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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: Eric Diaz on January 11, 2022, 03:16:34 PM

Title: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 11, 2022, 03:16:34 PM
After many thoughts and corrections, I re-wrtoe the entire thing:
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After many thoughts and corrections, I re-wrote the entire thing. I changed the OP too. thanks for all the answers; I'd love feedback about the corrections too.

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I tried to make this point a while ago. Will not link it here because I am not sure I was clear enough, so I'll try again from a different angle.

Here is the idea: sometimes, improvisation (i.e., coming up with things on the fly) leads to railroading (or quantum ogres and similar things), and sticking to pre-written material (settings, mechanics, etc.) is a good defense against this.

Let's define some terms before we begin. This is the best/oldest definitions I could find, and they seem decent enough:

Improvisation: the art or act of improvising, or of composing, uttering, executing, or arranging anything without previous preparation (source).
Railroading: Railroads happen when the GM negates a player’s choice in order to enforce a preconceived outcome (source).
Illusionism: A term for styles where the GM has control over the storyline, by a variety of means, and the players do not recognize this control (adapted from this source).

It is easy to see how closely related railroading and illusionism are.

One of the main problems of railroading and illusionism is removing agency from players. Not only do their choices cease to matter, but also they are tricked into believing that they do. To use someone else's analogy, is like letting your little brother play Street Fighter with you, but giving him a joystick that is not connected to the game.

I decided to write this after watching a video from a popular creator (whom I like) with these kinds of advice:

1. "If the players mention they suspect an innocent person, maybe you can decide that now HE is the culprit!"
2. "Fudge your die rolls or HP if the encounter proves too difficult".
3. "If a player rolls very well when searching for something that isn't there, maybe it is!"
4. "If the players are talking too much, throw an encounter at them".

Also, to sum it up, something to the effect of "never let the players see behind the curtain" - which sounds related to illusionism.

Now, if that is what rocks your boat, fine. I just want to add that this is not the only style of play and is, in fact, anathema to another style which sees illusionism and railroading as things to avoid.

Let's analyze the advice above.

Advice 1 is the classic example of "improv". But it completely devalues any mystery, any clues you throw at the PCs. You may argue that this is not railroading because the GM hadn't conceived an outcome beforehand - the DM thought the culprit was A, but when the PCs accused B he changed. However, in this case, the outcome enforced by the GM is the PCs find the right culprit; he is negating the player's choice of accusing the wrong person!

Number 2 will make the players believe they can win any encounter, or worse, they can win any encounter if you let them. It removes player agency. Again, the outcome the GM is forcing is "the PCs win the next battle".

Numbers 3 and 4, again, make the setting feel artificial - as if responding to what players, not PCs, do. Notice that number 3 is a thing that could happen in Dungeon World, for example (IIRC), but DW at least assign consequences for failing your search roll - otherwise, everyone would be searching for treasure everywhere.

Number 4 deserves a caveat: IF the PCs are in a dungeon where you roll for random encounters every 30 minutes, and the players talk for 30 minutes in-character, you should obviously ROLL for random encounters. Likewise, if someone would hear them, etc.

It is not illusionism if the players know

It is not illusionism if there is no illusion. If your players know that fudging dice and HP is the DM's prerogative in this campaign, or that you'll decide whodunnit is as you go, or that a good dice roll will let you find treasure where anywhere, this is not illusionism, it is a style of play.

This is a very important distinction because, as we'll see, DMs must make things up as they go in both styles.

Some different advice

Let me try some alternative advice to the "man behind the curtain" method described above.

- The GM must present an internally coherent setting for the PCs to interact and explore.
- The GM must believe in the authenticity of the setting as much as the players.
- The GM should not alter the realities of the setting (at least not DURING PLAY) to accommodate, entertain, defy, reward or punish players, but only because of things that happen WITHIN the setting. In other words, the setting is defined by PCs and NPCs and not about GM and players.

Another tips I mentioned before that might be related:

- Let the dice push you out of your comfort zone. Your PCs all failed their saving throws - now what? Your important NPC was killed before he could start his plan - what happens now?
- Expect the unexpected from your players. Do not expect them to follow a predictable path, or always find the right culprit, or only pick fights they can win, etc.

How to AVOID illusionism?

Let's say you and I prefer the same style of play - how to avoid illusionism, railroading, etc.?

Well, one idea is use a published adventure, or write your own.

If you follow it to the letter, without improvising, you cannot execute any of the four advices mentioned above.

(BTW, having a plot telling you what happens if the PCs fail or do nothing will help you tremendously. It will relieve you of the temptation of enforcing the preconceived notion that the must win).

Of course, if your PCs stray from the course, you must improvise. However, do NOT improvise a reason to force than back into the adventure. That is exactly what railroading is. Just think of the logical consequences of their choices.

And what if they enter a random town, far from the original adventure site? Well, then you improvise, but it is ALSO okay to say "I hadn't prepared this, let's take a small break". Remember, it is NOT illusionism when they know you're making things up on the fly.

When to improvise, then?

You often need to improvise to find out how the NPCs reacts to the PCs. How the events unfold. You NEED some improv to run RPGs.

You also need to improvise to find out things about the setting you hadn't established before. But when you do so, answer your own questions using the setting's internal logic, not the necessities of the players or the "plot".

For example, the player asks, "can I full plate armor in this town?".

Ask yourself "how big is this town?", not "how bad does the PC need this for the next adventure".

You do not change inanimate things and past events because the PCs had an idea, desire, or particular die roll (unless, again, the PC could change the world in such way with his or her actions).

You also improvise anything that players expect you to improvise, of course - what is the blacksmith's name? But you do not improvise when the answer should be found in the setting - "is there a blacksmith in this town"? When the players ask you that, they do not expect you to be creative, but to give your honest assessment of what you be expected in the setting.

You can also improvise (or, at least, create) anything when your players expect you to do so. For example, between sessions. Or when you ask for a 5 minute break. Or when they break into a random house. Etc.

Oracles and random tables

These are not improvisation. They require previous preparation. If you have a table for random encounters, and you get a dragon encounter, throwing a dragon against your players from nowhere is not improvisation.

But what if these tables are more like oracles? "17 - an ally is revealed as a traitor". Still not improvisation while you roll, but you'll have to interpret the result to the best of your ability - which does require some improvisation. Again, just let the players know that this is the kind of game you're playing - an ally can betray them at random. If there is a transparent mechanic for that (e.g., morale rules), it is not improvisation.

But I LIKE fudging HP!

Again, if that's your preference, that's fine. I'd advice you be transparent about this - let your players know that fudging dice and HP is your prerogative, or that you'll decide whodunnit is as you go. If everyone is on the same page, that's okay (just not my preferred style).

I'd argue, however, that it is useful to let people know both styles exist - at least so people can try both ways and see what they prefer.
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Original text:
I tried to make this point a while ago in my blog. Will not link it here because I am not sure I was clear enough (probably not, got a lot of flak on reddit), so I'll try again from a different angle.

This time, I'd like to discuss this before publishing. I'm very one to adverse opinions on this

Here is the idea: sometimes, improvisation (of places, NPCs, events, etc.) leads to railroading (or quantum ogres and similar things), and sticking to a published (or pre-written) material is a great defense against this.

Why?

Let's start with three propositions.

- The GM must present an internally coherent setting for the PCs to interact and explore.
- The GM must believe in the authenticity of the setting as much as the players.
- The GM should not alter the realities of the setting (at least not DURING PLAY) to accommodate, entertain, defy, reward or punish players, but only because of things that happen WITHIN the setting. In other words, the setting is defined by PCs and NPCs and not about GM and players.

I have just watched a video from a popular creator (whom I like) with these kinds of advice:

1. "If the players mention they suspect an innocent person, maybe you can decide that now HE is the culprit!"
2. "Fudge your die rolls or HP if the encounter proves too difficult".
3. "If a player rolls very well when searching for something that isn't there, maybe it is!"
4. "If the players are talking too much, throw an encounter at them".

Now, I can see this might be cool for some styles of play, but it shouldn't be "general D&D advice" IMO.

Number 1 is the classic example of "improv". But it completely devalues any mystery, any clues you throw at the PCs.

Number 2 will make the players believe they can win any encounter, or worse, they can win any encounter if you let them. It removes player agency.

Numbers 3 and 4, again, make the setting feel artificial - as if responding to what players, not PCs, do. Notice that number 3 is a thing that could happen in Dungeon World, for example (IIRC), but DW at least assign consequences for failing your search roll - otherwise, everyone would be searching for treasure everywhere.

Number 4 deserves a caveat: IF the PCs are in a dungeon where you roll for random encounters every 30 minutes, and the players talk for 30 minutes in-character, you should obviously ROLL for random encounters. Likewise, if someone would hear them, etc.

How to AVOID all these things? Use a published adventure, or write your own.

If you follow it to the letter, without improvising, you cannot execute any of the four advices mentioned above.

(BTW, having a plot telling you what happens if the PCs do nothing will help you tremendously)

When to improvise, then?

You often need to improvise to find out how the NPCs reacts to the PCs.

You also need to improvise to find out things about the setting you hadn't established before. But when you do so, answer your own questions using the setting's internal logic, not the necessities of the players or the "plot".

For example, the player asks, "can I full plate armor in this town?".

Ask yourself "how big is this town?", not "how bad does the PC need this for the next adventure".

You do not change inanimate things and past events because the PCs had an idea, desire, or particular die roll (unless, again, the PC could change the world in such way with his or her actions).

This is not the ONLY way to play RPGs, mind you; if you like to see the DM as some kind of entertainer, for example, adding stuff on the fly can be great (I'd still be honest about it with my players when the campaign starts).

I'd argue, however, that the way I'm defending above is the traditional way of playing RPGs (DM as referee), and that it is useful to make this distinction if you are  advocating the contrary - at least so people can try both ways and see what they prefer.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: rytrasmi on January 11, 2022, 05:23:20 PM
I generally agree with this. Thank you for sharing it. It helped me solidify some of my own thoughts, which I will ramble through below.

I'm a firm believer in having concrete locations, things, and people. Olaf the barbarian hangs out at the tavern every day for the past 5 years, so he does not suddenly show up in the dungeon to bail out the PCs if they're getting slaughtered. Players can see through that and know you've taken their agency away. The right to make decisions means the right to decide something dumb that gets you killed. Don't mess with that, not even a little.

I've tried advice 1-4 in the past and I think they're mileposts on the journey to becoming a good a passable GM. I don't use them now because I learned there are better ways. Like you say, run written material. That's a good way. There are other techniques, too.

I'll use advice #3 (searching) to make a point. The problem with unlimited improv is that the GM is not as clever as he thinks he is. Nobody is as smart as they think in the moment. It's human nature to think a brain fart is the best thing ever. If the item is suddenly found in a place where it was not possible to find before, you might get away with it...Or you might get burned. A player may notice that the sudden materialization of the item is inconsistent with some feature of the place or the item or with some past event.

And they might not notice an inconsistency until after the session. What the improv crowd fails to appreciate is that most players think about the adventure between sessions. They will notice the cracks eventually. There are always cracks, but you the GM don't need to make more just for fun.

I agree with your propositions. However, there's one big exception for me: NPCs. I will use NPCs to drop clues if I think the players are getting too frustrated. I will have NPCs to agree to be hired if I suspect there's a heavy combat coming up. There's a lot of flexibility with NPCs as long as their character is portrayed consistently. The barmaid is not normally going to pick up a sword, but she might share some gossip about a missing item. So, I will alter in-game what I planned an NPC to say if it will help keep the game moving. I justify this as 1) I cannot plan for every possible dialog, 2) NPCs are people and people are unpredictable, and 3) NPCs react to the world too, and if they see the PCs getting frustrated they might offer to help or they might remember something they'd long forgotten. I think this is a valid exception because it forces the GM to think within the fiction. It's not a pure meta solution like advice 1-4 because there needs to be an NPC with the right character to take a certain action that seems plausible. Olaf the drunk won't barge in and save the day, but he might suggest the barmaid knows more than she's letting on.

So I guess my improv is via NPCs and not via meta-tinkering with the physical world. At least that's my goal.

As for your plate example, I agree. How big is the town is the right question, as opposed to meta-concerns about helping the players. Give the players a chance to exercise their creativity! I will allow a player to justify why a small farming village might have a suit of plate armor laying around and perhaps, put it to a roll. Luck is a good meta mechanic for this. Give me a creative or at least plausible reason, and I'll let you test luck. Give me a really interesting or compelling reason and I'll give you a bonus to the roll. You can't plan for everything after all.

Anyway, just some random thoughts!











Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: S'mon on January 11, 2022, 05:25:24 PM
Railroading is forcing people down a track they don't want to go. The stuff you discuss is mostly bad practice, and may be used to railroad, but is not railroading per se.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Wrath of God on January 11, 2022, 05:43:22 PM
The answer is... no.
Railroading has quite clear definition. It's something you do against players. Limiting their agency, their rights - whatever rights given game gives them.

Setting. Setting has no rights. Sure it should be consistent, but consistency can be kept both by meticulous planning and by improvisation. One of my two favourite settings are Middle-Earth and Witcher, first very much planned out with map and everything, another invented as it went just avoiding contradictions with things previously estabilished.

So "internally coherent" matters mostly as long as it's player-facing. If you change own plans, without breaking sense of consistency in players... that does not matter.
Not every trickery against game mechanics or setting is railroading, as long as your are not forcibly pushing players in one direction all the time.

Especially changing shit in setting because players accidentaly invented something that's cooler than your original vision is methodologically opposite of railroading.

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I'd argue, however, that the way I'm defending above is the traditional way of playing RPGs (DM as referee), and that it is useful to make this distinction if you are  advocating the contrary - at least so people can try both ways and see what they prefer.

I'd call it rather classic/old-school playing than traditional, as trad is used nowadays mostly for more DM as master of narrative style that came with games like Call of Cthulhu and simmilar ones, post D&D (and is way more prone to railroading I'd say).


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As for your plate example, I agree. How big is the town is the right question, as opposed to meta-concerns about helping the players. Give the players a chance to exercise their creativity! I will allow a player to justify why a small farming village might have a suit of plate armor laying around and perhaps, put it to a roll. Luck is a good meta mechanic for this. Give me a creative or at least plausible reason, and I'll let you test luck. Give me a really interesting or compelling reason and I'll give you a bonus to the roll. You can't plan for everything after all.

If we wanna delve deep enough into rigid simulation area - suits of plate are personal and not easily exchangeable ;)
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Vidgrip on January 11, 2022, 06:15:36 PM
Your last sentences suggests labeling your preferred play style as "traditional" play. I don't see that as warranted. DM's have been fudging die rolls and doing story-gamey things from the beginning. There is nothing wrong with people giving advice and nobody is going to label their advice as "unconventional" just because it is contrary to your (or my) advice.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 11, 2022, 07:22:05 PM
I'm glad I posted this here. already have some great responses and fair criticisms to my initial post.

Let's see...

1 - NPCs, yeah, what @rytrasmi said makes sense. Makes me wonder if there are other instances where some kind of "deus ex machina" is acceptable.

2 - Railroading - you guys are right, railroading is not the term I'm looking for, But railroading is and agency-stealer like the examples I mention. Is agency-stealer a better name? Or maybe illusionism (another railroad tool)?

