Honestly, I not quite sure how I feel about this so I am working it out by posting.  Last week we had our last session of the year for my face-to-face group.  It's basically 5e HERO, Revised re-tooled to appear like 3.5 D&D.  The campaign world is based off some video game named Ancaria.  I've never seen it or heard of it.

In the game thus far, we're running around guarding a royal messenger of the prince of the kingdom who is engaged in war with orcs and goblins pouring out of the southern desert area.  In the last session, we had delivered the prince's request for more troops to be sent to aid the prince by a Duke who controlled an unit of elite troops.  We delivered the message and the Duke gave us his ring and told us to travel to where the guard was on maneuvers and deliver the message for the unit to mobilize and rush to the prince's aid.  

We travel to and find a small encampment of tents, but not large enough for the guard unit in question.  We are greeted by a sergeant major and ten soldiers.  The royal messenger tells the Ser. Maj. why we are there and hands the Duke's ring over as confirmation of the message and need for urgency.  It turns out that the Duke is going to betray the prince by not sending troops and this guy and his soldiers attack us and try to kill us.  There are four PCs and the NPC royal messenger in our group.

Our half-elf bowman goes down in the first turn by a couple of arrows and is lying there unconscious, but stabilized.  (Most of the PCs have a 'feat' which allows us to automatically stabilize and not bleed to death when unconscious.)  It's a rough spot for us as they had us surrounded and had three bowmen.  The royal messenger is besieged by a bunch of soldiers and goes down early in the fight as well.  

Now, this is where something unusual happens in the fight.  This is a gritty game and characters often go down in combat.  Luckily, all the PCs have the feat that allows us to stabilize and on bleed out when knocked down.  Normally, the GM never had opponents attack a downed character with the intent to kill the character outright by sheer damage or coup de grace.  However, in this fight the soldiers intentionally kill the royal messenger.  

Alright, so this was strange and out of the ordinary but we were still in the fight of our adventuring careers and we had to get down to business.  The fight looks grim but we prevailed the hairs of our chinny-chin-chins (without magical healing powers by a couple of the PCs, everyone would have died in the first or second session of the campaign).  The weird thing about this new development is that the half-elf archer was down from the get-go and none of the soldiers tried to kill him for free, but only focused on the down royal messenger.

The session concludes and the GM announces that we have finished Act 1 of the game.  He then tells us that this corresponds with the video game that the story line is based off.  In the video game, the royal messenger dies at the end of Act 1 as well.  

Well, this got me thinking about it and I'm sure how I feel about it.  Is it railroading or just scripting?  I kind of wish that he hadn't told us about the Act sequence of his campaign or the video game, and, especially, that the royal messenger dies in the video game at this point in the story line.  It sort of ruined my sense of immersion and the hardcore feeling from the fight that we just went through and survived.  It became quite clear to me that nothing we could have or would have done in that fight or encounter would have changed the fact that the GM would have killed off the royal messenger given the slightest opportunity.  He rolls behind a GM screen and now I feel that his rolls could be suspect.  I guess that if our rolls went uber great that we might have prevented the royal messenger from going down, but I don't think so really either because the soldiers ganged up on him right away and put him down quickly, whereas another easier target was available in the downed half-elf PC archer.

what do you think?  Is this just scripting to craft a coherent story line, or is it railroading the PCs through the GM's story?

Railroading.

What if one of you had heroically risked all to save the Royal Messenger?   It also is a continuity breaker when they did not try to 'end' your 1/2 elf bowman.

The wosrt thing he could have done is to tell you that the messenger had to die.  A GM has to be ready at all times for the PCs to 'break' the game.  It's what good PC's do.

Consistency is critical for versimilitude.

(nice writeup, BTW)

Quote from: LordVreeg;350578Railroading.

What if one of you had heroically risked all to save the Royal Messenger?   It also is a continuity breaker when they did not try to 'end' your 1/2 elf bowman.

The wosrt thing he could have done is to tell you that the messenger had to die.  A GM has to be ready at all times for the PCs to 'break' the game.  It's what good PC's do.

Consistency is critical for versimilitude.

(nice writeup, BTW)

I see no issue with him deciding the natural course of events will be for the messenger to be killed by the guards. However, he should have put in place some way for you to prevent from happening, in my opinion.

Isn't it a question that you should ask your GM rather than therpgsite? Did you tell him how the adventure feeling predetermined is hurting your fun ?

Quote from: boulet;350591Isn't it a question that you should ask your GM rather than therpgsite? Did you tell him how the adventure feeling predetermined is hurting your fun ?

No, not really.  If I asked him, then I'm positive his answer would be that it's not railroading.  Besides, I thought that we could discuss issues and events about our gaming here on this site.  I wouldn't say that this twist hurt my fun.  I don't want to use the word disappointment either.  I guess the best I could come up with right now is that it was somewhat deflating.  Honestly, this is just a blip and nothing to get all hot and bothered about.  I just wanted to discuss something that happened in my gaming with others who enjoy talking about gaming as well.  It's just pointless and mindless Internet chatter with others who share my hobby.

