DM's choice). Player demands that ''our super clever idea of using fire is not only possible but automatically works!''(Player's choice).
It's really amazing as ''everyone'' says the Dm's choices and wishes do not matter, but the players choices and wishes matter more then anything and don't get that is wrong.
If a DM says ''the guard is awake and the door is locked'' why is that Badwrongfun Railroading as the DM is taking away the ''player choice agency'' as the DM is preventing the characters from going through the door. But if the players demand ''the guard is asleep and the door is unlocked'' then it is all good..
The only Max example you ever gave is suggesting your a OOC type DM that just tells the players everything and asks them to do or not do stuff. ''Come on bros, I did not make up Castle FearDoom, so please don't go there !"
-
2017-09-25, 08:05 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Gender
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Yes, the players should ALWAYS have complete control over their characters' attempted actions. Nobody ever said anything about them automatically succeeding. That's yet another of your strawman arguments.
Nobody is arguing that the players should be given anything. Another strawman. Stop putting words in other peoples' mouths.
Considering your dismissive attitude and general antipathy against players, one would have ample reason to find this statement suspect.
Yes, because "read the DM's mind and figure out the one and only way to kill this particular vampire" is so much more fun. If the players, through knowledge checks or reading IC, find out that vampires in general are burnt by sunlight, then spend several sessions setting up a trap for the vampire to expose him to light and keep him there until he dies, then DM saying, "Oh, well GOTCHA! My super special vampire is immune to sunlight because he invented SPF 2000 sunscreen" is going to smell like BS, no matter how long ago you thought of it.
And yes, that's a hyperbolic example, but I can guarantee that your players see through nearly all of your similar actions as a DM. Of course, I'm not sure why I spent any effort trying to write this because you won't get the point, like usual, and will misrepresent everything I've said as you do. *shrug*
Oh, look, another tired strawman. What a surprise.
Nobody has suggested that the players tell the DM what is happening. The suggestion was that the players would wait for the changing of the guard and would pick the lock. But you can't argue with even the barest smidgen of intellectual honesty so why do I bother?
Oh look, another insulting, dismissive strawman. The argument was that the DM ask the players to wait a few minutes for the DM to think about how to arbitrate an unexpected action realistically.
I don't think I've ever seen such a fantastic roleplay of The Simpsons' comic book guy before.Last edited by Scripten; 2017-09-25 at 08:06 AM.
Avatar credit to Shades of Gray
-
2017-09-25, 08:49 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2014
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
If knowing literally one thing more about actual scientific theories about time travel makes me an expert, then the title must be relative.
You might want to go back to time travel school......lots of fictional time travel has the ''fate/meant to be'' idea of ''fixed points'' that can not be changed. To name some fiction that does this is Quantum Leap, Doctor Who and Timeless.
Get your terms straight.
I agree. The thing is that it is not just about ''creative'' players, it is about an over all fun game.Well, again, people do say (demand) that players must (at all times) be able to make ''creative'' choices that specifically target the DMs choices, attack them and invalidate them in favor of the players choice. Just about everyone says this (but they don't use the ''big words''). Scroll up and surf around.
The DM has power and narrative authority out the wazoo. Using it to absolutely dominate everything about the game is baby-level easy. Hell, it's what most actual children do if you out them in the DM seat. What you're arguing for is that the DM should only ever absolutely dominate but do it from secret. Which is still exactly the same thing.
Stabbing someone from behind or from the front is still stabbing.
Example from above: DM makes a vampire with a secret weakness for the characters to find and use (DM's choice). Player demands that ''our super clever idea of using fire is not only possible but automatically works!''(Player's choice).
It's really amazing as ''everyone'' says the Dm's choices and wishes do not matter, but the players choices and wishes matter more then anything and don't get that is wrong.
If a DM says ''the guard is awake and the door is locked'' why is that Badwrongfun Railroading as the DM is taking away the ''player choice agency'' as the DM is preventing the characters from going through the door. But if the players demand ''the guard is asleep and the door is unlocked'' then it is all good..