3 - "Traditional" - okay, dice fudging etc. is as old as the hobby, so I cannot call this traditional. It is fair to say, however, that my advice is as good as the 1-4 advice and maybe we should make clear that are multiple ways to do this - or at least that many people think dice-fudging is akin to cheating and you shpuld be honest to your players?
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Lunamancer on January 11, 2022, 07:23:35 PM
Here is the idea: sometimes, improvisation (of places, NPCs, events, etc.) leads to railroading (or quantum ogres and similar things), and sticking to a published (or pre-written) material is a great defense against this.

Sometimes, sure. You can do most anything with mal-intent and weaponize perfectly good and sound advise. Not that I'm necessarily equating railroading with mal-intent. But if you can understand how intent can twist things, then you really have to disentangle the intent from the general idea in order to evaluate the idea properly. Surely when using pre-written material there is at least the temptation of railroading to ensure players will actually engage the pre-written material. So that idea is also susceptible to hijacking.

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- The GM must present an internally coherent setting for the PCs to interact and explore.
- The GM must believe in the authenticity of the setting as much as the players.
- The GM should not alter the realities of the setting (at least not DURING PLAY) to accommodate, entertain, defy, reward or punish players, but only because of things that happen WITHIN the setting. In other words, the setting is defined by PCs and NPCs and not about GM and players.

So here's the thing. I don't entirely disagree. You certainly worded this carefully that I'm not going to outright object. When you say to accommodate, entertain, etc, you seem to still allow changes during play for the sake of fidelity to the setting. The part I would challenge is the barrier between before play and during play.

If I do world building (building a world that's fun) 2 months before we even start play, that's kosher.
If I write up an adventure (an adventure that's fun) 2 months into the campaign but the week before we play it, that's kosher.
If I've had a hectic week and I'm up late the night before hammering out the adventure, that's kosher.
If I'm so exhausted, I fall asleep in my lonely writers garret and slap a few last things together the morning of, that's kosher.
If I have some last minute ideas that I start to jot down on location at the game table right before the appointed start time, that's kosher.
If some player cross-talk makes me realize I forgot something in my adventure design and I add it in before Johnny Come Lately arrives and we actually begin play, that's kosher.

If half way through the session, we have a piss and pizza break, and during that time I jot down a few more ideas for the rest of the session, I think most people would say that's still kosher.

So why is it that if inspiration strikes me during hour one, when you're fighting kobolds, that the hour-four big bad evil ogre's ring of fire resistance should actually be a nipple ring, that that's a no no just because it's during play?

Yeah. I get how if the kobold fight is a one-sided masochistic pounding and I suddenly have one of them chug a Potion of Invulnerability just to make the fight interesting, that that could be bad. Because it might have been a one-sided masochistic pounding on account of a clever plan and wise player choices. And I should honor that. But if that's really what's at issue, why can't that be the metric? Why does it have to be BZZZT!! Pencils down on adventure design the second "You all meet at a tavern" gets uttered and the dwarf squeezes his first fistful of serving wench ass?

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2. "Fudge your die rolls or HP if the encounter proves too difficult".

[. . .]

Number 2 will make the players believe they can win any encounter, or worse, they can win any encounter if you let them. It removes player agency.

Revisiting my previous argument, we mostly consider it acceptable for GMs to "balance" encounters when writing before hand. Even if they want to calibrate the balance to easy, average, hard, and run-away! What if the GM makes an error in planning and only discovers that error in real time during play? Is it wrong to correct errors?

I agree that if you're always fudging to save players asses, they will eventually discover the pattern and you can kiss sense of danger goodbye. Or that if you're always fudging to keep funneling them down your follow-the-line story path, they will eventually discover the pattern and you can kiss any sense or feeling of player agency goodbye. But what if you're fudging for the sake of fidelity to the game world? What possible pattern might players discover then? That every time something weird comes up, the outcome always seems to make total sense consistent with the world? I think I'll be okay leaving that arrow sticking in me.


As some parting food for thought, I'd like to gripe about Quantum Ogres for a second.

The thing about quantum ogres and similar things is, I think they may be red herrings. Like the example itself is fundamentally bogus. You're in a chamber with 3 doors. There's an ogre behind one of those doors. Whichever one the players pick, the GM puts the ogre there. Sounds railroady. Same situation. Only there's not any monster behind any of the doors. But by the time you get any of the doors open, you're due for a wandering monster check. No matter which door you choose, I'm going to roll the same dice to determine if and what you encounter. And the results are independent of your choice. If the rolls are going to come out, yes wandering monster, and it's an ogre, it's going to be identical to the quantum ogre.

I think the wandering monster check is clearly within the bounds of acceptable for most old school gamers. And I'd agree that the "quantum ogre" is out of bounds for most of the same. So what's the difference between the two? It's not the quantum part. And it's not the ogre part. Maybe it's the part where it negates players choice. But if that's our metric, I'd argue that at least with the quantum ogre, you could possibly listen at each door for the ogre before opening it. If the GM is being reasonable, the quantum ogre collapses the instant you hear the ogre. And then you can have your player agency in choice. Not so much with the wandering monster since the ogre actually isn't behind any of the doors. And yet the wandering monster still has more old school bonafides than the quantum ogre.

It may have more to do with replay value of the scenario. Or rather the quantum value of the scenario since it need not literally be replayed. But if you were to replay it and choose a different door next time, under the quantum ogre it's still an ogre. Under wandering monsters, it might be goblins next time. Or no monster at all. And I think that's where it has more legitimacy.

And just to really bunch up some panties, I think this "quantum adventure" idea is also why RPGs have certain distinct advantages in story telling over and above traditional written stories. Because you can take a played out story, like a knight in shining armor slaying a dragon and rescuing the princess from the tower and make it interesting again. Because there's a parallel version of the story where the dragon eats the knight, forces the princess to marry him, and rules over the kingdom for a thousand years. And because we know this is a game and has certain dice and mechanics, we know it could go either way. No ending is guaranteed. If we played the adventure out again, it would likely be different the second time. We don't have to do anything clever to spruce up the story or add new twists or try and foreshadow things.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 11, 2022, 07:24:28 PM
Especially changing shit in setting because players accidentaly invented something that's cooler than your original vision is methodologically opposite of railroading.

Great post overall.

I'm curious about this specific part - what do you mean?

Also, do you disagree with my "culprit" example being similar to railroading, or are you thin king of some other situation?
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 11, 2022, 07:29:16 PM
So why is it that if inspiration strikes me during hour one, when you're fighting kobolds, that the big bad evil ogre's ring of fire resistance should actually be a nipple ring, that that's a no no just because it's during play?

Yeah. I get how if the kobold fight is a one-sided masochistic pounding and I suddenly have one of them chug a Potion of Invulnerability just to make the fight interesting, that that could be bad. Because it might have been a one-sided masochistic pounding on account of a clever plan and wise player choices. And I should honor that. But if that's really what's at issue, why can't that be the metric? Why does it have to be BZZZT!! Pencils down on adventure design the second "You all meet at a tavern" gets uttered and the dwarf squeezes his first fistful of serving wench ass?

This is a great point. I thought of adding that to the post. Yes, if you change the adventure 2 minutes before starting the game is okay. Why do I think changing mid-fight is bad?

Well, I think it has to do with fairness and agency. The PCs chose to fight a kobold. Let them fight. The PCs killed the big bad with a single hit. It is okay, let it go.

The nipple ring example is cosmetic, I think and I'd call it "kosher".

(about the ogre and the doors bit, I wrote about that a while ago too, and I agree that "the quantum ogre collapses the instant you hear the ogre". Otherwise, the choice between 3 identical doors is inconsequential)

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2020/10/railroads-and-some-sandboxes.html
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Wrath of God on January 11, 2022, 07:42:36 PM
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2 - Railroading - you guys are right, railroading is not the term I'm looking for, But railroading is and agency-stealer like the examples I mention. Is agency-stealer a better name? Or maybe illusionism (another railroad tool)?

Illusionism is proper term, alas illusionism does not need to be railroady. It may be inventing shit as it goes, which is opposite of railroad (where GM has some clear pre-written story and is trying to push players in). Illusionism may be used to cover up railroad, but it may be just way GM rolls. Inventing things as it goes.
I'd compare it to you know fantasy writers who are doing a lot of pre-planning map, and so on, and Andrzej Sapkowski author of Witcher, who said clearly he consider worldbuilding to be some dorky neurosis, he invent shit as he writes, and just keep checks about not contradicting earlier stances.

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Great post overall.

I'm curious about this specific part - what do you mean?

Also, do you disagree with my "culprit" example being similar to railroading, or are you thin king of some other situation?

I mean generally railroading is when GM is trying to force players to go specific way on the rope.
When GM is running things loose, and there is culprit, and he changes mind because he likes players idea better, that's like opposite.
Of course principle of illusionism here need to be considered - can I weave illusion that it was culprit B from the very beginning not the culprit A.
Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. Bit like with film clue, sometimes you can have a film with 3 different endings.

Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Svenhelgrim on January 11, 2022, 07:52:34 PM
There is a saying I learned while I was in the military: “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” I have found similar experiences in RPG’s.

Years ago when I first started DM’ing, I would run published adventures.  My players would often be difficult and try to circumvent the adventure, or outright refuse to go on the quest, opting to do other things.  Oftimes they would come up with solutions to puzzles and problems that the pre-written adventure never took into account.

That is how I learned to improvise.  If my players did not want to do the adventure, I would draw upon my knowledge of stories, books, mythology, and most importantly, the numerous published adventures I had read.  My players seemed immune to “hooks” so When they would walk away from the Caves of Chaos, they would stumble upon the Moathouse from Village of Hommlet?  Didn’t care about the ravaging Slave Lords? The Vanishing Tower (from the Elric Books) appeared in front of them.  The players don’t want to leave the tavern, to explore the Haunted mansion? The Innieeper poisons them and they get shanghai’d on the ship from Sinister Secret Of Saltmarsh. 

As time wore on, I found more cooperative players to game with, but my style had solidified, and now any adventure I run is patchwork of every book, movie, or module I have ever seen/read.

As for the “No fudging” rule.  I never fudge die rolls, and if I ever did, I would never admit to it.

Quantum Ogres are never an issue since I can grab an encounter from any other module.

Mixing things from modules and books ensures that people who have read the matereal before, get a familiar feeling, but never the same experience twice. 
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: SirFrog on January 11, 2022, 08:28:49 PM
I prefer to use two terms to describe my DM’g style: 1) Schrodinger’s Goblin and 2) Object Oriented Roleplaying

1) Schrodinger’s Goblin is an paradox. I have no idea if there is a goblin behind the door until the players open it. It doesn’t matter if it was planned to be there or not. The players don’t care either, because until it happens it didn’t exist before hand. Just because something is planned or unplanned doesn’t make it valid or invalid. You are not cheating the players if they don’t know. I am not cheating myself as DM.

2) Object Oriented Roleplaying is exactly what it sounds like. When required a process is run by me that determines what the output in the game is. The process doesn’t matter, it’s a black box for all intents and purposes. It could be a random table, an encounter pulled from another module, or made up on the spot.

Bottom Line: improv or planned doesn’t really matter.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Ratman_tf on January 11, 2022, 08:34:58 PM
1. "If the players mention they suspect an innocent person, maybe you can decide that now HE is the culprit!"
2. "Fudge your die rolls or HP if the encounter proves too difficult".
3. "If a player rolls very well when searching for something that isn't there, maybe it is!"

If the situation's details can be changed mid-game, then the DM runs the risk of details being arbitrary.
The risk is, if players cannot rely on thing X being thing X, no matter what "feels" right for the moment, then they cannot make decisions about X.

A decision to say, attack a Dragon, should be based on things like how powerful the party is, what weaknesses the dragon has, whether the characters have found out those weaknesses, the terrain, the situation (Blefargon is weakest during a full moon...)
Stuff like that can be tossed out the window if the DM changes the encounter mid-game. Just charge the dragon, and the GM will fudge it out allright for you.

Having said that...

Running the world as simulation is a lot of stuff to keep track of for one person. Sometimes fudging is warranted. But a DM should know full well what they're doing, and why it's not a great idea to fudge too often.

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4. "If the players are talking too much, throw an encounter at them".

I am fond of tossing an encounter out during a dull moment though... :D
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 11, 2022, 08:43:10 PM
I'm trying hard to find a term for this, and illusionism is better than railroad (i.e., you give your players the illusion that you already know who is the culprit, but you making things up on the spot).

However, the definitions I find of illusionism are things like "A term for styles where the GM has tight control over the storyline, by a variety of means, and the players do not recognize this control." Well, "tight control" does not quite describe improv, maybe the opposite. However, the GM has CONTROL of the outcome (who is the culprit?)  and the players do not recognize this control.

Now, fudging die and HP is flat-out railroading IMO: "Railroads happen when the GM negates a player’s choice in order to enforce a preconceived outcome". The GM negates the player choice (let's face this risk!) and enforces a preconceived outcome (the PCs win this fight regardless of HP and bad dice rolls).

Finding Schrodinger stuff? Well, paradoxically I think it does negate the choice of the PC to search in a place that has nothing hidden. The player chose to search the kitchen instead of the library, the book he is looking for should NOY be there, period.

EDIT: but the earliest definitions of illusionism I can find confuse that with railroading, e.g.:

---
I [was] wondering, however, about narrativism in general, refereeing a great story, and I've sort of come to the conclusion that a great referee is a great illusionist.

I prepare the bare bones of a dramatic plot and we start gaming. If the players start screwing around and avoiding my plot I don't often indulge them and create an entire new plot on the fly. I twist, I deceive, I back-track and lie - I create the illusion that what they're doing is all part of the plot, and *wrap the plot around them*. All referees do it. They have to.

So what I try to do in advance is to create this illusion of total free choice in advance of the campaign. In a scenario, I work hard to pull, push and cajole the players into reaching the goal of the plot, but this is often an easy task.

Harder, is to give the players the feeling that they are forging ahead through their character's lives in any direction they choose. Most referees (myself included) present and play one scenario after another in a linear fashion. The players go along with the scenario and play to its conclusion.
---
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Omega on January 11, 2022, 09:08:29 PM
The answer is... no.
Railroading has quite clear definition. It's something you do against players. Limiting their agency, their rights - whatever rights given game gives them.


Actually Railroading can and is performed by players as well on the DM. This came up a year or two ago along the lines of a player declaring they find a shotgun behind a bar. Not roll for to see if anythings there, or the DM saying anything. The player just poofed it into existence. That is a player railroading the DM.

And I've seen far far far far too much of where one player forces an action on another players character.

What I've seen all too often is that its the IC fanatics and storygamers that cause the most trouble with these stunts.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Lunamancer on January 11, 2022, 09:46:34 PM
"Railroads happen when the GM negates a player’s choice in order to enforce a preconceived outcome".

One of my favorite beginnings to a module ever is the one in Dance of the Fairie Rings. Spoilers ahead. The first choice players face is decide which way to go at a fork in the road, the high road or the low road. But if the players take the high road, they find themselves arriving at the same fork in the road. Again and again, each time they take the high road, they keep ending up back on the fork in the road until they take the low road. If that isn't enough, prior to the fork in the road, the "flavor text" that begins the adventure has an old man warning the PCs to avoid the low road.

I think there are a few vital things that separate this from being a railroad.

