Hello All,

So, I was having a discussion with one of my players about various play styles and we seem to be constantly bumping heads about the meaning of the word 'railroad.' It took me a while but I finally figured out why he continues to insist that Narrativism BY DEFINITION must involve railroading. I finally figured out he was refering to scene framing AS railroading.

He is of the opinion that railroading is what happens when the GM assumes ANY decision AT ALL about a given character. The example we banter around is starting a fight scene while a character is in the shower. An example I believe Ron used a while back. The thread Ron used the example in was also about railroading. His claim and my claim as well is that this is not necessarily railroading because no IMPORTANT (as in story, theme, premise, etc) decisions have been taken out of the player's hands.

My friend says exactly the oposite. His claim is the example assumes too many things about the character. He says, the first asumption is that the character even went home the night before. The second assumption is that the character takes showers and not baths. The third assumption is that character takes showers in the morning. The fourth assumption is that the character even does his dailly hygene at HOME. Maybe he goes to the gym first thing in the morning and takes his shower there and so on. All this to him is railroading.

Basically my definition of railroading involves removing the ability for a player to make plot directing decisions and moral statements.

His definition of railroading involves breaking the causal player instigated chain of events AT ALL.

Obviously there is a spectrum here. Has anyone given any thought to this spectrum and analysing it either in terms of GNS or as a seperate set of vocabularly like the Stances? Can we say something useful about 'railroading'?

Jesse

Jesse,

Well, if you want new terminology, before my old gaming group was exposed to fancy technical ideas like GNS, we had something we called "fuckable-withable". It was a player stat--how much could you fuck with this player and not have them be offended?

As it turns out, in our case, that tended to correspond fairly strongly with a Narrativist outlook. But it doesn't have to.

I'd say the real issue is about what kind of risks a player is willing to deal with, and your social contract. It sounds like your friend you have your "shower scene" argument with is coming from a background where high-risk stuff, like combat, needs to be preceded by as much player input as possible. So, people playing D&D don't mind going through a dangerous module, because it's been rated as "dangerous" for them and they have an idea of the risks.

Another exercise to go through is to try to de-construct "my character wouldn't do that." I don't mean you should psychoanalyze the guy you argue with, but you could ask around the issue and find out whether he means:

a) I really do have an idea of my PC's routine and know he wouldn't behave this way; or
b) Putting my PC at mortal risk without prior input from me is not OK because you're endangering my ability to play further; or
c) The shower scene contributes to a story that's inappropriate for my PC, e.g., my PC's story is that he's totally alert and paranoid.

This isn't neatly a GNS issue, as I hope the above illustrates. But you can tease those out of this crisis-point with some questions:

* Is the shower scene unacceptable for any PC for this player?
* Is it acceptable if the PC's Effectiveness is balanced out somehow, or if there's a strong Resource reward if the PC "succeeds"?

And so on. Not to be discounted, too, is that the player may have simple issues with feeling subjected to helplessness. Being attacked in your shower is a pretty heavy thing.

Hrm. Well, not a neat package, but maybe those are some tools to use to get closer to figuring it out. Hope this helps, as they say.

--TQuid

Hi there,

I think one aspect of this topic that most people miss is the difference between "to propose" and "to decree."

I've talked about this a bit before, but I'll recapitulate it briefly: Historically, the player may propose, but not decree; the GM, on the other hand, usually decrees. To change both of these is often possible, on a limited-negotiatory basis, but even then, again, historically, there remains a severe power-imbalance as the GM's "fall-back" is always the decree and the player's is always the proposal.

First, a definition: Railroading is the removal of character decision-making from the player. My point is that the traditional assumptions about decree/proposal are rife with the potential for railroading.

This feeds into a couple of things - at the micro-level, IIEE negotiations (in which the player's proposal may be upgraded to a decree when they don't want it to be!); and at the macro-level, scene-framing.

