Railroading
aetherson
subthread, and they got me thinking.
I was running an Amber game some time ago, and, at one point, the
players were starting to ignore part of the plot. For reference, I'll
refer to that part of the plot as the Mystical subplot, as opposed to
the Succession subplot. So they were ignoring the Mystical subplot,
and one of my NPC's wandered by and tried (succesfully) to push them
back into it.
One of my players, afterward, mentioned that he felt a bit railroaded
by that.
I was floored, simply because I would have been pleased as punch to
have them ignore the Mystical subplot. Later on, if they hadn't dealt
with it, it would have blown up in their faces and become unignorable.
That, I suppose, is where the railroading would have really come in.
My NPC was acting in as IC a way as I knew of. She wanted them to deal
with the Mystical situation so that she wouldn't have to, and if they
hadn't dealt with the situation, she would have been displeased. I was
prepared for them to ignore her, but they would have had to suffer the
consequences.
On the other hand, I can see where my player was coming from. The NPC
in question was older, more powerful (politically and, to some extent,
magically) than the PC's, and she had set up some subplots before.
Clearly, this was a character to blow off at their own risk (though I,
as the GM, was willing to let her be blown off -- I wasn't going to
force any decisions on the players... Just let them deal with the
consequences of their actions).
On a broader note, this seems to be an issue with my GMing in general --
I try not to decide things for the players, but, at times I know that
they feel like they have to guess what I want them to do, not because
I'll meta-game force them to do so, but because the setup for the
problem already precludes a number of solutions.
So, my question is what all of you fine folks think. Would you feel
railroaded by this ICA=ICC (in character actions equals in character
consequences) approach? Do you have suggestions for preserving the
plot of the game while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
Mike (aetherson)
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Tim Dunn
> Would you feel railroaded by this 'in character actions equals in character
> consequences' approach? Do you have suggestions for preserving the
> plot of the game while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
<clinton>
Depends on how do you define railroading.
</clinton>
Me, I feel that so long as the players have the option to ignore a
plotline, it's not gross railroading. We've all heard the horror
stories, so I won't repeat one. Mind you, that's 'gross' rr-ing.
On the spectrum, what happens if the players ignore a plotline and:
1) something so bad as to change the game world happens? ('They'
invade, the characters' lives are ruined, or the world is toast)
The players could say that this constitutes railroading because
of the involved threat.
2) something happens that changes the versimiltude of the world?
Either nothing happens, even though the villian has threatened
to unleash such-and-such horror, or a random NPC pokes the PCs
in the 'right' direction. (A favorite peeve is when someone
much more powerful that the PCs asks them to do him a favor
when he could have done it in his sleep.)
tim
aetherson
td...@ecst.csuchico.edu (Tim Dunn) wrote:
> Mike Aetherson <aeth...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> > Would you feel railroaded by this 'in character actions equals in
character
> > consequences' approach? Do you have suggestions for preserving the
> > plot of the game while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
>
> <clinton>
> Depends on how do you define railroading.
> </clinton>
>
> Me, I feel that so long as the players have the option to ignore a
> plotline, it's not gross railroading. We've all heard the horror
> stories, so I won't repeat one. Mind you, that's 'gross' rr-ing.
> On the spectrum, what happens if the players ignore a plotline and:
>
> 1) something so bad as to change the game world happens? ('They'
> invade, the characters' lives are ruined, or the world is toast)
> The players could say that this constitutes railroading because
> of the involved threat.
That's pretty much the situation I'm dealing with. On one hand,
I /like/, and want to deal with, epic plotlines with world-changing
consequences. On the other, that means that even the most stubborn of
characters is probably going to get involved if the alternative is that
they, along with all other life in the universe, are reduced to
component indivisible particles.
> 2) something happens that changes the versimiltude of the world?
> Either nothing happens, even though the villian has threatened
> to unleash such-and-such horror, or a random NPC pokes the PCs
> in the 'right' direction. (A favorite peeve is when someone
> much more powerful that the PCs asks them to do him a favor
> when he could have done it in his sleep.)
Guh. I hate that too, and try to avoid it.
Adam H. Morse
<aeth...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> On the other hand, I can see where my player was coming from. The NPC
> in question was older, more powerful (politically and, to some extent,
> magically) than the PC's, and she had set up some subplots before.
> Clearly, this was a character to blow off at their own risk (though I,
> as the GM, was willing to let her be blown off -- I wasn't going to
> force any decisions on the players... Just let them deal with the
> consequences of their actions).
>
> On a broader note, this seems to be an issue with my GMing in general --
> I try not to decide things for the players, but, at times I know that
> they feel like they have to guess what I want them to do, not because
> I'll meta-game force them to do so, but because the setup for the
> problem already precludes a number of solutions.
>
> So, my question is what all of you fine folks think. Would you feel
> railroaded by this ICA=ICC (in character actions equals in character
> consequences) approach? Do you have suggestions for preserving the
> plot of the game while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
>
This is very similar to issues that have come up in the game I play in.
Powerful NPC who we've helped out before asks us to go investigate
something or deal with a problem of some sort. We don't need to go,
but there is a sense of obligation, and it's hard to say "no" to
someone who amounts to the ruler of a friendly country. I think
several of the other players felt railroaded, although I did not.
Partially I think this is an issue of game contract. Many players
assume that if the GM has a big NPC say "I'd really like it if you did
XYZ" they have to; that the alternative is being left around twiddling
their thumbs. This is not the case in the game I play in, and I
suspect is not the case in yours as well. Given that we were being
asked to travel for days or weeks in the wilderness, and one of the PCs
was a very urban character, it might have made sense for her to say,
"no, I think I'll stay here." But I think the player felt that saying
that would be saying "I think I'll leave the game for a couple of weeks
or months of realtime." In practice, had she stayed behind, she would
have kept gaming with us, but it would have been through cutting back
and forth: "Okay, I've spent a few hours on the party up north; Anne,
what has Sharra been doing in this time? Oh right, investigating the
take over of a nearby city....So, you're searching in the city for one
of your contacts who's been missing...<an hour of time role-playing
one-on-one>...okay, back to the other people"
If your players assume that being told by Fiona to look into something
(forex) equals GM instruction that they are required to, then it will
feel a lot like RR'ing. If you stress to them that just because an NPC
tells them to do something, they don't have to, it may not.
Incidentally, this problem is particularly great for hierarchical
characters; if your CO, Bishop, or liege-lord (as appropriate) tells
you to go do XYZ, it may be very difficult for the PCs to not do XYZ.
But it would hurt the nature of the game and of hierarchical characters
to not have superiors ever giving orders, or at least so I think.
Players who don't want their characters to have to take orders need to
design characters who don't have to take orders.
Adam Morse
Frank T. Sronce
>
> On the other hand, I can see where my player was coming from. The NPC
> in question was older, more powerful (politically and, to some extent,
> magically) than the PC's, and she had set up some subplots before.
> Clearly, this was a character to blow off at their own risk (though I,
> as the GM, was willing to let her be blown off -- I wasn't going to
> force any decisions on the players... Just let them deal with the
> consequences of their actions).
>
> On a broader note, this seems to be an issue with my GMing in general --
> I try not to decide things for the players, but, at times I know that
> they feel like they have to guess what I want them to do, not because
> I'll meta-game force them to do so, but because the setup for the
> problem already precludes a number of solutions.
>
> So, my question is what all of you fine folks think. Would you feel
> railroaded by this ICA=ICC (in character actions equals in character
> consequences) approach? Do you have suggestions for preserving the
> plot of the game while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
It's an interesting question- "Mystical" subplots do generally tend
more towards railroading than, say, political ones. You didn't describe
your mystical subplot, but I've seen some (and used some myself)
involving bizarre dreams or strange, universe-wide mystical effects (in
my Amber game, someone was making it easier and easier for demons to
cross from Primal Chaos into Shadow). There's a tendency to look down
on stuff like that as railroading because there's generally little you
can do about it (ie- you didn't ASK for the weird, prophetic dreams,
they were forced on you). And, of course, if there are other issues
going, many PCs would be acting out of character if they _weren't_ more
worried about more physical crises like "Who's gonna be King?",
regardless of the GM's hints.
Another problem may be the approach- when a powerful NPC applies
pressure to force the PCs to do something they aren't interested in,
well, they're being forced to do it (whether they blame the NPC or the
GM). I can see a few ways around that:
1) Make sure that the NPC _couldn't_ do it themselves- they _need_ the
PCs (or someone similar) to do it. In short, the PCs understand why the
NPC would need their aid; the NPC isn't just being lazy.
2) Have the NPC hire the PCs, not threaten them (Which gets better
results, anyway? A resentful team may flub the task deliberately, or
keep any useful info they find to themselves).
3) If the PCs won't do it (generally because they have other
commitments to fulfill), have the NPC get someone else. The NPC team
can fail or succeed as you like, but unless the PCs are uniquely
qualified to do it, surely the head NPC can find someone more willing to
try.
Kiz
Psychohist
Do you have suggestions for preserving the plot of the game
while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
I think that the fact that you want to 'preserve the plot' points to the crux
of the disagreement: you are willing to do some 'mild railroading' to
'preserve the plot', while your players, perhaps, would prefer to dump the plot
entirely.
It may not be possible to resolve this to everyone's full satisfaction. There
are story oriented gamesmasters who post here who do this satisfactorily for
their players, but there are also players who post here who feel that those
gamesmasters' techniques would not work for them. So it depends on just how
strongly your players feel about railroading and preplotting.
Gamesmasters who are less story oriented, like myself, would be willing to
sacrifice the plot (or at least any player involvement in it). An 'older, more
powerful' gamesmaster character might still ask the player characters to do
something for her (though she might also consider asking other gamesmaster
characters instead); but in any case, if the player characters refused and she
felt she did "have to" deal with it herself, she would deal with it - it would
not later 'blow up in the player characters' faces'.
Of course, it's possible the gamesmaster character in question wouldn't be able
to handle the problem in question - in which case, it seems to me that the
gamesmaster character would do better to ask the player characters to help her
out, rather than just asking them to do it in her place.
Warren
----
Subject: Railroading
From: aetherson <A
HREF="mailto:aeth...@my-deja.com">aeth...@my-deja.com</A>
Date: Mon, 13 September 1999 02:00 PM EDT
Message-id: <7rje4h$vvv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>
So, I was just going over some old messages in one of the GM Illnesses
subthread, and they got me thinking.
I was running an Amber game some time ago, and, at one point, the
players were starting to ignore part of the plot. For reference, I'll
refer to that part of the plot as the Mystical subplot, as opposed to
the Succession subplot. So they were ignoring the Mystical subplot,
and one of my NPC's wandered by and tried (succesfully) to push them
back into it.
One of my players, afterward, mentioned that he felt a bit railroaded
by that.
I was floored, simply because I would have been pleased as punch to
have them ignore the Mystical subplot. Later on, if they hadn't dealt
with it, it would have blown up in their faces and become unignorable.
That, I suppose, is where the railroading would have really come in.
My NPC was acting in as IC a way as I knew of. She wanted them to deal
with the Mystical situation so that she wouldn't have to, and if they
hadn't dealt with the situation, she would have been displeased. I was
prepared for them to ignore her, but they would have had to suffer the
consequences.
On the other hand, I can see where my player was coming from. The NPC
in question was older, more powerful (politically and, to some extent,
magically) than the PC's, and she had set up some subplots before.
Clearly, this was a character to blow off at their own risk (though I,
as the GM, was willing to let her be blown off -- I wasn't going to
force any decisions on the players... Just let them deal with the
consequences of their actions).
On a broader note, this seems to be an issue with my GMing in general --
I try not to decide things for the players, but, at times I know that
they feel like they have to guess what I want them to do, not because
I'll meta-game force them to do so, but because the setup for the
problem already precludes a number of solutions.
So, my question is what all of you fine folks think. Would you feel
railroaded by this ICA=ICC (in character actions equals in character
consequences) approach? Do you have suggestions for preserving the
plot of the game while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
Mike (aetherson)
Warren J. Dew
Powderhouse Software
Nightshade
>So, my question is what all of you fine folks think. Would you feel
>railroaded by this ICA=ICC (in character actions equals in character
>consequences) approach? Do you have suggestions for preserving the
>plot of the game while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
Well, this is just a general problem; if one is the sort of GM who
tries to keep the plot on track (I don't, per se, in most games; I
just have situations and the players can deal with them or not and
it's all the same to me) it's going to be hard not to nudge people,
and where nudging lets off and railroading begins is in the eye of the
beholder.
My suggestion is, whenever possible, use passive, rather than active,
nudging. The usual form of this is just to present them new
information periodically that will swing their attention back to the
plot element. At that point there's less of a feeling that of being
pushed and more of feeling of being pulled, which many people are more
comfortable with.
Ed Chauvin IV
rec.games.frp.advocacy, Tim Dunn used a less than adequate newsreader
to describe Re: Railroading
>Mike Aetherson <aeth...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>> Would you feel railroaded by this 'in character actions equals in character
>> consequences' approach? Do you have suggestions for preserving the
>> plot of the game while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
>
><clinton>
>Depends on how do you define railroading.
></clinton>
>
>Me, I feel that so long as the players have the option to ignore a
>plotline, it's not gross railroading. We've all heard the horror
>stories, so I won't repeat one. Mind you, that's 'gross' rr-ing.
>On the spectrum, what happens if the players ignore a plotline and:
>
>1) something so bad as to change the game world happens? ('They'
> invade, the characters' lives are ruined, or the world is toast)
> The players could say that this constitutes railroading because
> of the involved threat.
I don't like to have the world end because of a plotline the PCs
decided to ignore. Rather, I'll bring the world to the very brink,
and someone will save it. If the PCs step in, fine. Otherwise, I've
now got some powerful NPCs that I can use for various purposes.
How I use these NPCs depends on the PCs goals. If they're after
wealth, the NPC heros become fabulously wealthy as a result of their
actions. If the PCs prefer political power, then that's what the NPCs
get.
Then, I'll use these NPCs as antagonists or just for nuisance value,
depending.
"Boy, it's a good thing I was there to stop the launch of that D-Day
device. I never thought I'd be so famous. Say, weren't you guys not
too far away from there? What happened?"
Of course, I prefer to run a rather open-ended campaign, but once
events have been set into motion they get carried out to some logical
conclusion.
Ed Chauvin IV
--
As our bodies are armoured with adamantium, our souls are protected
with our loyalty. As our bolters are charged with death for the
Emperor's enemies, our thoughts are charged with his wisdom. As our
ranks advance, so does our devotion, for are we not Marines? Are we
not the chosen of the Emperor, his loyal servants unto death?
-Chaplain Fergus Nils
An address to the defenders of Portrein.
Andrew Bernstein
commenting on the specific gaming instance which began this thread. I'm
writing here only in the most general way possible about railroading. Come
what may...
Before anyone takes the predictable path of arguing that railroading is
only necessary when it's done in the right way at the right time, I will
argue that proper planning makes railroading unnecessary. If players are
consistently and subtly reminded of certain elements the GM feels are
essential to a healthy plot, then the players should respond to them. If
not, then they players are probabl dumb, in which case, the available
remedies should be obvious :-)
I recall reading in my old Traveller books the advice to GMs about campaign
and adventure-making. The good folks at GDW talked about pushes, pulls, and
enigmas.
The push is a compulsion for players to act. This could be a quest to
fulfil, a curse to remove, an imminent threat to oblierate, or whatnot.
These are realistic in any campaign, both from the standpoint of how things
work in the "real world" (whatever the hell that is) and from the
standpoint of fantasy and sci-fi literature.
The pull is an incentive for action. Most fantasy campaigns have this in
the form of treasure. Some pulls could be more personal than pecuniary,
like finding a great, masterful teacher of some mystic art.
The enigma is something that arrouses the interests of players who are
genuinely attracted to the unknown. This is lock and stock of horror
role-playing but it could enliven any campaign. I seriously feel sorry for
any player who is not curious about a well-conceived, subtly-introduced
element to a plot. I also wonder what draws naturally incurious people to
roleplaying to begin with, but I digress.
Basically, the GM advice in Traveller boils down to combining pushes,
pulls, and enigmas to create adventures and campaigns which are a balance
of player motivation. A push alone is mere railroading. Enigmas are a lot
sexier if they are (at least potentially) profitable to investigate. And a
mere pull is an insult to a player's intelligence, even a plainly greedy
one. Everyone loves getting treasure, especially people who are broke! And
if you're not so sure who made you broke to begin with, then well...
One final thought. Please don't mistaken pushes in balanced campaigns for
railroading. Really, all adventure gaming involves some kind of compulsion
because any decent adventure has programatic elements. A good GM will
consider all contingencies and all possibler courses of action for players.
Each course of action shoud lead to some kind of resolution to the plot,
whether good or bad. It doesn't have to destroy the campaign world, but it
could lead to further, more difficult, adventures. Really, it's all in the
planning.
--
Glory to the gateway.........................Andrew
ha...@total.net Montreal, CANADA
Adam H. Morse
railroading. In a sense, I think a lot of the problems I have with
railroading come when choices about means are eliminated.
Saying "investigate X" is way less obnoxious than "investigate X by
going to this location, talking to this person, finding out who hired
him, finding them, beating them into telling you why, and then going to
fight the climactic battle."
But that may be obvious, and that may also be a personal
issue...different people have different thresholds on how much of a
push is too much (with some people saying "no pushes, ever, just follow
what we go after on our own").
