In the Railroading Fun thread,

Allen wrote: One of the commonly accepted rules in roleplaying is that what a PC thinks, feels, and decides to do is completely up to the player. If the GM tells a player what his character decides, that's railroading.

I have a strong impression that this "dictating the character's inner world = deprotagonization = bad" equation is a historical accident, like pinky toes. In the world where wargamers started telling stories about their units, (I'm not sure whether this is the real world; I'm telling a fairytale) it was okay for the referee to say, "your unit slips and falls off the cliff", but not, "your unit is too dumb to come up with that brilliant ambush plan."

As a board newbie, I'm still on the learning curve with some of these terms. I do understand deprotagonization -- tho' I think its an ugly word, aesthetically, hehe -- and for me and my group this is a contentious issue.

I don't think that it is necessarily deprotagonization for the GM to demand certain sorts of RP from the player. I think it is an extension of the directorial authority that the GM already possesses -- the GM is, traditionally, "in charge". If I say that the character falls from a great height and shatters a leg, its within my right to demand that the character RP having a shattered leg. For instance, the character can't run.

Likewise, particularly in games where psychology is handled through a variety of mechanisms, I think its fair for me to say, "You look into the hell beast's eyes and are horrified."

I even go so far as to allow NPCs social skills to be used against PCs to the extent that PCs use their social skills. (And generally only to that extent -- for stuff like in game manipulation, poison and other contentious issues I hesitate to bring it into a game, but if the *players* do I feel justified in countering in kind.) So if PCs want to use their skills and powers to seduce NPCs I think it is only fair if the same mechanic runs both ways. My logic, here, is that if it doesn't run both ways it would be like using the game systems to hit people with weapons, perhaps killing them, but then complaining when the NPCs hit back and do damage in return.

One of my players in particular feels this is bad, though she cannot articulate precisely way (she knows even less about deprotagonization than I do, hehe). It bothers her intensely that NPCs can emotionally manipulate characters as the characters emotionally manipulate NPCs.

So, I'm on your side. As a player and GM I think the GM should occasionally tell characters what they are actually thinking and, rarely, what they are doing -- or at least have veto powers over player decisions (which is how it generally works in my games; I don't tell them what they can do, just what they *can't* do). While I understand it is easy to go too far and deprotagonize a character, I think in just moderation it works fine.

Jasper wrote: However, I just had a thought: why must this be so? Nevermind whether railroading = bad; why is a GM making statements about a player's character necessarily deprotagonizing? It seems to come down to equation of the player with the character: that the player owns the character on an intellectual level, and that the character is the player's main--perhaps only--conduit for affecting the game.
But this kind of equation is something that more "avante guard" and indie games are increasingly questioning, and in fact many people here seem to question strongly (frex, responses in the Mystery Essay thread). I guess I'm mostly intrigued how two Forge-ish ideas seem to be coming together to question one another: deprotagonization has led us to a good explanation for why we don't like certain behaviors, but then the rejection of illusionism and pawns stance as the only way to play make us question whether deprotagonization is necessarily the result of the behavior we always said we disliked.

Hi there,

The current definition for railroading, as far as I can tell from multiple discussions here, goes something like this:

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 bolded section is the important part. Railroading is a "crime" at the level of Social Contract, as it pertains to Creative Agenda. Taking the jargon out, that means, "people hate getting their 'rights' of input taken away, although those 'rights' are wholly internal on their part."

So Jasper, Allen was presenting a fairly customized version of railroading - it only makes sense given the Social Contracts he's willing to play within.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: So Jasper, Allen was presenting a fairly customized version of railroading - it only makes sense given the Social Contracts he's willing to play within.

Ron's response is I think very useful for making some distinctions here.

In MLwM, for example, the structure of the game requires that the minions feel Fear about the Master and Love for some Townspeople. If a minion approaches the Master in a way that seems excessively nonchalant, it may be appropriate to say, "Remember, you feel afraid here." This isn't deprotagonizing, because it's part of the game's structure. Similarly, it's not railroading, because it's entirely necessary to the whole thing that the minions feel fear.