It's not sneaky. It's in your face. The GM isn't trying hide it.
How easy would it have been to give a straight road with no fork? Why present a choice and not honor it?
For that matter, why were PCs instructed to do something they wouldn't be allowed to do?
And all this adds up to make players feel as though there's some mystery afoot rather than they're being railroaded.
It creates more intrigue than frustration.

By being blatant, I think it makes it clear that you aren't being railroaded by the GM. It's some in-game force that's messing with you. There's some enemy to defeat.

Now for the rare bird who nonetheless does feel railroaded and frustrated by this, there's another surprise. That your annoyance is not justified by the facts because your choice at this fork in the road actually does matter. For it is some NPC that's doing it. The NPC is the prisoner of a dragon, and this is the NPC's way of getting heroes to help. And each time the NPC has to transport the PCs back to the fork in the road, more of that NPC's energy is sapped. And the less energy the NPC has to aid the PCs in confronting the dragon. The longer it takes you to recognize the low road is the solution, the slower you are to adapt, the more reluctant you are to embrace adventure, in other words, the poorer your choices, the less advantaged you are. Isn't that exactly what we expect out of player agency?



My takeaways here.
Reserve judgment regarding railroading. Reserve judgement by a lot.
Railroading isn't railroading when it's an NPC doing. All the railroading GM needs to do to make his or her beautiful plot kosher is hand over the puppeteer strings to an NPC.
NPC villain masterminds, to the degree that they are effective, can rob players of agency. There is no sacred right to agency, other than the existentialist choice to decide what sort of prisoner you will be. Everything else you've got to earn.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Opaopajr on January 12, 2022, 02:03:03 AM
Railroading is forcing people down a track they don't want to go. The stuff you discuss is mostly bad practice, and may be used to railroad, but is not railroading per se.

I agree. What is being described in ryatrami's OP I think of more as Illusionism. Illusionism meaning "it was that way all along!", e.g. Schroedinger's Orcs "They were always behind door number [whatever the player's select]."

A little of on the fly world creation goes a long way, so when I am in the middle of things I prefer to let the randomness to decide. Bias is easy to slip into (either for or against players, conscious or subconscious) and I am struggling to not only be fair, but also keep the appearance of fairness. One of my offers to the players for their trust and our shared suspended disbelief is to prepare beforehand and 'let it ride' (gambling euphemism) during as best as I can.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: S'mon on January 12, 2022, 03:18:12 AM
2 - Railroading - you guys are right, railroading is not the term I'm looking for, But railroading is and agency-stealer like the examples I mention. Is agency-stealer a better name? Or maybe illusionism (another railroad tool)?

Illusionism is giving players the illusion of choice while negating it in practice. So yes it is closer to what you are talking about. Moving the adventure location to the PC location is illusionism. It's only railroading if the players are trying to avoid the adventure. Just-in-time procedural content generation is 'improv' but is not 'illusionism', especially if player choice determines eg which table gets rolled on (hill encounters vs forest encounters, say).

IME running a sandbox there is inevitably a mix of pre-created and just-in-time content generation, this doesn't make the sandbox a railroad or illusionist.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: S'mon on January 12, 2022, 03:30:22 AM
Thinking about it, I do tend to agree with the OP that using published material can be good practice to avoid illusionism. I like to buy a f-ton of short published adventures and seed them around my sandbox. The players are typically aware of at least several possibilities for adventure at any one time, and can decide where to go and what to do.

Of course some player groups would really rather just be told what to do, and would prefer a linear series of balanced encounters to the risk of taking on more than they can handle.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Wrath of God on January 12, 2022, 03:36:40 AM
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Actually Railroading can and is performed by players as well on the DM. This came up a year or two ago along the lines of a player declaring they find a shotgun behind a bar. Not roll for to see if anythings there, or the DM saying anything. The player just poofed it into existence. That is a player railroading the DM.

And I've seen far far far far too much of where one player forces an action on another players character.

What I've seen all too often is that its the IC fanatics and storygamers that cause the most trouble with these stunts.

What is IC fanatics? I mean what is IC, I do not recognize this shortcut.
But generally I'd still disagree. Railroad demand certain rails. It generally is term assuming GM has well long term plans and will push or trick players into following strict narrative for long time, at least adventure. So I'd not call fudging one random encounter to be one.

And storygames are different batch. First they generally try to avoid specific rails (while enforcing genre rails, which make doing un-genre stuff generally not important), but yes they ditch rigid setting and give players some elements of power over world itself. Alas you still have to roll well for some weird move to get this shotgun, you cannot just easily wish it, and it has to be a game that assume finding weapons wherever is something we're doing (like some postapocalyptic shooter game or whatever). Simmilarily if mechanics allow you to force other players to do something (which tbh is way much older problem of using social skills in PVP mode), it's still matter of chance, and roll. And quite commonly other players have their own moves to use to force you to do something. So no, with dispersion of narrative power, and such weird stunts being based on rolls, I'd say it's hard to call it railroad. Railroad assumes result is known before you start playing.
(Especially if you botch roll that would give you this shotgun, then mechanics usually demands something bad happen - rolls in those games usually demands something good or bad happens, never mere miss.)

Then alas if you play game derived from PBTA and you clutch to rigid setting you're playing it wrong.

I'd rather say "player railroading" is something that can happen in what's calling OP-style, usually on more traditional games, well nowadays mostly on 5e, where one player hijinks games, and sort of forces GM and other to tag along because he has this plan of character arc, 20-pages backstory, and he needs to fullfill those, if there is to be fun. There is see danger of player-centric equivalent of GM-railroading.

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Now for the rare bird who nonetheless does feel railroaded and frustrated by this, there's another surprise. That your annoyance is not justified by the facts because your choice at this fork in the road actually does matter. For it is some NPC that's doing it. The NPC is the prisoner of a dragon, and this is the NPC's way of getting heroes to help. And each time the NPC has to transport the PCs back to the fork in the road, more of that NPC's energy is sapped. And the less energy the NPC has to aid the PCs in confronting the dragon. The longer it takes you to recognize the low road is the solution, the slower you are to adapt, the more reluctant you are to embrace adventure, in other words, the poorer your choices, the less advantaged you are. Isn't that exactly what we expect out of player agency?

I can see it being frustrating. TBH I'd probably add caveat that after dunno 3d6 transporting of players back, prisoner faints from expending to much mana, and is eaten by dragon, and dragon later become powerful enough to terrorise whole country, while players simply move on.

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My takeaways here.
Reserve judgment regarding railroading. Reserve judgement by a lot.
Railroading isn't railroading when it's an NPC doing. All the railroading GM needs to do to make his or her beautiful plot kosher is hand over the puppeteer strings to an NPC.
NPC villain masterminds, to the degree that they are effective, can rob players of agency. There is no sacred right to agency, other than the existentialist choice to decide what sort of prisoner you will be. Everything else you've got to earn.

That I generally agree, though of course numbers of players hating such solutions is quite high.

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A little of on the fly world creation goes a long way, so when I am in the middle of things I prefer to let the randomness to decide. Bias is easy to slip into (either for or against players, conscious or subconscious) and I am struggling to not only be fair, but also keep the appearance of fairness. One of my offers to the players for their trust and our shared suspended disbelief is to prepare beforehand and 'let it ride' (gambling euphemism) during as best as I can.

I must say I simply enjoy certain dose of randomness as GM, though I'm unfortunately not that good in executing it myself :(

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Illusionism is giving players the illusion of choice while negating it in practice. So yes it is closer to what you are talking about. Moving the adventure location to the PC location is illusionism. It's only railroading if the players are trying to avoid the adventure. Just-in-time procedural content generation is 'improv' but is not 'illusionism', especially if player choice determines eg which table gets rolled on (hill encounters vs forest encounters, say).

IME running a sandbox there is inevitably a mix of pre-created and just-in-time content generation, this doesn't make the sandbox a railroad or illusionist.

Yes. I think it's good take. I mean let's say you want player meet team of assassins send for them - they can move all around map, and will catch to them eventually, no matter where player move (though of course environment may change how encounter will look like, so still choice of players to move north instead south can matter.)

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Thinking about it, I do tend to agree with the OP that using published material can be good practice to avoid illusionism. I like to buy a f-ton of short published adventures and seed them around my sandbox. The players are typically aware of at least several possibilities for adventure at any one time, and can decide where to go and what to do.

Though many published adventures have enough bad illusions all around that you need to tweak them to make game working anyway.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Gog to Magog on January 12, 2022, 06:23:59 AM
I'm going to be answering this all from my own perspective as a DM that runs 100% sandbox utilizing improvisation and random generation along to create content and to eliminate as much bias as possible

I tried to make this point a while ago in my blog. Will not link it here because I am not sure I was clear enough (probably not, got a lot of flak on reddit), so I'll try again from a different angle.

This time, I'd like to discuss this before publishing. I'm very one to adverse opinions on this

Here is the idea: sometimes, improvisation (of places, NPCs, events, etc.) leads to railroading (or quantum ogres and similar things), and sticking to a published (or pre-written) material is a great defense against this.

This is absolutely correct. Improvisation is often a pathway to railroading.

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Why?

Let's start with three propositions.

- The GM must present an internally coherent setting for the PCs to interact and explore.
- The GM must believe in the authenticity of the setting as much as the players.
- The GM should not alter the realities of the setting (at least not DURING PLAY) to accommodate, entertain, defy, reward or punish players, but only because of things that happen WITHIN the setting. In other words, the setting is defined by PCs and NPCs and not about GM and players.

I am 100% on board with all of this and this is how I present my games to players. I've explained my method of gaming as 'interface DMing' before where I am functionally the video game system through which the players are experiencing the setting essentially using their characters as their 'controls'. As DM I am as invisible as possible. I am not a wizard behind a curtain creating an illusion...I'm simply relating things to the players as an intermediary.

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I have just watched a video from a popular creator (whom I like) with these kinds of advice:

1. "If the players mention they suspect an innocent person, maybe you can decide that now HE is the culprit!"

This robs players of agency as it takes away the potential results of their actions. I don't like this. It robs the mystery of being a mystery because the answer is quantum.

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2. "Fudge your die rolls or HP if the encounter proves too difficult".

Also bad for the same reason. It robs players of the results of their actions. Running is VERY often an action and my players have taken it before. No shame in that. This is also why I roll the majority of my rolls right out in the open.

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3. "If a player rolls very well when searching for something that isn't there, maybe it is!"

This actually WOULD be good advice if it was "maybe SOMETHING is there"...because it's reasonable for a very good search result to find SOMETHING (even if it isn't directly related to why they were searching). As written, this is just another quantum-solution problem as #1.

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4. "If the players are talking too much, throw an encounter at them".

This is just garbage advice in general due to how vague it is. When my players are talking amongst each other, it is usually the BEST possible situation because it means they are thinking and interacting with each other and puzzling out what to do in a productive way. This COULD be okay advice if the players are doing this in character and time is passing in an area that is dangerous.

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Now, I can see this might be cool for some styles of play, but it shouldn't be "general D&D advice" IMO.

Number 1 is the classic example of "improv". But it completely devalues any mystery, any clues you throw at the PCs.

Number 2 will make the players believe they can win any encounter, or worse, they can win any encounter if you let them. It removes player agency.

Numbers 3 and 4, again, make the setting feel artificial - as if responding to what players, not PCs, do. Notice that number 3 is a thing that could happen in Dungeon World, for example (IIRC), but DW at least assign consequences for failing your search roll - otherwise, everyone would be searching for treasure everywhere.

Number 4 deserves a caveat: IF the PCs are in a dungeon where you roll for random encounters every 30 minutes, and the players talk for 30 minutes in-character, you should obviously ROLL for random encounters. Likewise, if someone would hear them, etc.

I like that I didn't read your response and we came to the same conclusions. Agreed on all counts.

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How to AVOID all these things? Use a published adventure, or write your own.

If you follow it to the letter, without improvising, you cannot execute any of the four advices mentioned above.

(BTW, having a plot telling you what happens if the PCs do nothing will help you tremendously)

When to improvise, then?

You often need to improvise to find out how the NPCs reacts to the PCs.

You also need to improvise to find out things about the setting you hadn't established before. But when you do so, answer your own questions using the setting's internal logic, not the necessities of the players or the "plot".

For example, the player asks, "can I full plate armor in this town?".

Ask yourself "how big is this town?", not "how bad does the PC need this for the next adventure".

You do not change inanimate things and past events because the PCs had an idea, desire, or particular die roll (unless, again, the PC could change the world in such way with his or her actions).

This is not the ONLY way to play RPGs, mind you; if you like to see the DM as some kind of entertainer, for example, adding stuff on the fly can be great (I'd still be honest about it with my players when the campaign starts).

I'd argue, however, that the way I'm defending above is the traditional way of playing RPGs (DM as referee), and that it is useful to make this distinction if you are  advocating the contrary - at least so people can try both ways and see what they prefer.

This is all true, however the weakness of a pre-published adventure is that a left turn when the adventure only has adventure along the right turn means that you may be stuck discarding the rest of the adventure...or contriving ways to get them back on those rails because the published adventure has an assumed plot.

For my part, I just create events going on and set them to timers where I roll for potential outcomes (including no change at all) and off they go. The players do as they please, interact with what they want and I do not presuppose any particular plot.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Gog to Magog on January 12, 2022, 06:26:44 AM
2 - Railroading - you guys are right, railroading is not the term I'm looking for, But railroading is and agency-stealer like the examples I mention. Is agency-stealer a better name? Or maybe illusionism (another railroad tool)?

Illusionism is giving players the illusion of choice while negating it in practice. So yes it is closer to what you are talking about. Moving the adventure location to the PC location is illusionism. It's only railroading if the players are trying to avoid the adventure. Just-in-time procedural content generation is 'improv' but is not 'illusionism', especially if player choice determines eg which table gets rolled on (hill encounters vs forest encounters, say).

IME running a sandbox there is inevitably a mix of pre-created and just-in-time content generation, this doesn't make the sandbox a railroad or illusionist.

Entirely agreed with this. I use quite a bit of random generation to create outcomes for player actions. The 'hill encounter vs forest encounter' is a perfect example of that. What I don't do is create something then put it in front of the players no matter if they go left or right since that WOULD be illusionism which invalidates agency. I pre-create some stuff, generate a lot randomly on the fly, etc instead.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Opaopajr on January 12, 2022, 08:03:48 AM
I will add that I let the emerging context answer as much as I would coherently surmise before dipping into randomness. So for instance terrain, party posture, and previously said or did things will shape my response. The context, if it narrows things down enough, might even answer the question outright.

But if player creativity goes beyond my preparation and my expectation of coherent consequences then I dip into my bag of relevant random tables and "scry" for new content.

It's not that I am opposed to improvisation. But improvisation is a big topic covering potentially a lot. And subtle favoritisms or routines slip in when in the middle of performing as a GM. To shake up everyone concerned, including myself, I like to fall back on my tables of random stuff safety nets.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 12, 2022, 08:56:48 AM
I will add that I let the emerging context answer as much as I would coherently surmise before dipping into randomness. So for instance terrain, party posture, and previously said or did things will shape my response. The context, if it narrows things down enough, might even answer the question outright.

But if player creativity goes beyond my preparation and my expectation of coherent consequences then I dip into my bag of relevant random tables and "scry" for new content.

It's not that I am opposed to improvisation. But improvisation is a big topic covering potentially a lot. And subtle favoritisms or routines slip in when in the middle of performing as a GM. To shake up everyone concerned, including myself, I like to fall back on my tables of random stuff safety nets.

