Literally unwinnable situations.

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>>52173283

>is forcing a predetermined outcome regardless of what the players do railroading?

You tell me, OP.

>>52173283

That is the definition of railroading, yes.

>>52173362
>>52173384
/thread

>>52173283
I think it would depend a lot on how the players got there. If the game begins with the players in a situation where the only path leads to an unwinnable end, I'd say that's railroading. If the players make decisions which eventually lands them in an unwinnable situation I don't think that's railroading.

>>52173283
Why the hell would you even ask this?
>Should the PCs always win?
No, they should always have the possibility of victory in a larger scenario. They should always be able to try and possibly succeed or fail based on the virtue of their own actions.

>>52173283
Yes, it is. And it becomes less and less plausible in high magic/technology settings.
There has to be a margin of success chance, even if absurdly low. Then again, if that's your narrating style, carry on, I guess. As a player, it would piss me off a bit, though.

>>52173445
>>52173362
>>52173384
>>52173397
I dunno
Remember as long as the players can't tell, it's not a railroad
I mean having the BBEG be a stupidly powerful being and crushing them can always be countered by
>well you didn't search for the sacred artifact that could have beaten him
>and you didn't know about it because you didn't ask that quest giver
Just make shit up and lie, they can't possibly know

>>52173283
Usually, but not always.

I had this one game, a few years back, where we were commandos/agents of a kind of !not Roman empire falling apart; think 5th century levels of problems. It was still the bastion of civilization and enlightenment, but it was grossly inefficient, barbarians were at the gates, and there was always rebellion somewhere.

And we were trying to stop it, save the world, or at least our part of it. And offhand, I can't think of a single mission we failed at; we won all our field battles, we removed corrupt or rebellious governors, we got taxes back the way they were supposed to be, any time we went out, we achieved our objective.

But we couldn't stop the imperial collapse. It just kept getting worse and worse because there were always 5 things that needed doing at once and we couldn't be everywhere at the same time.

And our GM did later admit there was nothing we could do to save the empire, yet we weren't railroaded, we had complete freedom to choose our missions, methods, and even personal goals, it's just that we hitched to one (with his encouragement) that was impossible.


That being said, most DMs aren't as clever as old Ian, and it usually isn't done well.

>>52173283
>Should the PCs always win? Or is it okay for them to sometimes lose, no matter how many nat 20s they roll?
Cool false dilemma bro. I think you meant "should the PCs always HAVE A CHANCE To win?"
Sometimes it may be truly impossible to change the outcome or even mitigate the losses (preferably as a consequence of PCs having made stupid choices in the past), but in that case you should skip forward so at least you aren't wasting everyone's time.

>>52173491
>Remember as long as the players can't tell, it's not a railroad

But that's wrong you fucking retard. Railroading is when the players have one and only one option to "progress", however you're defining progress, and whether or not they notice it is irrelevant to the picture.

>>52173283
Depends on the game
One of the best games I ever had started off with the DM reading a prophecy aloud, and then over the course of half a year and many sessions he manipulated us into making it came true even though it meant we'd lose.
It was awesome because it always felt as if we were in control even though we eventually lost and the world was ripped apart.

>>52173525
No i agree with him. If the players think that they have several options it doesn't matter.

>>52173566
Why does it matter if the players in fact do not have several options? If every road you take leads you to the Forest of Doom to be attacked by a trio of ogres and an ogre mage, then your choice as to which road you decided to go down doesn't mean a damn thing, whether or not the players ever realize that.

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>>52173491

I don't count putting the players in a situation where something outclasses them as railroading.

A good example is a "doomed planet" scenario, where the players have to escape a planet getting invaded by hostile aliens. This isn't railroading because you're not telling them exactly how they have to do it.

Railroading would be giving them a mission to make sure a particular scientist gets off the planet, then blowing up that scientist's shuttle or something without them having any real ability to do anything about it. It's pointless and ultimately contributes nothing.

>>52173491
>>52173566
May the stains of uncoastered drinks infest your body and soul for a thousand years.