We know this can occur within a scene ("You wouldn't betray him, he's your sworn liege," "You feel love for her," "His blow shatters your resolve," or less emotion-based, "He escapes before you can react"). The question is, can it occur as a function of the set-up of scenes?

The answer, of course, is yes. If a character is put into a position that makes no sense to the player, and if the player is not consulted about this and given some degree of authority about it, then the player has been railroaded. (Important point: characters are not railroaded, players are.)

The solution is to establish some mechanism for agreement about scene initiation. I suggest that Jesse's friend is proposing a very dysfunctional solution, simply by transferring "total GM authority" re: scene-initiation over to "total player authority." It's a solution that may testify perhaps to that person's conviction that a role-playing game must include a power-struggle between GM and player, and seizing what appears to be an opportunity to gain some ground in that struggle.

I do not share that conviction. I agree with Vincent, that "how things are" in the imaginary situation, and how they turn out, are always an agreement between people at the table, GM and players alike. Thus functional methods to arrive at that agreement are what role-playing mechanics and techniques are all about. This is why I do not think rules are "the physics of the game-world," but "the mechanisms of agreement."

I suggest that no one standard is possible for "who gets to say" when or how a scene starts. I also suggest that it is a universal issue, and a functional solution for that group and (possibly) for that game are absolute necessities. Sorcerer & Sword represents a radical set of ideas about it for that particular mode and topic of play.

Here's my default. Everyone, GM and players, may propose scenes as they see fit, although the GM does most of it. Everyone gets to comment or consider whether the proposed venue is OK. If a scene applies to a particular character having made a particular between-scenes decision, then that player gets the almost-bottom-line authority. If the GM and the other players consider that player merely to be trying to dodge (ie "I can't be attacked in the shower if I make the GM feel guilty about railroading, hence I'll say 'my guy feels like being stinky today,' nyaaa") then they have the bottom-line authority. I should point out that the same applies if all the players oppose the GM - they, collectively, have the authority.

I specifically play out of that default if rules or other context of a particular game call for it - e.g. in The Questing Beast, I made it very clear to players that they could initiate scenes with full authority, no matter what. Or in Extreme Vengeance, I as GM propose all scenes, but the players may insert themselves if they desire, with BS or Coincidence rolls.

My default may not be yours, but I suggest that everyone and every game needs to have this kind of organization occurring. My rewrite for the big essay already has a huge section about this, and I think that either player or GM having full authority to decree scene-initiation including who's in it and what they're doing is a very, very big problem.

Best,
Ron

I agree with TQuid that it probably isn't a GNS issue and is probably a lot more like Stances in that it's a frame of mind thing. In the case of Railroading we seem to be looking at levels of tollerance. The question is are there identifyable levels of tollerance. Even more interesting are there AXIS of tollerance regarding railroading. For example is possible for someone to not care if really big plot issues are railroaded but hates when the GM assumes that the character remembered to tie his shoes that morning.

As for the ACTUAL psychological motivations behind my specific friend I'd really rather not get into them.

Edited Note: This was written before seeing Ron's big and very interesting reply.

Jesse

Ron Edwards wrote: I do not share that conviction. I agree with Vincent, that "how things are" in the imaginary situation, and how they turn out, are always an agreement between people at the table, GM and players alike. Thus functional methods to arrive at that agreement are what role-playing mechanics and techniques are all about. This is why I do not think rules are "the physics of the game-world," but "the mechanisms of agreement."

I suggest that no one standard is possible for "who gets to say" when or how a scene starts. I also suggest that it is a universal issue, and a functional solution for that group and (possibly) for that game are absolute necessities. Sorcerer & Sword represents a radical set of ideas about it for that particular mode and topic of play.

Here's my default. Everyone, GM and players, may propose scenes as they see fit, although the GM does most of it. Everyone gets to comment or consider whether the proposed venue is OK. If a scene applies to a particular character having made a particular between-scenes decision, then that player gets the almost-bottom-line authority. If the GM and the other players consider that player merely to be trying to dodge (ie "I can't be attacked in the shower if I make the GM feel guilty about railroading, hence I'll say 'my guy feels like being stinky today,' nyaaa") then they have the bottom-line authority. I should point out that the same applies if all the players oppose the GM - they, collectively, have the authority.