That is short and precise. "Let the emerging context answer" is exactly what I'm looking for.

And yeah, improvisation is a big topic - I think that is why I missed he mark in the thread title; improvisation can mean lots of things.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 12, 2022, 08:59:13 AM
Railroading is forcing people down a track they don't want to go. The stuff you discuss is mostly bad practice, and may be used to railroad, but is not railroading per se.
I agree. For railroads to happen there must be pre-planned tracks in place, and what the OP describes lacks them.

It seems more a problem of communication to me. Why the player produced a shotgun out of thin air? If that's how the game in question works then it's not a problem. If not, then why did the GM or group let him do it? Because the player has better social skills and convinced everybody in that occasion? If that's the case then have a conversation with the group after the game so it doesn't happen again. Winging things on the fly ("ok, you find a shotgun behind the counter, what do you do?") can be as interesting/important as enforcing preset scenarios ("no, there is NO shotgun behind the counter, what do you do?") depending on context and group, but when it's taking the fun out of the game for you, then it becomes a problem that should be talked out with your friends.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 12, 2022, 09:05:31 AM
A few points I'd like to add after taking some advice form my friend jens (http://the-disoriented-ranger.blogspot.com/):

- Past and future - the GM is expect to improv the future but not the past (i.e., who is the real culprit) and not change the rules on the fly (how many HP, what the monster rolled).
- Transparency - if the GM is making up as he goes, the players should know or expect it.*
- Random tables, oracles and arbitrariness - Random tables are not improv. They are written beforehand. Interpreting omens is improv (i.e., the GM rolls "an enemy appears" in a random table) and it is to be expected. Maybe the difference is that the GM is not being arbitrary, but he is bound by pre-existing rules. I wouldn't want the GM to simply decide an enemy appears because the current fight feels too easy.

* one fair caveat is: if the PCs are making up as they go, obviously the GM will do the same.
I.e., if the PCs decide to investigate Lady Bathory, the DM should know in advance if she is the culprit. If they want to enter a random town, however, the GM can just put any town there - it is fair game
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 12, 2022, 09:14:32 AM
I find the above points more indicative of group taste or playstyle than any hard rule for RPGs.

- Past and Future. Why can't the GM improvise the past? If the group comes up with a cool hypothesis to solve the case, or if while investigating they give the GM ideas more interesting than what he had planned, why can't the GM adopt their ideas or change his own?

- Transparency. Why must the GM be transparent about what he does in his "backstage"? What does it change if he planned or improvised a plot, NPC or situation? As long as it's coherent and interesting, what's the problem?

- Random tables are not improv. So? If the GM improvizes in a manner that's coherent with what was established in the scene or situation, what's the problem?

Some people are good at improvising while others at planning beforehand. Let them GM/play as it suits them. What matters is if the game at the table is coherent and fun.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Steven Mitchell on January 12, 2022, 09:31:07 AM
Agree with Smon's description of Illusionism.  My game is pretty much based on avoiding Illusionism like the plague.  I may or may not railroad depending on my time to prep, but when I do I *always* tell the players outside the game:  "Hey, I'm pretty tired this week, and this is what I have prepared.  Can we all agree that we are going to stick to that today?"  Properly done, a railroad only constrains the large scope player agency.  It doesn't change how they approach the railroad details.  (Also, it helps that even in these cases, the in game situation is usually designed to allow multiple approaches.)

As far as I'm concerned, design and GM judgment happens before the player encounters the thing.  It doesn't matter much whether it was done a month ahead and written in stone or done 5 seconds before they opened the door.  Improvisation is merely design that happens just in time.  But it is still design, and still needs to fit the world.  The question I'm asking when doing improvisation is "How would I have done this a week ago with no particular urgency?"  And then as much as possible, I do that.  No one's perfect, but there is a difference between "you fight the same 5 orcs that I would have put there giving time to think" versus "you fight 5 orcs because you've been having an easy time up until now so that I put in an extra encounter to adjust the difficulty."

Of course, from the player perspective, it can be difficult to tell the difference--except when you run for the same people long enough, you build up trust.  Avoiding Illusionism is how you build up that trust.  Using Illusionism is a nasty negative feedback loop.  However, avoiding it consistently produces a positive feedback loop.

A key element to this from a campaign point of view is that once something is introduced, it's there.  That means when you introduce the rumor of some big monster causing havoc over in the next town, then at the very least you need to decide something consistent with that rumor or decide that the rumor is actually false.  Otherwise, it becomes impossible for the players to plan as the world becomes arbitrary.  Frequently, decisions need to be made "Just in Time" before the door gets opened.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Gog to Magog on January 12, 2022, 10:01:18 AM
let the emerging context answer

Yes!

Wow that's a brilliant and concise way to put it. Entirely agreed. I am going to use that exact phrase in the future. Very well put.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 12, 2022, 10:13:47 AM
I find the above points more indicative of group taste or playstyle than any hard rule for RPGs.

- Past and Future. Why can't the GM improvise the past? If the group comes up with a cool hypothesis to solve the case, or if while investigating they give the GM ideas more interesting than what he had planned, why can't the GM adopt their ideas or change his own?

- Transparency. Why must the GM be transparent about what he does in his "backstage"? What does it change if he planned or improvised a plot, NPC or situation? As long as it's coherent and interesting, what's the problem?

- Random tables are not improv. So? If the GM improvizes in a manner that's coherent with what was established in the scene or situation, what's the problem?

Some people are good at improvising while others at planning beforehand. Let them GM/play as it suits them. What matters is if the game at the table is coherent and fun.

Sure, it is a matter of taste.

My objection is saying this stuff as good GM advice without the caveat that, for example, that are people who feel that fudging the dice is cheating. I wouldn't like to play with a DM that fudges dice, I think, and I don't think it is honest if he does one thing and says another. However, if everyone in the table agrees that this is the GMs prerogative I see no problem.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 12, 2022, 10:25:41 AM
One of my favorite beginnings to a module ever is the one in Dance of the Fairie Rings. Spoilers ahead. The first choice players face is decide which way to go at a fork in the road, the high road or the low road. But if the players take the high road, they find themselves arriving at the same fork in the road. Again and again, each time they take the high road, they keep ending up back on the fork in the road until they take the low road. If that isn't enough, prior to the fork in the road, the "flavor text" that begins the adventure has an old man warning the PCs to avoid the low road.

I think there are a few vital things that separate this from being a railroad.

It's not sneaky. It's in your face. The GM isn't trying hide it.
How easy would it have been to give a straight road with no fork? Why present a choice and not honor it?
For that matter, why were PCs instructed to do something they wouldn't be allowed to do?
And all this adds up to make players feel as though there's some mystery afoot rather than they're being railroaded.
It creates more intrigue than frustration.

By being blatant, I think it makes it clear that you aren't being railroaded by the GM. It's some in-game force that's messing with you. There's some enemy to defeat.

Now for the rare bird who nonetheless does feel railroaded and frustrated by this, there's another surprise. That your annoyance is not justified by the facts because your choice at this fork in the road actually does matter. For it is some NPC that's doing it. The NPC is the prisoner of a dragon, and this is the NPC's way of getting heroes to help. And each time the NPC has to transport the PCs back to the fork in the road, more of that NPC's energy is sapped. And the less energy the NPC has to aid the PCs in confronting the dragon. The longer it takes you to recognize the low road is the solution, the slower you are to adapt, the more reluctant you are to embrace adventure, in other words, the poorer your choices, the less advantaged you are. Isn't that exactly what we expect out of player agency?



My takeaways here.
Reserve judgment regarding railroading. Reserve judgement by a lot.
Railroading isn't railroading when it's an NPC doing. All the railroading GM needs to do to make his or her beautiful plot kosher is hand over the puppeteer strings to an NPC.
NPC villain masterminds, to the degree that they are effective, can rob players of agency. There is no sacred right to agency, other than the existentialist choice to decide what sort of prisoner you will be. Everything else you've got to earn.

I think you're onto something here.

Maybe we could define illusionism as  "A term for styles where the GM has control over the a situation (event, NPC, die roll, etc.), by a variety of means, and the players are not aware (or expecting) that the GM has this kind of control."

So, in your example, the PCs are aware that the DM is doing it. But if you fudge a roll, the players aren't aware.

If you all agree that the DM can fudge rolls, it is not illusionism; there is no illusion. The players are expecting this. This is okay.

If you enter a random town, it is expected that the GM can control waht kind of town it is, etc. The GM is not expected to have everything written down beforehand.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: tenbones on January 12, 2022, 10:39:49 AM
Railroading is forcing people down a track they don't want to go. The stuff you discuss is mostly bad practice, and may be used to railroad, but is not railroading per se.

/Natural 20

Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: tenbones on January 12, 2022, 10:57:23 AM
I wanna weigh in here - because it's a very good post and there are a lot of good points being thrown around.

I look at this problem of "Railroading", "Illusionism" as two stages of inevitable growth of being a GM. GMing requires some level of autonomy and agency in its own right - but we rarely talk about it. Most GM's that are relatively new to GMing start with published adventures and I'd say most do not go beyond that point.

Those that hit the top-end of only using published adventures are the ones that want, or are forced because of adventurous players exercising their own player-agency, to go off-roading from the prescribed "path". Invariably these become the Railroaders. And yes, it's a silly skillset unto itself where you learn to finagle players back onto the proscribed path. The degree of hamfistedness is the line between Railroading or Illusionism.

THIS IS BASIC GMING. This is not skilled GMing. This is not the kind of GMing that will run for multi-year campaigns. This is noobcake-to-low-middle-tier GMing skills in practice.

GMing agency requires that you are a fan of the PC's. This doesn't mean you favor them. It means they *are* the stars of the show. And it means that your setting is the unknown PC that lives and breathes with your PC's. It has it's own set of rules filled with NPC's that engage the stars of the show without getting in the way of the PC's agency. And where those two conflict? That's where the game is played.

The idea of improv-as-railroad is true only if the GM in question doesn't understand these principles in practice. This is the hallmark of a GM that doesn't *want* their PC's to enact their own agency in the game. They're passively or actively GMing from a position of being and adversary to the PLAYERS - not the PC's.

GMing is a dance. And that dance requires partners in the affair - the Players. The tacit agreement is We're Playing Together. This requires trust, to boldface say "Improv is Railroading" implies that the GM has not earned the trust of his players. And why is that? Improv is a tool. It's the tool that lets you procedurally color in the paths not painted for you by some other author of your world. That's a skill to be cultivated not shunned.

1) The Players are the STARS of the show.
2) You can kill the Stars of the show.
3) The GM is not passive in the world. The World works according to its own internal logic and the GM is Prime Mover of that logic.

The caveat to this is that these principles are what I use for Sandbox play. But these principles absolutely work for published adventures and one shots.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: S'mon on January 12, 2022, 10:57:41 AM
Though many published adventures have enough bad illusions all around that you need to tweak them to make game working anyway.

I stick with location-based published adventures, not plotted adventures. NPC actions such as orcs raiding the village tend to be either randomly generated or GM fiat. If the adventure says "the village may be destroyed while the PCs are away" I'll make some rolls to see if it is attacked and what the outcome is, taking into account PC activity.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: rytrasmi on January 12, 2022, 11:10:59 AM
Revisiting my previous argument, we mostly consider it acceptable for GMs to "balance" encounters when writing before hand. Even if they want to calibrate the balance to easy, average, hard, and run-away! What if the GM makes an error in planning and only discovers that error in real time during play? Is it wrong to correct errors?
GM error is often really player error. If the enemy was stronger than the GM planned, the players still get to choose to fight it or not. The players make the choices, so errors are on them. If the goblin camp was supposed to have 10 goblins but I just described 100 goblins, I have two choices: 1) rewind and correct or 2) run with it. If I run with it, the players get the chance to come up with a creative solution. If they stupidly charge in because of balance, that's their error.

I prefer to use two terms to describe my DM’g style: 1) Schrodinger’s Goblin and 2) Object Oriented Roleplaying

1) Schrodinger’s Goblin is an paradox. I have no idea if there is a goblin behind the door until the players open it. It doesn’t matter if it was planned to be there or not. The players don’t care either, because until it happens it didn’t exist before hand. Just because something is planned or unplanned doesn’t make it valid or invalid. You are not cheating the players if they don’t know. I am not cheating myself as DM.

2) Object Oriented Roleplaying is exactly what it sounds like. When required a process is run by me that determines what the output in the game is. The process doesn’t matter, it’s a black box for all intents and purposes. It could be a random table, an encounter pulled from another module, or made up on the spot.

Bottom Line: improv or planned doesn’t really matter.
Concerning Schrodinger’s Goblin, I'd argue that is does matter. The goblin got there somehow. He had a reason to be there and a trajectory to getting there. If his presence contradicts something else, your players will eventually notice. Maybe not with this goblin, but with the next.

"You are not cheating the players if they don’t know." - You're overestimating your abilities. Players are smart and notice a lot. Give them some credit. They will usually go along with it, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're some genius who's crafting perfect illusions. Illusionists always overestimate their abilities. It's a little arrogant to be honest.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Ruprecht on January 12, 2022, 12:26:18 PM
Personally I don't think the quantum ogre is necessarily bad.  Yeah, blasphemy I know.
Recycling things makes it easier on the GM, as long as that Ogre isn't boring and the players aren't forced into the fight its not much different then having identical encounters in both locations. Players are unaware of most of what's going on behind the GM screen and wouldn't be aware of the quantum ogres movements anyway.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Omega on January 12, 2022, 12:35:04 PM
Quote
Actually Railroading can and is performed by players as well on the DM. This came up a year or two ago along the lines of a player declaring they find a shotgun behind a bar. Not roll for to see if anythings there, or the DM saying anything. The player just poofed it into existence. That is a player railroading the DM.

And I've seen far far far far too much of where one player forces an action on another players character.

What I've seen all too often is that its the IC fanatics and storygamers that cause the most trouble with these stunts.

What is IC fanatics? I mean what is IC, I do not recognize this shortcut.
But generally I'd still disagree. Railroad demand certain rails. It generally is term assuming GM has well long term plans and will push or trick players into following strict narrative for long time, at least adventure. So I'd not call fudging one random encounter to be one.

And storygames are different batch. First they generally try to avoid specific rails (while enforcing genre rails, which make doing un-genre stuff generally not important), but yes they ditch rigid setting and give players some elements of power over world itself.

In Character. The types of players who are obsessed with "muh immershun!" not normal sane immersion. But loony fringe stuff more oft than not. For a few its borderline, or full on, method acting. And for others its more like a psychoses far as Im concerned. And very often they will call for, or demand, the removal of rules or systems. Gradually trying to whittle a game down to storygaming, then just storytelling as anything else gets in the way of "muh immershun!"

Railroads demand rails and sometimes its one or more players who try to force everyone else onto their rails.

And hate to burst your bubble. But Storygamers all too often fall into railroading of one form or another. I've seen it time and again. And seen worse from them in the form of rampant abuse of sessions.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: S'mon on January 12, 2022, 12:42:17 PM
Personally I don't think the quantum ogre is necessarily bad.  Yeah, blasphemy I know.
Recycling things makes it easier on the GM, as long as that Ogre isn't boring and the players aren't forced into the fight its not much different then having identical encounters in both locations. Players are unaware of most of what's going on behind the GM screen and wouldn't be aware of the quantum ogres movements anyway.

