Quote from: Pariah74;565996You don't become an asshole to fight the assholes.

The one good thing about this forum is that you can call anyone out on what you think they are doing without getting banned.  I've called RPGPundit's style  lawn-crapping, a term he uses to describe people who make a hobby look bad and drive the good people out, and I've never got banned for it.

Quote from: soviet;566106You don't think it's possible they just design and play those kinds of games because they're fun?

Quote from: jhkim;566110New RPG designs aren't a "solution" to older RPGs - they are an alternative.  There are plenty of people who play both.

In some cases, yes.  In others, no.  Trail of Cthulhu, just one example, is specifically designed to prevent a "problem" that doesn't need mechanics to solve.  The entire Forge movement was designed as a corrective measure.

What is most of this thread complaining about - lousy GM's. Period.  

Faced with RPGs that are railroads due to lousy GMs and companies that are "branding IP" through metaplot, what is the answer?

1. Teach GMs how not to railroad and fall for the metaplot concept?
2. Develop failsafe mechanisms baked into the rules to try and prevent bad GMing?

The indie movement could have gone with 1, but having misaddressed the problem as well as being led by some ideologues, instead it latched onto 2, which only makes the problem worse.

Now John's right in that for many, it's an alternative, and many people do play both, but when you play a Trad RPG and a Storygame (and yeah, I do play the occasional session) it's definitely a different itch being scratched.

CRKrueger,

I think the problem is not that railroading exists, but thats been the massively prevalent way of gaming for most groups during the last couple decades (at least thats my experience with roleplayers here in Brazil since I began on the hobby, around 20 years ago).

So, in a way, to design systems that forbid or deny railroading through its own rules is not what we should do. There are a HUGE LOT of people out there that like it and find it their favorite mode of play. The point is show to people that alternatives DO exist, and can be entertaining and fun if only they experiment it. Apocalypse World is a system that have this kind of "failsafe mechanisms" to prevent railroading that you said, but I dont think it should be the standard in the industry (as awesome as the game is). Otherwise we may end up on the other radical side of the issue. We should find the middle way.

Quote from: noisms;565954For most people, D&D is about replicating high fantasy literature. There's a reason why sandbox play is part of something called the "Old School Renaissance" - it's because for decades the standard way most DMs ran their D&D campaigns was to come up with a plot arc, pre-planned encounters and locations, and usually a big bad villain at the heart of it for the players to defeat.

As I said in my earlier post, you can blame 2nd edition, or Dragonlance, for that, but it's been the way the majority of "traditional" games have been played for at least 23 years. And the same could be said of pretty much any traditional game, I'd imagine.

Not too long ago a poster in a thread at Big Purple described linear adventures as 'trad,' and my first instinct was to disagree, but thinking about it a little longer, I realized he was right.

For most referees, linear adventures are what they know because everything from published adventures to the advice given to referees in game books taught this.

Quote from: silva;566155I think the problem is not that railroading exists, but thats been the massively prevalent way of gaming for most groups during the last couple decades (at least thats my experience with roleplayers here in Brazil since I began on the hobby, around 20 years ago).

I don't agree that railroading is "massively prevalent." In fact, I think illusionism is more prevalent than railroading.

But let's also be sure we're not conflating railroading with linear adventures.

Quote from: Pariah74;565996I came to this board because I am interested in finding a message board where people discuss roleplaying games with some semblance of sanity...but the longer I stay, the less I think this place is any different from most message boards.

Then see if you can find someone who cares about your prima donna act somewhere else.

Quote from: John Morrow;566131I've called RPGPundit's style  lawn-crapping, a term he uses to describe people who make a hobby look bad and drive the good people out, and I've never got banned for it.

That's because it's true.

Quote from: Black VulmeaI don't agree that railroading is "massively prevalent." In fact, I think illusionism is more prevalent than railroading... But let's also be sure we're not conflating railroading with linear adventures

Sorry, I dont understand the difference between railroading, ilusionism and linear adventures. They sound the same thing to me. Care to explain ?

Quote from: silva;566188Sorry, I dont understand the difference between railroading, ilusionism and linear adventures. They sound the same thing to me. Care to explain ?

I used to use all three interchangeably as well, but I think the key distinction is between railroading and linear adventures. A linear adventure is designed to go from A to B to C along a clear path, but having a linear adventure on hand doesn't neccessarily mean the GM railroads them onto the path (though I would argue it makes it much more likely). He could just have a linear adventure and adapt when the players go "of course". Railroading is when you force the players on track. You can even railroad in a non linear adventure by forcing the same adventure to keep presenting itself no matter what the pcs do (but within that adventure you might have multiple pathways).