>>52173525
It really is relevant
As long as they can't tell it's not railroading
For example
>have a villain that you don't want the party to kill
Now what a bad DM does is
>villain is literally untouchable and can't be hit even with a critical
The alternative is
>villain has so many HP he can brush it off
The first thing is cheap and makes the party mad, the second thing makes the party think they fucked up in attacking him
>>52173566
This
>quest giver says the magical sword could be in 3 locations
It's always gonna be in the 3rd one they go to no matter what
>>52173584
It's not like that
>so where do you want to go?
>nearest town
>ok
>as you head to the nearest town a trio of ogres and an ogre mage ambush you

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>>52173614

Anon, you just keep repeating the same assertions over and over again without demonstrating them. WHY is the player perception the relevant factor of railroading, and not the limitation to one course of action?

Let's run with that NPC that the Pcs aren't supposed to be able to kill. Say the DM puts in his notes that the guy is invulnerable, and no matter how hard the PCs hit him, he can shrug it off. The PCs attack him, can't hurt him, flee, cursing their own stupidity. That night, one of them wonders how close they were to finishing the fight, and breaks into the DM's home, steals his notes, and realizes that the guy was invulnerable.

Are you saying he only got railroaded then? Out of the game, in the middle of his burglary, when he realized the fight was impossible and the DM was cheating for HP? Because that's the implication of what you're saying, and it's kind of retarded.

>>52173649
>implying I wouldn't change my notes
>implying I have physical notes
>implying my pc isn't password protected
Bullshit aside
Because the illusion of choice is what's important
That's what "freedom" is in ttrpgs
You give players as many choices as they can imagine, while still making the plot go along

>>52173491
>should the PCs always win?
No
>so what you're telling me is there should be situations where the PCs CANT win
whatever you say you faggot. If you're too autistic to not deal in absolutes why would you bother asking the question in the first place?

>>52173743
>That's what "freedom" is in ttrpgs

No, some of us put ACTUAL freedom in ttrpgs, where the choices the players make are in fact meaningful. I realize this might be a difficult concept to grasp, but that seems to be your fundamental problem.

If you're presenting your game with illusory choices, they're just that, illusions, and your players are being railroaded whether or not they ever realize it.

As a total aside, you should probably never DM.

>>52173747
I'm not OP
>>52173778
But there are choices
What if the PCs ally themselves with the invincible villain? Now they don't have to flee and they found a way to win an unwinnale situation
Important choices are always respected, but the plot will happen regardless

I'm not sure if I'd call it railroading, but it sure as hell isn't good GMing. The PCs should always have a chance to accomplish something - maybe they can't save all the villagers, but they should be able to save some of them. Maybe they can't reach the escape shuttle in time, but there should still be SOME way of getting out of the exploding station alive, or at least accomplishing what they came to do at the station even if it ends in TPK. Maybe they can't KILL the BBEG, but they should be able to cripple him. Even in their darkest moment, the players should feel that they've accomplished SOMETHING unless their failure is genuinely THEIR fault, and doesn't happen solely because you decided to fuck with them.

And even then, if they manage to pull something you didn't take into account but should totally work and then roll well enough to justify it, they should win. It might end up with half or all of the party dead, but they still accomplished what they set out to do - the innocents are saved, the Death Star plans are transmitted to the rebels, the dying girl gets to the doctors in time to be saved.

>>52173743
>the plot

>>52173852
>the plot
That explains it. You're one of those authorial GMs who wishes they could write a book. Maybe try making a CRPG if having a world that can react to players doing something unexpected is beyond your abilities.

>>52173778
It really doesn't matter if you railroad or not. If the players are having fun, so be it. The point of DMing is to give players a good time. If giving them the illusion of choice in order to make them feel like their choice matters without sacrificing story coherency, then so be it. The screen is there for a reason. If your players aren't having fun because you're too autistic to not railroad them so you can brag about it in /tg/ then you're the bad DM.

>>52173778
The entire game is illusions, you're playing pretend. You are 100% at the DM's mercy as to whether you live or die.

Honestly I think RPGs aren't about playing a game where your choices matter, it's the exact opposite. You're playing a game where you can do whatever you want and the goal is to have fun. The DMs job is to facilitate fun by presenting equal and entertaining challenges. If your group rolls up a bunch of half-orc comments with all skill points in farming you could play for a year with scenarios about protecting your crops abouts surviving winter. It's not like a videogame where you can replay the same scenario over and over again to see what outcome each of your choices had. If the game the DM wants to run (and presumably you want to play) involves hunting down a cult whose temple is in the heart of Evildie Woods, you're going to find the temple at some point. Nothing is going to stop you from finding it unless you particularly enjoy wasting time with random number generation determining if your survival skill passes or not.