I think it's a technique that (unlike railroading) can be good, but needs to be used carefully - and preferably in small doses. If you prep a tower with an ogre and place it in front of the PCs, in principle that's fine. But you need to be careful not to slip into railroading, where the PCs MUST go in that damn tower!
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Wrath of God on January 12, 2022, 12:51:18 PM
Quote
"You are not cheating the players if they don’t know." - You're overestimating your abilities. Players are smart and notice a lot. Give them some credit. They will usually go along with it, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're some genius who's crafting perfect illusions. Illusionists always overestimate their abilities. It's a little arrogant to be honest.

Some do, some don't. Depends of skill. And assumptions players are smart is... well also wastly overestimating.

Quote
In Character. The types of players who are obsessed with "muh immershun!" not normal sane immersion. But loony fringe stuff more oft than not. For a few its borderline, or full on, method acting. And for others its more like a psychoses far as Im concerned. And very often they will call for, or demand, the removal of rules or systems. Gradually trying to whittle a game down to storygaming, then just storytelling as anything else gets in the way of "muh immershun!"

Railroads demand rails and sometimes its one or more players who try to force everyone else onto their rails.

And hate to burst your bubble. But Storygamers all too often fall into railroading of one form or another. I've seen it time and again. And seen worse from them in the form of rampant abuse of sessions.

I mean games I consider to belong to SG movement/tradition are IMHO vastly opposed to "muh immersion" movement. Immersionists were generally anti-mechanic. Storygames mechanicised narrative elements, for Immersion crowd that's anathema as it take them out of character. Because purpose of SG mechanics is not immersion but keeping ongoing narrative withing genre batch.
Therefore it will cause things happen that are suitable for given genre.

Improvised storytelling is opposite of storygaming, and storygaming movement is like probably godfather of whole "system matters" mentality. They were first to ditch "golden rule" and claiming if you homerule you're not playing this game anymore.

I mean sure you can ditch it for ego-trip and intimidating other players in GM, but it's generally against foundations of whole game design/playstyle philosophy that is called storygames nowadays.
So it's like using simmilar abusive players as argument against classical style.

Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Shrieking Banshee on January 12, 2022, 01:11:38 PM
Well Id say the quantum ogre/ illusionism is railroading. It may be organic, but it still is. You can defend it for myriad legitimate reasons, but to say its not railroading is denying the truth of the matter.

Because I think all good GMs take the events into their own hands sometimes.

Like there is also 'un-quantum' boredom. Where there are 3 rooms and an ogre is in one of them, but the other two rooms may have just nothing noteworthy in them. So your session has just large periods of nothing happening and afterwards everybody is left unsatisfied.

But you can let them open the room and just skim saying it has nothing of note and you find nothing of note there.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: rytrasmi on January 12, 2022, 01:14:06 PM
Quote
"You are not cheating the players if they don’t know." - You're overestimating your abilities. Players are smart and notice a lot. Give them some credit. They will usually go along with it, but don't fool yourself into thinking you're some genius who's crafting perfect illusions. Illusionists always overestimate their abilities. It's a little arrogant to be honest.

Some do, some don't. Depends of skill. And assumptions players are smart is... well also wastly overestimating.

Yeah, well, who's to know for certain? Only the player. A GM that thinks he knows everything his players are thinking is fooling himself.

Personally I don't think the quantum ogre is necessarily bad.  Yeah, blasphemy I know.
Recycling things makes it easier on the GM, as long as that Ogre isn't boring and the players aren't forced into the fight its not much different then having identical encounters in both locations. Players are unaware of most of what's going on behind the GM screen and wouldn't be aware of the quantum ogres movements anyway.
I dunno man. I've sat there as GM watching my players sweat over a decision and carefully plan for what they think might happen. 5, 10, 15 minutes of discussion and some careful prep to go down path A or B. I can't sit there with a clear conscious the whole time knowing all this discussion and effort makes no difference because paths A and B are the same. It would feel dirty.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Ruprecht on January 12, 2022, 03:31:09 PM
It's only really dirty if you make a big deal about one path and then move that encounter to the option that was assumed to be easier. If they are just two roads, one is faster but you'll be seen by enemy spies while the other is slower but you'll be unseen, it doesn't matter that the ogre appears along both. Assuming he's not the boss monster or something. Most of the time travelling to get to the adventure is a hassle designed to make it appear the location isn't next to town where everyone would have picked it clean long ago. I understand the need but I'm not gonna spend a lot of time on it. Instead it's a better planned random encounter.

if the travel is a serious part of the adventure that *could* be a lot different.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: tenbones on January 12, 2022, 03:41:32 PM
I think there is a "fear" that new GM's go through - the fear of being caught off guard, of not having the answers or response to a player's actions.


You know the truth of it is that it's all a learning process. Overcoming that fear of the GMing chair is learning to overcome that fear of "loss of control" or failure, or whatever,  and it's also about cultivating the desire to do a "better" game. And I find learning good basic principles about GMing and making a better game removes that fear, and it also, uncoincidentally, removes "railroading" and "Quantum-Ogres" off the table.

Seriously, making great campaigns requires work. Whether that means work in learning how to GM well - which includes Improv, or doing whatever is "good prep" for you, it takes effort. It *seems* effortless when you have a lot of experience, which a lot of my players assume about me and other GM's of my vintage. But that's because they don't understand the work and effort put in to develop the skills we possess. And it's never perfect. It's NEVER EVER perfect.

Improv is just a paintbrush - how well you use it and to what end is up to you. Lets be real - someone that "railroads" their games is going to do it *regardless* of whether they Improv or not. I actually think learning to Improv, and do it well, may lead to freeing one from the Railroad if they put some of that imagination into it.

Of course I also think nothing gets Rookie GM's to be Journeyman GM's than having Veteran GM's around.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Opaopajr on January 13, 2022, 12:41:00 AM
tendbones, I like how you are placing these on a spectrum of discipline growth. Instead of an antagonistic "one true way" opposition, this organization is an invitation to new GMs to improve their game. Sort of like how Bob Ross gives such an inviting, relaxed aire that removes self-doubt and dogmatic defensiveness with his "Happy little trees," and "No mistakes, just happy little accidents."

We all had campaign struggles and this is sharing what we've learned to avoid (or at least forgive oneself) in the future. The blog writer is sharing a trick to keep harmony at their table. But we are challenging that advice from the perspective of "can you grow further as a performer without the shortcut of easy appeasement?" All disciplines have higher heights to explore, so sharing and learning techniques -- and understanding their limitations -- helps us make new vistas of shared imagination.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Gog to Magog on January 13, 2022, 12:48:32 AM
Yes, growing pains are a part of getting better at something and sometimes there is way too much aversion to experiencing those pains
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: rytrasmi on January 13, 2022, 10:05:23 AM
tendbones, I like how you are placing these on a spectrum of discipline growth. Instead of an antagonistic "one true way" opposition, this organization is an invitation to new GMs to improve their game. Sort of like how Bob Ross gives such an inviting, relaxed aire that removes self-doubt and dogmatic defensiveness with his "Happy little trees," and "No mistakes, just happy little accidents."

We all had campaign struggles and this is sharing what we've learned to avoid (or at least forgive oneself) in the future. The blog writer is sharing a trick to keep harmony at their table. But we are challenging that advice from the perspective of "can you grow further as a performer without the shortcut of easy appeasement?" All disciplines have higher heights to explore, so sharing and learning techniques -- and understanding their limitations -- helps us make new vistas of shared imagination.
tenbones certainly presents his opinion with class. I admit to being antagonistic from time to time (perhaps more often than not!) but this is rhetoric and I find that I learn from others here a lot, regardless of how they present their ideas. Sometimes bold rhetoric wakes people up (myself included). 

It is also somewhat unfair to say that certain GM tools are part of the growth to becoming a true GM. I've said this in the past, but the more I read opinions here the more I think it's a different case all together.

I propose that there are two schools of thought on GMing: Referee and Storyteller. Both create or interpret a world and present it, and work to have the players enjoy it. The divide is simple:

Referee: The world is concrete and the rules are primary. Satisfaction flows from an emergent story in which the Referee is essentially a player himself governed by the world and its rules.

Storyteller: The world is abstract and satisfaction is primary. The rules bend to the story that the Storyteller seeks to have told. The Storyteller uses the rules as a means to move the story forward.

Obviously these are generalization and no one fits perfectly within one school. Knowing my own bias, I am a
Referee. I don't understand Storytellers to be honest and think they are essentially playing a different game.

My 2-cent brain fart for the morning. I claim nothing here as original!
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: tenbones on January 13, 2022, 11:40:51 AM
Now if only I could have channel Bob Ross's hair.

All hobbies have various traps that exist between various tiers of skill - this is true of sports, ceramics, painting, etc. And it takes a "learners" mindset to want to get to that "next level". And it's very common for practitioners of a trade/hobby to fall into those traps and inertia sets in. Whether this is due to lack of interest in furthering one's skill, or lack of exposure to new ideas (or worse pretending there are no new ideas), that dynamic is very real.

 I don't disagree with your two-school analogy, rytrasmi - I totally get where you're coming from. I DO think there is some element of truth to it. I make sense of it by adding a third-dimension - level of desire (specifically - satisfaction awareness)

I do agree that at its baseline people have sensibilities that lend themselves to one of those "areas". But I also think in some ways those GM's are created by circumstances that drive those sensibilities. How many times have we seen GM's that "do it because no one else will"? Or The GM that suddenly got into TTRPG's because they were influenced by some book series they read and they wanted to recreate that experience (for themselves - but they didn't realize it until the GM shackles were on). Sometimes its both.

I think it's two solid broad categories you've outlined. But I also think while there are pathological expressions of "Referee" and "Storyteller"  there are also positive expressions as well, though their usefulness are different in terms of degree.

In my experience with the right type of satisfaction-awareness - a Referee becomes of aware of the narratives created by their players, because Referees that call good "balls and strikes" earns Trust. And Trust in the GM drives Player Agency. Player Agency will take campaigns in directions that the Players want to pursue. A good Referee plays the game where it leads. The feedback loop then, hopefully, causes that Referee-Style GM to understand that the ongoing game has emergent narratives beyond whatever is directly happening in the game that could potentially offer greater satisfaction to the Players and therefore the game, and therefore the GM.

Storyteller GM's have a different road to hoe - they have to learn to get out of their own way. Because the number-one rule is that the PC's are the stars of the show, not the the story or narratives the GM has cooked into their mind. If a Storyteller GM can get past this big hurdle, they begin to realize their setting is their character which the players are interacting with. In time they'll hopefully then learn to apply the rules that express that setting to their satisfaction - and earn Player Trust. It's a steeper climb, but the advantage a Storyteller GM has is that they tend (not always) to understand the themes they want to toss into their pot of campaign gumbo, and if they develop good GMing skills they can entice (and not force) their players to bite. Really good Storyteller GM's will learn to also be good Referees, and they'll understand their setting conceits deeply, and will always be able to nurture emergent narratives from their players actions and make them game-worthy to pursue. Improv skills are a big part of this.

We all know the pathological tropes of "Storyteller GMs" and "Rules-only Referees" - where Storyteller GM's are railroading con-artists pretending to deliver agency, and Rules-only Referee's that effectively deliver near-soulless dry procedural table-driven content. I do think the best GM's take elements of both - but lean heavier on the Referee than the Storyteller.

Referee's express the mechanics that underlie the world. Storytellers offer the ability to make it come alive. NONE of these things should be done at the expense of Player Agency or Player Satisfaction.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Wrath of God on January 13, 2022, 03:45:21 PM
Quote
I propose that there are two schools of thought on GMing: Referee and Storyteller. Both create or interpret a world and present it, and work to have the players enjoy it. The divide is simple:

Referee: The world is concrete and the rules are primary. Satisfaction flows from an emergent story in which the Referee is essentially a player himself governed by the world and its rules.

Storyteller: The world is abstract and satisfaction is primary. The rules bend to the story that the Storyteller seeks to have told. The Storyteller uses the rules as a means to move the story forward.

Obviously these are generalization and no one fits perfectly within one school. Knowing my own bias, I am a
Referee. I don't understand Storytellers to be honest and think they are essentially playing a different game.

This is extremely manichaean take I think (due to bias against Storytellers).
I'd say there is at least half a dozen of GM modes forming weird multidimensional spectrum.

For instance you can have challenger GM where both story and world-consistency are just a pretext to challenge players - especially for combat heavy games, like most of D&D. Insane form may turn assholish, and contrarian willing to just smash players for own satisfaction. Proper one create challenges to make them just in right balance of chance of success and defeat, and take satisfaction from thrill. Howeever consistency of setting is secondary - quantum ogre will happen to challenge players when GM decide time is ripe for challenge.

Alas any narrative and storytelling elements are also kinda secondary and tertiary.

Then you have people with Storyteller mentality but using heavy simulationist mechanics. That's how Trad school was described in 6 cultures. Rules does not bend to the story - story exist sort of beyond PCs (this is mode I think that is good for investigation especially, and I think CoC games are generally like that) - and they may use rules to discover or tweak the ongoing story. (Of course it can easily fall into railroad, so be careful).

And then you have games from actual storygame culture where power of GM is limited, the GM advice is very pro-Referee, because it's players who craft own Story, not GM, and he is relegated to Referee who should decide when given move should be triggered and is basically forbidding of crafting any plot or story beforehand. Alas those games does not have concrete world and are not world-simulationist, narrative mechanics and results of roles are designed to simulate genre not world.

And there may be wannabe unfullfiled actors who just want to show-off with various weird NPC's and so on.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 13, 2022, 04:31:37 PM
I agree with Wrath of God here. There are so many GM/playing styles that trying to encapsulate them in only two "schools" seem too reductionist.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 14, 2022, 12:50:03 PM
After many thoughts and corrections, I re-wrote the entire thing. I changed the OP too. thanks for all the answers; I'd love feedback about the corrections too.

---

I tried to make this point a while ago. Will not link it here because I am not sure I was clear enough, so I'll try again from a different angle.

Here is the idea: sometimes, improvisation (i.e., coming up with things on the fly) leads to railroading (or quantum ogres and similar things), and sticking to pre-written material (settings, mechanics, etc.) is a good defense against this.

Let's define some terms before we begin. This is the best/oldest definitions I could find, and they seem decent enough:

Improvisation: the art or act of improvising, or of composing, uttering, executing, or arranging anything without previous preparation (source).
Railroading: Railroads happen when the GM negates a player’s choice in order to enforce a preconceived outcome (source).
Illusionism: A term for styles where the GM has control over the storyline, by a variety of means, and the players do not recognize this control (adapted from this source).

It is easy to see how closely related railroading and illusionism are.

One of the main problems of railroading and illusionism is removing agency from players. Not only do their choices cease to matter, but also they are tricked into believing that they do. To use someone else's analogy, is like letting your little brother play Street Fighter with you, but giving him a joystick that is not connected to the game.

I decided to write this after watching a video from a popular creator (whom I like) with these kinds of advice:

1. "If the players mention they suspect an innocent person, maybe you can decide that now HE is the culprit!"
2. "Fudge your die rolls or HP if the encounter proves too difficult".
3. "If a player rolls very well when searching for something that isn't there, maybe it is!"
4. "If the players are talking too much, throw an encounter at them".

Also, to sum it up, something to the effect of "never let the players see behind the curtain" - which sounds related to illusionism.