The difference, however, is that the minions can react to that fear in lots of different ways, and that the GM cannot control. So if the Master says, "Get me that lovely girl's left arm; I need it for my experiment," the minion can say, "Yes, Massster," or he can say, "No, Master! I, I, I can't do it! I can't kill that beautiful girl!" And then there's a resistance roll made. If the minion loses, he has to go try to get the arm, but that doesn't mean he has to feel good about it, just that he is more afraid of the Master than of trying to get the arm.

So I think we can't be simplistic about this. Forcing certain emotional responses is perfectly appropriate if that's implicit or explicit in the game structure and thus the Social Contract. I think, for example, that it's perfectly reasonable in CoC to tell someone he feels fear when he initially spots a Byakhee. But once the player rolls SAN, the player can decide how he responds to that fear on the basis of the roll and whatever other factors he thinks are appropriate. If he goes totally bonkers, for example, he can decide that his fear is liberated into worship and awe.

In short, you can dictate emotion under certain pre-accepted circumstances. You can't dictate emotion and response except by deprotagonizing the character.

I was with you right up until the end, there Chris. I think we need to chuck "Deprotagonization." It's never been a serious term, despite the fact that I think some people assume that it is.

Even Protagonism in terms of RPGs simply means that a player uses some power to make his character an interesting instrument of play. Not the normal definition. The point is that taking away your power to make a character a protagonist, is precisely the definition of railroading that Ron gave above.

So, the definition of these things is always local in terms of what the Social Contract is meant to allow, it seems to me, and railroading is preventing a player from making a character a protagonist. Note that the character might still be made a protagonist by railroading. It's just that the person doing it isn't the one assigned the right by the Social Contract.

I had a more nuanced version of the term Railroading in a previous thread, but I think that this one works as well.

Mike

I think we need to chuck "Deprotagonization." It's never been a serious term....taking away your power to make a character a protagonist, is precisely the definition of railroading that Ron gave above.

A character can be deprotagonized by game mechanics.

Paul

Uh, yeah, I spose they can...why do you mention it?

Mike

You can't discard "deprotagonization" as a term for being redundant with "railroading," because railroading does not encompass mechanics-based deprotagonization.

Paul

I have to agree with Paul here.

If my character is conceived in my head as a fierce, skilled warrior, and in a battle against some relatively unskilled opponents I roll a fumble and drop my sword, I've definately been deprotagonized, but I wasn't railroaded by anyone.

Ah, OK, so railroading is a subset of the things that can deprotagonize. Yes.

BTW, I wasn't saying that deprotagonize should be thrown out becase the two terms are equal. I was saying that it should be throw out because it's not a word (or even close to one). I mean, if we want to make it "official" jargon that means a shortcut to saying, "fails to allow the character to be a protagonist," that's fine I suppose. It's just a strange term.

Mike

Mike Holmes wrote: I mean, if we want to make it "official" jargon that means a shortcut to saying, "fails to allow the character to be a protagonist," that's fine I suppose.

I think the negativity of deprotagonization is appropriate and practical. It implies that protagonism is "inalienable," a property that all role playing characters are created with, and that only becomes an issue when it's taken away.

Of course, that implication might be dead wrong. I believe that all player-characters have protagonism unless deprotagonized, but I can see why others might regard player-characters as only achieving protagonism through some sort of positive effort. In that case there might be a useful distinction between deprotagonization (was protagonized, ain't no more; or player attempted to protagonize but was thwarted) and nonprotagonism (never got played as a protagonist in the first place).

- Walt

It did make it into the glossaries? Well then, it's been "officialized" a lot more than I'd thought. :-)

Good thoughts, Walt.

Mike

Walt wrote: In that case there might be a useful distinction between deprotagonization (was protagonized, ain't no more; or player attempted to protagonize but was thwarted) and nonprotagonism (never got played as a protagonist in the first place).