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>>52173283

Are our lives railroaded because we can't set up a colony on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri?

Does the answer change if there's a magical impassable forcefield around the solar system?

Does the answer change if we know that the forcefield exists?

Is there a difference between the freedom to do something and the ability to do it?

>>52173926
>You're playing a game where you can do whatever you want
>your choices don't matter
Pick one.

>>52173914

I've never said that railroading is essentially bad in every situation. If the players enjoy that kind of thing, and many do, go for it. But don't pretend you're not railroading.

>>52173926

>Honestly I think RPGs aren't about playing a game where your choices matter, it's the exact opposite

And that would be wrong and stupid. RPGs are, at their most basic, about making choices on the basis of incomplete or even inaccurate information, and trying to make the best of it. If your choices don't matter, you're literally not playing an RPG, you're just reading an interactive novel. Even in a bog-basic "Go there, kill monsters, take their treasure" game has choices, often very important tactical choices, good tactics tend to win, bad tactics tend to lose; and you can't separate out an "entertaining challenge" from the choices the players make to respond to it.

>>52173283
>Is it considered railroading to present your players with a situation that, no matter what they do, they fail?

Yes

>Or is it okay for them to sometimes lose, no matter how many nat 20s they roll?

Thats not the same thing as your premise, the players shouldnt be top dog. For a very long time there should be stuff that can curb stomp the PCs.

I once Dmed for a 7th level cleric who was new to the game and attacked out of the blue a neutral dragon. Having him at the dragons mercy wasnt railroading as hes not top dog and he dun fucked up.

Now if id made some intentional combat encounter with something of that power level at that PC level it would indeed be railroading.

Unwinnable combat can happen naturally due to PC action (Stupidity) and its not railroading imo.

>>52173904
No, I just think that a campaign needs an overarching story that's actually interesting and not just a series of
>go in this dungeon and kill those zombies
or
>go in this dungeon to pick up that necklace
>>52173855
I agree
If the party pulls something out of their ass and it works, congrats to them, they did the impossible
>>52173947
And especially this
>>52174004
Look, if I decide that no matter what, the party will end up in a goblin cave where a holy shield is, that doesn't force them to take, it doesn't force them to use it, it doesn't force them to keep it
They will find it, but then they can break it, leave it, use it or sell it, it's on them
If this is railroading then I don't care

>>52173952
>>52174004
Maybe saying your choices don't matter is the wrong way of phrasing it. In real life you're free to do whatever you want but you'll probably get arrested or killed if you go too far. In RPGs you are explicitly doing whatever you want but you're playing with the agreement between you and the DM that barring suicidal idiocy any choice you make will keep the game going.

>>52174074
>In RPGs you are explicitly doing whatever you want but you're playing with the agreement between you and the DM that barring suicidal idiocy any choice you make will keep the game going.
That doesn't mean it needs to keep going to the direction of the GM's choice.

>>52174061

Railroading used in extreme moderation and with talent and care can be ok. Many plot hooks have a moment of railroading in them.

Its when a campaign is nothing but that it can be a bit much and yea sometimes you have to just give the PCs the illusion of choice to save Dm sanity.

from complete PC freedom to railroading everything has a place its knowing that place and when how to use it.

>>52174115
Well you can always obviously dick around forever, but any meaningful progress will be the DM's choice

>>52174147
>Well you can always obviously dick around forever, but any meaningful progress will be the DM's choice
No, no it won't. A good GM won't have the plot set in stone, with only choices being "be railroaded" and "dick around doing nothing of importance"

>>52173283
They shouldn't always win, but there should always be an avenue for victory. If the Players fuck around and ignore the plot or fail their rolls consistently, they should fail

Ultimately though, we are playing a game and building a story. Taking away their ability to win is just railroading. I know I wouldn't play very long if I knew no matter what, my actions would always end in failure. Why play, if the DM just magically decides you fail.

>>52174074
>Maybe saying your choices don't matter is the wrong way of phrasing it. In real life you're free to do whatever you want but you'll probably get arrested or killed if you go too far. In RPGs you are explicitly doing whatever you want but you're playing with the agreement between you and the DM that barring suicidal idiocy any choice you make will keep the game going.

Yes, but that has nothing to do with railroading, which is what this entire thread is about. "The game continues going" is not what most people want when they're playing an RPG. The PCs have certain in character goals, and the players probably have other goals which might or might not be distinct from the PCs goals.