If the point is to maintain the option to return later, then having a decently high DC for these tasks is fine (though the Guard being much stronger than the PCs makes me wonder why the PCs aren't just training to be guards, since that seems to provide better levelling).
BUT if the point is to stamp your feet and say "No! We play MY WAY" then you're a railroading manchild. Since your arguments fall into the latter category, here we are. To summarize:
All your complaints essentially boil down to "I don't want to share my toys, because sharing one toy is sharing ALL MY TOYS." Which is factually incorrect and also childish.
Like I've said many times, the real problem people have with railroading is only tangentially related to the game and directly related to the social stigma of the person who has a lot of power swinging that power around like a weaponized phallus and crying whenever someone prefers they please not.
The only Max example you ever gave is suggesting your a OOC type DM that just tells the players everything and asks them to do or not do stuff. ''Come on bros, I did not make up Castle FearDoom, so please don't go there !"
Except maybe the players get the strange impression that their DM is a human being! OH NOOOOO! (Though, their capacity to see you might have hinted at that.)
-
2017-09-25, 09:11 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2015
- Location
- Mid-Rohan
- Gender
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
I see it this way: the players create a PC for the game, then present the character for approval by the DM and the party.
Who does the DM play? The game itself. They have choices between which game options to put into their game, whether to make the game linearly focused or highly adaptable.
While it's fine for a few details to be witheld for the element of surprise, the general layout of the game is the DM's responsibility to announce to the table.
In my solution, no "assuming game expectations" happens, because all players inform each other what to expect so nothing need be assumed.
-
2017-09-25, 09:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
I have (read just about every post on every one of these threads). No one is saying what you claim they're saying.
What I can't tell is if you really truly believe that they are saying those things because you see it through a unique lens of interpreting players not following your predetermined path as an "attack" on your "choices"... or if you've dug yourself a hole and simply refuse to keep digging no matter how hot and dark it gets down there.
The GM gets to play the entire world, with one tiny exception -- the PCs. The PCs belong to the players, but that doesn't mean they have say over the world beyond their characters' ability to impact it. The PCs "die" and the game ends the moment the GM decides that rocks fall. Trying to make this about "GM choice" or "GM agency" is a red herring and a farce.
Fire is a common vulnerability for most things, even if the vampire doesn't have a special added weakness to it. (It's kinda like a stake through the heart... it stops most things, vampire or not.)
If the PCs do their research and make their rolls well, and vampires are widely reported as being extra-vulnerable to fire, the players might feel a bit lied to when the vampire they're fighting is immune to fire, but with a solid grounded explanation as to why/how forthcoming, most players will be OK with it. Throw a little tidbit into their research of a folk tale or legend of one vampire who was also a fire mage or something... and you've laid the groundwork of expectations and setting-facts.
Keep throwing these GOTCHA! moments at them, however, and they're going to stop bothering with research, stop engaging with the setting at all, and stop caring.
Based on your exhaustive commentary, I suspect that the "jerk players" you're driving away are the ones who actually want to play their characters in the common meaning of "playing an RPG character", rather than just show up, shut up, and passively watch Darth Ultron Dinner Theater. That is, these "jerk players" are probably the ones who see through your little act, and aren't going to be bullied by a tinpot DM.
No one says that.
It only sounds like they're saying that to you, because you have -- based entirely on your own exhaustive statements on the matter -- a wildly exaggerated idea of the GM's place at the table that amounts to "everyone sit down and do as I say and play along while I show you something awesome"; and an utterly binary view of everything in which games are either total control or total chaos, "choice" belongs entirely to the GM -or- the players with no nuance, etc.
Those sorts of "demands" occur in a very specific corner of gaming, one that I personally don't enjoy as as a gamer (as GM or otherwise) -- "shared storytelling games" and hardcore narrative systems. In those games, it's not really determined as "a set fact" whether there's a guard, whether the guard is awake, or whether the door is locked, before the moment at hand. I don't really get it, but some people love that, and as long as they and I can find systems and campaigns we both enjoy, I'm not so bothered by it.