Now, if that is what rocks your boat, fine. I just want to add that this is not the only style of play and is, in fact, anathema to another style which sees illusionism and railroading as things to avoid.

Let's analyze the advice above.

Advice 1 is the classic example of "improv". But it completely devalues any mystery, any clues you throw at the PCs. You may argue that this is not railroading because the GM hadn't conceived an outcome beforehand - the DM thought the culprit was A, but when the PCs accused B he changed. However, in this case, the outcome enforced by the GM is the PCs find the right culprit; he is negating the player's choice of accusing the wrong person!

Number 2 will make the players believe they can win any encounter, or worse, they can win any encounter if you let them. It removes player agency. Again, the outcome the GM is forcing is "the PCs win the next battle".

Numbers 3 and 4, again, make the setting feel artificial - as if responding to what players, not PCs, do. Notice that number 3 is a thing that could happen in Dungeon World, for example (IIRC), but DW at least assign consequences for failing your search roll - otherwise, everyone would be searching for treasure everywhere.

Number 4 deserves a caveat: IF the PCs are in a dungeon where you roll for random encounters every 30 minutes, and the players talk for 30 minutes in-character, you should obviously ROLL for random encounters. Likewise, if someone would hear them, etc.

It is not illusionism if the players know

It is not illusionism if there is no illusion. If your players know that fudging dice and HP is the DM's prerogative in this campaign, or that you'll decide whodunnit is as you go, or that a good dice roll will let you find treasure where anywhere, this is not illusionism, it is a style of play.

This is a very important distinction because, as we'll see, DMs must make things up as they go in both styles.

Some different advice

Let me try some alternative advice to the "man behind the curtain" method described above.

- The GM must present an internally coherent setting for the PCs to interact and explore.
- The GM must believe in the authenticity of the setting as much as the players.
- The GM should not alter the realities of the setting (at least not DURING PLAY) to accommodate, entertain, defy, reward or punish players, but only because of things that happen WITHIN the setting. In other words, the setting is defined by PCs and NPCs and not about GM and players.

Another tips I mentioned before that might be related:

- Let the dice push you out of your comfort zone. Your PCs all failed their saving throws - now what? Your important NPC was killed before he could start his plan - what happens now?
- Expect the unexpected from your players. Do not expect them to follow a predictable path, or always find the right culprit, or only pick fights they can win, etc.

How to AVOID illusionism?

Let's say you and I prefer the same style of play - how to avoid illusionism, railroading, etc.?

Well, one idea is use a published adventure, or write your own.

If you follow it to the letter, without improvising, you cannot execute any of the four advices mentioned above.

(BTW, having a plot telling you what happens if the PCs fail or do nothing will help you tremendously. It will relieve you of the temptation of enforcing the preconceived notion that the must win).

Of course, if your PCs stray from the course, you must improvise. However, do NOT improvise a reason to force than back into the adventure. That is exactly what railroading is. Just think of the logical consequences of their choices.

And what if they enter a random town, far from the original adventure site? Well, then you improvise, but it is ALSO okay to say "I hadn't prepared this, let's take a small break". Remember, it is NOT illusionism when they know you're making things up on the fly.

When to improvise, then?

You often need to improvise to find out how the NPCs reacts to the PCs. How the events unfold. You NEED some improv to run RPGs.

You also need to improvise to find out things about the setting you hadn't established before. But when you do so, answer your own questions using the setting's internal logic, not the necessities of the players or the "plot".

For example, the player asks, "can I full plate armor in this town?".

Ask yourself "how big is this town?", not "how bad does the PC need this for the next adventure".

You do not change inanimate things and past events because the PCs had an idea, desire, or particular die roll (unless, again, the PC could change the world in such way with his or her actions).

You also improvise anything that players expect you to improvise, of course - what is the blacksmith's name? But you do not improvise when the answer should be found in the setting - "is there a blacksmith in this town"? When the players ask you that, they do not expect you to be creative, but to give your honest assessment of what you be expected in the setting.

You can also improvise (or, at least, create) anything when your players expect you to do so. For example, between sessions. Or when you ask for a 5 minute break. Or when they break into a random house. Etc.

Oracles and random tables

These are not improvisation. They require previous preparation. If you have a table for random encounters, and you get a dragon encounter, throwing a dragon against your players from nowhere is not improvisation.

But what if these tables are more like oracles? "17 - an ally is revealed as a traitor". Still not improvisation while you roll, but you'll have to interpret the result to the best of your ability - which does require some improvisation. Again, just let the players know that this is the kind of game you're playing - an ally can betray them at random. If there is a transparent mechanic for that (e.g., morale rules), it is not improvisation.

But I LIKE fudging HP!

Again, if that's your preference, that's fine. I'd advice you be transparent about this - let your players know that fudging dice and HP is your prerogative, or that you'll decide whodunnit is as you go. If everyone is on the same page, that's okay (just not my preferred style).

I'd argue, however, that it is useful to let people know both styles exist - at least so people can try both ways and see what they prefer.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: S'mon on January 14, 2022, 02:38:29 PM
I think I concur with all your advice. I'll make two small caveats, but I don't think they contradict your view:

>>3. "If a player rolls very well when searching for something that isn't there, maybe it is!"<<

I wouldn't move the 'not there' thing to 'there' in response to a very high search roll. But I might well improvise *something* interesting the PCs have found. Most dungeons tend to lack extraneous detail but some have trinket/dressing tables. A high search roll is a great opportunity to roll on such tables. The trinket table in the 5e PHB works well for this, too. Generally, if I'm not prepared to give something for a high search roll, I don't let them roll at all, I just say 'you search and find nothing'.

>>4. "If the players are talking too much, throw an encounter at them".<<

If the players are talking, then IMC the PCs are talking too. Running Barrowmaze last night, whenever the players took too long discussing what to do next, I'd roll for a wandering monster check (I always roll in the open). This got them moving, but it also made sense in-world.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Mishihari on January 15, 2022, 10:04:57 PM
Interesting discussion.  My first thought after just reading the original title is that improv is absolutely essential to avoid railroading.  As a DM I present the setting, but sometimes the players choose not to stay within the bounds of the prepared material, whether it’s a module or something I wrote myself.  When they do this my options are to 1) force them to stay within the prepared material (railroading), 2) ask them to stay within the prepared material (a gentler railroad), 3) stop the game while I take some time to prepare material (suck), and 4) improvise.  Then I read the thread and saw that this is not exactly what it’s about.

I think the underlying issue is that we (most of us I think) want the game setting to feel real.  Because when it feels real, we care more about the result and get more emotionally involved and hence participate more actively and have more fun.  This is what’s behind playing an rpg as a simulation rather than a story.  If we feel that what’s behind the door is there whether or not we choose to open it, then it feels real.

I don’t use illusionism very much, but I don’t see it as a bad thing unless it abrogates player agency or damages the players feelings of realism.  If there are 3 identical doors and I want the first one to have an ogre, no problem.  If only one of the doors is ogre sized and the players avoid that one because they don’t want to face an ogre and I have one pop out anyway, that’s a bit of a railroad.  Because the results of a player choice did not conform to reasonable expectations about how the setting works, the game suddenly feels less real.

If the players figure out you’re using illusionism then that’s a problem – the game feels a lot less real then.  But I disagree with rytrasmi – unless you seriously overuse the technique, the players are never going to know.  There are enough flaws in the reality of the game that they’re never going to notice another one.


Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Wrath of God on January 15, 2022, 10:42:28 PM
Quote
Advice 1 is the classic example of "improv". But it completely devalues any mystery, any clues you throw at the PCs. You may argue that this is not railroading because the GM hadn't conceived an outcome beforehand - the DM thought the culprit was A, but when the PCs accused B he changed. However, in this case, the outcome enforced by the GM is the PCs find the right culprit; he is negating the player's choice of accusing the wrong person!

I'd say it's railroading as long as GM really want players to get right guy, no matter why.
Otherwise it's illusion to cover he essentially liked their explanation better than own, as long as it's not contradictory... well as I said many writers invent things as they go, other plan world meticulously. Both can win or fail in feeling believable.

Quote
Number 2 will make the players believe they can win any encounter, or worse, they can win any encounter if you let them. It removes player agency. Again, the outcome the GM is forcing is "the PCs win the next battle".

Generally yes. Alas I'd accept it in more highly tactical combat version is GM overdone himself, and he miscalculated power of encounter. That's his fault then no PC's who went dumbly against something too powerful, so he sort of recognizes it.

Quote
Numbers 3 and 4, again, make the setting feel artificial - as if responding to what players, not PCs, do. Notice that number 3 is a thing that could happen in Dungeon World, for example (IIRC), but DW at least assign consequences for failing your search roll - otherwise, everyone would be searching for treasure everywhere.

Indeed. TBH I must say nowadays I'd go with something like each players making 100 rolls beforehand, I note them down, and use for all those kinda passive check. You check this room, you found nothing. Therefore there is no bias of seeing roll result, or need to even inform players did they rolled in given situation. Just announce Perception, Search, Lore rolls when suitable.

Quote
It is not illusionism if there is no illusion. If your players know that fudging dice and HP is the DM's prerogative in this campaign, or that you'll decide whodunnit is as you go, or that a good dice roll will let you find treasure where anywhere, this is not illusionism, it is a style of play.

This is a very important distinction because, as we'll see, DMs must make things up as they go in both styles.

Yes. I think in Edwards theory it was called participationism. Players knows that GM mostly keep story in go, and they accept their limited freedom, to discover it.

Quote
- Let the dice push you out of your comfort zone. Your PCs all failed their saving throws - now what? Your important NPC was killed before he could start his plan - what happens now?
- Expect the unexpected from your players. Do not expect them to follow a predictable path, or always find the right culprit, or only pick fights they can win, etc.

I generally agree. I randomize as much as I can, both as player, and more and more as GM, so I really likes it.

Quote
These are not improvisation. They require previous preparation. If you have a table for random encounters, and you get a dragon encounter, throwing a dragon against your players from nowhere is not improvisation.

But what if these tables are more like oracles? "17 - an ally is revealed as a traitor". Still not improvisation while you roll, but you'll have to interpret the result to the best of your ability - which does require some improvisation. Again, just let the players know that this is the kind of game you're playing - an ally can betray them at random. If there is a transparent mechanic for that (e.g., morale rules), it is not improvisation.

I must say I wonder would I want to know about such caveats, or just... you know ignore what GM's doing as long as it all feels coherent.
Like do I really need to knows how sausage is made, as long as I can grill it well?

Quote
Generally, if I'm not prepared to give something for a high search roll, I don't let them roll at all, I just say 'you search and find nothing'.

Yes. I think general rule should be you roll when asked by GM, not on your own. Alas there is certain metagaming - if player is dismissed he sort of know, there's nothing, that it was not too low roll. That's why I was thinking about passive roll charts. You always cross one out, but they don't know which one. (You may sort of write down reason for each roll, to have backup you were honest)

Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Slipshot762 on January 16, 2022, 02:33:35 AM
I prefer to not think overmuch about it; I rolled dragons, so you're getting dragons, and lucky ye are to get'em says I!
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: S'mon on January 16, 2022, 06:34:04 AM
Yes. I think general rule should be you roll when asked by GM, not on your own. Alas there is certain metagaming - if player is dismissed he sort of know, there's nothing, that it was not too low roll.

I'm generally in favour of this kind of metagaming, as it helps prevent lots of real time being wasted searching for stuff that's not there. It is a fine balance though.

I was running Barrowmaze on Thursday using the 5e version. It is full of hidden traps and secret doors. I want to give players a chance to find stuff, without making it automatic. So if they ask to inspect something, I'm pretty generous with clues. Either automatic ("OK you bash the wall - the wall sounds hollow") or low DC ("OK you inspect the floor debris - roll - that part of the floor in front of the mirror seems empty of debris"). I want the players alert, questioning and investigating. I want to reward 'smart' play. But I don't want to waste much of the session on empty rooms. 
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Ruprecht on January 16, 2022, 09:07:16 AM
1. "If the players mention they suspect an innocent person, maybe you can decide that now HE is the culprit!"
This seems so wrong in so many ways to me. What is the point of having a mystery of who is the culprit if you just shift the culprit around?
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 16, 2022, 09:53:43 AM
1. "If the players mention they suspect an innocent person, maybe you can decide that now HE is the culprit!"
This seems so wrong in so many ways to me. What is the point of having a mystery of who is the culprit if you just shift the culprit around?
The same point of having a mystery at all - problem solving, excitement for the unknown, getting surprised, etc. From the players POV it's irrelevant if the GM stays true to his prep or changes things around, and as long as the mystery solution keeps coherent, where is the problem?

I understand if a group don't like this sort of thing but it seems much more a matter of preference to me than actual railroading, the later feeling more an objective sin as it means one participant is trying to impose his idea to the group at all costs to the point of taking out agency from everyone, which would be wrong in any game really.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Ruprecht on January 16, 2022, 09:59:13 AM
The same point of having a mystery at all - problem solving, excitement for the unknown, getting surprised, etc. From the players POV it's irrelevant if the GM stays true to his prep or changes things around, and as long as the mystery solution keeps coherent, where is the problem?
While I agree in most cases that a switch is fine if they don't know, for a mystery it just doesn't seem right. A mystery should have clues that mean something.
Title: Re: Improv is railroading
Post by: Omega on January 16, 2022, 10:05:39 AM
Yes, growing pains are a part of getting better at something and sometimes there is way too much aversion to experiencing those pains

Very.

Unfortunately as we saw with the Forge, Pundit's Swine, and far too many storygamers... They seem to totally forget this. Or worse. Look back on it with intense hatred and try to shackle or outright get rid of the DM as if thats going to solve the problem.

There was a member here till relatively recently who was absolutely 1000000% sure that EVERY session EVER of D&D MUST have characters with max stats or else they cant do anything because that is how the DM ran things and that was now everyone else on earth plays. Except that conviction was completely wrong. Or one of my local players who always created as hard to kill as possible characters because their DM was one of those classic Killer DMs you hear stories about and it was a total pain in the ass to wean them off the conviction that every DM was not like that.

Removing the DM or chaining them down to little more than a vend not is not going to solve this because there is ample example of bad players ruining sessions far more thoroughly even. But of course there are no rules to curb the players in these "fixes". Its always the mean horrible DM's fault.

Then there are the fruitcakes who's definition of a railroad approaches "Everything on Earth".
Whats a railroad? "An NPC with a single quest! " "A trap that prevents you leaving the area!" "A room with only one exit!" "A room with only two exits!" and so on ad stupidium.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Wrath of God on January 16, 2022, 06:50:11 PM
Quote
While I agree in most cases that a switch is fine if they don't know, for a mystery it just doesn't seem right. A mystery should have clues that mean something.

That's a matter of consistency. Depends how many clues and how specific you put in play before change occured. If you made clear trail to person A and pick B, yeah that's gonna be bad on consistency level. If you merely narrowed to ABC, and player deliberations convinced you C will be better call for conceptual whole - then you still has a way.

I mean players will never know. As for your GMing conciousness, that depends. I generally often change elements of settings and adventures I dislike for sake of organicism, I think I could change plans if something players said would make more sense in my head.


Quote
Removing the DM or chaining them down to little more than a vend not is not going to solve this because there is ample example of bad players ruining sessions far more thoroughly even. But of course there are no rules to curb the players in these "fixes". Its always the mean horrible DM's fault.