So in the previous post, yes, it is railroading if no matter what the party chooses, they end up in the cave with the holy shield. That's a choice that they conceivably could have made but you decided as DM to make it for them. You have not railroaded them with a decision as to how to react to that shield, they did have a choice and they can in fact make it.

And yes, not every choice will lead to explicit success of the PC/Player goals, but as long as you have choices, and they lead to different outcomes, you're not railroading. This, is a COMPLETELY SEPERATE issue as to whether or not they feel like they're being railroaded. That's why you get this disdain towards the quantum ogre phenomenon; because the DM offers the illusion of choice without actually offering choice, all choices secretly lead to the same outcome, so it doesn't actually matter what the players decided to do.

Furthermore, this does not mean choice has to be boundless; there are plenty of ideas theoretically possible in just about any setting that will lead to tremendously bad results or are outright impossible, and the DM should quash them, but again, that doesn't make him a railroader.

>>52174115
No but a good DM needs to hand out impassive consequences. They are the arbitrator of the world.

I think thats what the anon here>>52174074
is getting at.

You run into the local baracks at level 3 and yell fuck the police, the DM isnt railroading you by having them attack you, for example.

The world reacts to the PCs and sometimes that reaction is consequences and sometimes those consequences come from something beyond the PCs if thats how it is.

I'd say it depends on several factors.

Is the point of the game to experience unwinnable situations, like a horror game, or Paranoia?? Then it's fine. They players expect that to happen.

Is this unwinnable situation something the player actively sought out, like a guy who decides he wants to fight a God at a low level?? Or is it something that they should expect due to the consequences of their own actions, like a huge police hunt for the player who routinely commits arson in broad daylight?? It is fine in scenarios like that too because, again, if the player isn't an ass they should expect such a situation to occur.

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I think of railroading as a gm attempting to write a novel with the players as audience.
Setting up an adventure without a win possiblity does not necessarily constitute that.
But it can still be a douchy move if you didn't advertise it as such.

As the OP, I want to thank everyone for their replies. I've read each post, and want you thank you all for contributing your thoughts on the matter.

I feel the need to clarify something. As a GM, I've noticed that my players have started to expect things to always go their way. Most are lucky on their rolls, and as such they feel that anything they do they should always succeed at, mostly because their rolls are high.

I just wanted to teach them that, just because they roll high doesn't mean they auto-succeed. You have given me a lot to think about, and I'll be implementing some of the suggestions you guys have and will make.

>muh railroading!
>muh victory conditions!
Bull fucking shit.
The point of player agency is enacting change. THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT THEY CAN CHANGE OR SUCCEED AT EVERYTHING.
The thing is, sometimes no matter how hard you try, it is still not enough. I mean, sure, it's a dick move to run a game like that without warning your players beforehand, but the concept itself is solid. Just make sure to inform your players about the fact that some shit is literally unwinnable, and what matters is not the ending they've reached - but how they've reached it and who they helped or hurt along the way.

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>>52173283
>No win situations are a part of life

And that Picard, is why despite accomplishing so much, being such a great diplomat, a hero, a scholar, an officer -

You will always be second best.

>>52174856
And to add to this, if you want an example, imagine the following game: imagine a game set in an antiquity (Roman Empire/Greece), when the astronomers SUDDENLY find out that a meteor is on its way to the Earth and will reach it in a year.
What matters is not the fact whether you can stop the meteor - because you won't, but what you do during this year.

As always, do what is alright with your players and clearly communicate your intent when you want to run such a campaign.

Depends. If the characters outsmart your situation and find a way to win the unwinnable situation, and you STILL cockblock them, you are a fuck.

But if you just put something unfortunate in their way in which they have two choices neither of which lead to desirable outcomes, then I would say you are creating a good dilemma for them.

>>52174784
> pic

Moar?

>>52174934
>>52174856
Aye, and verisimilitude (am I using that word right?) is important too. There's a difference between "This guys invulnerable because that'll mess up the story's structure" and "This guys invulnerable because he's wearing armour forged by the one true god"

Though I guess the latter example is undermined by it giving the players more options. A guy can't wear armour all the time, and magic-invulnerability nearly always has a weak-spot or a prophecy-bullshit workaround.

Maybe a better example would be a greek myth-esque game, where no matter how hard you try you can't kill the Gods. End of discussion.
Even Immortals can only maim and imprison each other

>>52173414
This.