Adam
aetherson
"Frank T. Sronce" <fsr...@myriad.net> wrote:
> It's an interesting question- "Mystical" subplots do generally
tend
> more towards railroading than, say, political ones. You didn't
describe
> your mystical subplot, but I've seen some (and used some myself)
> involving bizarre dreams or strange, universe-wide mystical effects
(in
> my Amber game, someone was making it easier and easier for demons to
> cross from Primal Chaos into Shadow). There's a tendency to look down
> on stuff like that as railroading because there's generally little you
> can do about it (ie- you didn't ASK for the weird, prophetic dreams,
> they were forced on you). And, of course, if there are other issues
> going, many PCs would be acting out of character if they _weren't_
more
> worried about more physical crises like "Who's gonna be King?",
> regardless of the GM's hints.
The situation at hand was a bit more external than that -- the PC's had
discovered a worrying source of corrupted Logrus energy, and the NPC, a
bishop of the Church of the Serpent, wanted to know more about it, but
had her own hands full with the succession thing. Since the prime
mover-and-shaker PC was a low-ranked noble who was avowedly non-
political but a damn good Logrus Master, she (and I!) thought it would
be right up his alley.
I think another poster had it at least partially right when he
suggested that the PC's tend to see the "suggestions" of a powerful NPC
as being the conventional way for GM's to force their plots on their
players... Even when it was not the case.
aetherson
> while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
>
help her
> out, rather than just asking them to do it in her place.
This is an interesting post to me, primarily because I think it
highlights an area of GM/player preference that the three-fold model
doesn't touch on at all.
Just to make my example completely clear, let me summarize one more
time:
1. The backplot of the game included a menace of fairly immense
proportions, which was what I was "railroading" my players into
investigating.
2. They were the only people who could handle the threat before it
grew to apocalyptic proportions, due to a combination of skill and
availability.
3. They were, at the time of the "railroading," unaware of the true
severity of the threat.
Suppose that they had resisted the bishop's invitation to continue
their investigations, and then continued to avoid dealing with the
problem until it exploded. At that point, as I see it, I, as a GM,
would have had two options:
1. I could retconn the entire subplot and let it die off quietly.
2. I could instigate armageddon.
Now, I know there are adherents to both camps -- the player who
complained about the railroading to me, no hypocrite, was clearly
inclined to approach #1, as he demonstrated in his own campaign later
on.
I suppose that a simulationist would argue for approach #2 -- it is
the "realistic" answer, after all. But what of Gamists and Dramatists?
It seems that there are equally reasonable story-lines in both
approaches, and that the game might be equally interesting as well.
And yet I think this is a polarizing question.
Tell me what you think.
Tim Dunn
>> something so bad as to change the game world happens?
Ed Chauvin IV <edc...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> I don't like to have the world end because of a plotline the PCs
> decided to ignore. Rather, I'll bring the world to the very brink,
> and someone will save it. If the PCs step in, fine. Otherwise, I've
> now got some powerful NPCs that I can use for various purposes.
> Then, I'll use these NPCs as antagonists or just for nuisance value,
It's a possibility if the existence of those NPCs are allowed for
in whatever has gone before in the game's history and background.
Of course, then the matter comes up of actually making sure these
NPCs have some sense of continuity from the PCs' perspective.
Do they _always_ show up to lend a hand / save the day / show up the
player characters? What about others in the same general power-level?
Of course, to back-step a touch, something so bad as to "change
the game world" need not be Galactus. It could be threatening a
loved one, or even getting the character fired from his job. The
question isn't in the specifics of the threat, it is more "if you
as GM run a plot that happens to threaten the character, does that
constitute railroading?"
Another thought is how _tight_ the situation is plotted. Take the
movie _Commando_. The threat is there: kidnap Arnie's daughter,
make him overthrow a country. Oh, and pay life inusrance. But
if it were a game, Arnie's player decides to not play along, and
try to rescue his daughter.
If the situation were tightly plotted, then the chances of success
would be low, even insignificant. As it stood, the GM (script,
whatever) made it easy for Arnie to get loose, have some free time
etc. If the GM were railroading, he'd devise the situation so
tightly that there'd be no possible way Arnie could rescue
his kid, an unlikely chance he'd find the base, a halfway chance
he'd break free, etc.
tim
Psychohist
The situation at hand was a bit more external than that -- the PC's had
discovered a worrying source of corrupted Logrus energy, and the NPC, a
bishop of the Church of the Serpent, wanted to know more about it, but
had her own hands full with the succession thing. Since the prime
mover-and-shaker PC was a low-ranked noble who was avowedly non-
political but a damn good Logrus Master, she (and I!) thought it would
be right up his alley.
This clarifies the situation considerably.
I find that these situations work better if I as gamesmaster avoid having any
opinion, even if the gamesmaster character has a strong one. In particular,
the player and player character may secretly be far more interested in the
succession issue, and might even prefer that the bishop be distracted from that
issue. This can be played straight if the gamesmaster character thinks as you
describe above, but it is difficult to perceive as anything but railroading if
it's apparent that the gamesmaster agrees with his character.
I think that any time the gamesmaster has an opinion on what the player
characters 'should' do, it's likely to come across as railroading, even if it's
not intended that way.
From another post:
3. They were, at the time of the "railroading," unaware of the true
severity of the threat.
I can see where your player is coming from now - honestly, I think I would have
felt railroaded at that point, too. If we're unaware of the severity of the
threat, why should we worry about it?
And why is the bishop pushing us to do something about it? If he's not as good
at Logrus as my character, how does he know the Logrus threat is so important,
when my Logrus master character missed it? If he actually knows more about
Logrus than my character, he should go handle it himself.
From your description, this seems to be a minor issue at most - after all, the
player did go along with you. But you did seem to be interested in
understanding how a player could see this as even mildly objectionable.
Warren Dew
Nightshade
>consistently and subtly reminded of certain elements the GM feels are
>essential to a healthy plot, then the players should respond to them. If
>not, then they players are probabl dumb, in which case, the available
>remedies should be obvious :-)
Or alternatively, the players actively have internal reasons not to
want to pursue those issues. This can't be generalized without
looking at the narrowness of the focus of the campaign. There are a
lot of campaign types where it's entirely possible for the players to
assess the plot and then essentially, run away from it.
>The push is a compulsion for players to act. This could be a quest to
>fulfil, a curse to remove, an imminent threat to oblierate, or whatnot.
>These are realistic in any campaign, both from the standpoint of how things
>work in the "real world" (whatever the hell that is) and from the
>standpoint of fantasy and sci-fi literature.
Whether realistic or not, it also can get bloody old if overused at
all. And many of them are _not_ realistic when they tunnellize the
available responses.
>The pull is an incentive for action. Most fantasy campaigns have this in
>the form of treasure. Some pulls could be more personal than pecuniary,
>like finding a great, masterful teacher of some mystic art.
These also rarely get people's backs up, and are less likely to be
outright end ran.
>The enigma is something that arrouses the interests of players who are
>genuinely attracted to the unknown. This is lock and stock of horror
>role-playing but it could enliven any campaign. I seriously feel sorry for
>any player who is not curious about a well-conceived, subtly-introduced
>element to a plot. I also wonder what draws naturally incurious people to
>roleplaying to begin with, but I digress.
The problem here is that the player may be interested and the
character not. As such, a roleplaying purist may well ignore an
enigma he'd expect his character to ignore.
>One final thought. Please don't mistaken pushes in balanced campaigns for
>railroading. Really, all adventure gaming involves some kind of compulsion
>because any decent adventure has programatic elements. A good GM will
>consider all contingencies and all possibler courses of action for players.
>Each course of action shoud lead to some kind of resolution to the plot,
>whether good or bad. It doesn't have to destroy the campaign world, but it
>could lead to further, more difficult, adventures. Really, it's all in the
>planning.
This operates on the theorem that a GM can regularly for see all the
possibilities the player will come up with. If you've found it so,
you're either very brilliant or have remarkably uninventive players.
aen...@my-deja.com
> Mike (aetherson)wrote:
> So, my question is what all of you fine folks think. Would you feel
> railroaded by this ICA=ICC (in character actions equals in character
> consequences) approach? Do you have suggestions for preserving the
> plot of the game while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
It doesn't matter how mild the railroading is if the player(s)
concerned are "just not interested" in the plot in question. Also, if
they know from playing experience that ALL plots come back to haunt
them personally eventually even if initially ignored, it adds a
nasty "damned if you do and damned if you don't" air to the proceedings.
Sometimes players in a game develop an aversion to a prospective plot
and conspicuously avoid it. While this can be a symptom of "I shouldn't
be in this game/group" it also can be a consequence of correct
roleplaying. This situation is worst when all the players are in
agreement and the plot the players reject is the referee's "pet plot",
the one he started the game to play out/resolve. In this situation the
referee either must force the plot down the players throats (not
recommended), draw the players in by stealth, change the plot to
something the players are interested in, or run the plot for players
who are interested in it.
More often the situation is that some players can be drawn into the
plot and others are opposed to following it up (normally with a third
group who are noncommmital and willing to follow the majority
decision). This is obviously a recipe for interparty tension and
possible strife, which can be good or bad depending on how it goes.
From the referee's point of view, he must stay out of it even if he
wants the party to follow up the plot hook.
Things can get bad when only a small fraction of the players have any
commitment to the plot in question and they are removed (by death/
disability/ leaving). This can leave a group hanging in mid-plot with
no desire on the part of the players to be in it. I have seen this lead
to bad displays of player nihilism as they cheerfully remove themselves
from the hated plot.
All of the above tends to indicate the advantages of knowing your
players and their likes and dislikes. Similarly, making sure the
characters in the game have reasons to be interested in the upcoming
plot(s). Of course, the major problems in this area arise from hidden
and secret plots, new players and us unpredictable existing ones.
Also, the willingness to drop or significantly change a plot, even just
once, in the face of concerted player(not character) hostility, can
save and even help a campaign. Just knowing plots which are not
interesting to them can be dropped if the players put their feet down
hard enough massively reduces the "we don't want to be here" syndrome.
(having caught up with the newsgroup after my holidays)
Tom
John Kim
aetherson <aeth...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>I think another poster had it at least partially right when he
>suggested that the PC's tend to see the "suggestions" of a powerful
>NPC as being the conventional way for GM's to force their plots on
>their players... Even when it was not the case.
Well, I think there is good reason for this, since in my
experience GM's will often flatly deny that they are trying to
force their plots on the PC's but simultaneously twist events so
as to do exactly that.
I would suggest for a moment throwing away knowledge of
what you _intended_ and look objectively at what you have done.
It is possible that it is not at all railroaded in this case...
I wouldn't know. However, I do know that many GM's honestly claimed
they didn't think they were railroading, but when you analyze their
actions they were clearly biased to guiding the PC's. Some thoughts
on this:
1) Logical consequences
It is easily possible to construct situations where the logical
consequences of PC inaction are very bad things (TM). Thus, it is
not sufficient to say that "I'm just playing out the logical
consequences of their inaction". You must also consider how the
original situation came about.
2) Mouthpieces
It's quite possible that, say, powerful and/or friendly NPC's
are not actually mouthpieces of what you want. However, consider
the opposite: how often to NPC's spontaneously suggest things to
the PC's which do *not* reflect courses of action you are prepared
for. i.e. If the PC's are for hire, do you have encounters where
someone offers a shady-looking deal where you expect that they will
simply refuse it, or offer a job that is simply boring?
Unless you actively work at it, encounters are going to be
indicators of where the Plot is. You need to work at filling in
false leads, random suggestions, and other trivia in order for
this not to be true.
2) Guiding
A common "subtle" plot device is staged warnings. i.e. If
the PC's decide to ignore a plotline, they first get a reminder
of it. If they then ignore that reminder, then they get a minor
but harmless warning. If they ignore that, then a more damaging
warning follows. Only after numerous warnings is it too late
for them.
Each event in itself might be plausible. However, the
pattern is a dead giveaway that the GM is actively trying to
guide the PC's to doing this. Now, you as GM can easily justify
this by saying to yourself that you are simply giving them "fair"
warning about what will happen rather than springing bad things
on them. Personally, I consider this a brand of railroading.
aetherson
jh...@cascade.ps.uci.edu (John Kim) wrote:
> Well, I think there is good reason for this, since in my
> experience GM's will often flatly deny that they are trying to
> force their plots on the PC's but simultaneously twist events so
> as to do exactly that.
>
> I would suggest for a moment throwing away knowledge of
> what you _intended_ and look objectively at what you have done.
> It is possible that it is not at all railroaded in this case...
> I wouldn't know. However, I do know that many GM's honestly claimed
> they didn't think they were railroading, but when you analyze their
> actions they were clearly biased to guiding the PC's. Some thoughts
> on this:
>
> 1) Logical consequences
>
> It is easily possible to construct situations where the logical
> consequences of PC inaction are very bad things (TM). Thus, it is
> not sufficient to say that "I'm just playing out the logical
> consequences of their inaction". You must also consider how the
> original situation came about.
Of course... Which is really what I'm trying to decipher in the first
place. When do we move from "I'm just playing out the logical
consequences" (which, I'm sure most people can agree, should sometimes
actually be the case) to "I've set up the logical consequences to
railroad the players."
> 2) Mouthpieces
>
> It's quite possible that, say, powerful and/or friendly NPC's
> are not actually mouthpieces of what you want. However, consider
> the opposite: how often to NPC's spontaneously suggest things to
> the PC's which do *not* reflect courses of action you are prepared
> for. i.e. If the PC's are for hire, do you have encounters where
> someone offers a shady-looking deal where you expect that they
will
> simply refuse it, or offer a job that is simply boring?
>
> Unless you actively work at it, encounters are going to be
> indicators of where the Plot is. You need to work at filling in
> false leads, random suggestions, and other trivia in order for
> this not to be true.
I think this is an excellent point.
> 2) Guiding
>
> A common "subtle" plot device is staged warnings. i.e. If
> the PC's decide to ignore a plotline, they first get a reminder
> of it. If they then ignore that reminder, then they get a minor
> but harmless warning. If they ignore that, then a more damaging
> warning follows. Only after numerous warnings is it too late
> for them.
>
> Each event in itself might be plausible. However, the
> pattern is a dead giveaway that the GM is actively trying to
> guide the PC's to doing this. Now, you as GM can easily justify
> this by saying to yourself that you are simply giving them "fair"
> warning about what will happen rather than springing bad things
> on them. Personally, I consider this a brand of railroading.
Do you, then, not ever wish to play in a game in which a Really Bad
Thing might happen? After all, if there is a threat of truly horrible
consequences, it's probably going to predicate that your character try
to avoid said consequences.
Mike (aetherson)
aetherson
psych...@aol.com (Psychohist) wrote:
<snip>
> From your description, this seems to be a minor issue at most - after
all, the
> player did go along with you. But you did seem to be interested in
> understanding how a player could see this as even mildly
objectionable.
It wasn't a big deal. It's not like the player and I even had an
argument over the matter. And, actually, I do understand his
objection. My question is more whether (the people on .advocacy think)
it's possible to have large scale, threatening plots without creating
this impression of railroading.
I could go on a fair deal about why I think it was perfectly reasonable
for my NPC to act as she did, but that's getting too into my one
example. Suffice it to say, while I believe that she was acting in a
fully justified and in character way, I also understand that she was
guiding the PC's towards one of my preestablished plotlines, and I can
see how the players might find that objectionable.
White Crow
> So, my question is what all of you fine folks think. Would you feel
> railroaded by this ICA=ICC (in character actions equals in character
> consequences) approach? Do you have suggestions for preserving the
> plot of the game while not doing such (I think) mild railroading?
I generally run by the ICA=ICC method. Every NPC has her own motivations,
and every possible plotline has its conclusion which it will reach without
interferance. They are free to pick up or ignore any plot hooks out
there.
I guess the problem comes in several variations, and one of these may be
where the players feel the railroading from:
1. They feel that any time an NPC tells them to do soemthing they must do
it. They feel that they shouldn't ignore any plot hooks b/c of that.
THis can be old habits left over from bad GMs. If it's a case of them
being worried about the NPC, make sure to leave a variety of options.
COuldn't they suggest someone else to the NPC?
2. They know it will come back to haunt them anyway. Sometimes plotlines
have nasty consequences that don't deal iwth the PCs...or they have good
consequences that they didn't get by ignoring the plotline. Your players
may just not have any interest in that particular subplot, and that's fair
enough...but they may be thinking "Goddammit, we need to follow it b/c our
GM won't let it die and it'll just be worse later." This can be hard to
gauge.
3. You could've just not be "on" that evenign and seemed to push too
hard...even if it was the NPC alone, it may have seemed a little stronger
than normal.
You always end up leading PCs around by the nose. You have to, otherwise
you arne't throwing out enough for them to stay interested, and you aren't
getting them to places/plotpoints that you have ready. The trick is
always giving them the illusion of making totally independent choices.
Is the Mystical subplot interesting to them? To they want to deal
politically with the NPC in question who will be mad if they don't help
her? If the answer is no, then either you let it drop...or find a way to
re-present it to them that they'll find nifty.
--
The White Crow
FUDGE Deryni and more: http://www.io.com/~whytcrow/rpg.html
"I hope I never do anything without due thought, even if the thought sometimes
has to shift its feet pretty briskly to keep up with the deed." -- Cadfael
"You must have been very wicked, for your God has sent me to punish you
for your sins." -- Ghenghis Khan
Konan Lemee
> Just to make my example completely clear, let me summarize one more
> time:
>
> 1. The backplot of the game included a menace of fairly immense
> proportions, which was what I was "railroading" my players into
> investigating.
>
> 2. They were the only people who could handle the threat before it
> grew to apocalyptic proportions, due to a combination of skill and
> availability.
>
> their investigations, and then continued to avoid dealing with the
> problem until it exploded. At that point, as I see it, I, as a GM,
> would have had two options:
>
> 1. I could retconn the entire subplot and let it die off quietly.
