Quote from: Age of FableThis does indeed suck.

But I'm not sure if "railroading" is the same as "the Forge". Aren't a lot of those games meant to give players *more* options than a traditional RPG?

Not really.  All they've done is generally either embedded the railroading into the system, or given railroad power to which ever player at the table is the loudest, usually at the expense of the GM.

I've had a lot of fun playing and Gm'ing tightly plotted adventures in the past. I also get a huge kick from sandbox campaigns, and am currently running one set in the Wilderlands.

Bearing that in mind it does strike me as a little odd that some people are decrying Paizo as being Forgist. As has been said, the railroad adventure structure can be traced all the way back to 1E Dragonlance (and probably a lot further), so let's try not kid ourselves that this is a new thing.

Quote from: DrewI've had a lot of fun playing and Gm'ing tightly plotted adventures in the past. I also get a huge kick from sandbox campaigns, and am currently running one set in the Wilderlands.

I think there's a ton of room between sandbox and railroad plot.  I think the big error of Jacobs is making plot and railroad equivalent.  You can have strong plot without having a set chain of location/events.  The better CoC adventures have this.

Quote from: NicephorusI think there's a ton of room between sandbox and railroad plot.  I think the big error of Jacobs is making plot and railroad equivalent.  You can have strong plot without having a set chain of location/events.  The better CoC adventures have this.

Absoloutely. There's a broad spectrum of possibilities out there.

All I'm saying is that tightly plotted adventures are not antithetical to fun. Plenty of people played that way long before the story/trad divisions were ever an issue. Many of them, myself included, had a great time with it too.

Quote from: J ArcaneNot really.  All they've done is generally either embedded the railroading into the system, or given railroad power to which ever player at the table is the loudest, usually at the expense of the GM.

Donjon doesn't seem to (haven't played it, only read the rules) - it seems to be meant to be 'traditional' dungeon-crawling, with a built-in mechanism that if a player gets a success they can use it to state a plot fact.

Quote from: HaffrungGiven the success of the adventure path products, I'd say Jacobs knows exactly what works for today's market. He knows that most players prefer a meticulously crafted sequence of tactical challenges to sandbox play, and he knows that most DMs aren't capable of running the latter anyway. WotC seems to understand this as well; just look at the Delve format. They see D&D as a series of tactical challenges strung together by a prescribed plot.

Now, that wasn't always the case. A lot of players used to enjoy thinking outside the box and driving their own storylines. And a lot of DMs were capable of the kind of flexibility and improvisation required to run such a game. But with 3.x D&D's increased complexity and importance of tactical maneuver and mini-maxing , it has become rare to find players and DMs who enjoy both mechanical/tactial mastery, and story flexibility.

I wouldn't mind a game that was a series of mini-board games, with a plot connecting them. But D&D isn't that game, because there's no huge skill or interest in the combats: it's more or less just 'pick the right feat, flank, don't provoke attacks of opportunity'.

(and yes I know they used to say D&D was a wargame, but I'd suggest that it isn't in the sense that the combat doesn't have enough genuine options for that to be the source of interest)

Anyway, in my experience railroady DMs/adventure writers aren't interested in the details of combat, they're interested in showing you their 'brilliant' fantasy plot.

Hmm.

For the players with PCs:
You get 'No Decision' about moving forward in the plot
You get a 'Hollow Decision' for any "Roleplaying" (because there's no real consequences to being a good actor or god awful)
And combat is more or less a series of 'Obvious Decisions' for the players.

What meaningful choices are left for the players to make?

Is the GM making meaningful choices?  If the GM has meaningful Decisions based on their "Roleplaying" (because it makes a big difference if they're good or bad at it), and the players DON'T have meaningful choices to make... then really, the GM is the player and the "players" are the audience.

:raise:

To be honest, Settembrini, you came across very abrasive and rude in that thread. A little more decorum would have gone further I suppose.

As for the attitude of forum posters and Paizo's designers, well, it is just the gaming mainstream which doesn't know the Wilderlands or even Keep on the Borderlands, neither does it give a damn about them. That, or people who have seen and actively rejected their model. The good answer to that is to inform and persuade, but do so without resorting to hard sale tactics. I am certain the games we love can be sold to discerning "customers" on their own merits!