Allowing a players actions to bear heavier consequences gives each decision more meaning and generally makes for a richer, more impactful, game.

That said: some people just want to always win. Power fantasy is why they play.

So make sure you know your group well before making these decisions. Or don't. It's okay to make mistakes, even as a GM.

>>52174896
Don't forget, he's also playing as a literal pile of shit in the new emoji movie.

>>52173283
As long as there still is a believable cause and effect its probably not railroading. If they were not meant to win than that's that, they still should be able to affect their environment.

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>>52173283
>>52174952
>if they find a way to win and you still cockblock them, you are a fuck

This is vital.

As a DM, I had a giant snake monster that was impervious to slash/pierce weapons. From the outset of entering the caves, it killed their plate-wearing guide in a single snap. (Making the threat level apparent.) This is so they'd understand that in a direct encounter, they're absolutely fucked. Instead of running in like murderhobos and blaming me for "muh balance" when they die, they chose to leave the caves.

(at no hints of my own) They went into town, picked up explosive material, goat meat and a suit of armor. Party went back to the caves, set the trap, and blew up the snake's head when it snapped up their makeshift "adventurer".

They overcame an "impossible" situation by using resources that existed within the world.

I assumed they'd use some flanking attack, or try to get it stuck in the cave-network (since the snake was roughly the size of the tunnels, and could only move forward.) Their way was clever and would work, therefore it did.

If you want to be a giant pile of shit, try this out:
>fill the world with red herrings
>they all lead to the same dungeon
>decide that the party walks in without them explicitly choosing
>the doors lock and are indestructible
>the walls are indestructible too
>all teleportation is blocked
>the boss is practically invincible
>can't fight him. can't avoid fighting him
>can't talk your way out of it
>"it's your fault for not getting the macguffin when I said to."

>tl;dr
Every situation should be beatable.
Beatable does not equal obvious and/or easy.

>>52173362
>>52173384
I don't think it's that simple. If the course of action that is doomed to fail is the player's choice and there were in fact reasonable alternatives, then this isn't railroading in my view.

For example, the characters in Watchmen danced in the palm of Ozymandias, but there was always the possibility, right until the final moments, to foil his plan - it was just very hard to discover and maybe even irrational.

>>52173283
No. Not every goal is achievable, even if you do everything right. Part of wisdom and strategy is to recognize when the goal you have set can't be achieved and to adjust your goals and tactics to match reality.

If the player characters enter the evil vampire lord's castle in the day to try and kill him while he sleeps they should be ready to reassess that goal if they find he has a huge pack of werewolves to guard him in the day and a score of well armed human servants.

Saying you can't put them in a situation where they will fail is saying that their every goal and whim should be something they can do.

>>52174952
Image search got nothing but ruski-chan threads and none of them give source either

>>52173283
Well it's a dick move regardless of whether it's railroading. Making a boss they aren't SUPPOSED to beat is one thing, but if you're cheesing things so that some far-out strategy the players come up with to succeed, changing the parameters of your encounter or situation to negate that, then you're a dick and probably a bad DM (I say probably because good and bad are subjective and some might enjoy their DM being an asshole).

I suppose it may not be railroading if there are multiple actions the player can take and only the one they want is doomed to fail. If they're fighting the big bad and have the option to run away like cowards to do something else, then I guess that's technically not railroading, though again you're a dick. If the players choose to run away from the encounter you're cheesing to be unbeatable and then you say "there's a magical forcefield that prevents you from doing so, guess you have to fight the unbeatable boss!" then that's both being a dick and railroading.

>>52176244
>Every situation should be beatable.
Just because a situation is "beatable" doesn't mean the PLAYERS can do it.

>>52173283
It depends on this:
If "fail" results in the same consequences no matter what, then it's railroading
If there are, however, a variety of ways to fail with a variety of different consequences, then no, because what they did still mattered, even if they didn't achieve their goal.

>>52174952
>Moar?
Moar in the same theme, or source? I can offer the former.

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>>52173362

>>52176333

Of course obfuscation isn't the same railroading. But that's not what OP is talking about.

OP is talking about deliberately making victory impossible.
>The innocents still suffer, the BBEG still escapes, the escape shuttle still blows up, etc etc.
Often necessitates changing die rolls or stats mid-fight. Or outright lying about opponent die rolls.

Now this CAN work, and work well. But let's not pretend it isn't railroading.