>
> 2. I could instigate armageddon.
I would add another one. I prefer to translate supposition 2
into "other skilled people give priority to other things".
3. When the threat becomes clear/important enough, skilled
people will change their priorities, and they will
eventually deal with it before it is too late.
White Crow
> 1. I could retconn the entire subplot and let it die off quietly.
> 2. I could instigate armageddon.
Hmm...I don't usually do world-ending types of plots, for the reason that
if it gets ignored or screwed up, where do I go from there?
But to answer this....are these the only 2 choices?
First off, if they ignore it (for whatever reason--player disinterest,
maybe), you don't have to use it as it was designed. Think about what
they know about the plotline. How can you twist that so that it fits
events that aren't what you originally planned, but so that the world
doesn't end?
I do that all the time. It's only retconning if they know you changed
it.
How about giving steps along the way (spaced far enough apart that it
doesn't seem like railroading) that are connected to the subplot but don't
require the players to get majorly involved. It spills over into
someone close to them. They can deal with that without getting fully
inolved, but they begin to see it is important.
Or the NPC finds someone else...who disappears. They just hear about it
second hand. Maybe the NPC herself has something nasty happen to
her...maing sure of course that what happens isn't something that will
scare them off in a "well, she was more powerful than us and got taken
out" kind of way. What do they have that the NPC didn't (numbers, etc)?
Bit by bit, there are things they can ignore...but maybe it spills over
into their main plotlines...and that can draw them in.
Carl D Cravens
> One final thought. Please don't mistaken pushes in balanced campaigns for
> railroading. Really, all adventure gaming involves some kind of compulsion
> because any decent adventure has programatic elements. A good GM will
I very much agree. To give a character a choice between two unwanted
paths isn't necessarily railroading. External compulsion is a stock
element of fiction... Ben: "Luke, come with me to fight the empire."
Luke: "I can't, I have my duties here at home." GM: "Okay, the empire
just murdered your family and destroyed your home." Luke: "Wahhh,
railroading, railroading! That's it, I quit your stupid game!"
In THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES and it's excellent summary/application
THE WRITER'S JOURNEY, the authors describe the elements common to nearly
all myths... starting with the Call to Adventure, which he hero usually
refuses. Then something happens to force the hero to heed the Call.
Yes, there's railroading and then there's railroading. Is it railroading
to have an event occur that makes it difficult for the character to
ignore? If it's a natural event, I don't think it is... no matter how
persuasive. If a powerful NPC asks a favor, the character can help or
ignore, with the natural consequences following either choice. The
character had a choice, even if he nor the player liked the potential
outcomes of either path.
Railroading is jamming a plot down the players' throats, regardless of
what the characters do. It doesn't give them the option of walking away
from a plot... they can't decide to let the world blow up, because the GM
won't let them. They have only one path to follow, regardless of the
illusion of choice.
A powerful NPC asks the characters to fetch a magical trinket. Ignoring
this request could have serious consequences, but as long as the
characters have the freewill to actually do as they choose, I don't think
it's railroading. When the NPC then casts a geas on the PC's after
they've refused (without having a very good reason to do so from the NPC's
point of view) then that's railroading... taking away the characters' free
choice to act as they choose.
It's a balancing act at times, but some players are too prone to cry foul
just because things didn't go their way and not because the GM unfairly
forced them down a particular path.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
He died to take away your sins, not your mind.
Adam H. Morse
<Pine.LNX.4.10.99091...@lists.wirebird.com>, Carl D
Cravens <ra...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
> I very much agree. To give a character a choice between two unwanted
> paths isn't necessarily railroading. External compulsion is a stock
> element of fiction... Ben: "Luke, come with me to fight the empire."
> Luke: "I can't, I have my duties here at home." GM: "Okay, the empire
> just murdered your family and destroyed your home." Luke: "Wahhh,
> railroading, railroading! That's it, I quit your stupid game!"
>
There is the rather huge difference that Luke isn't a PC. What is
acceptable as a plot device in a movie/book/etc. is not necessarily
acceptable as a plot device in a RPG.
Not saying that I think that that would necessarily be a bad way to
start a campaign, especially on the assumption that Luke's character
sheet had a bunch of things on it like Virtue: Massive mystical powers
of unknown origin +25 and Flaw: Hunted by forces of evil -15. (or
whatever). Just pointing out that the general analogy of XYZ good
book/movie/comic book/whatever did ABC therefore it's okay in my game
is a bad one; players want more control over their characters (often)
than characters get in many works of fiction.
Adam Morse
Boudewijn Rempt
> Sometimes players in a game develop an aversion to a prospective plot
> and conspicuously avoid it. While this can be a symptom of "I shouldn't
> be in this game/group" it also can be a consequence of correct
> roleplaying. This situation is worst when all the players are in
> agreement and the plot the players reject is the referee's "pet plot",
> the one he started the game to play out/resolve. In this situation the
> referee either must force the plot down the players throats (not
> recommended), draw the players in by stealth, change the plot to
> something the players are interested in, or run the plot for players
> who are interested in it.
It isn't just that players sometimes refuse one pet plot - I've known
them to get the taste of it, and refusing every plot opening that came
along - which in one case meant a succession of sessions of 'ordinary
life' played out in detail, with every session one or two openings to
different plots. It's also the reason that people in my gameworld are
defined as being adventurous by reason of national character... Indeed,
I've become quite tolerant of a certain extent of railroading when playing
with another GM.
--
Boudewijn Rempt | http://www.xs4all.nl/~bsarempt
Tom Knight
>
I'd say the most important considerations in railroading are meta-campaign
ideas about exactly what the game consists of. If the G.M. makes clear that
the campaign is going to be plot-lead (e.g., the stereotypical fantasy
farm-boy-makes-good thing) before the campaign starts, and the PC's expect
that, then everything's fair. Most people have different tastes along the
plot-lead/character-lead axis, but as long as they're in sync with what
everyone else in the group likes then go ahead. Internal
consistency/realism is the only other real constraint, in the amount of
events that happen to attract the P.C.'s to a particular plot. If you've
made your style clear, than having a N.P.C. who has a reason to ask the
P.C.'s a favor introduce a plot line is fine. If I'm playing in a Feng Shui
game, I expect blatant hooks to turn up, and as that's part of the campaign
style, I don't complain.
Psychohist
My question is more whether (the people on .advocacy think)
it's possible to have large scale, threatening plots without creating
this impression of railroading.
I think that it is possible to have large scale, threatening occurrences
without the impression of railroading, though I'm not certain they are 'plots'.
My Laratoa campaign has had about four over its 21 years of existence,
depending on how you count.
The first was a major civil war covering the entire campaign. I was hoping for
the player characters to get involved.
As it worked out, though, most of the player characters just tried to stay away
from the armies, with a greater or lesser degree of success. A few of the more
politically minded player characters did get involved, to their advantage or
disadvantage depending on whether they picked the winning side, but their
players were the ones who were actually interested in this event.
This was arguably not seriously threatening to the player characters, though,
since they were mostly adventurers who lived at the edges of civilized society
anyway: it didn't matter that much to them who won.
The second was a major invasion by foreign forces allied with a necromantic
army developed in secret on the island. In this case, more of the player
characters voluntarily got involved. Some of these did not have a whole lot of
choice, as they had obligations to the King resulting from titles they received
from being on the winning side in the civil war; I don't think their players
felt railroaded, though, as (1) it was obvious to them that the character
obligations were legit, and (2) the players were the ones who were interested
in this stuff anyway.
In addition, I think the experience of not being railroaded in the civil war
helped them to trust that they were not being railroaded in the invasion.
The third was a plague (or maybe it preceded the invasion - I don't remember
for sure). There wasn't much the player characters could do about this anyway,
except for physicians who got a chance to increase their profits. You either
died, or you didn't. I think some fled to the countryside for a bit to improve
their chances. Most, again, were adventurers who spent most of their time in
the countryside anyway, and who tried never to be out of sight of a physician
to boot, so their survival rate ended up being higher than that of the city
folk.
The fourth was a failure of the source of magic. I was actually kind of hoping
the player characters would not intervene in this one, and I could play out the
economic effects of a failure of a major part of the economy and culture.
However, one of the player characters, who was a knight in the service of the
Prince in whose domain the source of magic was, accepted an assignment to make
it right. She succeeded, mostly, so I ended up going back to the old magic
system, with the opportunity to do some adjustments to clean up the rules.
While the character in question definitely felt railroaded by the Prince, the
player did not.
It's just a matter of the gamesmaster's not worrying about whether the player
characters get involved, and making it clear to the players that he has no
specific expectations.
Warren Dew
Andrew Bernstein
> >planning.
>
> This operates on the theorem that a GM can regularly for see all the
> possibilities the player will come up with. If you've found it so,
> you're either very brilliant or have remarkably uninventive players.
Granted. All the same, it is important to plan for every conceivable
contingency. This is not brain surgery if you know your players. Of course
you'll get thrown curves. Of course players will make up angles to a
problem that you never considered. These could be fun, especially if you
can bluff your way into making them think you actually did plan for that
contingency!
On the other hand, you're begging for trouble if you conceive plotlines
with a "one situation, one course of action" point of view. If you never
make any effort at all to plan for different outcomes, then your
railroading is your own damn fault and not your players'.
Frank T. Sronce
>
> > It wasn't a big deal. It's not like the player and I even had an
> > argument over the matter. And, actually, I do understand his
> > it's possible to have large scale, threatening plots without creating
> > this impression of railroading.
>
Hm. It may also help if it's a two-sided issue; that is, the PCs have
a choice between preventing the disaster, or taking advantage of it.
e.g.- if they can throw in with the forces behind it, or profiteer off
of the disaster, then they have a moral dilemma, and probably won't feel
as railroaded, since there's more than one reasonable response. And it
lets you bring in NPCs who have made the opposite choice, an easy source
of new plots. :-)
Personally, I like offering the PCs difficult choices, so I'd probably
make it where they were unlikely to be able to BOTH prevent the mystical
disaster AND keep a bad guy from seizing the throne. They could do one,
or the other. They'd have to come up with a really impressive plan to
do both. :-)
Kiz
George W. Harris
wrote thusly:
=This is an interesting post to me, primarily because I think it
=highlights an area of GM/player preference that the three-fold model
=doesn't touch on at all.
=
=Just to make my example completely clear, let me summarize one more
=time:
=
=1. The backplot of the game included a menace of fairly immense
=proportions, which was what I was "railroading" my players into
=investigating.
=
=2. They were the only people who could handle the threat before it
=grew to apocalyptic proportions, due to a combination of skill and
=availability.
=
=3. They were, at the time of the "railroading," unaware of the true
=severity of the threat.
=
=Suppose that they had resisted the bishop's invitation to continue
=their investigations, and then continued to avoid dealing with the
=problem until it exploded. At that point, as I see it, I, as a GM,
=would have had two options:
=
=1. I could retconn the entire subplot and let it die off quietly.
=
=2. I could instigate armageddon.
=
=Now, I know there are adherents to both camps -- the player who
=complained about the railroading to me, no hypocrite, was clearly
=inclined to approach #1, as he demonstrated in his own campaign later
=on.
I think that my preference would be not to put an
immense menace in the backplot that the PCs are the only
ones with the means to defuse. This brings with it the aura
of the PCs being selected because they're PCs. Now, if
you'd set up the menacing backplot long ago and all the
NPCs who could have dealt with it somehow got neutralized,
while the players created characters that just happened to be
able to deal with it, then, well, actually I don't think that's too
likely. If you set the game up so you can say, oh, the PCs
can do whatever they want, but there's this thing that only
they can do that has to be done, well, if you look down
you'll see two parallel steel rails stretching off into the
distance. "All aboard!"
=Mike (aetherson)
--
e^(i*pi)+1=0
George W. Harris For actual email address, replace each 'u' with an 'i'.
Patrick O'Duffy
> It wasn't a big deal. It's not like the player and I even had an
> argument over the matter. And, actually, I do understand his
> objection. My question is more whether (the people on .advocacy think)
> it's possible to have large scale, threatening plots without creating
> this impression of railroading.
I'm a highly dramatist GM, and I'm running a game like this right now,
where the PCs have to avert Ragnarok. While I wouldn't say I 'railroad'
per se, I do strongly direct the game in some ways. The players don't seem
to mind. However, I think there are two major factors in this:
1. This isn't one story in an open-ended campaign - it's a limited
duration campaign focusing solely on this event (and the PC's own personal
stories). The players knew coming in that the game was focusing on one
specific story (although they didn't know what that story was), and for
that reason, I think they're more tolerant of (not too heavy-handed)
'guiding' towards the plot.
2. I always try to provide the 'illusion of choice' for the PCs. If
something needs to be done for the plot, and the PCs aren't doing it, I'll
either rewrite the plot so that the thing in question no longer needs to be
done, or rewrite it so that the PCs find themselves doing it almost by
accident. It helps that the plot of the game isn't set in stone - indeed,
it's constantly changing and adapting to the players. I have some events
in mind that I try to include in each session, but if I can't fit them in,
I can always shelve them (or just forget about them, as I've done a few
times, as the changing plot has invalidated my ideas).
Oh, and I suppose a third factor is that my players co-operate in all
this. They do their best to work within the plot, rather than fighting
it. I've been nervous about this, so I asked them how it felt. None of
them felt railroaded - since the game contract was quite explicit about the
way the game would be focused, they all felt at ease with that style of
play.
I think issues of railroading, plotting etc need to be spelt out in the
game contract, in as much depth as possible. Ever since I'm been
constructing formal contracts (thanks largely to the advice of .advocacy),
I've found player satisfaction has improved and that my games are a lot
tighter and smoother.
--
Patrick O'Duffy, Brisbane, Australia
Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all
for fuckoffs & misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a
filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector,
but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and
masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON, "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas"
aetherson
Carl D Cravens <ra...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
> I very much agree. To give a character a choice between two unwanted
> paths isn't necessarily railroading. External compulsion is a stock
> element of fiction... Ben: "Luke, come with me to fight the empire."
> Luke: "I can't, I have my duties here at home." GM: "Okay, the empire
> just murdered your family and destroyed your home." Luke: "Wahhh,
> railroading, railroading! That's it, I quit your stupid game!"
That sounds in-character for Luke. ;)
Mike (aetherson)
PS: Hey, the whiney little brat bothered me...
John Kim
"railroading". I think a basic problem is that this is a fairly
loaded term. I would distinguish four levels, say:
1) "Scripted"
This is where the basic course of events is essentially
determined by the GM. The GM can prepare in advance the
location of the important scenes, and what the PC's are trying
to accomplish in each. (i.e. "Scene 5: climactic battle on
top of the tower between PC's and villian"). The PC's can
add new elements and complications, but generally will not
change the underlying sequence.
2) "Guided"
This is where the missions of the PC's are determined by
the GM, but they can choose how they deal with them. The most
obvious example is if the PC's work for someone. i.e. Their
organization gives them a mission, specifying the goals they
are to accomplish. They can take different approaches to
solve the problem, but their end goal is specified.
Even if the PC's are not explicitly told what to do, this
can be basically true. i.e. A _Shadowrun_ game where the PC's
are for hire but basically accept the job offers the GM gives;
or a superhero game where the PC's (being heroes) can be relied
on to stop the latest supervillianous plot.
3) "Loose but re-active"
This is where the PC's have a fair amount of free reign,
but are still playing out the results situations which the GM has
established. i.e. The PC's stumble into a gang war between
colonial werewolves and a tribe of Bigfoots. It is open-ended
what the PC's decide to do about this situation, but they are
definitely re-acting to a situation set up by the GM.
4) "Pro-active"
This is a rare one in RPG's, but still perfectly possible.
In this case, the PC's are presented with a basically stable,
normal course of events (for the game world), and create situations
which are interesting to play out. Rather than the GM creating
situations to throw them in, the PC's tell the GM the basics
of what they are doing and the GM fills in details.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Carl D Cravens <ra...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
>Andrew Bernstein wrote:
>> Please don't mistaken pushes in balanced campaigns for railroading.
>> Really, all adventure gaming involves some kind of compulsion
>> because any decent adventure has programatic elements.
>
>I very much agree. To give a character a choice between two unwanted
>paths isn't necessarily railroading. External compulsion is a stock
>element of fiction... Ben: "Luke, come with me to fight the empire."
>Luke: "I can't, I have my duties here at home." GM: "Okay, the empire
>just murdered your family and destroyed your home." Luke: "Wahhh,
>railroading, railroading! That's it, I quit your stupid game!"
Hmm. If I were to play in a role-playing game where the GM
expected me to play out the plot of _Star Wars_ exactly as written,
I would call that "railroaded". Just because something is good
fiction doesn't mean that it is interesting to play out exactly
that sequence in a role-playing game.
glenn...@ichr.uwa.edu.au
: I think that my preference would be not to put an
: ones with the means to defuse. This brings with it the aura
: of the PCs being selected because they're PCs. Now, if
: you'd set up the menacing backplot long ago and all the
: NPCs who could have dealt with it somehow got neutralized,
: while the players created characters that just happened to be
: able to deal with it, then, well, actually I don't think that's too
: likely. If you set the game up so you can say, oh, the PCs
: can do whatever they want, but there's this thing that only
: they can do that has to be done, well, if you look down
: you'll see two parallel steel rails stretching off into the
: distance. "All aboard!"
IMC I created a (hopefully) interesting situation. Standard
the-world-will-be-destroyed stuff. Kept lots of very Important People
busy for years. Meanwhile, while everyone is focussed on that, one
person finds out about the presence of a much more subtle, long term
threat.