My default may not be yours, but I suggest that everyone and every game needs to have this kind of organization occurring. My rewrite for the big essay already has a huge section about this, and I think that either player or GM having full authority to decree scene-initiation including who's in it and what they're doing is a very, very big problem.

The concept of "scene framing" and everyone participating is the 2nd thing that makes Narritivism very different from what I'm (and traditional RPG'ers are useful. The first being the whole kicker/scenario background/character development thing.

Are there any good threads about scene framing and some examples of how it works in RPG terms (like that long thread in Sorcerer that made it idiot-clear how Narrativist game setup would work). I have some vauge idea: I've got some kind of relationship map, my character has some things he wants to do, and I (the player) have cool things I want to happen to explore the premise (which might be BAD for the character - neat new concept).

What does this end up looking like practically. Let's take as an assumption that we're not talking about the super-extreme (not meant negatively) version of Narritivism, where there are no rules and everyone's a GM 24/7.

Thanks!

In practice Railroading, despite Ron's definition, gets used to mean dysfunctional railroading. As such, it's circularly defined.

Look at the Bobby G. Thread:

1. Bobby G is bad
2. Bobby G. is bad because it's a railroaded scenario.
3. If Bobby G. *weren't* railroaded it wouldn't be Bobby G.

Therefore: railroading is bad.

If you run Assault on Everest (the plot literally goes up and down) but everyone's bought into that--it isn't railroading.

So I don't think it's a useful term except as a type of dysfunction ("I.e. I objected to it because I felt railroaded.")
-MArco

Well, outside of the rarified realms of the Forge, railroading is used to indicate a disfunction. It's a pejorative term used to describe a bad situation. People don't say: "I was railroaded and I loved it!" If you loved it, that usually means you consented in some way to what was going on, so it isn't railroading.

It's like rape. If I ask you to tie me up and tongue-bathe me, or in some way it's done with my consent, then it's not rape, it's B&D. Perhaps then "good railroading" should be called something else, like "kinky". It's only railroading when it's bad.

Hello,

I cannot see what kind of distinction Marco is drawing between a Forge-definition of railroading and any other. My definition above is, itself, a "bad thing" in role-playing. Under no conditions should a player's decision-making power be co-opted by anyone else at the table without their consent. There are very few instances or techniques of role-playing that I'll make a value-statement about, but that is one of them.

To repeat, in case anyone else is confused: railroading is a bad thing.

Best,
Ron

P.S. The up-and-down Everest example is not railroading because the story in question, in the example Marco is referring to, does not concern "whether to climb Everest." It concerns relationships among members of the group, and those decisions are what might or might be railroaded.

The Bobby G issue has been so badly misunderstood by some Forge members that I am not going to address it here.

I cannot see what kind of distinction Marco is drawing between a Forge-definition of railroading and any other. My definition above is, itself, a "bad thing" in role-playing. Under no conditions should a player's decision-making power be co-opted by anyone else at the table without their consent. There are very few instances or techniques of role-playing that I'll make a value-statement about, but that is one of them.

To repeat, in case anyone else is confused: railroading is a bad thing.

Amiel,

Generally, Forge lingo calls that "shared power," or rather, what you describe falls into the "shared power" category along with any other negotiated divvying up of determining what-happens in the imagined situation.

Vincent and I have recently got on the kick of saying, all role-playing is a matter of shared power over "what happens" in-game, and dysfunction is a matter of (1) not knowing about what, ie, GNS incompatibility; and (2) not sharing power nicely, ie, railroading and related stuff (it happens from the player end too).