This topic reminds me of a story from the "Bad GM" thread a day or two ago.

>Long story short the GM wanted the players to be trapped in an inescapable situation (a cave in) only to be rescued at the last second by some NPC.

>One of the players recalled that the cave was described as earthen (packed earth) and decided to have a caster shrink his party members. They all used some cheap alchemical items to get a minute or so of air, climbed into his bag of holding, then he tried to use his burrow speed to tunnel out.

>The GM just changed the walls to stone to shut down the plan.

The point here being that the GM came up with what he thought was an unwinable situation, only for his players to find a solution he hadn't considered.

It's debatable whether or not an unwinable situation is railroading or not, but it's undeniable that pulling shit from ones ass to keep it unwinable is railroading. If the players find a way to beat the unbeatable, they deserve victory.

>>52173649
Because the truth is never important when it's about having fun. Perception is.
I mean, I guess it's still railroading, but if the players never realize it, it's fun for them anyway, making the distinction pointless.

>>52174896

We can't all change the scenario's parameters to pull a win condition out of our butts, cheater.

>>52178041
This.
It's true about a lot of things when dealing with people. The truth matters far less than what they think is true, even if what they think is objectively false.

>>52174188
Anything that happens in the game happens because the DM says so, though.

>>52177849
>If the players find a way to beat the unbeatable, they deserve victory.

Not when it's a cheap exploit or a misinterpretation of the rules / setting.

Sorry to break it to you, Millennial, but your ideas *can* be invalidated. I'll give you some time in your safe space to come to terms with that.

>>52177443
The former, yes. Post links or upload to imgur or something and I'll check this post later (bookmarked). Thanks in advance anon.

>>52179480
It's called thinking outside the box, but I wouldn't expect someone like you to have that level of creativity.

>>52173491
If they did everything a reasonable person could be expected to do, and you still make it impossible for them to win, then that's railroading or at least being excessively harshed. I've read something similar in regards to the old text-based computer adventure games, basically some games were unwinnable unless you had experience from earlier games or from reading the documentation, i.e. there's a hidden flame trap that will roast you alive unless you're wearing a fireproof suit, and the fireproof suit is hidden in the attic of some building on the other side of the game world, and there's nothing in-game to inform the player beforehand that there's a flame trap, OR that there's a fireproof suit somewhere in the game. On the other hand, some of the later adventure games tried to get away from this, as it caused frustration and broke immersion (as the documentation and knowledge from past plays of the game wouldn't be available to the character), instead basically saying "you can die in this game, but only if you're careless and ignore the obvious signs of danger."

That's basically how GMs should run their game, unless of course their whole point of the campaign is to instill a sense of hopelessness and despair. There's nothing wrong with having a player die if they jump out the airlock without a spacesuit, but you generally shouldn't kill them without warning if they're taking a reasonably cautious course of action.

>>52173283
>ace all their rolls, land every hit in combat and deal a good amount of damage per turn,

If this is how you think all situations should be handled in a game then you're already a shit DM with shit players so it doesn't matter if you're also railroading.

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>>52180115
You have to go back.

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>>52173283
>Is it considered railroading to present your players with a situation that, no matter what they do, they fail?
Technically it can't be because if they're getting nowhere they aren't on rails.

But your players have to have a lot of respect for you as a GM to go along with a situation like that.

>>52180328
But reading the documentation should be fundamental to play. That's like arguing that not reading the rules is OK because a PC wouldn't know his special action options since they're an OOC conceit.
Sure, there's plenty of older games where "FUCK YOU MEMORIZED THE HINTS IN THE MANUAL? NO? GAME OVER!" was an issue but also just as many where setting information and other IC information was presented in the feelies or manual and not reading it was just kneecapping yourself.

Some situations are impossible for a reasonable person to overcome, and I've had my players get into "TPK in two sessions" situations because they botched something important or fucked up hardcore. My group likes being held accountable for their actions.

GM's should run their games however works well for them and their players. Some folks like battling uphill odds for minor victories in the face of impending doom. Some folks can't handle failing at all and are just playing for the fun of killing goblins and demons. Some folks just want to play a character, and want to fail if their character would fail.

>>52179480
>Not when it's a cheap exploit or a misinterpretation of the rules / setting.
What's your criteria for that? Because in that example, the players had come up with a solution that should've worked by the GM decided to change the nature of the cave just to prevent them from beating the challenge in the "wrong way."