The locked door and awake guard is something of a hard example to work with, because it's entirely reasonable in most settings and circumstances that the guard is at least not sleeping on the job and the door someone wants secure is locked... so in most games "sleeping and unlocked' is going to be a stretch regardless.
Outside of that, it depends entirely on when and how the GM determines and presents the facts, and whether the players can count on getting reasonable outcomes from interacting with those facts. Railroading isn't saying "the guard is awake and the door is locked" -- railroading is deciding that no matter what the PCs do, they're not getting past that obstacle. The guard refuses to surrender, the guard can't be fooled by anything, the guard gets off an alarm no matter what the PCs do, the door is barred from the inside, there are as many guard in the hallway inside as it takes to catch or stop the PCs, there's another locked door, and another door, and ninjas, and...
...and the GM is making all this up on the fly because the first guard and door wasn't enough for his predetermined course of events to play out.
No one said that -- I did not suggest telling players everything, no did I suggest asking players not to go somewhere.
What I actually said was that a GM is better off saying "I need 10 minutes", than they are stonewalling an entirely setting-reasonable course of events because it's not what they were prepared for or what they originally wanted.It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
-
2017-09-25, 10:53 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2015
- Location
- San Francisco Bay area
- Gender
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
To play out Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight type temptation scenerio's, the Pendragon RPG has "roll playing" of personality traits, to see if your PK (player Knight) is overcome with anger, mercy, lust, etc., so yes the player may temporarily lose control of their PC, I think [I]Legend of the Five Rings has similar mechanics, and I've played D&D that's had PC's being effected by enchantments.
I'm not sure but I think that Apocalypse World and FATE have mechanics that involve players other than the GM in "worldbuilding".
But in general I like Players controlling the action attempts of the PC's and GM's narrating the results,
...so kyoryu's Type One is my general preference, but I've had fun playing Two and Three as well.
-
2017-09-25, 11:06 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Type 1:
GM: "This is the situation"
Player: "Okay, I do this thing."
GM: "This is the new situation."It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
-
2017-09-25, 12:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2010
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
exactly this.
Fate has a certain amount of this in character/setting creation, and much, much less in actual play.
Apocalypse has very little of this in the rules, but a great deal of it in the common culture surrounding the game.
I've become a big fan of allowing players input into the setting, to be honest. If the setting is just for the current group (not an open-table game or the like), then why not make sure you're incorporating elements that the players find interesting? It's a great way to get high levels of engagement right off the bat.
This is mostly how I play Fate/AW, believe it or not.
Please note that I consider D&D 3.x combat (and many other combat subsystems) to be heavily Type Two.Last edited by kyoryu; 2017-09-25 at 12:48 PM.
"Gosh 2D8HP, you are so very correct (and also good looking)"
-
2017-09-25, 12:41 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Gender
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
That's a fair point. I'd argue that the players can say, "My character attempts to do X" and, under rules-based mind control or whatnot, the DM can say that the character is suffering from some sort of ailment that makes them do Y. But with the crucial distinctions of a) being supported by the rules and b) being a fair application of said rules. DM Fiat of the world or the PC that results in the players losing agency over their characters (while still being stuck playing them) is generally veering too close to railroading to be comfortable to me, even when supported by the rules.
I would also argue that even if the players are restricted by game rules to being overcome with anger or passion of some sort, they should still have the option to choose how that is implemented, based on their image of the character. If the character is no longer subject to the player's agency, then the DM might as well make them an NPC. (And honestly, that's not a bad idea in some case! Characters that go evil in good campaigns often work much better as NPC rivals than as problematic party members, after all.)Avatar credit to Shades of Gray
-
2017-09-25, 12:43 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2006
- Location
- 3 inches from yesterday
- Gender
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Thanks Uncle Festy for the wonderful Ashling Avatar
I make music
-
2017-09-25, 01:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2014
-
2017-09-25, 03:09 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2015
- Location
- Mid-Rohan
- Gender
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Oh, absolutely. Everyone should be communicating their hopes and expectations for the game.