All of the important people are busy dealing with the obvious threat,
leaving the PC's (and the NPC who originally noticed, and the other
groups he has contacted) to deal with the second problem. For security,
the NPC wishes to know as little as possible about the solution, leaving
the PC's up to their own devices.
The only problem is that some of the players expect that hooks and
adventures will be handed to them. Some of them haven't quite got the
idea that the world will be badly affected unless they do something about
it, and that timeline.
--
Glenn Butcher | "Corruptio optimi pessima"
kni...@ucc.gu._blah_uwa.edu.au | http://www.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au/~knight/
Adam H. Morse
<jh...@cascade.ps.uci.edu> wrote:
<taxonomy of levels of GM planned plot suggested and usefully
described>
> 1) "Scripted"
> 2) "Guided"
> 3) "Loose but re-active"
> 4) "Pro-active"
Perhaps an obvious comment: this is a continuum, although those are
useful terms. In particular, many games will sometimes be one category
and sometimes another. For example, the civil war issues are "loose
but re-active", whereas the marriage of a PC plot is "pro-active", and
every so often a "guided" plot is introduced, like when the PCs owe
someone a boon and are asked for a favor. Also, many games have
dichotomies between certain types of plots: quests are guided,
political manouevers are loose but re-active, and PC-PC relationships
are pro-active. This is different from my other comment because rather
than being specific to given circumstances, it depends on the type and
often the target of the activities. There is often a big difference
between how interparty plots work and how plots that engage "other
people" work.
Also, I'd point out that your scripted definition leaves a lot of room
for even more scripted patterns. There is almost a 0: PCs are playing
out a play, written and directed by the GM. And you might even include
a 5: utterly PC determined: all aspects of setting and plot are
essentially up to PCs (imagine an Amber type game, where the PCs and
only the PCs have pattern and either Amber doesn't exist or the PCs
spend little time there...EVERYTHING is a function of PC decisions.)
That said, i think 1-4 are the range of generally productive RPGs, and
even there many people will have strong preferences for (or against)
certain levels. Some players would quit a scripted game; many GMs
wouldn't want to run a pro-active game, and some players wouldn't want
to play in a pro-active game (particularly, but not exclusively,
beginners, and in certain genres: the pro-active super hero game would
be just plain weird)
Adam Morse
Nightshade
>
>
>>
>
>I'd say the most important considerations in railroading are meta-campaign
>ideas about exactly what the game consists of. If the G.M. makes clear that
>the campaign is going to be plot-lead (e.g., the stereotypical fantasy
>farm-boy-makes-good thing) before the campaign starts, and the PC's expect
>that, then everything's fair. Most people have different tastes along the
You might think so, but as an article I believe I saw on rpg.net
discusses, what players say they want or are willing to do, and what
they really want/are willing to do are often out of sync. This can be
the case for any number of reasons from communications problems, not
being willing to buck the group, or simply not really knowing one's
own mind. But the result can still be player group stress when the
campaign starts off one way and suddenly the players are putting on
the brakes while the GM is hitting the accellerator.
Nightshade
Hey, I don't plan for _any_ solution; I just look at what's around to
respond to the players and act accordingly. By most people's
standards, I often don't even _have_ a plot.
Michael Martin
: Hey, I don't plan for _any_ solution; I just look at what's around to
: respond to the players and act accordingly. By most people's
: standards, I often don't even _have_ a plot.
Do you at least plan for problems? Even if your characters are
well-motivated and interesting enough to manufacture stuff on
their own, a fairly large number of game/campaign ideas hinge on
forces beyond the player's control buffeting them about.
I mean, I GM Paranoia, where railroading the theoretical "main
mission" is a fact of life; but the main mission is explicitly
admitted to be of no real importance. The "real game" is
everything else (where the players are at each other's throats for
various reasons) and is usually completely unplanned (except for
the conflicting motivations).
Paranoia isn't a very normal example, though. A useful question
to ask is: how can we introduce pre-planned plot elements into a
campaign without forcing the PCs to become gamemaster characters?
I think that if one is going to run a world-shattering plot line
(the standard save-the-world one) this should be stated up front.
The game is about the world being saved and the ones who did the
saving; the characters accept because if they didn't, it wouldn't
be their story. I would want to work with the players to come up
with at least a rough sketch of how their character gets drawn
into the story, but if the character honestly *wouldn't care*
about the game's main conflict, that character doesn't belong in
the game.
--
Konan Lemee
>
> h*a*r*m*a...@total.net (Andrew Bernstein) wrote:
> >The enigma is something that arrouses the interests of players who are
> >genuinely attracted to the unknown. This is lock and stock of horror
> >role-playing but it could enliven any campaign. I seriously feel sorry for
> >any player who is not curious about a well-conceived, subtly-introduced
> >element to a plot. I also wonder what draws naturally incurious people to
> >roleplaying to begin with, but I digress.
>
> The problem here is that the player may be interested and the
> character not. As such, a roleplaying purist may well ignore an
> enigma he'd expect his character to ignore.
True, but I deal with it from a different point of view.
My rules for character creation specifically request that he
is somewhat curious (along with social and a few others). I
feel this is a necessary condition for an adventurer (due to
the way I masterize). Given that, any player has no
roleplaying inconsistency with being curious. On the
contrary, the player may have a roleplaying inconsistency
when not being curious enough.
Disclaimer : I also try to give interesting hints. It looks
like being curious doesn't bother my players while playing
with me as a GM.
Kathleen Fuller
In a previous article, Konan...@irisa.fr (Konan Lemee) says:
>Nightshade wrote:
>>
>> h*a*r*m*a...@total.net (Andrew Bernstein) wrote:
>> >The enigma is something that arrouses the interests of players who are
>> >genuinely attracted to the unknown. This is lock and stock of horror
>> >role-playing but it could enliven any campaign. I seriously feel sorry for
>> >any player who is not curious about a well-conceived, subtly-introduced
>> >element to a plot. I also wonder what draws naturally incurious people to
>> >roleplaying to begin with, but I digress.
>>
>> The problem here is that the player may be interested and the
>> character not. As such, a roleplaying purist may well ignore an
>> enigma he'd expect his character to ignore.
>
>True, but I deal with it from a different point of view.
>
>My rules for character creation specifically request that he
>is somewhat curious (along with social and a few others). I
>feel this is a necessary condition for an adventurer (due to
>the way I masterize). Given that, any player has no
>roleplaying inconsistency with being curious. On the
>contrary, the player may have a roleplaying inconsistency
>when not being curious enough.
I usually try to specify during the "campaign advertisement" and/or
character creation phase what sort of characters I would consider
appropriate for the campaign I have in mind, both in terms of
personality (usually curious and social) and in terms of position within
the campaign world. In theory, and usually in practice, this serves the
dual purpose of letting the players know how I intend to run the game
(thus giving them an opportunity to leap for joy ;), run for the hills,
or adjust their expectations), and insuring that the characters will be
willing and able to enter into the matter at hand. "Appropriateness" can
be related to intended theme, genre conventions, plotting issues, etc.;
at times I will specify that the PCs are all between certain ages and
attend the same school, or, to take an unusually restrictive example,
that they need to fill the classic niches of an Impossible Missions Force
(Leader, Disguis Expert, Techie, Muscle, and Chick, if you are keeping
track). Other times, I ask for characters who would respond in a certain
way to a certain gameworld event.
Only once has this approach failed to produce what I had hoped for. I asked
for "characters who would respond to the king's call for adventurers to save
the kingdom", unwisely assuming that that would be all the prod players
would need to come up with characters who would at least be interested in
_looking_ like classic, virtuous hero types.
I got: a priest who was secretly looking to spread his secret cult, which
worshipped a deity I had not even contemplated when I wrote the setting
(the longtime monotheistic setting...); a thief who only joined because
the alternative was being hanged; a foreign smuggler who thought the
quest looked amusing; a disowned noblewoman looking to get far away from
her father; a mercenary soldier; and a backwoods lumberjack, pure of
heart but not exactly swift of mind.
Of these, only the lumberjack even remotely resembled what I had expected
to get. While I could of course have guided character creation more
strictly, particularly in the case of the player of the priest who
altered the entire religious background to suit a whim, I opted to go
with what I had been given.
I am very glad that I did. While it entailed some readjustment on my
part, my openness led to a much more varied and interesting campaign. The
party itself managed to hold together, courtesy mostly of the priest, who
was very diplomatic, and the lumberjack, who was big enough to deter
others from getting too rowdy. The thief (Intolerance: Nobles) and the
noblewoman (Intolerance: Lower Classes) made a particularly lively
combination, but since everyone concerned had similar metagame priorities
on keeping the party together and functioning, and some PCs were able to
provide a mechanism for doing so, it all worked out.
Even the new god, introduced by a player, worked in. I re-examined my
setting's religions and the deity-level interactions behind them, and
decided that a shake-up was in order. Over the course of several
campaigns and 200 or so game-years, the land has gone from having one
monolithic monotheistic church and one small beleaguered cult, to having
the former church, the latter cult now a publicly acknowledged church in
its own right, and a syncretic faith worshipping both deities that has
become the most politically influential of the three.
I really feel that the campaign and the setting were both improved by my
adjustment to the players' interests and ideas. However, I now try to
work more closely with my players so they have a better idea of what I
expect. I'm still willing to make some changes, but I'd prefer that my
players be willing to adapt as well, especially since I consider it
largely a matter of luck that I was able to use the ideas of all my
players in a single campaign on that occasion without violent clashing.
Now that I've discovered this newsgroup, I have a better vocabulary for
describing my GM style and my intentions for a given campaign, so I think
that in the future I should have to deal with fewer curveballs in the
character creation stage. In play, of course, players will always throw
curves, and I wouldn't have it any other way!
--Kath
co...@prairienet.org "I heard recently that Jell-o has the same
resonating frequency as the human brain."
"That is just the sort of information that
should be kept *out* of the hands of people like me!"
Brian Gleichman
news:7rje4h$vvv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> So, my question is what all of you fine folks think. Would you
> feel railroaded by this ICA=ICC
Step away for a day or two and look what happens...
I'm somewhat surprised at the response you've gotten. I guess it should have
been expected given the very heavy sim nature of the newsgroup. As a gamist,
I have a different view of the matter.
I always thought that railroading wasn't in presenting an 'adventure', but
in forcing it's choice and direction of player action. Thus players are free
to decide if they will act and in what manner.
I have dire threats all over the place that are best handled by the PCs,
NPCs always asking for help, bad events from failure or inaction, etc. etc.
Never had anyone complain. Of course the fact that I'm running Middle Earth
with a game system called _Age of Heroes_ might be helpful in that respect.
Neither one exactly implies player characters who sit on their behinds when
evil knocks on the door.
Personally I see nothing wrong in what you presented. Others want different
things from a game. Someone interested primarily in having their character
select new curtains for the keep might have a different opinion.
Nor do I see any problem with powerful NPCs asking players to do tasks.
Happens all the time. And with IC good reasons. I've often noticed that many
sim GMs have a hard time understanding the actions of powerful NPCs- good or
bad. There are good and REAL reasons for more powerful characters to toss
things to lesser ones. Play in my campaign a while and you would end up
seeing your character doing the same after it gained in power.
I tell the players up front their expected role in the world. If their not
interested, it would be best to have them find another game. I would think
your players would have had little reason for complaint if they knew from
the start that they were to combat the Great Menace.
--
Brian Gleichman
glei...@mindspring.com
Age of Heroes: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/
lam...@my-deja.com
aetherson <aeth...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> In article <7rkar8$j...@news.service.uci.edu>,
> jh...@cascade.ps.uci.edu (John Kim) wrote:
[SNIP]
> > Each event in itself might be plausible. However, the
> > pattern is a dead giveaway that the GM is actively trying to
> > guide the PC's to doing this. Now, you as GM can easily justify
> > this by saying to yourself that you are simply giving them "fair"
> > warning about what will happen rather than springing bad things
> > on them. Personally, I consider this a brand of railroading.
> Do you, then, not ever wish to play in a game in which a Really Bad
> Thing might happen? After all, if there is a threat of truly horrible
> consequences, it's probably going to predicate that your character try
> to avoid said consequences.
Consequences of your actions can be justified under gamist, dramatist,
or simulationist methods. But the "fair" warning John refers to may
not be allowed.
If simulationist then there will often be no gradual buildup/repeated
warnings. The Villian if left undisturbed does not strike till he is
ready, then he wins if undisturbed during the settup, the "fair" warning
itself is a serious break in simulation in these cases, and since the
only purpose it serves is to force the PCs into action it is a railroad.
If dramatist then in ignoring what the PCs are concentrating on and
setting up a different plotline, and forcing it on the PCs you are
railroading.
If gamist then this is (as far as I can tell) justified. UNLESS the
players consider the choice of which plot hook to pick up on to be a
resolution point. In which case you are trying to force them to go
back on their decision. i.e. a railroad.
i.e. "fair" warning + logical consequences = railroad in many, perhaps
most cases. In a simulation the repeated warnings, with no one
else taking action, are almost always a break in simulation intended to
force the PCs down a particular path. In a dramatist ethic you are
trying to force a plotline on the PCs, and logical consequences are
just another word for the plot. In a gamist game you had a resolution
point where due to inadequate information the PCs made the 'wrong'
choice, which is poor senario design, and you are now trying to force
the PCs to go back and make the 'right' choice. But having a 'right'
choice and 'wrong' choice with insuficient info is like having a
resolution point depend on the call of a coin toss.
Lessons:
Simulationist, be very carefull about worldwrecker plots, after all
the world somehow survived befor the PCs were born and will probably
survive after they die. But if you have one be prepared for the
world to be wrecked, THAT is the logical consequence of the PCs
ignoring the hook after all.
Dramatist, be careful that your plot and the players plots match.
Remember that the story is NOT nessesarily the story of how the
PCs save the world. It may be the story of whatever else they are
doing instead while someone else saves the world. (The world
ends because the destined heros insisted on ignoring their destiny
is not a great story, there is a reason few if any novels or movies
have yet used it...)
Gamist, be careful that you are not treating something as window
dressing that your players are treating as part of the challenge.
Remember if the Players have a legitimate choice then that IS a
resolution point, make sure they have enough info to have the
challenge be "fair" before they commit themselves.
DougL
lam...@my-deja.com
Hmmm, when I find that a PC is not proactively trying to do anything,
and is not reacting to any hooks he sees, and is not starving to death,
that it is time for that character to anounce that he is retiring, and
for the player to make up a new one. I tend to encorage this when it
comes up, I find it adds to the simulation for the Players to know that
their characters CAN settle down to a peaceful life like anyone else.
I have run a number of characters who retired as soon as they managed
to join the lowest ranks of the landed nobility in a reasonably stable
area. These characters have a 'victory condition' and once they have
filled it, it is time to make a new character.
Face it, most PCs are exceptionally competent, and most people given
the opportunity will eventually settle down to a routine which need
not be played out. It starts to grate if an exceptionaly competent
PC can never achieve his ambitions and settle back to enjoy his life.
Normal people mannage this all the time after all...
lam...@my-deja.com
"Brian Gleichman" <glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Personally I see nothing wrong in what you presented. Others want
different
> things from a game. Someone interested primarily in having their
character
> select new curtains for the keep might have a different opinion.
I posted in a different part of this thread reasons each of the
three styles might object to repeated warnings about a world wrecker
plot. When I first started writting the message I actually claimed
that gamists would not object. Then I thought about it and realized
that to some gamists the choice of which plot to persue could itself
be a resolution point.
Would you agree, and further agree that in this case repeated hints
that the players really should go back and re-evaluate the decision
would grate? I am curious because gamist is the style I play least
often.
> Nor do I see any problem with powerful NPCs asking players to do
tasks.
> Happens all the time. And with IC good reasons. I've often noticed
that many
> sim GMs have a hard time understanding the actions of powerful NPCs-
good or
> bad. There are good and REAL reasons for more powerful characters to
toss
> things to lesser ones. Play in my campaign a while and you would end
up
> seeing your character doing the same after it gained in power.
I am a simulationist but I often have more powerfull NPCs who can
influence PC actions, and see no problem with this. And PCs often
excercise the same sort of power over both NPCs and other PCs. One
thing I have found helpful is to always keep track of what a half
dozen or so of the more powerfull NPCs were doing and why they
were not solving the problem themselves, then I know why they were
leaving/assigning it to the PCs.
Every once in a while suggest a hook, then if it is ignored simply
state a few sessions later that they hear about someone else solving
the problem. This should happen naturally as part of the simulation
after all.
Another thing, make it clear that the PCs can gain influence
themselves, last week in a relatively new game with several new
players the adventure started with the argument over who got to
give orders (as it happens a PC won, I had actually expected one
of the NPCs to end up in charge in this case, but being explicit
about how a hierarchy works helps make it clear that PCs are not
always on the recieving end of the command structure and that they
can advance toward the top).
I consider myself a simulationist and have trouble imagining a game
where the PCs are neither independent monarchs (or some other
equivelent) and are never 'forced' to do what someone else wants.
The most direct case of this I have run was an Ars Magica covenant
with 10 more senior NPC wizards, four of whom could give direct orders
to any of the PCs, just the fact that the list of available books for
each season's study had several NPC initials already filled in as having
checked out some of the books before the PCs got their chance gave the
PCs some understanding of what the NPCs were doing, and the occasional
improvements in the library told them what the most senior NPCs were
up to, and why everyone else put up with them giving orders.
When your library already has what is reputedly the best Corporemn
book in the world and it improves after Rose adds additional marginal
notations you KNOW why her time and life are generally considered more
valuable than yours. 'Better longevity potions for all if she keeps
at her reaserch' trumps 'let her solve her own problems' as an
argument...