>>52179480
Honestly man it just sounds like you're mad someone didn't do a thing in the exact way you wanted them to. We're you the DM from that story?

>>52173283
Yes, but that doesn't mean it's going to be a bad adventure or encounter. For example, last week I ran a one-shot sci-fi adventure about five mercs on a remote base who discover a hidden laboratory outpost a few clicks away. Unfortunately for them the Black Ops cleanup crew is already coming so even if they survive the hordes of bio-weapons trying to claw their faces off they're going to get shot, or if they persist, bombed until there's nothing left of them but paste.

The adventure was never about surviving, it was about the PCs trying to (1) figure out what was going on and (2) survive for as long as possible. This is because the data they discovered was recovered by the Black Ops team... which is composed of their REAL characters for the campaign. They weren't playing heroes, they were the Redshirts that die mostly off-screen but manage to get the message out to the real heroes. Or, in this case, the amoral black ops team that's here to actually WIN the scenario.

What's important is that the actions of the PCs DID matter! Their efforts led to rewards that would persist into the rest of the adventure for their future characters. I also gave additional XP to characters that discovered important clues or that survived longer than the others.

Basically, I think there's a fine difference between a no-win scenario and a waste of time. Even if you can't win, there should always be something you can do to make all that time and effort mean something. Remember, even in the Kobayashi Maru test there are varying degrees of success and failure. Scotty took out an entire Klingon fleet, not victory but enough to ensure the Federation would win a war with the Klingons if one was sparked that day. Peter Kirk challenges the enemy commander to a duel to the death, sacrificing himself to save the Maru. Heck, Calhoun just blew up the Maru because he thought it was either (a) a trap or (b) more merciful to kill them than let them be tortured by the Klingons.

>>52180507

Not him, but I'd break it up into one of two things

A) Rules exploits; stuff that either isn't in the rules or is based on "Creative interpretations" of the rule.

A guy I was in a game with about a week ago tried to make an ogre ranger who would train his sheep to run around him in a circle on signal. Why, do you ask? Because he had both cleave and combat reflexes, and wanted to milk it for attacks of opportunity to get a bunch of cleave attacks against whatever he was fighting.

I told him that your own fucking trained sheep do not constitute a threat and cannot provoke AoOs, and he got super mad at me. That's a cheap exploit or a misinterpretation of the rules.

B) Setting exploits. This one's a bit more of a grey area as to what constitutes it or doesn't, but you can still usually know it when you see it; they're based on perverting the internal logic of the setting instead of the rules of the game you're playing.

So while I've never played a game in it or think it would be a good setting for a game, imagine you have a Thomas Covenant based RPG. It's a well known in-setting principle that possession is Evil with a capital E, and that no justification for it, no matter how good a reason you had to do it, is kosher, and doing so will feed the evil entities. A player insisting that THIS time he really needed to possess someone because he had some sort of pure motive for the possessed and such can work around the rule and shouldn't count would count.

>>52180620
Okay, none of that was seen in the example though.

The GM described the cave as "earthen," the players worked together to utilize a character's ability to travel through earth, the GM backpedaled and made the cave out of stone instead.

No exploits to be found, just a shit DM who didn't like that the party was autonomous and capable of saving themselves without his DMPC's help.

>>52180667

1) I didn't post>>52179480

2) I'm pretty sure he's not reacting to the story, but to the blanket statement of

>If the players find a way to beat the unbeatable, they deserve victory.


Which is after all what he quoted. Just because a player comes up with an idea to "beat the unbeatable" doesn't mean it necessarily should be validated. It should be validated if it fits with the internal logic of the game and setting, not at all times. In the case where the DM is retconning the material of the walls, that wouldn't fit, but there are lots of cases where it would.

>>52180707
Given that the "beat the unbeatable" line was presented alongside an example of players creatively solving a problem without exploiting or misinterpreting the rules, I'd argue that the line in question is referring to situations where the PCs solve their problems in strange, yet legal, ways.

The line itself could potentially be rewritten for clarity, but in any case people like >>52179480 shouldn't be quoting it out of context. In context it seems to imply that valid solutions the GM didn't expect should still work, that they shouldn't fail due to GM fiat.

>>52176893
So are we supposed to stand there and let your DMPC do it?

>>52175035
Versimilitude is mainly used by 3.pf players to try and justify why their wizard PC should solo encounters while the monk player can't keep up.