I don't know what "storygames" you played, but those I've read put shackles (specifically genre-shackles) on all participants, so it's structure over unlimited power of participants scheme.
Mixing Critical-Role player ego thumping with SG, is just unjust towards SGs.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 24, 2022, 11:01:37 AM
FWIW, here is the finished post about improv x railroads. Thanks for all the feedback!

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2022/01/improvisation-railroading-illusionism.html
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Steven Mitchell on January 24, 2022, 11:52:57 AM
The same point of having a mystery at all - problem solving, excitement for the unknown, getting surprised, etc. From the players POV it's irrelevant if the GM stays true to his prep or changes things around, and as long as the mystery solution keeps coherent, where is the problem?
While I agree in most cases that a switch is fine if they don't know, for a mystery it just doesn't seem right. A mystery should have clues that mean something.

The two things aren't even the same thing, let alone the same game.  Changing clues, who the bad guy actually is, etc. is all about playing the style of a mystery.  Playing the substance of a mystery is completely different, and cannot be done with fudging, illusionism, etc.  Illusionism especially is death for that game.  This issue is a subset of when gamers talk about "story" they need to define their terms, because "mystery style" and "mystery substance" are almost polar opposite in approach.

The biggest difference, (implicit in Eric's revised article now) is that a substance mystery demands that the players can fail, and fail badly.  Not merely a "doesn't get the dame, gets weaseled out of their fee, etc." kind of detective story where the case is still solved, but the possibility that the case is not solved or even solved incorrectly.  The presence of such failure is what makes success  all the sweeter for players that desire a mystery with substance. 
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 24, 2022, 12:11:18 PM
Agreed - why would anyone pay attention to clues if there is no "right" answer to the mystery? Doesn't feel right to me.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 24, 2022, 12:15:57 PM
But who said the improv-mystery can't fail?  :o

I'm struggling to see much difference between the two styles, at least from the player side of the screen.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 24, 2022, 12:24:04 PM
Well, the difference is right there - you're either looking for clues to find the culprit, or looking for clues so the GM can invent a culprit later on. In one case what clues you find (and how interpret them) is important to the outcome, in the other it is not.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Opaopajr on January 24, 2022, 12:40:59 PM
FWIW, here is the finished post about improv x railroads. Thanks for all the feedback!

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2022/01/improvisation-railroading-illusionism.html

Thanks for sharing!

Hopefully it helps aspiring GMs, or GMs feeling in a creative rut, out of comfort zones and into something inspiring. Letting the progressing fiction surprise you can help make the shared dream feel very alive! It is a little scary giving up such control, but I have been so pleasantly surprised by the results I find it hard to go back.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Wrath of God on January 25, 2022, 07:38:18 PM
Quote
Well, the difference is right there - you're either looking for clues to find the culprit, or looking for clues so the GM can invent a culprit later on. In one case what clues you find (and how interpret them) is important to the outcome, in the other it is not.

But in illusionism you don't know it.
And in game using storygame mechanics you may still roll failure on overall scheme and sort of be forced to invent how you fail, for example.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Steven Mitchell on January 25, 2022, 09:41:15 PM
But in illusionism you don't know it.
And in game using storygame mechanics you may still roll failure on overall scheme and sort of be forced to invent how you fail, for example.

One of the big differences is that GM's running with illusionism are under the illusion that the players don't know it, while those not running it know that they do.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Ratman_tf on January 25, 2022, 10:32:34 PM
Well, the difference is right there - you're either looking for clues to find the culprit, or looking for clues so the GM can invent a culprit later on. In one case what clues you find (and how interpret them) is important to the outcome, in the other it is not.

It's the idea of GM as an impartial adjudicator.
A storytelling GM is not impartial. They are willing to bend the world around the characters in order to facilitate gameplay.

If the players are onboard for illusionist methods, then they probably won't care.
Myself, I dislike illusionism. I like a scenario to have set parameters and know it's my cleverness as a player that determines if we succeed, not DM fancy.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 25, 2022, 11:40:52 PM
It's the idea of GM as an impartial adjudicator.
A storytelling GM is not impartial. They are willing to bend the world around the characters in order to facilitate gameplay.
If by "facilitate gameplay" you meant to make the game more interesting to everybody on the table yes, I agree. But if you meant to say the GM somehow makes it easier for the players, then it doesn't resemble any of the games I've read or played, story- or otherwise.

Quote
If the players are onboard for illusionist methods, then they probably won't care.
Myself, I dislike illusionism. I like a scenario to have set parameters and know it's my cleverness as a player that determines if we succeed, not DM fancy.
Again, the same confusing idea. Narrative games I know don't put success or failure in the hands of the GM, but on the roll of the dice.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: S'mon on January 26, 2022, 02:34:33 AM
Narrative games I know don't put success or failure in the hands of the GM, but on the roll of the dice.

Storygames are anti-illusionist. They're designed to be wholly transparent. Illusionism is a 'trad' (ie 1985-1990s) game method.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: S'mon on January 26, 2022, 02:36:50 AM
One of the big differences is that GM's running with illusionism are under the illusion that the players don't know it, while those not running it know that they do.

Illusionist GMs seem to think that because most of their non-aspergery players are too polite to point out the obvious fakery, that means they didn't notice the fakery. Meanwhile the players are sighing and (mostly) putting up with it, in search of a good time.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Ratman_tf on January 26, 2022, 02:59:07 AM
It's the idea of GM as an impartial adjudicator.
A storytelling GM is not impartial. They are willing to bend the world around the characters in order to facilitate gameplay.
If by "facilitate gameplay" you meant to make the game more interesting to everybody on the table yes, I agree.

But I find a world bending around my charaters to be uninteresting.



Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 26, 2022, 07:34:47 AM
It's the idea of GM as an impartial adjudicator.
A storytelling GM is not impartial. They are willing to bend the world around the characters in order to facilitate gameplay.
If by "facilitate gameplay" you meant to make the game more interesting to everybody on the table yes, I agree.

But I find a world bending around my charaters to be uninteresting.
That's fair.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 26, 2022, 07:36:01 AM
Narrative games I know don't put success or failure in the hands of the GM, but on the roll of the dice.

Storygames are anti-illusionist. They're designed to be wholly transparent. Illusionism is a 'trad' (ie 1985-1990s) game method.
That's fair too.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Steven Mitchell on January 26, 2022, 07:47:35 AM
Storygames are anti-illusionist. They're designed to be wholly transparent. Illusionism is a 'trad' (ie 1985-1990s) game method.

Illusionism is also a natural technique for a trad GM to use, in that it is easy and obvious for a GM working out methods for themselves.  That's why I once used it heavily.  It's also a seductive technique, in that all of the benefits seem to manifest right away, while the drawbacks take some time to be felt--especially with inexperienced players. 

In that's, it's like a tennis grip or swing or footwork.  What feels natural at first is a bad idea that will only show up in bad shot placement later.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 26, 2022, 08:21:04 AM
It seems the point of contention in this conversation is calling improv-style illusionism. I posit that..

1. there's no such thing in story/narrative-games because everybody enters play knowing everybody else (GM included) is actively seeking to enhance the story by riffing off each other.

2. Illusionism can only be called as such when it's detrimental to the game, aka when it takes away player agency, and is done in a veiled manner/the players don't know it.

Well, that's my particular view anyway.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: David Johansen on January 26, 2022, 08:32:23 AM
There are times when it's all the DM can do to handle players going off at random.  I'm all for planned sand boxes but if I put my prep time into a dungeon or a ship or something and the players decide they want to play superheroes this week and make new characters, well, sometimes the chef just has to say, "You'll Eat It and You'll Like IT!"  Which would also be a fun cooking show.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 26, 2022, 11:19:53 AM
There are times when it's all the DM can do to handle players going off at random.  I'm all for planned sand boxes but if I put my prep time into a dungeon or a ship or something and the players decide they want to play superheroes this week and make new characters, well, sometimes the chef just has to say, "You'll Eat It and You'll Like IT!"  Which would also be a fun cooking show.
Yeah, it would be weird if everybody wanted to drop the current theme for another one at the start of a session, specially after thr GM took time to prep it. After the session would be fine. "Hey folks, how about we take a break from this X and play Y?" Sure.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Steven Mitchell on January 26, 2022, 11:57:13 AM
There are times when it's all the DM can do to handle players going off at random.  I'm all for planned sand boxes but if I put my prep time into a dungeon or a ship or something and the players decide they want to play superheroes this week and make new characters, well, sometimes the chef just has to say, "You'll Eat It and You'll Like IT!"  Which would also be a fun cooking show.
Yeah, it would be weird if everybody wanted to drop the current theme for another one at the start of a session, specially after thr GM took time to prep it. After the session would be fine. "Hey folks, how about we take a break from this X and play Y?" Sure.

It's right on that fault line that the "train" analogy breaks down.  They are all steps on the line:

Pre-designed - players pick the ticket, players pick the car, players voluntarily get on the train (e.g. go on the quest) and can change their minds within the confines of the journey.  You can't get off the train anywhere you please, but you can exit at certain stations and certainly move around freely on the train.

Improv - If there is something that could have been in the pre-designed train ahead of time but the GM didn't add (for whatever reason), the GM adds it as it is needed, as much as possible to be consistent with the pre-designed adventure/world.  Is there a lantern in the caboose?  Probably.  Is there a doctor in the dining car?  Maybe.  Is there a vampire on the roof?  In most cases, probably not. 

Gaming term "railroad" - you do what the GM has prepared.  Could be handled well or not.  Could be reasonable or not in the case of the player or GM.  You don't get to pick the train or whether or not to buy a ticket, but you should have the standard pre-designed and/or improv options within those confines.  Scope matters a lot here.  Staying within the theme of the campaign is so tiny of a "railroad" that it doesn't deserve the term.  Choosing to run away down one specific corridor instead of interacting with it certainly does if the GM tries to force it. 

Illusionism - doesn't matter what ticket you bought or what train you got on, they all go to the same place.  Doesn't matter what you do on the train in a lot of important ways, the outcomes are the same.  Again, there are degrees, but the slippery slope on this one might as well have a grease spell cast on it.

That's all the trad side.  The narrative structure has a different line, to the point that the railroad doesn't really apply.  Closest I could come is that the group buys the tickets, the group gets on the train, they then proceed to chew scenery.  It's more about the journey than the destination.

Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Eric Diaz on January 26, 2022, 01:55:00 PM
There are times when it's all the DM can do to handle players going off at random.  I'm all for planned sand boxes but if I put my prep time into a dungeon or a ship or something and the players decide they want to play superheroes this week and make new characters, well, sometimes the chef just has to say, "You'll Eat It and You'll Like IT!"  Which would also be a fun cooking show.

That's a fair caveat, and eventually included in the final version of the post:

---
"It is okay to talk to your PCs before the game about a specific premise or even adventure. I recommend GMs that dislike improvising too much do exactly that.

This is NOT exactly railroading, because the players are aware of their choices (or lack of choices) - although the PCs will have no choice in the matter. For example, "hey folks, I have this cool dungeon we can play, what about we run that on Thursday?"."
[...]
Of course, if you give them just one choice, the players can respond with "why would my PC go into this dangerous place", etc. But after the thing has been settled, it would be rude for the players to just go off-grid without a reason, forcing the GM to improvise on the spot (unless, I guess, the GM is cool with that too!)."
---


(BTW, first line should say "talk to your players", LOL.)
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Omega on January 26, 2022, 02:30:36 PM
Narrative games I know don't put success or failure in the hands of the GM, but on the roll of the dice.

Storygames are anti-illusionist. They're designed to be wholly transparent. Illusionism is a 'trad' (ie 1985-1990s) game method.

Very Forgey of you. Bravo.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Shrieking Banshee on January 26, 2022, 02:38:21 PM
Very Forgey of you. Bravo.

I know the forge literally killed your parents, and so thats why it remains a boogeyman around these parts, but Im pretty sure he meant in the sense that storygames minimize gm input, ergo no illusion when the pcs are also in charge of the plot.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: tenbones on January 26, 2022, 02:47:09 PM
It's funny, I don't ever tell my players what I'm "prepping". I'm prepping every possible thing that is reasonable to where their PC's interests have already guided them. So it's an incredibly rare day when any player of mine simply stops what they're pursuing and goes towards something else thematically that I haven't already considered or seeded into the game.

I do get with my newer players "Is it okay if I do this?" and it makes my veteran players laugh their ass off, because they all know, my answer is *always* going to be "Go for it, if that's what you wanna do."

There are no boxes that can't be opened, no rocks, that can't be upturned. No doors that can't be kicked down - you'll just own the reactions of the world to that act. When my party, that are squires decide to become Privateers - it never happens "out of the blue", there always a lead up to the possibility.

Whether it's players discussing among themselves "We need to get a ship and catch <X> - while we're at it, we're going to need to make it legal, so we'll need Letter of Marque from the Duke... dude, we're gonna be Privateers???" and that becomes a note for me to jot down, obviously. And the "prep" for me is nothing more than making sure my NPC's and locations of note are ready either next session (or whether or not I use them EVER) in the chance that they execute. Or it might be something they spend the rest of the session setting up - finding a ship, getting the paperwork in order, blah blah blah - and I'll have to come up with those NPC's on the spot.

Name/Appearance/Skills/Class competency and any fun facts I can think of. <---- that's it. I'll backfill stats later between sessions.

I'm really good at doing it on the spot. So these kinds of transitions go seamlessly, the world continues. Even if they DON'T go that route, I have a bunch of notes I can use if/when they do decide to go down the wharf, or interact with anyone in that vein.

Good improvisation happens with the PC's in play, filling in the details as you go. Anything you can do to bolster what you lay down you commit to it. There is no need to "change it" - you lay it down and play the ball where it is. If that means you made a mistake and your PC's capitalize on it - great! Let'em have it. Do better next time.

I have nothing to reveal about what *I* want the PC's to do mainly because I don't have any intentions other than feeding their PC concepts back to them. if a PC makes a Knight, I feed "knight content" for that PC to engage with. Same with the thief, mercenary, cleric or mage. And I feed the group content based on what the party does as a group.

That's how the machine keeps rolling

"Illusionism" to me is where people think they're doing "prep" by creating a situation they force their players to engage with regardless of their choices. That's weak GMing to me. Improvisation used to force those kinds of situations is merely the tool used to enforce the railroad. That's Improv used for Evil.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: S'mon on January 26, 2022, 02:56:20 PM
Very Forgey of you. Bravo.

You have outed me. I am literally Ron Edwards.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Itachi on January 26, 2022, 03:00:00 PM
Very Forgey of you. Bravo.

I know the forge literally killed your parents, and so thats why it remains a boogeyman around these parts, but Im pretty sure he meant in the sense that storygames minimize gm input, ergo no illusion when the pcs are also in charge of the plot.
Not storygames per se, but the more narrative games the Forge inspired also follow that philosophy. Stuff like Blades in the Dark, for eg.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Omega on January 28, 2022, 05:17:55 PM
Very Forgey of you. Bravo.

You have outed me. I am literally Ron Edwards.

You Monster!  8)
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Hzilong on January 28, 2022, 05:26:32 PM
The funny thing about the illusionism argument to me is that I have had a couple players straight up say that they like that style of game in the player surveys I give to my groups. Obviously, not a style that works for every GM or group, but it is not entirely useless nor should it be verboten. Just another tool to apply judiciously.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Wrath of God on February 09, 2022, 06:42:38 AM
Quote
Very Forgey of you. Bravo.