Frank T. Sronce
>
> In article <Pine.LNX.4.10.99091...@lists.wirebird.com>,
> Carl D Cravens <ra...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
> > I very much agree. To give a character a choice between two unwanted
> > paths isn't necessarily railroading. External compulsion is a stock
> > element of fiction... Ben: "Luke, come with me to fight the empire."
> > Luke: "I can't, I have my duties here at home." GM: "Okay, the empire
> > just murdered your family and destroyed your home." Luke: "Wahhh,
> > railroading, railroading! That's it, I quit your stupid game!"
>
>
> Mike (aetherson)
>
> PS: Hey, the whiney little brat bothered me...
>
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Yeah, I was much more impressed with Mark Hammill's (sp?) acting skills
when I saw all three movies at one sitting. There may not be great
characterization in Luke, but the actor went from the whiny brat to the
pretentious jedi without much trouble. :-)
Kiz
White Crow
> It wasn't a big deal. It's not like the player and I even had an
> argument over the matter. And, actually, I do understand his
> objection. My question is more whether (the people on .advocacy think)
> it's possible to have large scale, threatening plots without creating
> this impression of railroading.
Hmm...this is a good question, as in some ways I plan to do this
myself...providing the big nasty plotline as a backdrop that the PCs
aren't intended to get involved in (although, there is the possiblity that
they can).
I think that big nasty backplots can add a lot of flavor to a campaign, if
done in a way that doens't seem railroaded. However, that is a fine
line...since different folks take it different ways.
I guess the best thing to do is first and foremost make it obvious that
while they can get involved, there is no need to do so beyond their own
interest. Do they have rivals who will be after the spoils (credit,
treasure, etc)? That type of thing.
I try never to make a "required" plotline, and when I do I try to make
them so integral to the PCs that they are caught up in it. A sister of a
PC is kidnapped...they pretty much are going to have to rescue her. Is
that rring? I tried to present the information in a unique way so that it
didn't seem so much so, but in the end it was requied..nasty things
would've happened if they didn't rescue her.
I don't do lots of metaplot though, so maybe it's easier in smaller doses.
> I could go on a fair deal about why I think it was perfectly reasonable
> for my NPC to act as she did, but that's getting too into my one
> example. Suffice it to say, while I believe that she was acting in a
> fully justified and in character way, I also understand that she was
> guiding the PC's towards one of my preestablished plotlines, and I can
> see how the players might find that objectionable.
It's a good example...an NPC offers a plot hook that needs not be taken,
and yet the player felt "railroaded" into doing so.
I like to throw out tons of things to see what my players respond
to...they deal with what happened or they don't, and the consequences
thereof. But do I railroad my players? I like to think not, although
I've done similar things as the first example.
Andrew Bernstein
wrote:
> Hey, I don't plan for _any_ solution; I just look at what's around to
> respond to the players and act accordingly. By most people's
> standards, I often don't even _have_ a plot.
Look, there's no need to take it personally. Let's try to keep the
discussion in the abstract/public realm. This is supposed to be about the
most general concerns in gaming--at least that's the assumption I follow
when I post here.
But if you must know, I'm not a plot accountant. I don't make concept maps
or flow charts or anything like that. It actually takes very little in the
way of mental effort in order to have a sequence of events thought out, and
to consider possible contingencies brought in by players when they meet the
events. If the players meet a planned event in a way which makes subsequent
events impossible, or substantially different, then what the hell? It's fun
having to change things like that. Players get to improve their characters
all the time, why can't GMs fiddle with their adventures and campaigns?
White Crow
> on keeping the party together and functioning, and some PCs were able to
> provide a mechanism for doing so, it all worked out.
This brings me to one of my pet peeves.
A lot of people run PCs with a strict interpertation of what the char will
do. In real life, a person's behaviour runs a wide gamut depending on a
lot of factors. And yet, some people rp thier chars with no chance of
deviation. This isn't a problem except when it stomps in the face of
making the "party" work.
I call it a failure to make in-game concessions for out of game concerns.
The exampel of the noblewoman who hated commoners and the commoner who
hated nobles is good. Rather than make an issue of "we can't be in the
same group" it seems the party in question dealt with it.
Keeping in char is one thing. Keeping in char to the point that it ruins
the game for everyone is another. If your char can't be flexible enough
to stay with the group at large, then you should make another char. (I'm
having this issue in teh game I run, with one PC who just is no longer
fitting in).
Carl D Cravens
> Hmm. If I were to play in a role-playing game where the GM
> expected me to play out the plot of _Star Wars_ exactly as written,
> I would call that "railroaded". Just because something is good
> fiction doesn't mean that it is interesting to play out exactly
> that sequence in a role-playing game.
It wasn't my intention to suggest that anybody be forced to follow any
plot... it was simply an example of how fiction is often built. (And a
bit silly in its presentation.)
The point is, heroes often refuse the initial call to adventure... it's
the nature of man to avoid change and conflict when possible. Luke did
this in Star Wars, but the call became stronger and his restrictive ties
less through what many players would call railroading in a game.
I once had a character in a low-combat game who was a cloth merchant and a
son of a prominent weaving house. The character had a certain amount of
freedom, being a travelling merchant, but his life revolved around the
business and family. He found it hard to participate in some events
because he was needed elsewhere by his family. When the GM arranged to
have his entire family murdered (by a plausable string of events) and the
weaving house destroyed, he both freed up my character from personal
obligations and gave him even more motivation to get involved in the
political events that led to his family's death. I didn't consider it
railroading, even though the GM engineered it primarily to get the
character involved in something he was reluctant or unable to get into.
Things happen to characters that players aren't always happy with. That
doesn't make it railroading, though.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
You can tell the nature of a man by the words he chooses.
-Dr. Ed Cole
aetherson
> Things happen to characters that players aren't always happy with.
That
> doesn't make it railroading, though.
Yes. One thing I've been interested by in this thread is that I've
gotten a lot of responces which seem to imply that a character is
inviolate. You can't pressure them, you can't mess with their
backgrounds, you can't try to convince them to do anything they might
not be automatically inclined to do.
While I realize that fiction and role playing are two seperate things,
it seems to me that many of the literary roles which many people
(myself definitely included) like to play are the reluctant hero
types. The sort of people who have greatness (or hardship and tragedy)
thrust upon them, through no particular merit or fault of their own.
Sure, it's one thing if the GM doesn't let you have any control of your
character, or if your actions have no effect on the game world, but do
we really have the overwhelming feeling on the newsgroup that GM's
should /never/ push a plotline onto a group?
Following up on my own thoughts earlier about this issue of railroading
and the threefold model, the extreme view I postulate above isn't very
simulationist (in the real world, we're all forced to do things we'd
rather not, quite a great deal of the time). It doesn't sound like it
makes for a real great story, or at least it cuts down on the possible
breadth of stories quite a bit, so I imagine that dramatists wouldn't
much like it, and it seems independent of the game challenge.
Mike (aetherson)
Frank T. Sronce
>
> Hmmm, when I find that a PC is not proactively trying to do anything,
> and is not reacting to any hooks he sees, and is not starving to death,
> that it is time for that character to anounce that he is retiring, and
> for the player to make up a new one. I tend to encorage this when it
> comes up, I find it adds to the simulation for the Players to know that
> their characters CAN settle down to a peaceful life like anyone else.
>
> I have run a number of characters who retired as soon as they managed
> to join the lowest ranks of the landed nobility in a reasonably stable
> area. These characters have a 'victory condition' and once they have
> filled it, it is time to make a new character.
>
> Face it, most PCs are exceptionally competent, and most people given
> the opportunity will eventually settle down to a routine which need
> not be played out. It starts to grate if an exceptionaly competent
> PC can never achieve his ambitions and settle back to enjoy his life.
> Normal people mannage this all the time after all...
>
> DougL
>
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
I've seen this become a problem of sorts in Amber, where pretty much
every PC _starts out_ powerful enough to set themselves up as the ruler
of their own kingdom and retire, if they want to. If a player's
character concept is of someone who would be content if left alone,
they're hard to bring into play without some overwhelming
universe-threatening danger.
Heh. There was a Trump artist PC who spent a _lot_ of his time in just
quiet meditation, occasionally working on Trumps.
Led to the lines: "Does Fabian have Conjuration?" "I don't know, I've
never seen him do anything." (much laughter) "Related to Conjuration,
I mean."
Kiz
Brian Gleichman
> Would you agree, and further agree that in this case repeated
> hints that the players really should go back and re-evaluate the
> decision would grate?
I'd agree, at least in the general case.
Repeated hints designed to make the players notice a by-passed thread has
something akin to allowing critical re-rolls. It says 'bad decision, do you
want to die or something?", a warning I reserve only for players new to my
games.
On the other hand we're talking a simulated reality here (no matter the
Threefold corner, there is a bit of Sim). In a 'Grand Menace' campaign such
multiple hints would be present.
For example, one couldn't live in northern Middle Earth during the period of
Angmar and not see the effects almost daily. If you're a free citizen of the
north during that time, there are those that plainly want YOU (and all you
know) dead. Two thirds of the North Kingdom is already lost in my game. If
that isn't something you want to deal with, it would be best to be
elsewhere.
The above indicates that the player will see 'hints' of the Great Menace all
the time, but the conditions will be different as time passes. If they
choose inactivity to a threat one month, they may hear of it the next, but
it will have had a month of not having to worry about the players. The
results of their decision has been enacted, it's importance maintained.
The key is to represent reality while allowing the players keep their own
decisions. A fast way to anger a gamist is to remove the importance of his
choices. That means bad decisions should have the natural outcome of bad
results- for somebody.
The use of repeated warnings is only harmful if such warnings A) wouldn't
really happen and B) lead to the same starting position no matter the course
of normal events in the time lost. The first is unrealistic, the second
removes the results of the player's initial choice. The pure gamist might
not mind much about the former, but the latter is a different story.
> I am a simulationist but I often have more powerfull NPCs who
> can influence PC actions, and see no problem with this. And
> PCs often excercise the same sort of power over both NPCs
> and other PCs.
It looks like we're on the same page with our treatment of powerful NPCs and
PCs.
I've never had a long term player tell Gandalf to "Do it yourself you old
coot! You're much more powerful than us". It would be somewhat embarrassing
to point out to them how often they, with good reason, have passed tasks to
those less than themselves.
Having watched r.g.f.a, it seems that problems with this concept is more
common with the DIP group. A result of their trees and no forest approach. I
wouldn't mind (they do get what they want after all), except I see
complaints about 'do nothing NPCs' now and again like we have in this
thread.
Brian Gleichman
> Following up on my own thoughts earlier about this issue of
> railroading and the threefold model, the extreme view I
> postulate above isn't very simulationist (in the real world, we're
> all forced to do things we'd rather not, quite a great deal of the
> time).
The simulationist might object thinking that the action wasn't real, but
rather an outcome of a desire of the GM. Warren's posts for example speak
not of the action itself, but of trust in its (lack of ) motivation.
> It doesn't sound like it makes for a real great story, or at least
> it cuts down on the possible breadth of stories quite a bit, so I
> imagine that dramatists wouldn't much like it
The dramatist might feel that you're inflicting your story on the character
when they are interested in the story THEY were telling. The old "I NEEDED
THAT NPC TO CONTRAST WITH MY CHARACTER AND YOU JUST TURNED HIM TO ASH! ALL
TO HOOK ME UP WITH A NEW CONTACT! RAILROADER!" reaction.
>, and it seems independent of the game challenge.
The gamist might think it is a method of overturning his valid decisions.
---
In general, I never mess with a character's CORE background unless I either:
get permission from the player (it isn't hard to get sometimes- I've even
had one player ask for really bad things to happen to her character to suit
her own story goals) or as the natural result of their own actions.
The important thing to do is to figure out what is core background to the
player, and what is fluff. You can torch fluff sometimes, but ripping out a
character's core (as a simple plot device) is the same as killing them.
Andrew Bernstein
> You might think so, but as an article I believe I saw on rpg.net
> discusses, what players say they want or are willing to do, and what
> they really want/are willing to do are often out of sync.
Granted. This is a problem with all human endeavors. Hell, its probably the
reason why many marriages break up, but I digress...:-)
This is why games have GMs. Adventure games would be pretty fruitless if
they players did whatever they wanted all the time. If the players only
went along begrudgingly, however, they wouldn't have much fun for very
long. The GM is there to provide balance, structure, and focus. Making
things enjoyable for everyone is the GM's duty.
Railroading probably begins where the GM exercises the tightest possible
control, without regard to the players' enjoyment.
Tim Dunn
> I (td...@ecst.csuchico.edu, aka Tim Dunn) wrote:
>> [players choose for characters to ignore plot thread and]
>> something so bad as to change the game world happens?
>> The players could say that this constitutes railroading because
>> of the involved threat.
"But Magistrate, he handed over his coinpurse..."
"Only because you had a crossbow drawn on him!"
>That's pretty much the situation I'm dealing with. On one hand,
>I /like/, and want to deal with, epic plotlines with world-changing
>consequences. On the other, that means that even the most stubborn of
>characters is probably going to get involved if the alternative is that
>they, along with all other life in the universe, are reduced to
>component indivisible particles.
After years of Champs, I recall a quip from one of the "Man From
U.N.C.L.E" TV movies - "Don't talk to me about saving the world,
Illya. We've done it enough today. Let it save itself."
For me, I like challenging the characters to a point, and giving
them what they want. It depends on the players, the characters
and the setting. If it's going to be four-color supers, of course
there's going to be some city-saving going on. If it's going to
be cyberpunk, then world-saving usually isn't part of the picture.
Saving one's ass may be all the saving going on.
This isn't to say that you /must/ run four-color supers constantly
in "save the world" mode. Some of the best early issues of the
Justice League (mid 80's, not mid 50's run) dealt not with saving
the world (though a nuclear reactor meltdow did figure into it),
but with the Justice Leaguers bickering and behaving like brats.
Or at least one of them, anyhow.
tim
Russell Wallace
wrong angle. The answer, after all, is practically always going to be
yes, at least to some extent.
Merely being able to say truthfully "I'm just working out the logical
consequences of events in the world" doesn't mean anything - a GM can
always set things up so that the PCs have no meaningful choices about
what to do next, and still adhere to this.
Railroading means exerting pressure on players to do X rather than Y,
and once you set up any plot at all - or at least, any that the PCs have
any reason whatsoever to care about - then you're doing that at least to
some extent; after that it's a matter of degree.
Nor is this a bad thing. The alternative, after all, is not to set up
any plot whatsoever. This is common in many online gaming fora -
everyone creates a character and just wanders around interacting. The
problem is that very little ever *happens*, and to me at least it's
ultimately unsatisfying.
So in my opinion, it's best to come at it from the reverse direction.
The way I approach it is not "can I have zero railroading" - the answer
is no, not and have an interesting game - but rather "given that I do
want to set up a plot, and provide good reason for the PCs to want to
follow it, how can I ensure that they still have freedom of action?"
Because as a player, I don't ask "is this campaign free of railroading"
but "of course there's some railraoding, but nonetheless do I still have
meaningful decisions to make?".
To get more specific, in your example I'd by all means go ahead and have
the Logrus plot, and have, if that seemed appropriate, an NPC
suggest/request that they follow it up (which almost all players will
usually also consider a suggestion/requestion from the GM). But then
I'd leave as much leeway as possible in *how* they deal with it. I
think it's far more fruitful to look for ways to leave leeway in ways of
solving the problem, than in problems to solve.
--
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."
Russell Wallace
mano...@iol.ie
Nightshade
>In article <37e33641.10946882@news>, Night...@nightdark.com (Nightshade)
>wrote:
>
>> Hey, I don't plan for _any_ solution; I just look at what's around to
>> respond to the players and act accordingly. By most people's
>> standards, I often don't even _have_ a plot.
>
>Look, there's no need to take it personally. Let's try to keep the
>discussion in the abstract/public realm. This is supposed to be about the
>most general concerns in gaming--at least that's the assumption I follow
>when I post here.
>
Uh, I wasn't taking it personally; I was simply making an observation
about why this is usually a non-problem for me.
>But if you must know, I'm not a plot accountant. I don't make concept maps
>or flow charts or anything like that. It actually takes very little in the
>way of mental effort in order to have a sequence of events thought out, and
>to consider possible contingencies brought in by players when they meet the
>events. If the players meet a planned event in a way which makes subsequent
>events impossible, or substantially different, then what the hell? It's fun
>having to change things like that. Players get to improve their characters
>all the time, why can't GMs fiddle with their adventures and campaigns?
Well, some people aren't very good with doing that after the fact,
particularly on the fly. That's one reason true railroading happens
as often as it does.
Nightshade
Actually, I suspect a lot of it occurs with GMs who are simply not
very flexible by nature and are trying to keep some coherence to what
they're doing. If you're not good at adjusting and adapting on the
fly, PCs can easily bomb whatever situation you've set up past your
easy ability to fix it...so you try to prevent that happening. If
taken far enough, you get the railroad.
Nightshade
>Nightshade <Night...@nightdark.com> wrote:
>
>: Hey, I don't plan for _any_ solution; I just look at what's around to
>: respond to the players and act accordingly. By most people's
>: standards, I often don't even _have_ a plot.
>
>Do you at least plan for problems? Even if your characters are
>well-motivated and interesting enough to manufacture stuff on
>their own, a fairly large number of game/campaign ideas hinge on
>forces beyond the player's control buffeting them about.
Outside of the superhero genre, not often. I just run the world, and
occasionally think about what parts of the world that will interact
with the PCs more carefully. In many campaigns, if the PCs really
wanted to sit around in a bar six months out of the year, they
probably could.