Best,
Ron

Ron,

I think I agree with everything you've said--the distinction was that you described railroading as "the removal of player decision making power." That's ambiguous--it doesn't necessiarily imply dysfunction (what is framing), is subject to interpertation (the player can "decide" to kill Bobby G.--the GM just won't let him--maybe for very logical-sounding reasons like Bobby turns out to be a Vampire against which their weapons are useless), and assumes that any group that runs Bobby G. (with full denial of choice) *is* dysfunctional--even if they're all having fun.

Basically the definition you used above made too many assumptions about what dysfunction is--which is what was discussed at length in the Bobby G. Thread. *Nothing* in the description of the Bobby G. scenario implies violation of the GM-player social contract. All the dysfunction is implied by the observer (not even, necessiarily, the player).

I'd suggest:
Railroading: the GM dysfunctionally enforcing game events, situations, or outcomes on the player(s) in violation of the social contract under which the game is played.

-Marco

Hey Marco,

I'll buy that!

I don't know if we'll ever see eye-to-eye on Bobby G, but I think we are saying the same things about the real issue at hand.

Another tricky part of discussing this is that, as I see it, railroading may be applied at many different stages of the role-playing process, ranging from scene-setting, to IIEE organization, to interpreting Fortune-based outcomes, and to a more general "how it all turns out" stage.

Different groups are going to have different standards of "power-sharing" for different stages, so dialogue can get pretty messy.

Best,
Ron

:)

Before I begin to even address this subject, I want to make a few things clear:

1. I play with Jesse (jburneko), the guy who introduced me to this community and the ideas bantered about within.

2. I have no personal beef with Jesse. We have had a running debate on the subject of GNS for about a year or so; obviously we wouldn't have carried the dialogue on for so long if we ('we' including me) weren't simply interested in the various academic intricacies and complexities inherent in the confrontation of the philosophical implications of RPG design.

3. I don't like narrativism. I've never actually played a strictly narrativist game, but I plan to. From what I know of narrativism, participating in discussions on this board will increase the likelihood that I'll enjoy the game once I actually start playing it, but from a strictly philosophical standpoint I must admit I find the core principles of narrativism to conflict with the stated goals. This, however, is only my personal feeling and shouldn't invalidate what I have to say in general discussions.

Okay. Now, having said that, I'd like to pose a few questions about how railroading relates to narrativism.

Question to Jesse: is the 'friend' you mentioned in the opening post me? If it is, I'll need to clarify a few things; if not I'll leave well enough alone.

If 'railroading is the removal of character decision-making from the player', how does that relate to the Shower Example? It would seem that this definition would have to be mutable, as narrativist mechanics (as far as I can tell) are somewhat predicated on dictating character decision making to the player (Whuthering Heights and Jesse's Isolation game spring to mind). Correct me if I'm wrong (correct, not reprimand), but wouldn't mechanics that enforce the dictum of 'story now' necessitate some sort automatic character decision making mechanism? Without such a method players might stall, chill out, plan their attack, take actor stance a lot, avoid emotional conflicts... which wouldn't seem to work very well in a narrativist system.

That's the core of what I'm talking about I guess. There's no way I'm going to refer to emotional/moral/ethical/interpersonal conflicts as 'relevant' for the simple reason that one player's 'relevant' might be another's 'irrelevant'. I'm aware that this issue would more than likely be addressed in the 'social contract' and that the term is used within narrativim to refer to a mutually understood concept, but merely stating within the system which conflicts are to be 'relevant' seems to me to be inherently railroad-ish.

If the labeling of certain conflicts as 'relevant' to his character is not within the player's decision-making power, how then is the player not being railroaded? My opinion (this is my opinion now, formed after months and months of debate and conversation with one of the most steadfast narrativists in this community) is that narrativism is predicated on railroading players into addressing conflicts that have been pre-designated as 'relevant' (i.e. the emotional/moral/ethical) by the system. Hence the character decision making process has been taken out of the hands of the player and put into the hands of the system... which has been defined by Mr. Edwards as 'railroading'.

