Hunter Logan: "Dice-driven railroading"?

[sirogit]

In that Bleeding Edge thread, Hunter Logan said

Parts of it are flat-out fucking brilliant. But other parts are not quite so brilliant, and it seems to me that conventional GM's plot-driven railroading has been sort of replaced by mechanical, dice-driven railroading. At the end of the day, it's still a dice-based game with a high degree of randomness in its outcomes and a complex, brutal combat system.

Huh... I really have no idea what you could mean by "dice-driven" railroading.

Are you using a definition of railroading similar to the Forge's glossary, which would be:

Control of a player-character's decisions, or opportunities for decisions, by another person (not the player of the character) in any way which breaks the Social Contract for that group, in the eyes of the character's player. The term describes an interpretation of a social and creative outcome rather than any specific Technique.

Or some other definition?

Are you implying that having any random mechanic acting prominently in a game is "Railroading" by limiting the possible success of any action? If so, would all games that have a random mechanic be under this definition
or just Sorcerer espicially for some reason?

(This might have been more suitable to PM, but I felt it might illuminate some issues for other people.)[/i]

[Hunter Logan]

Hi Sirogit,

It's probably better that you asked here. My statement was vague  I'm really talking about "control of a player's opportunities for decisions," specifically GM manipulation of the player's opportunities for decision. Violating the social contract... That's a big grey area. Is it still railroading when that's what the players want the GM to do? I think, yes; but YMMV.

Plot-driven railroading is pretty common. The GM manipulates the players into a pre-scripted plot, story, or adventure giving the appearance of choice, but all roads lead to events in the pre-scripted plot. Usually, that means danger, combat, Bang stuff. I would say, it's that manipulation that constitutes the illusion of choice and a certain amount of railroading. In those terms, most of roleplaying involves a certain amout of railroading just as a means for facilitating play, and that commonality is really what I'm discussing.  I'm not sure about "violating the social contract." I've met players who think it's the GM's job to run the Adventure Lines Railroad, and others who see right through the illusion and resent it. Really, it's a matter of perspective.

Then, I introduced this notion of dice-driven railroading with no explanation. I probably shouldn't have done that, but too late now. I don't think the simple existence of random mechanics (eg. fortune-based resolution) causes railroading. Prominent random mechanics are a problem, I think, because they reduce player control of what happens in the game and may provide a means for players to avoid responsibility for whatever happens in the game. But that is an entirely different issue. I was talking specifically about Sorcerer. In that game, plot-driven railroading isn't supposed to happen very often.

The GM isn't usually pushing the players toward specific scripted events, but the GM is still pushing the players. The GM tries to put the players in situations where they have to roll vs. Humanity and into combat. Humanity can put characters out of play, so it's really important. Combat is brutal and dangerous. The GM is trying to make players roll dice, and from the GM's view, it's better if some of the rolls go badly because that forces more decisions on the player. Those result in more die rolls, and really, it's not so different from plot-based railroading. Either way, the GM pushes players to take risks, make decisions, roll dice, and see what happens.

That's the best answer I can give. I hope it helps.

[greyorm]

The only problem I have with the example, Logan, is that you can't make someone roll a Humanity check. The player still chooses whether or not they're going to play it safe or not -- it isn't like a saving throw where the GM can just say, "The dragon breathes fire on you! Roll your Humanity to dodge!" or something.

Other than that, I get what you're saying, though I can't think of any really concrete examples of the occurence off the top of my head.

[Ian Charvill]

To guess where Hunter's coming from:

Say the premise is "does money corrupt" and you want to express the theme "the love of money corrupts" so you keep doing love of money Humanity transgressive stuff and so rack up the Humanity checks.

But the dice "refuse" to let your Humanity drop to zero.

I think this might be seen as the dice railroading you.  You want to make a particular thematic statement, but the dice are intent on making another.

But that's just fortune mechanics for you, if you decide to use a fortune mechanic for resolution, the dice are going to help determine the thematic statement.

The only way dice could actually railroad would be if there were a bonus die for following the plot, penalty die for not following the plot.  But that would just be railroading via a reward mechanic, just happening to take the ephemeral form of dice.

[Trevis Martin]

I guess I don't understand Hunter.  I've read the description a couple of times and I don't get it.  Presumably people playing sorcerer have set up their characters with the capacity to address premise built in to them.  The GM job is to provide opportunities for that to happen.  Now the character may freely choose an option in a situation that requires him to roll dice or not but I don't think any force happens to make the player do one or the other thing and a statement of premise is made either way.  In this sense both the dice and the GM act a constraint on the range of decision or description avalable but there are still significant choices within that range.

Constraint, however, is the mother of creativity.  IF the player is a ball, and the situation, dice, and Gm act as walls to define the arena of decision then the ball can choose, in this case, to bounce whichever way it wishes within those constraints.  Sometimes the closer the constraints are the more energy is generated from the ball bouncing off them.  But, and here's my point, if no constraints or extremely loose constraints are set the risk is run that the ball will lose its energy from haveing to try and travel over such a broad field.  On the other side of that is the 'railroading' condition in which the GM has actually set the direction the ball will bounce in but pretends that its free to go wherever it wants.  In that case the balls energy dies from being smothered with constraints that are too close and directed.

I don't know if that made sense or not.  But given your description I cannot conceive of a situation in which the dice 'railroad' you.  I mean you would have to make the decision that engendered the die roll to begin with.  I disagree with Ian's example because it isn't driving someone to Humanity zero that makes the thematic statement IMO.  Its the fact that he made a decision that put his humanity at risk at all.  Period.  Every time this is done, a statement is made.  The risk is even more so when humanity is close to 0 but through most of the game, I have found that any humanity roll is a significant event that all players take note of as a thematic point in the game.  Yeah, he may end up spitting in the universe's eye (i.e. getting away with it) but its not up to the player how the world reacts to him, its up to him to make the decision.

Perhaps I have misunderstood you somehow?

Trevis

[Hunter Logan]

Hi all,

I'm sorry. You may be horribly disappointed, but I really can't explain any better than I already have. I suggest not worrying about the term. I had thoughts and ideas in mind when I used it, but it may not even be the right term to express what I'm thinking.

In context of the original post, I was looking at commonality in roleplaying. Sorcerer shares commonality with other roleplaying games in that important resolution is based on the die roll and that the GM is actively pushing the players to take risks, make decisions, and enter into situations where it is necessary to roll dice.

The commonality between Sorcerer and other games is much higher in the base book than in the base book plus the supplements. The method of pushing the characters is somewhat different than in other rpgs, revolving as it does around situations that test Humanity (not as Raven suggests, but ideally in other, more painful ways) rather than situations that advance a scripted plot, but the intended result is much the same.

I am not looking for agreement or disagreement, but only trying to articulate my thinking. The problem now is that I seem unable to express my own thinking better than I already have. If/when this changes, I will be happy to revisit the topic. Until then, I'm done, Hopefully, I have not put anybody out, but I really don't know what else I can say about it.

[Trevis Martin]

No put out, just trying to put what you were saying together in my head but so far I can't get it to work.  I'll think about it some more unless someone else has something enlightening?


Trevis

[Ron Edwards]

Let's call this closed for now, folks. Hunter is cogitating, and there won't be anything served by "guess what he'll come up with" or by free-associating. I'm interested in the topic, for sure, but I'm happy to wait to see what more baking brings.

Best,
Ron