My point is, while everyone should have input, the ultimate responsibility for each character falls to the player of the character.
Likewise, the ultimate responsibility for the world/game scenarios these characters find themselves in falls to the GM.
Of course all these players ought to be working together, but to whatever degree they do or do not, all of the responsibility for game setup (excluding the PCs with the exception of GMPCs) falls on the GM. It's the GM's job to make sure the world and game satisfy the needs of the table, with or without the help of the other players. (This is not to say they are to blame when other players are toxic or beligerent; their only job is to make the game work as far as the other players are sincerely cooperating.)
Or at least that is the standard. In some games, there might be more sharing roles, but in RPGs, this is intentionally more rare.
-
2017-09-25, 03:40 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2006
- Location
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
The DM designs a monster that has a secret weakness. Is this railroading?
Not necessarily. Can the monster be defeated by any use of this weakness? Can this weakness be exploited in ways that the DM might not have thought of in advance? Is there a harder way to defeat this monster that doesn't involve this weakness? Are the monster's abilities well enough defined that players can analyze them and come up with meaningful strategies even if they don't know the weakness?
If "yes," then it's probably not railroading.
If the weakness is the only way to stop it, the weakness must be exploited in a very specific way to work, and the monster's powers are anything it needs to have so that the one true weakness is truly the only way to defeat it, then it's railroading.
No, "we decide that it must be weak to fire!" doesn't have to be made true for it to avoid railroading. However, "So this thing can't fly or teleport, and can't phase through matter, and its weakness is that it's burned by silver. We line a pit with silver bars and put a silver lid on top of it when we trick the monster into falling into it," should work, even if the planned idea of the DM was that the party forge silver spears to stab it with. It becomes railroading if suddenly there's only just enough silver to make spearheads for each PC, and the creature can rip through silver barriers with smoldering pain but without being meaningfully harmed, if forging a silver sword doesn't work despite there being enough silver for it if the rest of the PCs forego the spearheads, etc.
It is very likely that you are railroading if you've so specified the problem that literally nothing but what you left as a deliberate path to follow to success can possibly work. You are definitely railroading if you come up with justifications why things that might work absolutely cannot.
It has little to do with guaranteeing the PCs' success just because the players came up with an idea. It has everything to do with simulating a world that isn't contrived to ensure only one possible allowed path to success.
-
2017-09-25, 04:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2015
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Sure, that example still stands, and when the promoted NPC Joe is defined as a character "who will never, ever surrender" that is a pretty solid example of someone who will not surrender. So much so it takes away a lot of the nuisances that make a case interesting, so I decided to ask about a different case.
The ''spin'' gets more into the paladin problem of ''once someone sets something, someone will come up with a way to abuse it''. It's the classic ''well ok your paladin kill a helpless innocent good person to save a world"
That is part of it, but there is also side to it, the figurative rails themselves:
GM: "This is the situation."
P1: "I do this."
GM: "The situation reverts to what it was before."
-
2017-09-25, 05:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
-
2017-09-25, 05:19 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Now this does sound like your saying A) The players are all powerful and can do anything and B) the DM must cave into the players all the time.
Now, I'm sure you will say you don't mean that.....but it sure seems like you do.
Your way is:
GM: "There are two guards by the door"
Player: "Okay, my character walks over and says Boo!"
GM: "The guards run away in fear."
My way is:
GM: "There are two guards by the door"
Player: "Okay, my character walks over and says Boo!"
GM: "The guards chuckle a bit and tell your character to get lost."
Yup, as DM I decided that the players utterly stupid idea of saying Boo was never, ever, ever going to work before his character did it.
Or if you must go all ''rules'':
GM: "There are two guards by the door"
Player: "Okay, my character casts the spell fear on them"
GM: "The guards chuckle a bit and tell your character to get lost." (as before their shift the guards eat a hero's feast that makes them immune to fear for hours...but the player don't know this, of course).
-
2017-09-25, 05:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2015
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
GM: "There are two guards by the door"
Player: "I cast detect magic on them."