So the big question, of course, is: how do mechanics that define 'relevant' conflicts for the player not deprive him/her of the character decision making process?

one,
Triz

P.S. I'd like to reiterate that this is in no way some kind of personally motivated knuckle scraping mud flinging attack on all narrativists. My intellectual motivations are pure and I would appreciate it if my personal relationship with Jesse be left out of the debate. I would rather my ideas were addressed on their own merit. Thank you.

Hi Travis (TrizzlWizzl),

Great post. I hope this reply is going to reveal a tremendous amount of agreement between you and me. I'm breaking up a part of your post into three quotes, not to pick at them but with any luck to create kind of a triangulation toward my final point.

First, you wrote,
"If the labeling of certain conflicts as 'relevant' to his character is not within the player's decision-making power, how then is the player not being railroaded?"

I agree. I agree, totally. My first post on this thread is all about how a degree of player authority regarding a character decision/action is necessary for successful play of any kind. I'll expand that point now to say, in Narrativist play, that the players have just as much authority, if not more, than the GM regarding what conflicts are relevant!

This may strike you as strange or contradictory to what you've perceived about Narrativism. Hence:

"My opinion (this is my opinion now, formed after months and months of debate and conversation with one of the most steadfast narrativists in this community) is that narrativism is predicated on railroading players into addressing conflicts that have been pre-designated as 'relevant' (i.e. the emotional/moral/ethical) by the system."

Jesse may be one of the most steadfast Narrativists, but he is not one of the most experienced ones, especially during the bulk of the debate you're referring to. (My apologies to Jesse, but this is necessary to say at this time.) I suggest that at some point during that debate, a connection between Narrativism and "you gotta play the way I say" got established that doesn't really exist.

Your "system" point is worth a look. One of the issues we've been discussing lately is that Narrativist Premise is often fairly abstract in the game text, such that players and GM may specify it themselves as they see fit.

For instance, in Sorcerer, just what ethical conundrums are posed by practicing sorcery is completely customized by the group. Or in Hero Wars, the setting describes a large-scale cultural conflict, but where (across a wide variety of geographies and peoples) you want to address this, and which side or combination of the sides you want to be on, is totally up to the group. The systems of both these games reinforce their respective premises (ie something's gotta happen about these things, but they don't dictate just how you want to address them, ie, how you "have" to play.

In Sorcerer, it is perfectly OK for a player to decide that his character is going to 0 Humanity as fast as he can possibly go. In Hero Wars, it is perfectly OK for a player to decide that his character has become a Lunar and joined the Imperial Army. Both of these address the respective game's Premise just as thoroughly as striving to maintain Humanity or rebelling fiercely against the Lunars. The only "concession" to the system is simply being willing and interesting to address those issues, which need not be based on anything more profound than simply liking the sound of it, or anything especially out-of-character or notably "deliberate" during play.

"Hence the character decision making process has been taken out of the hands of the player and put into the hands of the system... which has been defined by Mr. Edwards as 'railroading'."

With any luck, I've managed to show that the character decision making process is precisely what has been left free, rather than being dictated, in this method of play (and game design that reinforces it).

So to conclude: I'm with you on this issue.

Best,
Ron

Hello,

Well for the record during our ongoing debate I've only ever defined 'relevant conflict' as: That which addresses the previously agreed upon Premise. I don't believe I've ever said, "Premise is what the GM says." I HAVE said that a lot of Narrativist games have their Premise directly built into the system such as Sorcerer's Humanity mechanic and that Premise is defined for the group as a whole. But how the Theme (answer to the Premise) is developed is entirely left in the hands of the player. As, Ron says, running your Humanity score deliberately to zero is player perogative.

Oh, and no need to appologize for pointing out my lack of practical experience in Narrativist play. I get the theory but I've got a LONG LONG LONG way to go in terms of actual practice.

Jesse

Ron,

Thanks for your comments. I'm glad we're getting somewhere... 'somewhere' being a place where I can sit down and enjoy a narrativist game with a slightly more robust understanding of the key principles than I do now. I have, of course, read your essay (off of a printout with a pencil in hand no less) and Chapter 7 of Sorcerer and Sword (so my knowlege of narrativism comes not only from Mr. Burneko but your writings as well), but the ideas regarding role playing games are fairly perpendicular to my own.