But rightly so. I mean this is precisely vast chasm between what Six Cultures listed as Nordic Larp and Storygame.
In one all is about illusion and immersion, that's why it barely birthed any specific game of it's own. It was mostly parasitic on other games.
The second is all about structure and distribution of power. It's all blatantly in your face. Opposite of illusion.

Quote
but Im pretty sure he meant in the sense that storygames minimize gm input, ergo no illusion when the pcs are also in charge of the plot.

Yes. I'd say it's not even about minimising GM input (in many SG still GM holds relatively traditional role) but about how rolls and choices openly twist narrative and not simulative structure.

Quote
The funny thing about the illusionism argument to me is that I have had a couple players straight up say that they like that style of game in the player surveys I give to my groups. Obviously, not a style that works for every GM or group, but it is not entirely useless nor should it be verboten. Just another tool to apply judiciously.

I think Edwards called concious participation in railroady illusionism - participationism. That however does not solve problems of players who wants to be lied to... ;)
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: AtomicPope on March 06, 2022, 03:55:49 AM
Since someone brought up mysteries I have to comment.  I've run several mystery campaigns that lasted many years (Mage the Awakening was a long one, nearly 4 years of playing 5 to 6 hours every week).  Mystery games have a very different pacing, and much of the game's enjoyment comes from reveals.  As a DM, you need to have a clear event in your mind: something happened.  That's different from the traditional dungeon where the event is often a part of history (tombs, abandoned castles, this one time in bandit camp, etc).  The mystery game involves an unfolding of history.  When I'm crafting an adventure I try to "layer" my clues and witnesses, and obviously I employ Chekhov's Gun.  What I mean by "layering" is there are clues that are immediately found and others that are discovered along the way.  To maintain a thematic structure I try to have one or more clues that gain meaning as the game progresses.  This new information leads to another location, clue, witness etc.  Think of it like a Theater of the Mind Dungeon, where the PCs are moving down paths, getting keys to doors, getting ambushed, etc.  Just like in a dungeon you don't get to teleport directly to "The End" because no one knows where that is just yet.  You might know there's a dragon at the end, just like the PCs might know there's a murderer or a thief.  In order to avoid skipping ahead it's good to have a series of events in mind (an outline works great here) that take place over several different locations.  That doesn't lend itself to just making shit up as the game moves along.

So, I'm currently running a detective game and I just ran into a snag I explicitly planned on avoiding.  Not kidding.  When I typed up the outline I specifically had these two different witnesses and three different clues revealing locations, events, history, and information to build on the story, but then I screwed up.  Last week I was under immense stress during the game because just before the game, as I was sitting in traffic, I learned my father died.  When I arrived wasn't focused at all but decided not to say anything and just run the game anyway.  I accidentally mixed up a vital clue with a witness testimony and it rearranged the order of what took place.  When it came to the overall narrative things the PCs jumped way ahead, skipped a vital witness and location, both of which added context to the story and revealed the shady past of the dead man they were investigating.  This meant that the PCs met with a dangerous witness way too soon (they didn't know he was dangerous because the original clues were mixed up) which immediately caused a fight they weren't expecting, like a really, REALLY dangerous fight that almost ended in a TPK.  I had to improvise the entire situation and introduce new clues because they skipped ahead do to my screw up.  In the end it worked out but for a while there the players were like "WTF is happening?!"

That's the danger of improvising with mystery games: information gets left out and it can quickly become inconsistent or incoherent.

In this same detective game there were times when the players accurately read the clues, listened to the witnesses, and guessed what happened way ahead of time.  There was an adventure where the PCs were looking for two things: a missing person and his missing box he had with him.  That was actually a fun game because as a DM I knew they were overlooking one key detail.  When the PCs laid a trap for their suspect he avoided it, not because he knew it was a trap but because they forgot one very important detail and that "trap" wasn't a trap at all.  That was a lot of fun for everyone.  Here's what happened:

The PCs were looking for two things:
1) A missing box containing a McGuffin.
2) A missing person  was an old disabled vet who was carrying the box, got robbed and shot several times in the chest.  Then he jumped from the train and disappeared.

Because it's D&D and takes place in Eberron I was playing within the bounds of known mechanics, lore, and established places.  The missing person was a disabled veteran of the Last War.  He had a Dragonmark (a magical birthmark) on his left hand.  His left hand was blown off and now he has a mechanical replacement, a magical prosthetic.  The PCs figured out that he was seen in two places at the same time based on witness testimony they pieced together, which is impossible for a low-level Artificer who specializes in prosthetics (no Simulacrum or Clones).  One of the places he frequented was a run by Changlings, basically dopplegangers.  They figured out that there's a Changling impersonating him.  Then all of a sudden the missing person appears on their doorstep looking for his box.  Very suspicious.  What the players didn't piece together was the place the missing person would frequent was a "living theater of memories" called Velvet's in Sharn.  The Changlings used a telepathic link to gain memories of the clients, change into the person or people they desired, wear the appropriate clothes using Garbs of Many Fashions, and then using those memories reenact the events the clients paid for.  That was the detail they overlooked (they knew what Velvet's did).  They didn't realize the Changling discovered something while digging around in the old vet's memories, something that could make him rich (he owed money which is why they cut off his hand to identify him because a Changling can't simply grow a new hand), and that's why the ambush was successful.

The trap the players laid out was a simple memory trap they called "where's the spoons?"  If he was the real person he would know where the spoons were in his own house.  Of course the Changling did know because he had access to the client's basic memories, and people never rearrange their kitchen.  What they overlooked was the fact that the Changling had two right hands.  The missing person was wearing the only prosthetic right hand he had left in the house, which was a tinkered model the old vet built for a friend but didn't give it to him.  The other left hand, his spare, was inside his suitcase that was part of the clues (this was a red herring to get the idea in the player's heads that the missing person would show up without a left hand and it worked).  There was another prosthetic but it wasn't a left hand.  The Changling wouldn't know what happened after the last time he plundered the old vet's mind for secrets, that both hands were taken.  So the Changling, who was double-crossing the gang that stole the box, led the PCs into a trap where he stole the box while the PCs were fighting with the gang and ran off in the middle of combat.  Then when they were returning to tell their client they found the box but a Changling stole it, the real missing person appeared and he had a hunch where the Changling was going to sell the box and why.  So now the PC detectives must venture into the seedy underbelly of the city looking for a person with two right hands.  Clues and layers.


The Mysterious Box adventure seems convoluted because I designed like that.  Lots of little clues that reveal more and more along the way.   Compare this to the previous adventure where the PCs skip ahead and it's very different.  I can say first hand that mysteries are best DMed with an outline in hand and a clear idea of the events that took place in mind.  That doesn't mean there is a railroad (ironically the Mystery Box started on a rail car because one of the PCs was a railway engineer who was down-sized out of a job so I wove that into the story) or an illusion of choice.  Just like a dungeon there are only so many rooms and hallways, traps and monsters, and we have a particular boss fight in mind.
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Fheredin on March 06, 2022, 10:39:28 PM
Hmm. I think I can bridge a few topics.

That's the danger of improvising with mystery games: information gets left out and it can quickly become inconsistent or incoherent.

I'm trimming that down an interesting post to a short snippet, but I think this is the key thing to emphasize. I have spent a significant amount of time specifically making a system which does nothing but fair play detective fiction, and it's forced me to concede that there are hard limits to the RPG game genre. I think I've come up with some interesting work-arounds, but I don't actually think that a traditional criminology Agatha Christie style whodunit is possible in RPGs. I think that the real trick is to understand that playing a game of espionage and counter-espionage with a villain plays better into player tastes and tends to run in the RPG format better than running a hardboiled detective fiction story with only one preset answer, and it's pretty easy to color these to look and feel like a traditional criminology murder mystery.

This is increasingly why I don't try to GM as either a Storyteller or as a Referee. I roleplay my villains.

The way this plays out is the party enters an area, and the villain already has 3-4 schemes in play as they arrive. As the players interact with NPCs and the environment, they naturally find things which are out of place (no dice necessary; I run an extension of Gumshoe, where the act of giving the PCs clues receive clues is what gives the villain's scheme permission to continue.) The multiple schemes means that the story doesn't break if the PCs fail to figure out a particular scheme, and the villain can still make plot progress despite the players defusing a scheme. You can also softly predestine events by having multiple schemes which can end in the same way. Need a town mayor to die? Assassinate with a crossbow? Poison? Creating a building collapse? Why choose? You can have all three in play at once.

There are problems with this approach. It reduces player agency because the villains are the ones being proactive, for instance. I really like AtomicPope's story about the players setting a trap; good parties deal with smart and proactive antagonists by being smart and proactive themselves.

I suppose another problem is that you need to aim the villain's schemes past the PCs, but close enough that they will feel uncomfortable and react. That requires players with a pretty strong "bite the plot hook" mentality, because the only way this really works is if there's some bad blood between the party and the villain.

Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Chris24601 on March 07, 2022, 07:58:01 AM
All I know for sure after reading this is that I want to introduce Quantum Monsters into my setting… undead (i.e. neither alive nor dead) who are able to teleport between two points at will.  ;D
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Omega on March 07, 2022, 09:30:57 AM
Goes well with the teleporting encounter.

Even better is if the teleporting encounter and teleporting undead both jump to the PCs location at the same time the resulting sub-atomic explosion should kill everything on the planet and save the DM any more hassle with thinking.  :o
Title: Re: (when) Improv is railroading
Post by: Mishihari on March 07, 2022, 12:57:25 PM
Since someone brought up mysteries I have to comment.  I've run several mystery campaigns that lasted many years (Mage the Awakening was a long one, nearly 4 years of playing 5 to 6 hours every week).  Mystery games have a very different pacing, and much of the game's enjoyment comes from reveals.  As a DM, you need to have a clear event in your mind: something happened.  That's different from the traditional dungeon where the event is often a part of history (tombs, abandoned castles, this one time in bandit camp, etc).  The mystery game involves an unfolding of history.  When I'm crafting an adventure I try to "layer" my clues and witnesses, and obviously I employ Chekhov's Gun.  What I mean by "layering" is there are clues that are immediately found and others that are discovered along the way.  To maintain a thematic structure I try to have one or more clues that gain meaning as the game progresses.  This new information leads to another location, clue, witness etc.  Think of it like a Theater of the Mind Dungeon, where the PCs are moving down paths, getting keys to doors, getting ambushed, etc.  Just like in a dungeon you don't get to teleport directly to "The End" because no one knows where that is just yet.  You might know there's a dragon at the end, just like the PCs might know there's a murderer or a thief.  In order to avoid skipping ahead it's good to have a series of events in mind (an outline works great here) that take place over several different locations.  That doesn't lend itself to just making shit up as the game moves along.

So, I'm currently running a detective game and I just ran into a snag I explicitly planned on avoiding.  Not kidding.  When I typed up the outline I specifically had these two different witnesses and three different clues revealing locations, events, history, and information to build on the story, but then I screwed up.  Last week I was under immense stress during the game because just before the game, as I was sitting in traffic, I learned my father died.  When I arrived wasn't focused at all but decided not to say anything and just run the game anyway.  I accidentally mixed up a vital clue with a witness testimony and it rearranged the order of what took place.  When it came to the overall narrative things the PCs jumped way ahead, skipped a vital witness and location, both of which added context to the story and revealed the shady past of the dead man they were investigating.  This meant that the PCs met with a dangerous witness way too soon (they didn't know he was dangerous because the original clues were mixed up) which immediately caused a fight they weren't expecting, like a really, REALLY dangerous fight that almost ended in a TPK.  I had to improvise the entire situation and introduce new clues because they skipped ahead do to my screw up.  In the end it worked out but for a while there the players were like "WTF is happening?!"

That's the danger of improvising with mystery games: information gets left out and it can quickly become inconsistent or incoherent.

In this same detective game there were times when the players accurately read the clues, listened to the witnesses, and guessed what happened way ahead of time.  There was an adventure where the PCs were looking for two things: a missing person and his missing box he had with him.  That was actually a fun game because as a DM I knew they were overlooking one key detail.  When the PCs laid a trap for their suspect he avoided it, not because he knew it was a trap but because they forgot one very important detail and that "trap" wasn't a trap at all.  That was a lot of fun for everyone.  Here's what happened:

The PCs were looking for two things:
1) A missing box containing a McGuffin.
2) A missing person  was an old disabled vet who was carrying the box, got robbed and shot several times in the chest.  Then he jumped from the train and disappeared.

Because it's D&D and takes place in Eberron I was playing within the bounds of known mechanics, lore, and established places.  The missing person was a disabled veteran of the Last War.  He had a Dragonmark (a magical birthmark) on his left hand.  His left hand was blown off and now he has a mechanical replacement, a magical prosthetic.  The PCs figured out that he was seen in two places at the same time based on witness testimony they pieced together, which is impossible for a low-level Artificer who specializes in prosthetics (no Simulacrum or Clones).  One of the places he frequented was a run by Changlings, basically dopplegangers.  They figured out that there's a Changling impersonating him.  Then all of a sudden the missing person appears on their doorstep looking for his box.  Very suspicious.  What the players didn't piece together was the place the missing person would frequent was a "living theater of memories" called Velvet's in Sharn.  The Changlings used a telepathic link to gain memories of the clients, change into the person or people they desired, wear the appropriate clothes using Garbs of Many Fashions, and then using those memories reenact the events the clients paid for.  That was the detail they overlooked (they knew what Velvet's did).  They didn't realize the Changling discovered something while digging around in the old vet's memories, something that could make him rich (he owed money which is why they cut off his hand to identify him because a Changling can't simply grow a new hand), and that's why the ambush was successful.

The trap the players laid out was a simple memory trap they called "where's the spoons?"  If he was the real person he would know where the spoons were in his own house.  Of course the Changling did know because he had access to the client's basic memories, and people never rearrange their kitchen.  What they overlooked was the fact that the Changling had two right hands.  The missing person was wearing the only prosthetic right hand he had left in the house, which was a tinkered model the old vet built for a friend but didn't give it to him.  The other left hand, his spare, was inside his suitcase that was part of the clues (this was a red herring to get the idea in the player's heads that the missing person would show up without a left hand and it worked).  There was another prosthetic but it wasn't a left hand.  The Changling wouldn't know what happened after the last time he plundered the old vet's mind for secrets, that both hands were taken.  So the Changling, who was double-crossing the gang that stole the box, led the PCs into a trap where he stole the box while the PCs were fighting with the gang and ran off in the middle of combat.  Then when they were returning to tell their client they found the box but a Changling stole it, the real missing person appeared and he had a hunch where the Changling was going to sell the box and why.  So now the PC detectives must venture into the seedy underbelly of the city looking for a person with two right hands.  Clues and layers.


The Mysterious Box adventure seems convoluted because I designed like that.  Lots of little clues that reveal more and more along the way.   Compare this to the previous adventure where the PCs skip ahead and it's very different.  I can say first hand that mysteries are best DMed with an outline in hand and a clear idea of the events that took place in mind.  That doesn't mean there is a railroad (ironically the Mystery Box started on a rail car because one of the PCs was a railway engineer who was down-sized out of a job so I wove that into the story) or an illusion of choice.  Just like a dungeon there are only so many rooms and hallways, traps and monsters, and we have a particular boss fight in mind.


That's really impressive.  I'd love to play in a game like that