GM: "You see they have some enchantment."
Player: "Okay, my character casts the dispel magic and then the spell fear on them"
GM: ??
-
2017-09-25, 05:39 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2016
- Location
- The Lakes
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
In general terms, railroading happens when the GM's "new situation" was determined before the Player ever did The Thing and will occur no matter what The Thing might be; or is determined purely to the GM's preference without any regard for or impact from what The Thing happens to be or whether The Thing actually succeeded within the game mechanics.
Your way is:
GM: "There are two guards by the door"
Player: "Okay, my character walks over and says Boo!"
GM: "The guards run away in fear."
My way is:
GM: "There are two guards by the door"
Player: "Okay, my character walks over and says Boo!"
GM: "The guards chuckle a bit and tell your character to get lost."
Yup, as DM I decided that the players utterly stupid idea of saying Boo was never, ever, ever going to work before his character did it.
Or if you must go all ''rules'':
GM: "There are two guards by the door"
Player: "Okay, my character casts the spell fear on them"
GM: "The guards chuckle a bit and tell your character to get lost." (as before their shift the guards eat a hero's feast that makes them immune to fear for hours...but the player don't know this, of course).
When are you determining that the guards at this place "eat a hero's feast before their shift?" When designing the location... or on the spur of the moment in response to the PC's attempted method of surmounting this particular challenge?Last edited by Max_Killjoy; 2017-09-25 at 06:04 PM.
It is one thing to suspend your disbelief. It is another thing entirely to hang it by the neck until dead.
Verisimilitude -- n, the appearance or semblance of truth, likelihood, or probability.
The concern is not realism in speculative fiction, but rather the sense that a setting or story could be real, fostered by internal consistency and coherence.
The Worldbuilding Forum -- where realities are born.
-
2017-09-25, 06:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2010
-
2017-09-25, 08:52 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2014
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Hardholder, Maestro'd, Child Thing, Water Bearer, Chopper, Quarantine.
(All in 2e, most in 1e, too.)
HH: you literally define the hold where probably everyone lives and you're in charge of it.
Maestro'd: you have heavy influence on threats via your Establishment.
Child Thing: You literally cause one particular threat to be a thing by being this class, and decide things about it.
Water Bearer: You can literally declare yourself the only source of clean water for miles, have a microcommunity/psuedocult from the start, etc.
Chopper: Your gang is a medium-level narrative force.
Quarantine: HUGE influence over the how and what of the apocalypse itself, and your presence causes certain locations to exist.
I'd call those fairly large narrative inputs, all in all.
-
2017-09-25, 10:36 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Excerpt the problem is if the character does not succeed, then the player will cry railroad, right? Like sure if the player rolls a one they will '''fool themselves'' as say ''ok, you gave me a chance to be super agency player and I failed randomly so it is ok." But and ''high'' roll (to the player) that they will ''expect'' to automatically succeed. So if the player gets like a ''40'' and the DM shrugs and says ''your character fails'', then it's right back to the whine and cry of railroading, right?
Odd, as everyone is saying that:
1.Players MUST be given an Infinite number of ways/chances to do everything
2.Players MUST have a ''reasonable'' chance(to the players, so this is like ''all the time'') to succeed.
It is because we see the game differently.
I understand that ''solving a hard problem through game play'' is not your idea of fun, but that does not mean other people don't like it. Sure, some games(maybe yours) are like ''the players just sit there and roll a d20 and get a high number and say DM tell us the weakness. Then they go kill the monster in 2.5 rounds and get the loot and high five each other.''
Well, I would put this one on the players....but it is a great example, so thanks for it.
The Problem-The players do a bit of ''work'' and find out vampires in general are burnt by sunlight. And then they stupidly assume ''well that automatically means Vampire D'ark is not only burnt by sunlight but will explode too''. The players are even to arrogant to take a couple minutes and check ''ok, does our specific bad guy have this general weakness.