I told Jesse I wasn't really going to be going back and forth with him on the topic of narrativism until I've had a chance to play it, so the same should apply to you. Unfortunately I'm really bad at not asking questions and one sentence from your last post encapsulates why I consider 'railroading' to be a cornerstone of narrativism:

Ron Edwards wrote:
For instance, in Sorcerer, just what ethical conundrums are posed by practicing sorcery is completely customized by the group.

Hi Travis,

Whew, finally a chance to get back to this thread .... Apologies to both Jesse and Travis for taking so long.

Let's take a look at any role-playing - something or another must be taken as "given," in order to play at all. Hell, even in Universalis, everyone has to agree that the mechanisms of the system are to be used in order to create all the setting and other stuff.

The more focus in terms of goals, the more "given" there has to be. I don't see any of this "establishing the given" as railroading, and if the system (for instance) provides a fair amount of it, I don't see the agreement to use that system as an acceptance of railroading. We are basically talking about agreed-upon creative constraints, prior to play, which includes certain standards about how to play once we get there.

Since goals are a multi-person thing in role-playing, the next question has to be, "how much of the 'given' stuff is going to be generated by anyone, and how much gets to be generated by a specially-designated someone?"

This is an interesting question, because we are still talking about agreements - what everyone is willing to do, once we get to the role-playing. For instance, in traditional play (oh, let's say a bread-and-butter RoleMaster game), we all agree that George will spend a lot of time coming up with Setting details, System interpretations, and most especially Situation, such that we, armed with Characters, get to enjoy ourselves.

George provides tons of character hooks, up to and including poisoning our characters, blackmailing them, trapping them in town with suddenly-fallen meteorites, and whatever else. It ain't railroading if we all went into this happy with the knowledge that we gave that power to George. God damn it, we are going into that haunted temple to rescue the Duke's wayward son, and George wants us to, and we entered into this in order to do, basically, what George wants. Cool! I'll play a grumpy dwarf and have a good time.

All this is no more to agree with you about the emotional/contextual element of railroading: no violation of the social contract = no railroading.

Now, what about that "objective" business, then? I state with confidence that I have never used the word "objective" in relation to this issue, because I never use that word at all. I think what you are referring to is my claim that railroading is not merely an I-said-you-said type of thing.

This is because social contracts are real, not imaginary, and certainly not utterly internal. They exist between people. When you set up to play together, you either have one that's stated in some way, or everyone has one that they individually are "sure" everyone else shares. Now is when all the trouble starts.

The most basic railroading is the easiest. We have a social contract that includes the idea that Character Motive is sacrosanct for the player - and the GM goes and says, "You fall in love with the Princess." Well fuck! I got railroaded. The standards were set nicely but someone didn't follow them. The trouble is, this easy version of the problem almost never happens.

More commonly, the social contract is merely assumed at the outset. Eventually the GM says, "You fall in love with the Princess," the player has a hairy fucking cow, and the GM reacts with hurt surprise - "What, you said you wanted to play an adventure with lots of emotional motivations!" Lacking any vocabulary to deal with this, and both clinging to their initial perceived social contracts (which unfortunately were not the same), they don't get anywhere. The player says he got railroaded, and according to his social contract, he was; the GM says he did no such thing, and according to his social contract, he didn't; eventually they descend to claiming that one another has "ruined the game," is "bad" at role-playing and so on.

Ha, now we are seeing the I-said-you-said thing going on at full blast. Now it looks as if the railroading is fully "subjective" (I put that word in quotes because it is not a defined term and I disavow its actual use). However, I suggest that we are dealing with the same old concrete violation of the social contract - the trouble is not that the railroading is being defined on-the-spot, but that the social contract itself was not actually established, only imagined to be established.

Best,
Ron