Quote from: Drohem;350615No, not really.  If I asked him, then I'm positive his answer would be that it's not railroading.  Besides, I thought that we could discuss issues and events about our gaming here on this site.  I wouldn't say that this twist hurt my fun.  I don't want to use the word disappointment either.  I guess the best I could come up with right now is that it was somewhat deflating.  Honestly, this is just a blip and nothing to get all hot and bothered about.  I just wanted to discuss something that happened in my gaming with others who enjoy talking about gaming as well.  It's just pointless and mindless Internet chatter with others who share my hobby.

Do you feel like he would have allowed you to change the course of events if you did something special, and would that have changed things for you?

Sorry I didn't mean to imply that the question was futile or irrelevant. I just thought you seemed quite bothered with this scripted scenario thing but discussing it here wouldn't change what's happening at the table.

Personally the fact that a NPC is marked by the GM to die at next encounter doesn't shock me. That's fine, he can do what he wants with his NPCs in order to bring a specific feel to the game. The message is clear, the baddies won't spare your lives. The fact that an unconscious PC isn't terminated the same way, doesn't bother me much either, unless it was really heavy handed to the point of ruining the players suspension of disbelief.

Now the fact the GM advertise how he's following the main plot points a of a video game would start to seriously ruin it for me I must say. Difficult to know if it's just vague outlines and directions that he's imitating, or if he's going to enforce a rigid pre-written story. The latter would suck, but you already know that.

Quote from: boulet;350625The message is clear, the baddies won't spare your lives.

I think the message was the opposite.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;350630I think the message was the opposite.

Let me refine this: followers of the Duke will kill in order to keep the betrayal of the Duke secret, even though the GM is pulling his punches when it comes to PCs. What would have happened if the group had lost the fight is the next question. If the PCs had been captured instead of terminated then we would clearly see the players are on a steady train and nothing will stop the GM telling the story he's got in mind. But for now we only know that the Duke's men wanted to kill the messenger badly and the PCs a little less. There might be an inner logic to this, and a TPK isn't completely excluded.

I, personally, would be left wondering if the group's whole survival was scripted.  That is one of the side effects of this episode.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;350618Do you feel like he would have allowed you to change the course of events if you did something special, and would that have changed things for you?

In all honestly, I don't think that we could've done anything to save the royal messenger.  The GM set up the encounter so that we were surrounded and that the messenger took a few steps away from us to speak to the sergeant; just enough to ensure that he could get swarmed for at least one turn before anyone could aid him.  Also, the GM has a prepared death speech for us- "the prince is betrayed!  Travel to [location x] and warn the prince!"

If the GM had allowed us to save the royal messenger through incredible dice rolls (i.e. dumb luck) or extraordinary efforts by the characters (heroic sacrifice maybe), then I think that I would feel better about the encounter and game than I do now.

Quote from: boulet;350625Sorry I didn't mean to imply that the question was futile or irrelevant. I just thought you seemed quite bothered with this scripted scenario thing but discussing it here wouldn't change what's happening at the table.

No problem here, it's all good.  

I'm trying to work out how I feel about it.  I don't feel great about it, but, on the other hand, I'm overly upset about it either.

Quote from: boulet;350625Now the fact the GM advertise how he's following the main plot points a of a video game would start to seriously ruin it for me I must say. Difficult to know if it's just vague outlines and directions that he's imitating, or if he's going to enforce a rigid pre-written story. The latter would suck, but you already know that.

Yeah, this is more where I'm coming from in this whole thing.

Quote from: LordVreeg;350578It also is a continuity breaker when they did not try to 'end' your 1/2 elf bowman.

The worst thing he could have done is to tell you that the messenger had to die.  A GM has to be ready at all times for the PCs to 'break' the game.  It's what good PC's do.

Consistency is critical for verisimilitude.

This is pretty close to how I feel about it.  Actually, pretty much hit the nail on the head, lol.

My thought would be that the difference between scripting and railroading is scope and frequency. Of course, all that really matters is how you feel about it.

In my main 4e game, we're playing with a new DM and he's running Scales of War. By the book. Very by the book. In our last game, there was an encounter that apparently was going to happen no matter what. Our rolls were ignored.

The other players and I have talked about how the game is being run in terms to things happening as they're supposed to as per the pre-written module. Personally, I'd rather he just say, "And now for a cut scene..." rather than anything else. For me, as long as it doesn't happen too often or too egregiously, I'm okay with it...

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;350793My thought would be that the difference between scripting and railroading is scope and frequency.

This is a very good point, and I agree.  It's not black and white, but shades of grey.

Quote from: Seanchai;350793For me, as long as it doesn't happen too often or too egregiously, I'm okay with it...

Yes, I feel this way too and that's why I not really worked up about in this case.  It just left me a little flat after hearing that things mirrored the video game at certain points.