So then the players set their stupid clever trap...and it does not work. So then the players whine and cry ''railroad'' and say ''we demand that it work!''. And ''it is not fair DM you said in general sunlight hurts vampires!'' And our foe is a vampire so we demand our stupid clever plan work.
And the players will never accept things like ''it is a daywalking vampire'' or ''he has a protective magic item'' or ''something''
See how the players are the problem as they are demanding to take control of the game and have their stuff always work?
So in ''your odd reality'' do the guards like leave the door unguarded for like an hour while they change the guard? How does you ''clever plan'' work?
Sorry, I did not realize you thought time travel was real.
Not exactly ''secret''. I'm not the one that ''says I won't do it 1,000 times''....and then does it anyway. I'm honest about it, All aboard...the locomotion, the locomotion.
Um you eat cake or you don't...is very straightforward.
How about the vampire one above? DM makes a unique vampire foe with a weakness. The players utterly ignore that, go with ''in general sunlight hurts vampires'' and then demands that work.
I find this only negatively effects the bad players. So it is win win.
I'm sure that is what the bad players tell themselves.
Well..."everyone sit down and do as I say and play the game and have fun as I lead you on a crazy adventure."
Well, first I do believe in the idea of the ''absolutes''. Guard Joe is a super good guy and will never take a bribe, no matter what...he is just that sort of good guy(they exist in some circles).
But even if the DM makes say ''five ways to get around the guard'', what happens when the ''clever players'' don't think of any of the five? They whine and cry railroad!
But again, this is the ''what if''. So event one is the one I said, and event two is the one you said, but they are not related. And the event one players, ''that did not think of detecting magic'' can't cry for a do over.
Well, technically the ''boo idea'' is a ''wacky player idea'' if you are the ''DM'' in this game.
Well, personally, as I'm an amazing DM, most of the time I have such things set long before the game starts. So I'm more then read with the ''photo of me, the thing I made, and a newspaper of that date'' for the hostile player.
BUT, it should not matter if the ''item'' was made a year before the game or during the game one seconds before the event. This goes back a couple pages to the ''improv problem''. You'd say it is ''cool'' for the DM to improv...except when they do something you don't like.
-
2017-09-26, 01:05 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2005
- Location
- Toronto, Canada
- Gender
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Last edited by Friv; 2017-09-26 at 01:09 AM.
-
2017-09-26, 02:26 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2016
-
2017-09-26, 06:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2015
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
Why would you assume it ''must be'' a cleric?
This is the other side of the ''everything in the world must have a billion ways for the players to do it''. As, in the game world, even if the hostile players were to force the lowly DM to ''only use things in the Almighty Rules'' there are still many ways to get things. And even more so if the players ''agree'' to let the DM make up custom things, as per the rules.
-
2017-09-26, 06:28 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2015
Re: Plot Railroading: How much?
I actually wanted to highlight that part, because the "no-selling"/bouncing off the rails seems to be a big part of the larger railroading ... formula? With the "someone grabs you and flings you along the plot (being tied to the trail, to continue the metaphor) seems to happen only as a last resort. Most railroading GMs seem to want to pretend that the reason the party has to do this to move forward is that nothing else makes sense and wouldn't move it forward. See the SUE Files as an example.
But this is a "not related" situation, that both just happen to involve two magically enchanted guards by a door and a fear spell. (Actually, the enchantment in my case probably would have been a physical boost or an attentiveness boost, because the chance of them getting bored is much higher than them getting struck by supernatural fear.) In short, talking about that case doesn't answer my question about this one. So I will ask again, what is your answer here:
GM: "There are two guards by the door."
Player: "I cast detect magic on them."
GM: "You see they have some enchantment."
Player: "Okay, my character casts the dispel magic and then the spell fear on them."
GM: ??
And while we are on answers, or rather questions, why don't we go back to judging cases on their own merit instead of banning everything because you are worried about the slippery slope? Would you like to say more on that, because as it stands, right now your only reason to prevent "use" is to prevent "misuse" and that is at least as problematic as misuse it prevents.
To Friv: I can relate.