>I think that if one is going to run a world-shattering plot line
>(the standard save-the-world one) this should be stated up front.
>The game is about the world being saved and the ones who did the
>saving; the characters accept because if they didn't, it wouldn't
>be their story. I would want to work with the players to come up
>with at least a rough sketch of how their character gets drawn
>into the story, but if the character honestly *wouldn't care*
>about the game's main conflict, that character doesn't belong in
>the game.
As long as you were clear up front that this was what the game was
about. A game with a lot of low level conflicts and an occasional big
one is dangerous because the players may well not want to deal with
the big one. If you aren't prepared to deal with them backing away
from it, you'd better let them know that early in the campaign.
Psychohist
I'm somewhat surprised at the response you've gotten. I guess
it should have been expected given the very heavy sim nature
of the newsgroup. As a gamist, I have a different view of the
matter....
Nor do I see any problem with powerful NPCs asking players to
do tasks. Happens all the time. And with IC good reasons. I've
often noticed that many sim GMs have a hard time understanding
the actions of powerful NPCs- good or bad. There are good and
REAL reasons for more powerful characters to toss things to
lesser ones. Play in my campaign a while and you would end up
seeing your character doing the same after it gained in power.
I think this misses the distinction we sim people are trying to make -
unsuccessfully it seems - between 'in game' pressure and metagame pressure.
I have no problem with a more powerful gamesmaster _character_ wanting to pawn
a task off on a player _character_.
What I have a problem with is the involvement of the metagame - when the
gamesmaster himself is involved, not just his character, or the player herself
is involved, not just her character. When it's the gamesmaster putting
pressure on the player, or the gamesmaster putting pressure on the player
character, or even the gamesmaster character putting pressure on the player as
a player, that's when the trouble arises.
My points regarding the logrus example were intended to point out that, given
what's been written, there seem to be some inconsistencies about the situation
when viewed solely from within the world (specifically concerning
inconsistencies about whether the NPC or the player character knew more about
logrus). When this kind of inconsistency is present, a simulationist is likely
to suspect ulterior motives on a metagame level - in this case, on the part of
the gamesmaster.
I would think that a gamist would have similar concerns when the gamesmaster,
who after all is supposed to be an impartial referee, starts evidencing his own
opinion on what the players ought to do (correct or not). If this is not the
case, I'd be interested in understanding why.
In my experience, players tend to consider it railroading only when they
perceive that it's the gamesmaster, not just the gamesmaster's character, who
is behind the pressure.
Warren Dew
John Kim
>The character had a certain amount of freedom, being a travelling
>merchant, but his life revolved around the business and family. He
>found it hard to participate in some events because he was needed
>elsewhere by his family. When the GM arranged to have his entire
>family murdered (by a plausable string of events) and the weaving
>house destroyed, he both freed up my character from personal
>obligations and gave him even more motivation to get involved in the
>political events that led to his family's death. I didn't consider
>it railroading, even though the GM engineered it primarily to get
>the character involved in something he was reluctant or unable to
>get into.
>
>That doesn't make it railroading, though.
Well, whether it is "railroading" or not may be a matter
of semantics. i.e. The exact same events, which to you are
not "railroading", might be seen as "railroading" by another
player -- notably the original example for this thread was a
player in an _Amber_ game, who said that he felt "a bit railroaded"
into a plot by the actions of a powerful NPC.
Personally, if a GM were to deliberately set out to
change my character's motivation in a way that I am not happy with,
then (almost by definition) I don't like it. I think if the GM
is going to deliberately set out to change the motivation of a PC,
then she should at least check with the player about such.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
As one example, I started play in a fantasy campaign set
in a re-created Roman Empire. For my character, I decided on a
Romanized barbarian: specifically an elf :-). Antonius Publius
Eldarus was an elf who was a gung-ho convert to Roman civilization.
He was totally dismissive of tree-hugging forest-dwellers, and
was set on becoming a citizen (or maybe even an equestrian!).
I pictured him as setting out to seek his fortune, hopefully
winning glory and money enough to win his citizenship.
After having cleared this PC with the GM, I slowly
discovered that the GM's concept for the campaign was that the
Roman empire was the Bad Guys (TM). Despite being utterly
respectful and loyal, Antonius was lumped with the other PC's,
falsely accused by a corrupt system, and forced into a
fugitive life.
Now, in theory, it is potentially an interesting plotline
to have a naive hero who is disillusioned and turns against his
corrupt master. However, it is a another question entirely whether
I want to play such a hero -- or if Antonius is suitable material
for such a hero. In fact, he was not. Antonius as I conceived him
was a realist who was perfectly aware of corruption in the system,
but he firmly believed that every system had flaws and that the
Roman system was the best of many possible evils. If anything,
he would have wanted to stay in Rome, expose the individual who
framed him, and (possibly through bribes etc.) restore his good
name. However, the other PC's and the GM had no interest in this.
Thus, Antonius was simply demoralized at having his hopes destroyed,
and eventually had to split with the party.
Nightshade
>Nightshade wrote:
>>
>> h*a*r*m*a...@total.net (Andrew Bernstein) wrote:
>> >The enigma is something that arrouses the interests of players who are
>> >genuinely attracted to the unknown. This is lock and stock of horror
>> >role-playing but it could enliven any campaign. I seriously feel sorry for
>> >any player who is not curious about a well-conceived, subtly-introduced
>> >element to a plot. I also wonder what draws naturally incurious people to
>> >roleplaying to begin with, but I digress.
>>
>> The problem here is that the player may be interested and the
>> character not. As such, a roleplaying purist may well ignore an
>> enigma he'd expect his character to ignore.
>
>True, but I deal with it from a different point of view.
>
>My rules for character creation specifically request that he
>is somewhat curious (along with social and a few others). I
>feel this is a necessary condition for an adventurer (due to
>the way I masterize). Given that, any player has no
>roleplaying inconsistency with being curious. On the
>contrary, the player may have a roleplaying inconsistency
>when not being curious enough.
On the other hand, even if the character is curious, that doesn't mean
his curiosity will operate equally in all situations; a magical
mystery might interest a mage but have no interest to the noble
warrior who'd follow up in a moment if it was something involving the
ancient history of the Great Houses. So that can but doesn't
necessarily solve the problem unless you're either very careful or set
a fairly narrow range of acceptable personality types.
Nightshade
>I call it a failure to make in-game concessions for out of game concerns.
One thing I should point out is that to a certain class of player,
this is essentially anathema. Go back and look at the discussion of
'immersive' gaming in DejaNews and you'll find far more about it than
I can detail concisely.
>Keeping in char is one thing. Keeping in char to the point that it ruins
>the game for everyone is another. If your char can't be flexible enough
>to stay with the group at large, then you should make another char. (I'm
>having this issue in teh game I run, with one PC who just is no longer
>fitting in).
Or in some cases, play in another group. Some people really would
rather not play than violate character as they see it...and I should
point out this can happen after the _start_ of play, too.
Konan Lemee
True. In my games, characters had often limited areas of
interest. But it went ok because :
1. I deal with a group. If characters disagree on the road
to follow, they try to convince each other (it often happens
at least partly at the player level alas :-( ). Eventually
the group will take one road. I am not concerned about the
roads they talk about, I only have to be prepared for the
one they eventually take.
So, what happens when a character is unsatisfied ? Well, we
take the point of view that he can leave the group if he
cares. First, it rarely happens, people make compromise and
deals. Second, if it happens, I divide my time :
- for a short separation, I give some time (in one session)
to each sub-group, until they meet again.
- for a long one, I give some sessions to each sub-group so
that they don't have to loose their time. (Disclaimer : due
to time constraints, I am not giving the same amount of time
to a group of 4 and a lonely character ...)
As a conclusion with this 'group' idea, both I and my
players try (during character creation and later) to make
the characters be a manageable group, in everyone's
interest.
2. If the group decide something unexpected, then I am in
the situation previously described. Then, as Nightshade
said, the problem is not solved. So I have to deal with it
myself. I usually tend to change my plot, but that's another
story.
aetherson
psych...@aol.com (Psychohist) wrote:
> I think this misses the distinction we sim people are trying to make -
> unsuccessfully it seems - between 'in game' pressure and metagame
pressure.
>
> I have no problem with a more powerful gamesmaster _character_
wanting to pawn
> a task off on a player _character_.
>
> What I have a problem with is the involvement of the metagame - when
the
> gamesmaster himself is involved, not just his character, or the
player herself
> is involved, not just her character. When it's the gamesmaster
putting
> pressure on the player, or the gamesmaster putting pressure on the
player
> character, or even the gamesmaster character putting pressure on the
player as
> a player, that's when the trouble arises.
I don't think this distinction is as clear-cut as you're making it out
to be. I mean, as a GM, I designed the world. Even if it's partially
a pre-published world (like Amber), I set the time, and created the
NPC's who would be making threats of themselves, wove together the
mystical theories that allowed for things like corrupted Logrus
energies. And I designed all of these in such a way that they would
end up being something that the PC's would be presented with.
I don't apologize for any of that. I mean, sure, I could have set up
the world to be a time of peace and quiet, with shy, retiring NPC's
that wouldn't get in the PC's way, and let the PC's either make their
own trouble or roleplay taking out their garbage. But that doesn't
interest me, and I don't think it would have interested my players. So
I set up the world with the meta-game thought in mind that it would be
a time of troubles, and a time of troubles that the PC's would be
uniquely qualified to deal with -- not purely on a level of skill, but
because the problem would make itself known to them, first, and because
they'd not be so hard-hit by other matters. And that was certainly all
meta-game.
So now, an NPC informs the PC that she'd really appreciate it if the PC
would check into this or that. Is that in-character for her to do?
Yes, to the best of my ability to play her. Is it untouched by meta-
game issues? No. The entire setting is touched by meta-game issues.
(Again, I'm trying not to bring this down to purely a level of my
specific example, because that's not of general interest. So, let's
deal with it as an abstract case, and hypothesize that I am, in fact,
playing my NPC in an in-character way, without arguing her Logrus
abilities or this or that. Because even if I am a poor enough GM to
misplay an NPC, I think the issue remains important in the abstract).
Is it "unrealistic" to game in a setting with such a meta-game bias?
Depends on what you mean. Sure, it sets the PC's out as special from
day one, but I think it's also plausible. Sometimes, even in the real
world, and especially in the Amber (or many other RPG campaign settings)
a major turn of history /does/ rest on the shoulders of one person or a
small group.
> My points regarding the logrus example were intended to point out
that, given
> what's been written, there seem to be some inconsistencies about the
situation
> when viewed solely from within the world (specifically concerning
> inconsistencies about whether the NPC or the player character knew
more about
> logrus). When this kind of inconsistency is present, a simulationist
is likely
> to suspect ulterior motives on a metagame level - in this case, on
the part of
> the gamesmaster.
Again, I don't really want to get into the position of trying to
justify my campaign, for the simple reason that talking about one's
campaign's plot is rarely interesting for everyone else. So, in the
abstract, assume the case specified above: that the set up is meta-game
influenced, but, given that set up, the NPC acts in-character.
> I would think that a gamist would have similar concerns when the
gamesmaster,
> who after all is supposed to be an impartial referee, starts
evidencing his own
> opinion on what the players ought to do (correct or not). If this is
not the
> case, I'd be interested in understanding why.
I'll let someone who's more gamist than I tackle that question.
> In my experience, players tend to consider it railroading only when
they
> perceive that it's the gamesmaster, not just the gamesmaster's
character, who
> is behind the pressure.
But I'm curious as to where people see the lines between the GM and the
NPC.
Just to play devil's advocate to my own position, obviously a
background where the GM says, "Well, this is my setting. There's a
50/50/50th level Fighter/Mage/Thief who's insane and wants you to do
all his tasks for him, because he can only take time off from painting
his toenails to incinerate you if you step out of line" is
railroading. Sure, the "character" might be acting "in-character" when
he railroads the players, but it's not a real character, it's a plot
device and a front for the GM. But where do we draw this line? Do you
(Warren, or anyone else who feels like jumping in) really want to be in
a game in which the GM relentlessly avoids ever trying to do anything
that would make the PC's noticably unique or special?
Mike (aetherson)
aetherson
"Brian Gleichman" <glei...@mindspring.com> wrote:
<snip>
> In general, I never mess with a character's CORE background unless I
either:
> get permission from the player (it isn't hard to get sometimes- I've
even
> had one player ask for really bad things to happen to her character
to suit
> her own story goals) or as the natural result of their own actions.
Well, to some extent, I agree with this. I don't really want to play
in a game in which my GM says, "Ooops, gosh, you thought you were
playing an elven ranger/mage? Well, you get smacked around by
something omnipotent and end up a sort-of-dwarven fighter. Oh, and you
now like wheat-thins." [1]
But, on the other hand, I don't want to be asked permission before bad
things happen to my character. One of my chief pleasures in a game is
to be happily trundling along, thinking I'm doing all right, and then
to find the plot make a sharp turn for the more dangerous and have to
think on my feet to stay alive. I try to make it clear to every GM
that I trust [2] that they have explicit license to screw with my
character in any way they see appropriate.
> The important thing to do is to figure out what is core background to
the
> player, and what is fluff. You can torch fluff sometimes, but ripping
out a
> character's core (as a simple plot device) is the same as killing
them.
I my agreement on this depends greatly on what is defined as core, and
what as fluff.
Mike (aetherson)
[1] I actually did this, once. As the GM. My friend was bugging me
to GM him, and I wasn't in a great mood, so I just arbitrarily screwed
with his character. Strangely, the little one-shot session turned into
a fairly long-running one-on-one campaign, the world was developed, and
the character was played for a year or so. So I guess even the worst
of beginnings sometimes play out for the best...
[2] Trust is, of course, key. If I trust a GM, I'm willing to let
them mess around with serious aspects of my character's background,
because I know they won't do it unless it's going to be interesting and
well thought out and cool.
Brian Gleichman
news:19990915232219...@ng-cg1.aol.com...
> I think this misses the distinction we sim people are trying to
> make - unsuccessfully it seems - between 'in game' pressure
> and metagame pressure.
Actually it's fairly obvious where you stand on that. It wasn't what I was
speaking of as such.
> When this kind of inconsistency is present, a simulationist is
> likely to suspect ulterior motives on a metagame level - in this
> case, on the part of the gamesmaster.
This is where I part company. I've seen too many examples here where
judgment of inconsistency in this area been bad in the extreme. It's due to
neglect in accounting for factors outside their direct awareness.
A simple statement of 'NPC is more powerful, they should be doing this
themselves' is evidence of this. It shows a lack of understanding of how
such people actually operate.
The problem arises when instead of having their character assume (wrongly)
that Gandalf is acting strangely by not dealing a problem himself (perhaps
resulting in a character that thinks all important people are lazy), they
leap to assuming that the GM is using meta-game reasons and methods to alter
Gandalf's actions. An assumption I find paranoid and somewhat insulting.
Now to give the benefit of doubt, perhaps such a statement is just the
tossing out of a incomplete reasoning when in fact they had more concrete
things to complain about.
> I would think that a gamist would have similar concerns when
> the gamesmaster, who after all is supposed to be an impartial
> referee, starts evidencing his own opinion on what the players
> ought to do (correct or not). If this is not the case, I'd be
> interested in understanding why.
There is more give here for the gamist than the simulationist . After all,
the GM is supposed to come up with interesting resolution points. Meta-game
reasons and methods are expected to be used at least in part during their
creation.
Gamists who expect fair warning (which are not all gamists) might well
expect a hint as to the GM's opinion of their plans before entering a
resolution point.
It depends upon the group as to how consistent and open these methods are.
Problems occur when the GM forces decisions on the players, not in the
simple creation of a possibility or in it's presentation. The resolution
point itself should be free of any meta-game influence and the players free
to make their own decisions. After all, they may be right and the GM
wrong...
Geoff Wedig
insight:
Railroading is a meta-concern.
Now, this may seem obvious, or not, but think what that means. Characters
can be directed using in-game techniques and that isn't railroading (as
someone said, from a simulationist view, we're forced to do things we don't
want to all the time, from a dramatist view, the reluctant hero is common,
from gamist, the successful completion of the story is important, and that's
the story). It only becomes railroading when the players feel they have
lost control. A dramatist player who wants to play a reluctant hero, upon
having their family/business destroyed should not feel they've lost control.
It's what they wanted, after all. A simulationist should not feel they've
lost control when they have to make hard choices. That's all part of the
simulation.
Railroading therefore is an impression, something the *players* feel at
certain events.
When we remove railroading from the purview of in game events, it becomes
much easier to deal with and see what is, and isn't, railroading.
For example, any time character's backgrounds come up and bite them, it
isn't railroading. It's part of the character, built in. When game world
external events push on the characters, it isn't railroading unless it's
being pushed solely because that's the scenario that the GM wants to run,
ie, it is being pushed more than would actually occur in the world according
to the game contract.
I don't know if this helps anyone else, but it was a real revelation to me,
and helped greatly clarify what is and isn't railroading, and why certain
techniques seem to be associated with railroading so much of the time.
Geoff
Dean Randall Flemming
> and one of my NPC's wandered by and tried (succesfully) to push them
> back into it.
> One of my players, afterward, mentioned that he felt a bit railroaded
> by that.
> Mike (aetherson)
There is nothing wrong with railroading. The story must move and it must
move somewhere. Players can feel free to tell the gamemaster about
various things they would like to do, but when the story begins the
train should leave the station and have some tracks. There can be
numerous tracks, but only so many as the conductor can handle and as can
be encompassed by the characters.
Players usually have retarded ideas for a story. Basically, each one
wants to do his own special thing and build up his own base of power.