WRT Paizo's deal with Necromancer, I wouldn't be an alarmist. It covers distribution, not creative direction (except giving Necro access to full colour art, which I ironically am not at all enthusiastic about...). If you want to worry, worry about the 4e rules and the game culture it will foster. Or Clark mentioning how he welcomes the end of Vancian spellcasting. *



* ( :eek: )

Haffrung raises a sobering point, alas.

I get along fine with both the old-school crowd and the Forge crowd because both value meaningful player choice. I really hate the style of play commonly associated with Dragonlance and Vampire 1e and think it's no fun at all. Playing like that is barely even an RPG in my book. I kind of don't understand why you'd even bother.

But, a lot of people like it. These are popular products I'm hating on here.

The whole thing that made role-playing, whether dungeon-crawling or angst-ridden character drama, fun for me, was that I was the one making the choices. That was what made it different or better than novels and television. For me.

But, TV and novels kick the ass of all RPGs ever in popularity and sales.

So it may be that most people who gravitate to RPGs, like most people who gravitate to anything, just don't really care about the choice part much at all. They don't have it in their books or movies or shows, why should they have it in RPGs?

And so it may be that actually neither the old-school resurgence nor the Forge-associated 'narrativist' approach nor other newer games that put the emphasis on active player participation of whatever kind without a named ideologically driven approach to so doing actually have any real commercial cache for the broader audience.

It may be that the Railroad is actually what most people want and enjoy out of RPGing. That hanging out, rolling a few dice, listening to your friends, and listening to the DMs descriptions and plot development, with no real risk of death or challenge, is actually the preferred RPG experience for a lot of people.

Which sucks, but it may be how it is.

Quote from: MelanWRT Paizo's deal with Necromancer, I wouldn't be an alarmist. It covers distribution, not creative direction (except giving Necro access to full colour art, which I ironically am not at all enthusiastic about...). If you want to worry, worry about the 4e rules and the game culture it will foster. Or Clark mentioning how he welcomes the end of Vancian spellcasting. *



* ( :eek: )

As I posted on the NG boards (under my alter-ego Merth), the question is whether the commerical mainstream has changed so much that 1E feel, 4E rules is still a viable model. I just don't think Clark, who seems enamoured with the meticulous calibration of stuff like the Shackled City, really gets how different that style of play is from what most old-schoolers enjoy. I have my doubts that any publisher who tries to sell stuff different from the WotC/ Paizo model of adventure will find a sizeable audience, unless it explicitly identifies itself as a throwback for grognards (like Goodman Games). There simply isn't enough common ground anymore for a publisher to be all things to all schools of D&D.

Quote from: CalithenaI get along fine with both the old-school crowd and the Forge crowd because both value meaningful player choice. I really hate the style of play commonly associated with Dragonlance and Vampire 1e and think it's no fun at all. Playing like that is barely even an RPG in my book. I kind of don't understand why you'd even bother.

But, a lot of people like it. These are popular products I'm hating on here.

The whole thing that made role-playing, whether dungeon-crawling or angst-ridden character drama, fun for me, was that I was the one making the choices. That was what made it different or better than novels and television. For me.

Well... "popular" is a relative term.  The entire RPG industry is ghettoized and not sharing the renaissance board games are.  They're "popular" compared to what?  Other RPG products?  Whoopee.
I think it's *precisely* the lack of meaningful choices, or the confusion about which choices really matter that has hurt RPGs so much since they were at the height of their popularity.  Well... that and the business models, social stigma, excessive time requirements, etc etc :haw:

Quote from: CalithenaBut, TV and novels kick the ass of all RPGs ever in popularity and sales.

TV and novels will always be superior formats for people who want a story.

That's NOT where an RPG has it's advantage.  That's why an over emphasis on "Story" is such a bad idea.

Quote from: CalithenaIt may be that the Railroad is actually what most people want and enjoy out of RPGing. That hanging out, rolling a few dice, listening to your friends, and listening to the DMs descriptions and plot development, with no real risk of death or challenge, is actually the preferred RPG experience for a lot of people.

Hanging out, rolling a few dice, listening to your friends -- that's a board game.  That's "Popular"
listening to the DMs descriptions and plot development, with no real risk of death or challenge -- that's a (crappy) RPG.  That's not "popular".