Jasper wrote:
While deprotagonization nominally applies to character, can it -- or some other equivalent word -- be applied to players, to specifically describe the unwilling loss of a player's power through characters (to distinguish from the above case), or perhaps even loss of player power in general?

montag wrote: AFAIK, deprotagonisation refers to the making _player_ input irrelevant.
*snip*

I would say that the character in your example is still a protagonist in the game as a whole, albeit not at that exact moment -- so I wouldn't bother calling it deprotagonization since the player can walk back into the room and take control again. It seems to be that the word would be more useful if we limit its use to changes in character definition: that is, a characters protagonist status arises from a collective agreement of it, not from the actual act of controlling it (though hopefully these two will be in tune more or less)

Thanks Jasper, I thought so.

I actually have to wonder though, if the 'we need you at the table' factor is more important than protagonism (well, perhaps just in gamist or sim games). I mean, weve all heard how illusionist games can be really fun if done right. I have to wonder if this 'done right' means the player is very much needed at the table.

This is a bit drifty and if I can hash up more on it I'll start a thread for it. But I just wanted to clear my thoughts on it here and perhaps seperate the idea of deprotagonisation and making players redundant, for others.

Hmm, I think I'm not quite getting you, Callan. It seems obvious to me that having a player be "at the table" is absolutely more critical than protagonism, and very much needed at all times. I mean, having players be present is sort of the first aspect of Social Contract, and you can't play without someone who isn't there.... I also don't see how this would be more or less important in gam/sim games vs anything else.

Sorry to prod you for answers if you're still just thinking about things, but your post really wasn't clear to me.

No, fair enough.

What I'm getting at are times where the player contributes so little they may as well be in another room. The easiest example is once their combat turn has passed and they wait around for the rest to have their turn. This is a simple example and off set by the fact that the player can still passively watch what's happening and figure out tactics. However, this option is very passive and most likely so little will change that they could leave and come back without issue.

Still, typically turns do or should come around often enough that this 'redundant time' is negligable. (sp?)

However, other redundant times can be more expansive. I mean, it's actually a tradition in RP to literally send people out of the room if seperating information players know, is desired. That's an easy one to spot. The others tend to be where there is so little to influence that it only takes one or two players to do it, while the rest do nothing (setting up camp, traveling, scouting, etc). There are other examples, but their kind of fiddly to dredge up into an example as they are examples of non play, rather than play (the latter being easier to describe).

Essentially these redundant times can be reduced by a good GM. I'm wondering if the loss of protagonism in an illusionist session is far less important to players than feeling like they are really needed at the table. I may be wrong in this impression, but I read a lot around the forge about the protagonism being perhaps quite sacred. I'm suggesting that in traditional play players often go through periods of redundancy (I think this is true, anyway), and that being needed at the table is more important to them, as illustrated by illusionism being fun if 'done right'.

Drifting in from the Vampire LARP experience, my experience is that Railroading is a serious crime. No one wants to be a puppet doing what somebody else tells them to do, and it's really tough to get immersion that way.
(note that there are exceptions: possessions, mistaken identities, and other things to help the suspension of disbelief and reduce the "You aren't Vampire X's player, so I will try to see through your 'Vampire X' illusion/disguise" cheat.)

But Deprotagonizing happens all the time. LARP Players will do it to themselves, if a suggested plotline doesn't appeal to the character.

That kind of behavior in a tabletop game (rejecting plotlines and letting the other players handle it, and expecting some plotlines tailored more to you) is considered really bad form in my gaming groups. Of course, the numbers are different. The odds are good that a LARP has three to four times or more people than a tabletop game, and a good ST can keep a player from being _permanantly_ deprotagonized by placing plot nuggets near several similar characters.

Of course, there's this one guy I know who gets enjoyment while playing from essentially permanently deprotagonizing himself. If he gets "trapped" by plot, he seems considers it like a loss.