Which leaves the gamemaster switching back and forth between the players
every few minutes or hours. Everyone had better bring along a good book
for the day's session, because no player is going to get a lot of
attention. Yes, I concede that from time to time a little of this is
necessary and even interesting, but on the whole I'd rather play than
wait around. If a player has a good idea for a story, then let the
gamemaster craft it into something enjoyable for the whole party.
In a recent session of Pendragon, two of the knights were whining about
being railroaded into an adventure by Morgan Le Fay, but it turned into
a rather enjoyable little adventure. Furthermore, I know that the two of
them wanted to do nothing more exciting than pillaging Saxon villages
for easy cash. Thank God we were railroaded out of that!
Dean Randall Flemming, Dominion of Canada.
Dean Randall Flemming
> White Crow wrote:
> > combination, but since everyone concerned had similar metagame
priorities
> > on keeping the party together and functioning, and some PCs were
able to
> > provide a mechanism for doing so, it all worked out.
>
> This brings me to one of my pet peeves.
>
> A lot of people run PCs with a strict interpertation of what the char
will
> do. In real life, a person's behaviour runs a wide gamut depending on
a
> lot of factors. And yet, some people rp thier chars with no chance of
> deviation. This isn't a problem except when it stomps in the face of
> making the "party" work.
concerns.
ruins
> the game for everyone is another. If your char can't be flexible
enough
> to stay with the group at large, then you should make another char.
I agree with this absolutely. I resent the enormous egoism of would-be
actor-screenwriter-player-god-gamemaster-psychoanylists all rolled into
one who have no consideration for other players. However, I don't have
any practical problem with them, as they usually drop out of any gaming
group after a session or two.
Tim Dunn
> If a player's character concept is of someone who would be content if
> left alone, they're hard to bring into play without some overwhelming
> universe-threatening danger.
<clinton>
It depends on how you define 'universe'.
</clinton>
Seriously, the character's 'universe' need not be "life as we know it."
It can be his job, or his past or his family. I've played this sort of
character, and I've run people playing this sort. Most of the time,
(all of the time when I'm playing Mr. Boring) the player _wants_ his
character to be involved, but likes the dramatic element of the
Reluctant Hero.
The trick is for the GM to engage the player in a discussion about the
character, and try to glean hooks and naescent threads with which to
involve the character. Some players want to have their characters just
"be at the wrong place at the wrong time." Others want Col. Trautman
to land in a Marine helicopter and reactivate their commission. But
most _players_ of contented characters want their characters to be
in some sort of conflict, if only because they see their peers at the
table having so much fun at it.
And yes, some people just want to be bakers. See Erich S. Arendall's
column wrt at http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/spritejul98.html
tim
Konan Lemee
> But I'm curious as to where people see the lines between the GM and the
> NPC.
I'm responding to your whole post, and I feel that this
sentence is a good summary.
I make a (theoretical) distinction between two (not
physical) person :
1. One is a the creator of the setting. He could have
designed the whole universe, he may have designed the
campaign, he probably designed the scenario and the NPCs.
Theoretically, this whole thing could be done before the
game starts, although in real case the GM has to make things
up on the fly.
2. The second one is the referee, the arbiter that decides
during a game. Theoretically, he should have no influence
before the game start. He should receive a complete setting,
not change a single bit in it. And during the game, he
should just respect the rules, wether those rules are to be
simulationist, gamist or dramatist.
In theory, this could define railroading as a bias of the
referee (normally not allowed as the referee is supposed to
be perfectly unbiased), while creator's bias are fair.
Given that theory, we can find a problem. What if the
setting explicitely says that a NPC is forcing the players
to do this or that ? It is railroading, but from the creator
instead of the referee. So where is the problem with the
theory ?
I feel there should be some things that a setting cannot
say. On one side, any creator should refrain from
railroading things, and that's one filter. On the other
side, when a referee receives and learns a setting, he
should discard every bit of material that leads to
railroading, so that's a second filter.
So I feel that, by trying to keep the two roles separate (in
point of view, and time if possible), you lower the threat
of railroading.
Andrew Bernstein
> Keeping in char is one thing. Keeping in char to the point that it ruins
> the game for everyone is another. If your char can't be flexible enough
> to stay with the group at large, then you should make another char.
The noble and the commoner asside, some associations are damn-near
impossible and should be ruled out by the GM ahead of time. A black guy and
a KKK "grand wizard" shouldn't go dungeon-crawling together.
--
Glory to the gateway.........................Andrew
ha...@total.net Montreal, CANADA
(this is the address you respond to, not the one in the header)
Russell Wallace
> Yes. One thing I've been interested by in this thread is that I've
> gotten a lot of responces which seem to imply that a character is
> inviolate. You can't pressure them, you can't mess with their
> backgrounds, you can't try to convince them to do anything they might
> not be automatically inclined to do.
I think very few people want their characters to be completely inviolate
(and the ones that do, probably play MUSHes rather than conventional
RPGs).
I think, however, that a lot of people want their characters to be
inviolate in some small number of particular ways - which vary from
player to player.
For an example from this thread: the character's family are murdered.
My reaction to that is very simple: for the majority of my characters, I
would be unlikely to be interested in continuing to play the character
from that point. I wouldn't find it enjoyable, and what's the point in
continuing an activity that's supposedly for entertainment, if you're
not enjoying it? (This is part of the reason why I usually create
characters with as little as possible in the way of family ties.)
On the other hand, at least one other poster has said that this happened
to one of his characters once and he was fine with it.
Carl D Cravens
> For an example from this thread: the character's family are murdered.
> My reaction to that is very simple: for the majority of my characters, I
> would be unlikely to be interested in continuing to play the character
> from that point. I wouldn't find it enjoyable, and what's the point in
> continuing an activity that's supposedly for entertainment, if you're
> not enjoying it? (This is part of the reason why I usually create
> characters with as little as possible in the way of family ties.)
>
> On the other hand, at least one other poster has said that this happened
> to one of his characters once and he was fine with it.
In my case, the GM and I had been discussing the problem with my character
being unable to get involved (lack of foresight during character creation,
not knowing the kind of campaign the GM was going to evolve, since he said
"give me anything" and wouldn't give us any other guidelines or talk about
what the campaign would be about). He never outright asked me if killing
the character's family would be okay, but we did discuss enough that I
think he realized that it would be acceptable to me. My character lacked
focus and a 'hook' to pull him into the plot... he had little reason to be
adventuring and plenty of reasons not to. I was considering trading the
character in because of these problems, but really liked his personality.
So I found the GM's approach (killing the family) acceptable, even if it
did surprise me. What is rather common in some characters' back-stories
simply happened in-game with my character.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
Life is complex. You know - part real, part imaginary.
Tom Knight
>
> And yes, some people just want to be bakers. See Erich S. Arendall's
> column wrt at http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/spritejul98.html
>
In reference to that column, I'd like to say that it seems a pretty silly
idea. I'd say that, at the beginning of a campaign, the GM's consideration
of how the campaign should play out is really more important that any
particular character idea. Of course, it's the GM's responsibility to
create a campaign that the PC's are happy with, and styles range over how
much control they want, but the PC's should try and fit in. In my
experience, I tend to enjoy campaigns where the players get handed
individual pregenerated characters more than those which are totally open
ended in their basic concept
>
> tim
Carl D Cravens
> Yes. One thing I've been interested by in this thread is that I've
> gotten a lot of responces which seem to imply that a character is
> inviolate. You can't pressure them, you can't mess with their
> backgrounds, you can't try to convince them to do anything they might
> not be automatically inclined to do.
I think it's related to the earlier, never-ending thread(s) on personality
mechanics and the like. "Don't tell me what my character is
thinking/feeling and don't force my character to do things I don't want
them to do."
> Sure, it's one thing if the GM doesn't let you have any control of your
> character, or if your actions have no effect on the game world, but do
> we really have the overwhelming feeling on the newsgroup that GM's
> should /never/ push a plotline onto a group?
Depends on how the players react... if their characters are trying to
avoid the situation like they'd avoid the plague, then maybe that isn't
something the GM ought to force. But I think many GM's have an idea of
where things are going and where they'd like it to go and the game is
naturally influenced by that.
My problem is really the opposite... my players seem to like rails, or at
least clear-cut paths to follow. Sometimes I throw in something for
flavor and they think I've dropped a Major Plot Hook and follow that
non-existant plot for all they're worth. And I end up feeling obligated
to turn that "flavor" into a real plot so they don't feel like I've (*I*?)
wasted their time. But then this just encourages them to think that
everything is a Major Plot Hook.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
I've got a chainsaw... what could go wrong?
Russell Impagliazzo
> In article <Pine.LNX.4.10.99091...@lists.wirebird.com>,
> Carl D Cravens <ra...@phoenyx.net> wrote:
> <snip>
> > Things happen to characters that players aren't always happy with.
> That
> > doesn't make it railroading, though.
>
> Yes. One thing I've been interested by in this thread is that I've
> gotten a lot of responces which seem to imply that a character is
> inviolate. You can't pressure them, you can't mess with their
> backgrounds, you can't try to convince them to do anything they might
> not be automatically inclined to do.
>
> Mike (aetherson)
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
Well, at least, if you pressure a character towards a certain direction,
you
can expect the player to be unhappy about it. The referee has control over
much of the game setting and events; the players, only over their
characters.
Anything that threatens to take over the one aspect in the player's domain
will
be seen as negative. However, temporary player unhappiness is sometimes
justified, if it leads to something players will enjoy and be excited
about. You should
just make sure that the extent of unhappiness is vastly over-compensated
for
by the excitement when the plot works out. Unhappiness over loss of
control can
also be a stick to punish players when they are clueless, by introducing
embarrassing
deus ex machina solutions, but I don't recommend that.
A word of caution: you can
get away with a lot if you correctly guess what rewards your PLAYERS will
find satisfying,
but that isn't the same as rewarding the CHARACTERS. For example, I ran a
game
where there was a world-changing subplot that became the main story.
Although I asked
permission to make it the main story, because some of my players would soon
graduate and
leave, I did a bit of tampering to move the plot along. Since these moves
tended to make
the player characters substantially more powerful, I thought I would be
forgiven. But it
turned out that some of the players liked their characters at the old power
levels, and weren't
comfortable playing them as demigods. So it was no reward for the
players, and in fact, just
made the feeling of railroading more extreme., because I was defining the
PC's, instead of
the players. I didn't really have a fixed resolution in mind, and i didn't
script the
adventures, but since I didn't respect player control over characters,
there was some
resentment. (Not enough to spoil the game completely, but enough that i'm
leary of plots with
huge stakes. ) John Kim's hierarchy for railroading is a good guide to
which situations will
give players who dislike railroading the most trouble. If you feel you
need to railroad, even
slightly, you should make sure you consult the players involved to make
rewards proportional.
A good reward is to let the player be pro-active for another adventure, or
part of the current
adventure.
Neel Krishnaswami
>
>I could go on a fair deal about why I think it was perfectly reasonable
>for my NPC to act as she did, but that's getting too into my one
>example.
No, it's not. This thread is basically only of peripheral interest to
me, but I keep reading it in the hope that people will post anecdotes
about their games. I like listening to people talk about their games;
stories give me a better insight into what sorts of things are likely
than any number of posts on theories, models, and other abstractions.
Neel
John Kim
Tom Knight <kni...@planetoftheapes.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>I'd say that, at the beginning of a campaign, the GM's consideration
>of how the campaign should play out is really more important that any
>particular character idea.
That depends how the campaign is created. For example, I
ran a _Champions_ campaign set in a fairly magic-oriented superhero
setting. After a group consultation, the players decided to create
a group that were private investigators-of-the-supernatural (with
low-level powers) rather than full-fledged superheroes.
I wasn't locked into a given mode, so I accepted their
choice and went with it. However, the focus of the campaign was
very much decided by the players' decision rather than something
I as GM dictated.
Sea Wasp
>
> In article <7roh5i$epb$2...@hiram.io.com>, White Crow <whyt...@io.com> wrote:
>
> > Keeping in char is one thing. Keeping in char to the point that it ruins
> > the game for everyone is another. If your char can't be flexible enough
> > to stay with the group at large, then you should make another char.
>
> The noble and the commoner asside, some associations are damn-near
> impossible and should be ruled out by the GM ahead of time. A black guy and
> a KKK "grand wizard" shouldn't go dungeon-crawling together.
Adding, of course, the caveat that if the players are truly inspired
roleplayers it might work. As a literary example, I give you C.S.
Friedman's Coldfire trilogy; as a gaming example, there was my character
Kyrie Ross and her sometime companion, sometime enemy Mortis, a dwarven
priestess of Death, who wavered between neutral and CE in alignment.
--
Sea Wasp http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.html
/^\
;;; _Morgantown: The Jason Wood Chronicles_, at
http://www.hyperbooks.com/catalog/20040.html
John Kim
aetherson <aeth...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>I could have set up the world to be a time of peace and quiet, with
>shy, retiring NPC's that wouldn't get in the PC's way, and let the
>PC's either make their own trouble or roleplay taking out their
>garbage. But that doesn't interest me, and I don't think it would
>have interested my players. So I set up the world with the meta-game
>thought in mind that it would be a time of troubles, and a time of
>troubles that the PC's would be uniquely qualified to deal with
I have two comments on this. First of all, this is not a
binary choice, obviously. There is a spectrum between re-active
adventures (i.e. where the PC's respond to specific GM-designed
situations), and pro-active adventures (i.e. where the PC's pursue
their plans and the GM prepares what they will face in response).
You say that your players wouldn't be interested in a purely
pro-active setting -- but it is possible that some (in particular
the one who complained) would prefer the setting to be elsewhere
on the spectrum of pro-active vs. re-active.
Second, you and other posters seem somewhat dismissive
of player-generated plots (i.e. "taking out their garbage").
I would guess this is a function of experience with players.
However, I also think that this can be a self-fulfilling
prophecy. i.e. If the GM does not value and provide support
for players' pro-active ideas, then adventures they initiate
*will* turn out to be boring. The NPC's they face are
run-of-the-mill, the obstacles standard, the background
dull.
On the other hand, it is possible for the GM to more
actively support this kind of adventure by working to put
creative detail into what the PC encounters.
-*-*-*-*-*-*-
>
>So now, an NPC informs the PC that she'd really appreciate it if
>the PC would check into this or that. Is that in-character for
>her to do? Yes, to the best of my ability to play her. Is it
>untouched by meta-game issues? No. The entire setting is touched
>by meta-game issues.
I agree. The setting design for a campaign inherently
involves meta-game issues. It is perfectly possible to create
a campaign set-up where the logical consequence is that the PC's
are directed by NPC's. This can be a playable and fun campaigns
for some players... perhaps an espionage game where the PC's
receive their assignments from their commanders.
The issue is one of preference: i.e. How much control
over adventures do the players prefer (note that different
players probably differ on this), and how much control over
advantures do you as GM prefer? The answer should be a
compromise, in my opinion.
John Kim
>> Sure, it's one thing if the GM doesn't let you have any control of
>> your character, or if your actions have no effect on the game world,
>> but do we really have the overwhelming feeling on the newsgroup that
>> GM's should /never/ push a plotline onto a group?
>
>Depends on how the players react... if their characters are trying to
>avoid the situation like they'd avoid the plague, then maybe that isn't
>something the GM ought to force.
First, a comment to aetherson: I don't think that anyone
has suggested that the GM should never push a plotline. Rather, the
degree to which GM's push plotlines is a matter of preference which
has different answers depending on the players and the campaign.
I will say that it is possible to have a fun game where the GM
never pushes a plotline. But obviously that is not the only choice.
In response to Carl, it is important to distinguish between
the *characters* and the *players*. A *character* may avoid a
situation like the plague, while the *player* doesn't mind if her
character is forced into it. Some people enjoy playing out
a Bilbo-Baggins-esque character who is sucked into an adventure
against his will.
Sea Wasp
>
> > and one of my NPC's wandered by and tried (succesfully) to push them
> > back into it.
> > One of my players, afterward, mentioned that he felt a bit railroaded
> > by that.
> > Mike (aetherson)
>
> There is nothing wrong with railroading. The story must move and it must
> move somewhere. Players can feel free to tell the gamemaster about
> various things they would like to do, but when the story begins the
> train should leave the station and have some tracks. There can be
> numerous tracks, but only so many as the conductor can handle and as can
> be encompassed by the characters.
Different groups have different perceptions. I don't WANT a set of
tracks laid down for me. If I want a track, dammit, I'll BUILD ONE.
Some of my players like being nudged or directed. Others HATE it. I
don't restrict the choices of my players at all (I'll give personal
direction to the PCs whose players prefer it, but no direction to the
party at large), except insofar as is needed to make sense (i.e.,
barring superlative players with really interesting background
explanations, no evil demon PCs in the same party as Heroic Paladin).
You may prefer to have tracks laid down. Others don't.
Brian Gleichman
news:7rr7gh$jsh$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> But, on the other hand, I don't want to be asked permission
> before bad things happen to my character.
People have different minds on this. Very different.
Those playing in my game should realize for example that they take their
chances into their own hands during a resolution point. I won't help them
and characters can be maimed, killed or captured. They need to make up
characters that can cope with that or find another campaign.
But I don't come up with plot twists that shaft the character without a
chance.
This 'fairness' clause is actually rather common to gamists (and not unheard
with dramatists), but isn't universal.
In your case, it would be well to advise your GM that you pass on its
protection (assuming the GM didn't already know it) and allow him free rein.
That's the point of game contracts, formal and informal.
> I my agreement on this depends greatly on what is defined as
> core, and what as fluff.
It's different for every player.