The Delve, well defined by Haffrung above, is obviously awful. Fine. And in the dungeon, remedies to the Delve are easily implementable.

But if for once we could leave the dungeon for the great outdoors, things get a bit more complicated. All playstyles have a deficient mode. The deficient mode of the sandbox style is careening like a flipper ball through a two-dimensional landscape whose cookie cutter population is being randomly generated on the fly by the roll of a die.

So, in the great outdoors, not to mention the urban environment, *something* has to be pre-established, e.g. a general web of power relations and a current dynamic in which the PCs get embroiled. In other words, not just a static "situation" and an inventory of NPCs but an active plot or plots that connect(s) them. Rob Conley has described that approach many times, and it has been my approach also.

Assertion: Those who will reject that approach wholesale by calling said embroilment railroading need to get out of the dungeon more.

Question: But then, what exact criteria might there be for distinguishing said embroilment from said railroading?

QuoteI think it's *precisely* the lack of meaningful choices, or the confusion about which choices really matter that has hurt RPGs so much since they were at the height of their popularity. Well... that and the business models, social stigma, excessive time requirements, etc etc

listening to the DMs descriptions and plot development, with no real risk of death or challenge -- that's a (crappy) RPG. That's not "popular".

I've always believed this too, Stuart, but Haffrung's post made me wonder. I mean, people buy and sell these products, a lot. Roughly half of the new D&D games I go to, even with pretty intensive screening, are just not fun for me, and I leave after one session. Many of those are not fun because it's just a series of fights or a 'stations of the cross' deal with the DMs dog-ass story. Not fun for me. Not fun for everyone? I begin to wonder.

What I got out of Haffrung's post is that maybe the reason that old-school D&D and T&T don't make a real comeback is the same reason that arty, setting-rich games like Amber or Runequest or Seventh Sea or Tekumel never catch on beyond their passionate fans is the same reason that most of the Forge's work has thus far just produced another motivated niche. Maybe what people want out of their RPGs is to sit down, zone out, eat junk food, have the DM describe things and tell them to roll dice, and then go home and do something else. To them it's a slightly more social version of TV or a novel, and nothing more. Maybe that's the market.

I hope not, but I think it's a possiblity we have to face, given the wide popularity of AD&D2 and Vampire, and given the number of D&D3 groups who basically play this way as well.

I think as long as you have SOME choice, you don't have to have EVERY choice in a game.  

You can go through the door to the North, or you can go down the hall to the East.

You can go into the town, or you can go through the woods to the stone circle.

I know some players want complete-freedom-all-choices-all-the-time but you need to balance that out with it being a game as well, rather than just a GM-computer virtual reality simulator.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityThe deficient mode of the sandbox style is careening like a flipper ball through a two-dimensional landscape whose cookie cutter population is being randomly generated on the fly by the roll of a die.

You need more confidence in human imagination. A good DM armed with a good map and a good random encounter chart can make awesome adventures. Of course, what this comes to is playing connect-the-dots and doing what you describe below in play:

QuoteSo, in the great outdoors, not to mention the urban environment, *something* has to be pre-established, e.g. a general web of power relations and a current dynamic in which the PCs get embroiled. In other words, not just a static "situation" and an inventory of NPCs but an active plot or plots that connect(s) them. Rob Conley has described that approach many times, and it has been my approach also.

You fucking Forgist wankers with your Relationship Maps and Bangs.

QuoteAssertion: Those who will reject that approach wholesale by calling said embroilment railroading need to get out of the dungeon more.

Question: But then, what exact criteria might there be for distinguishing said embroilment from said railroading?

1. (This is the only real answer I have.) Player choices have to matter. Their characters interact with a dynamic structure that changes over time; those changes have to at least partly come about in response to player input, and be felt as so coming about. This requires some DM flexibility.

2. As Elliot always emphasizes, 'matter' in (1) is subjective. If someone really feels they have the right to go to a different city and leave your power relations grid behind, then their dickish game-breaking behavior is the obverse of your railroad.

3. A technique that often works to facilitate 1 in my book is to make at least some of the NPCs on your conflict web want things from the PCs and act on those wants. Harder to stay uninterested or aloof when people are asking you for things, manipulating you to do things, etc. etc.