Quote from: nightwind1;566187That's because it's true.

Well, yeah.

But there are plenty of true things that I could say on other sites about the moderators that would get me banned.

Quote from: silva;566188Sorry, I dont understand the difference between railroading, ilusionism and linear adventures. They sound the same thing to me. Care to explain ?

A big part of the difference is how the players perceive them.  That said, there are plenty of people, particularly casual gamers, who want the GM to tell them a story and are more than happy to climb aboard the GM's plot express and enjoy the ride.  These are the people that I've seen plenty of GMs complain about, over the years, because they don't take the initiative and wait for the GM to feed them an adventure.  And to be honest, if everyone at the table is having fun with it, I don't have a problem with that.

Basically there are two extremes of character action.
1. At any given point, there is one valid choice.  This is an extreme example of a railroad, where characters literally cannot get off the tracks of the plot the GM has constructed.
2. At any given point, everything is a valid choice, because there is nothing set, planned, prepped at all, and everything presented to the players is in response to what they do.  This is the Magical Tea Party.

Now Illusionism is making either a Railroad or a Magical Tea Party seem like a living, breathing, World in Motion campaign where the characters are presented with meaningful choices and those choices can have dire consequences.

However, it is very hard to have everything prepped all the time, so making shit up without making it seem like MTP or having existing plots, timelines, etc running in the background without them being Linear is part of the Art of being a GM.

If you're a suckass GM, you use Illusionism to try and hide it and usually make it even worse, because good players are going to catch you at it, and realize they are on a railroad or playing the MTP and in either case their choices mean nothing.

If you're a great GM you use Illusionism to make your open living world seem even more open and alive, and your players keep coming back.

Vreeg's Fifth Rule of Setting Design

"The 'Illusion of Preparedness' is critical for immersion; allowing the players to see where things are improvised or changed reminds them to think outside the setting, removing them forcibly from immersion.   Whenever the players can see the hand of the GM, even when the GM needs to change things in their favor; it removes them from the immersed position.  The ability to keep the information flow even and consistent to the players, and to keep the divide between prepared information and newly created information invisible is a critical GM ability.

Quote from: silva;566188Sorry, I dont understand the difference between railroading, ilusionism and linear adventures. They sound the same thing to me. Care to explain ?

Linear adventures are the now-classic scene-scene-scene-conclusion format you find in most game books and modules. Despite the linear set-up, they may be experienced in a non-linear fashion, as when the adventurers succeed in bypassing one of the scenes through smart play or dumb luck, such as avoiding a bandit ambush.

Railroading doesn't allow the adventurers to bypass the encounters the referee or adventure sets in front of them; attempting to do so results in the players being forced into facing the encounter, as when players' characters attempt to take the west road instead of the east road with the bandit ambush the referee has planned, and a massive lightning storm springs up that keeps the adventurers from going west.

Illusionism is railroading's kissin' cousin. In this instance, the players are free to go whatever direction they like, but no matter what they do, the referee springs his encounter on them anyway, as when the bandits attack the adventurers regardless of whether or not they take the east or west (or north or south) roads.

Unfortunately some internet assclowns insist on muddling the distinctions.

Quote from: John Morrow;566196A big part of the difference is how the players perceive them.

Railroading and illusionism are things the referee does, not just something that the players perceive. Players can think they're being railroaded when they're not and they can think they have meaningful choices when they don't, so perceptions may be completely wrong.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;566207Illusionism is railroading's kissin' cousin. In this instance, the players are free to go whatever direction they like, but no matter what they do, the referee springs his encounter on them anyway, as when the bandits attack the adventurers regardless of whether or not they take the east or west (or north or south) roads.

Railroading and illusionism are things the referee does, not just something that the players perceive. Players can think they're being railroaded when they're not and they can think they have meaningful choices when they don't, so perceptions may be completely wrong.

This is a valid distinction, but the laughably overblown 'destroying the hobby' bullshit that gets thrown around never really stabs at the heart of this. In fact, it really isn't about the hobby itself but about play-styles and personal preference. Some games let you do whatever you want. Some games have specific solutions in mind. Some games mix the two. I don't just mean games in terms of rules systems but even in terms of referees of the same system. The players and GM need to agree on the play-style.

Quote from: Dan Davenport;565410Sounds like we're on the same page there.

So, do you consider things like drama points to be storygame elements that shouldn't be in an RPG?

You'd have to explain, or give examples of, what you mean by "drama points" for me to be able to answer that.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;565558Liking the games isn't the issue. Pundit can't even put out a proper definition as to what gets posted where.

And yet for all that, this forum is at no risk whatsoever of "entering into a winter phase". Who'd have thunk it?

RPGPundit