The best method for finding out such matters also differs between every
player. In my case, I just ask. If that causes a problem, again- maybe the
player is better suited to another game.
Carl D Cravens
> enter. (The family massacre scenario is like that for me. I
> know too much about grief, and I'm not interested in depicting
> 6 months to a year of deep grief; but I'd feel like a cheat if
> I didn't.)
In my case, the character channelled that grief into motivation for
revenge... it fueled his anger and drove him deeper into the plot. But
this wouldn't work or be appropriate for all characters.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
Everyone is gifted... Some open the package sooner.
Carl D Cravens
> Second, you and other posters seem somewhat dismissive
> of player-generated plots (i.e. "taking out their garbage").
"Taking out the garbage" isn't a plot. "Taking out the garbage, which
doesn't *want* to be taken out..." now that's a plot.
I encourage player-generated plots... but a character who does nothing but
go about their daily, routine, mundane business of taking out the garbage
and plowing the fields isn't in a plot. There's no conflict, and without
conflict, there is no plot.
I do like to have a sense of what a character's daily, routine, mundane
business is, were it not interupted by conflict... but if the player left
to his own devices isn't going to develop some kind of conflict, I'm going
to develop it for him.
--
Carl D Cravens (ra...@phoenyx.net)
My reality check just bounced.
Brian Gleichman
news:7rs6em$b3j$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
> What does "DIP" mean?
Design In Play. The opposite of DAS or Design At Start.
DIP exists in all campaigns. It's really nothing more than making up a fact
when it's needed and not before. To say a player or GM is DIP means that
this is their primary method of creation.
For example, a DIP player will have little to no idea about a character they
just created for a game. Details such as family, attitude and history are
filled in as the game progresses. It gets even more interesting when
combined with immersion.
Like all things it offers advantages... at a cost.
--
Brian Gleichman
glei...@mindspring.com
Age of Heroes: http://gleichman.home.mindspring.com/
Dean Randall Flemming
> Having watched r.g.f.a, it seems that problems with this concept is
more
> common with the DIP group. A result of their trees and no forest
approach.
What does "DIP" mean?
aetherson
ne...@alum.mit.edu wrote:
> On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 15:23:25 GMT, aetherson <aeth...@my-deja.com>
wrote:
> >
> >I could go on a fair deal about why I think it was perfectly
reasonable
> >for my NPC to act as she did, but that's getting too into my one
> >example.
>
> No, it's not. This thread is basically only of peripheral interest to
> me, but I keep reading it in the hope that people will post anecdotes
> about their games. I like listening to people talk about their games;
> stories give me a better insight into what sorts of things are likely
> than any number of posts on theories, models, and other abstractions.
<shrug>
As you wish. Warning, what follows is a campaign anecdote, and nothing
else. If that sort of thing bores you, avoid this subthread -- I've
changed the subject line for easy identification.
Dramatis Personae:
Geryon Swayvill -- Geryon was a noble of House Swayvill. Despite his
House's close ties to the throne, Geryon himself was ranked somewhere in
the fifties for the Throne, which suited him just fine, as he was
avowedly uninterested in politics. Geryon was a Logrus Master, and
almost nothing else. He was an academic, and published long,
not-very-well-selling, dry books on the nature of the universe and the
place of Chaos therein. He also kept four Shadows filled with various
snake-like-critters, pumped up to extremely high time rates (lots of
time passed in these Shadows per time passing in other Shadows), and
kept the ambient Logrus levels high in the hopes of seeing evolution in
action. Geryon is our main-focus PC.
The Dude -- The Dude was Fiona's son, slumming in Chaos because 1. He
was a competent sorceror and wanted to learn some exotic techniques, and
2. He and his mother didn't get along. He was a sorceror, Pattern
initate, and Trump Artist. He and Geryon had a passing knowledge of
each other, and got along well. The Dude is the other PC who was
seriously involved in the mystic subplot.
Bishop Sarentaileph Tern -- The good Bishop is one of the most highly
regarded members of the Church of the Serpent, and a likely heir to the
Archbishopry when and if the Archbishop (the Serpent save him) died or
stepped down. She was known to be hard-nosed, but basically honest, and
to put the good of the Church (first) and Chaos (second) before the good
of House Tern. None the less, she was a politician, and a realist. She
was also an extremely competent Logrus Master, but, unlike Geryon, her
specialty was in the summoning of Demons, and she didn't have Geryon's
theoretical background, nor his extensive experience with the less
obvious, more background manifestations of Logrus. (I used a partial
powers system which allowed a many different idiosyncratic paths at the
high levels of power).
Towards the beginning of the campaign (which was of limited scope --
just twelve sessions), Geryon was alerted by some of his servitor demons
that there were abnormalities in his snake pits. Investigating, he
discovered that there was a phenomon which seemed superficially similar
to the Black Road (albeit on a smaller scale) leading into his snake
pits from locations unknown. The pits which contained a terminus of
this phenomon were also developing extremely aggressive, extremely
durable, strong snake-like-critters, mutating extremely quickly.
Geryon alerted various individuals, and Bishop Tern eventually became
aware of the problem (I don't recall exactly how this came about -- he
may have contacted the Church directly). She quizzed Geryon on the
matter, said that she'd look into the matter a bit, and asked that
Geryon keep her informed if he found out anything more. She and Geryon
determined that the Logrus energies were odd, causing violent behaviour
in various creatures, and the odd nature of the energy tended to be
conducted to any nearby normal Logrus energy. This became known as
taint or corruption to the PC's and a few others. Because of this
phenomon, both Geryon and Bishop Tern were reluctant to use their Logrus
abilities in too close an examination.
However, Geryon was able to convince The Dude to help him investigate,
and the Dude was in no danger of being Tainted (only Logrus users or
other creatures strong in the Logrus (like demons) seemed to be
immediately susceptible, and Pattern energy burned away tainted Logrus
energy the same as it did the normal stuff). With the Dude's help,
Geryon was able to investigate the tainted Logrus much more effectively
than the Church.
Geryon and the Dude discovered that the source of the taint was a
peculiar Shadow, entirely water, but that Shadow was massively unsafe to
be in, because a signifant majority of the native life had been
corrupted into horribly violent critters, and neither Geryon nor the
Dude were much on combat, especially when Geryon's pet demons were
unreliable due to the taint.
Geryon and the Dude were also able to determine that whatever the source
of this corruption was was spitting off blind "black road-like" tendrils
through Shadow, lengthening and thickening. Indeed, its growth seemed
to be exponential in nature. They postulated (correctly, as it
happened), that Geryon's snake pits' high Logrus gradient had acted to
draw some of the local tendrils to them.
At this point, the Chaosian political games were heating up, and Geryon
and the Dude started to get sucked into them (there were several other
PC's who were much more heavily involved in the politics). It was at
this time that Bishop Tern politely but strongly suggested that they
continue their investigations of the Taint, basically because they were
both hyper-qualified, and both were mostly politically neutral. Bishop
Tern was very worried by what might happen as the Taint reached Chaos
itself (indeed, it was beginning to do so).
With that bit of guidance, Geryon and the Dude rallied some of the
as-yet-uncorrupted natives of the corrupted Shadow, bring in some
extradimensional experts, and fight their way to the source of the
corruption, which turned out to be a Logrus blade, its energies twisted
by its use in an ancient battle.
They got the blade, then had it taken from them, then eventually got it
back, and finally cleansed it, but I'm not going to try to summarize my
entire campaign here. If you're really interested, check out
http://wso.williams.edu/~msulliva/campaigns/amber, and follow the link
to "A Tale of Blades," which has mostly-complete run summaries and the
like.
Mike (aetherson)
aetherson
Dean Randall Flemming <deanfl...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
> > Having watched r.g.f.a, it seems that problems with this concept is
> more
> > common with the DIP group. A result of their trees and no forest
> approach.
>
> What does "DIP" mean?
Design In Play, I believe.
Russell Wallace
> In my case, the GM and I had been discussing the problem with my character
> being unable to get involved
[...]
> So I found the GM's approach (killing the family) acceptable, even if it
> did surprise me. What is rather common in some characters' back-stories
> simply happened in-game with my character.
In that case, I'd certainly consider that fair enough - you effectively
gave consent to the way things turned out.
(Indeed, though I don't usually do things that way, one of my characters
has a background - which I wrote up as a short story and gave to the GM
- involves fleeing from a home planet which had been laid waste by the
fantasy equivalent of World War Three. I'd agree that this is
essentially the same thing, only happening to be backstory rather than
in-game.)
Russell Wallace
>
> On Tue, 14 Sep 1999 15:23:25 GMT, aetherson <aeth...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> >
> >I could go on a fair deal about why I think it was perfectly reasonable
> >for my NPC to act as she did, but that's getting too into my one
> >example.
>
> No, it's not. This thread is basically only of peripheral interest to
> me, but I keep reading it in the hope that people will post anecdotes
> about their games. I like listening to people talk about their games;
> stories give me a better insight into what sorts of things are likely
> than any number of posts on theories, models, and other abstractions.
Hear hear!
Well, sort of - I'll partly retract that, I do find the theories, models
and abstractions useful.
But by far the most useful things, I find, are discussions of these with
regard to specific examples.
To put my money where my mouth is, I'll offer two:
Call of Cthulhu campaign. We'd run two adventures previously.
First adventure, exploring a haunted house. During which, an invisible
force unexpectedly threw my character through a second-floor window. (A
*closed* second-floor window.)
Second adventure: investigate the disappearance of fishermen around a
remote island. During which, the party gets kidnapped by Deep Ones
and... experimented on. Reasonably traumatic experience, though there
was a last-minute rescue, and the immediate problem did end up being
solved.
Third adventure: someone asks us to investigate unpleasant goings-on in
Innsmouth (a town of very ill repute).
At which point my character says: Sorry, no. I almost died the last two
times. I'm not feeling brave enough for this. I'm very sorry, good
luck and if you're really determined to go ahead, let me know when I
should call the cops if you're not back by then.
And at which point I dropped out of character and apologized to the GM:
Sorry, my character really isn't up to this. How about you continue for
right now with the other PC, and I'll create another one who'll be
willing to get involved in the investigation?
(Which I did, and it worked fine.)
To relate to the thread: If the GM is running a campaign involving a
certain type of activity - such as investigating strange and mysterious
happenings - then the PC should be willing to do this, or the player
should come up with another character, or the player should find a
campaign more to his liking.
Second example: a one-off Shadowrun game.
We each brought in our characters (fairly normal types for SR), were
duly notified of a potential job, went along to meet the client (an
organized crime boss), and were briefed on the mission.
As it turned out, there was a drug, synthetic, of fairly recent
vintage. Lethally addictive. The GM described the symptoms in those
who'd been on it for a few months - I won't repeat it, in case some
readers have sensitive stomachs. Suffice it to say, he did a good job
there.
Very recently, a corp researcher had developed an antidote that would
enable addicts to safely get off the drug. The crime boss, who had been
making a lot of money selling the drug, wanted us to kill the
researcher, trash the lab and destroy every copy of the research data
before the antidote could start being manufactured.
Now, the Shadowrun setting is rough and it's tough. People in it have
to look out for number one. Saints need not apply.
But there are limits.
My character stood up, politely explained that this wasn't her sort of
job, and walked out. One of the others pulled a gun on the crime boss
and was shot dead by his bodyguards. And the last one made a run for
it, with the intent of contacting my character and suggesting that we
get together to prevent this from happening. (Which she would have been
on for - she intended to at least tip off the corp security - and which
in my opinion would have made a good, interesting game.)
The GM unfortunately pulled the plug on it at this point. When I asked
him what he had planned on, he said he'd been planning on us taking the
job; obviously he wasn't prepared for us going this far off the intended
plot.
To relate to this thread: if you require characters to be that far
removed from what most players might reasonably assume given the game
setting, it's best to give advance warning. (Note that if you're
running SR, and you want characters whose consciences are absolutely
spotless, the same warning would be in order - it doesn't just apply to
unusually *low* moral tone.)
Nightshade
>[2] Trust is, of course, key. If I trust a GM, I'm willing to let
>them mess around with serious aspects of my character's background,
>because I know they won't do it unless it's going to be interesting and
>well thought out and cool.
As I've said in other threads where this topic came up, there's trust
and then there's trust. I can't say I've ever played with a GM who I
trusted the judgement of enough to assume they'd properly assess what
part of my core character background was okay to mess with, and how.
They might well enter it with the best of intentions and some
understanding of the character and still wreck it. I don't even trust
_myself_ as a GM that much.
Nightshade
>aetherson wrote:
>> Yes. One thing I've been interested by in this thread is that I've
>> gotten a lot of responces which seem to imply that a character is
>> inviolate. You can't pressure them, you can't mess with their
>> backgrounds, you can't try to convince them to do anything they might
>> not be automatically inclined to do.
>
>I think very few people want their characters to be completely inviolate
>(and the ones that do, probably play MUSHes rather than conventional
>RPGs).
And not even all of those; not all mushes have 'hard' consent based
rules.
>
>I think, however, that a lot of people want their characters to be
>inviolate in some small number of particular ways - which vary from
>player to player.
I'd agree with that.
>On the other hand, at least one other poster has said that this happened
>to one of his characters once and he was fine with it.
And this is the problem; trying to figure out what will wreck a
character from an outside point of view can be very, very tricky at
best. To be honest, it'd probably be best to ask what things were off
limits at the start...but that creates other problems from some
perspectives.
Russell Wallace
> Andrew Bernstein wrote:
> > The noble and the commoner asside, some associations are damn-near
> > impossible and should be ruled out by the GM ahead of time. A black guy and
> > a KKK "grand wizard" shouldn't go dungeon-crawling together.
>
> Adding, of course, the caveat that if the players are truly inspired
> roleplayers it might work. As a literary example, I give you C.S.
> Friedman's Coldfire trilogy; as a gaming example, there was my character
> Kyrie Ross and her sometime companion, sometime enemy Mortis, a dwarven
> priestess of Death, who wavered between neutral and CE in alignment.
Yes, there are certain circumstances under which it can work.
Example: a Rifts game.
I chose for my character a Void Engineer (from Mage: The Ascension) who
ended up in a dimensional portal which dumped him in the Rifts world.
He fit in basically fine as a techno-mage character.
One of the items on the "Personality/Background" section of his sheet
was "Prejudiced against non-humans". (Fairly obviously, considering who
he was.)
This would have crashed flat-out, obviously, if I'd construed it to mean
that Scott Bowman's reaction to a sentient nonhuman was always to grab
his plasma pistol and open fire. Oh, that was precisely his reaction to
vampires, demons &c - but he had enough pragmatism to be able to
grudgingly work with other nonhumans (and there was some very good
roleplaying between him and some PCs of that nature). By the time the
campaign ended, he was starting to learn that just because he didn't
like nonhumans in general, didn't mean they shouldn't be individually
judged the same way humans should.
Conclusion relevant to thread: this sort of thing works if and only if
the PCs (and their players) are willing to be somewhat flexible, and at
least to grudgingly work with their betes noires.
Psychohist
the characters didn't take the intended plot hook.
I'm a little curious: did your characters know going in that they were dealing
with an organized crime boss? I wouldn't have expected that you would have
gotten anything much more palatable in such a case. What were the players
expecting?
Warren Dew
Psychohist
Rather, the degree to which GM's push plotlines is a
matter of preference which has different answers depending
on the players and the campaign.
Yes. Also the methods by which the plotlines might be pushed.
For example, I think I'd be less resistent to gamesmaster direction if the
gamesmaster did not use a character as an intermediary, and instead made his
preferences known to me as a player directly.
I've used this technique myself with some limited success.
For example, I made it known to the players that I would be interested in
seeing homogeneously nonhuman groups established, because I felt that would
permit deeper and cleaner exploration of the cultures of nonhumans in my game.
Eventually, the players did form a group that is almost uniformly of a nonhuman
race (the one human serving as kind of a 'native guide'), though not of the
race I was really pushing for. And I've been really pleased with it - it's
been an extremely interesting group to run.
Warren Dew
Psychohist
DIP stands for Develop In Play, a style of character creation that is
contrasted with Design At Start (DAS). It refers to a preference that a
character's personality, background, and even abilities be developed or
discovered over the first few - or many - sessions of play, rather than
designed or established before the campaign begins.
Warren
Konan Lemee
> limits at the start...
I agree with that. In several posts where players were
saying that they would or did find unacceptable that the GM
makes this or that happen to their character, they said
something like "what's the point of playing the character
after that ?". I wonder what that really means ...
One hypothesis, and I need input on that, is that :
- those players want to fully roleplay their character, they
take no or little freedom with that,
- the character has a extremely hard time when all his
family gets killed for example,
- so the player should roleplay, and somewhat "feel",
extremely sad or desperate.
- and I wonder if they don't like it because they find it
unpleasant to feel that way.
Disclaimer : I'm not saying they are wrong. On the contrary,
I would probably feel very much the same (I don't know,
because I GM most of the time, and I changes from character
to character so I didn't manage yet to go to the deepest in
each).
So, relating to the previous post, asking at start what is
acceptable for a character would prevent that problem,
wouldn't it ? I mean, instead of the player ruling (on paper
from start or when asked by the GM) what _events_ can happen
to his character, he could rule what _emotions_ can happen
to him.
A meta-game mechanic could be designed, that would state the
player's opinion on each emotion, with values such as
"forbidden, highly restricted, restricted, possible,
desirable, highly desirable". For example, a highly
desirable emotion should happen very often, or there is a
problem with the game contract.
Nightshade wrote:
> [To ask the character limits from start would be best]
> but that creates other problems from some perspectives.
I wonder what problems from what perspectives ... ???