>>52181056
No, it's mainly used by the devs to justify that same issue.

>>52181056
I mean it in the sense that it makes sense within the setting.
Say, take Traveller. A Marine in full battle dress is nigh-invulnerable to 21st century small-arms fire.
However, if a player were to don the same battle dress, they'd have the same protection.

>>52173283
>Is it considered railroading to present your players with a situation that, no matter what they do, they fail?


Uh, yes? That's sort of a textbook case of railroading.
Whether it's bad or not it is is up for interpretation.

>>52179480

There's a big difference between shutting something down because it doesn't work with the rules and shutting something down because the players thought of something that is 100% rules legal the GM did not. It sounds to me like the whiner in that scenario who insists "I don't like the solution you came up with so it fails" is the one that is hiding from new ideas. A big part of being a GM is learning how differently your friends process information and rules than you do. A solution that seems obvious or impossible to you might not be so to the people you're playing with, but I personally think it's a good thing when a player comes up with a solution I didn't think of for a puzzle because it means I don't need to leave breadcrumbs on railroad tracks to get them where they need to go.

>asking /tg/ questions about RPG's/DM'ing
You done fucked up, OP. Most of /tg/ doesn't play or has never played. These threads are always majority delusional morons that think every DM is an improvisational genius and that any amount of planning or plotting by the DM is complete railroading and therefore shit.

>>52183265
A good GM plans ahead, but can improvise when the players start throwing curve balls.

A bad GM plans ahead and denies any action that doesn't fit his plan.

>>52182412
Nah dude, the textbook case of railroading is that you are in a situation where

>Action X succeeds
>All actions other than X fail, even when there's no internally consistent reason why they should.

>>52173283
That depends on what flavor your group likes in their games. The issue is less about success or failure and more about your player's ability to affect the outcome. It's one thing to have your players win a battle but lose the war, and another entirely to have them sitting around with their thumbs up their ass while you make some untouchable villain ramble on.

>>52176893
>just because a situation is beatable doesn't mean the players can do it
Maybe not at their current level, or with their current strategy

but if that's not your point, then what the fuck are the players there for?
>look at this cool monster i made
>it kills you because it's invincible and you can't outrun it
>wow i'm so cool

>>52185668
Your question has been answered multiple times in the thread

>>52173283
>Is it considered railroading to present your players with a situation that, no matter what they do, they fail?
Yes.

>Should the PCs always win?
No.

>is it okay for them to sometimes lose, no matter how many nat 20s they roll?
No.

It is fine to occasionally create no-win scenarios. Generally, you want the failure they experience to not be character-ending or game-ending, but to serve a dramatic purpose. If it serves the story and enhances the overall experience, than it's fine to railroad your players and put them into no-win scenarios.

However, this only works if they don't KNOW you are putting them into situations with only one possible outcome. Players should always feel as though they have a high to moderate chance of success unless the rolls go against them. Even if the fight is unwinable or unlosable, they should still think the odds are at least 50-50.

And, if they do the unexpected and somehow WIN the no-win scenario, you should give it to them. Partly because it's only fair, and partly because if you don't you will break their immersion, and they will realize that there are situations where their actions don't matter, which makes the game less enjoyable.

>>52187982
I personally think you should amend your first statement to: yes, but not if the players dug the hole themselves, as in, they wrote themselves into a corner with no way out. in that situation, it's not railroading, its letting them fall victim to their own idiocy.

>>52174896
The fact of the matter is that while setting the parameters is always preferable it's not always possible, and even in those situations where there IS no good decision a leader still has to make A decision.

Kirk missed the point of the exercise and was rewarded for an arrogant 'solution'.

>>52173283
In my opinion, the GM should always give the players the chance of surviving a very difficult and deadly encounter and should reward a clever player who comes up with a good plan to deal with a difficult encounter.

Not giving them a chance to react or do anything against their current predicament is more often than not a sign of bad GMing, in my opinion.

>>52183410
Plans can break down. You cannot plan the future. Presumptuous fools plan. The wise man steers.

-Terry Pratchett

>>52173283
Well, it depends

Facing them with an overwhelming army that leaves them no option but either a fight to the death or a hasty retreat isn't railroading IF there's a logical reason for that army to be there.

>>52173283
It's absolutely railroading, and it's the worst kind of railroading. You should never present your players with a challenge they can't overcome, or an objective they can't complete.

Of course, it's fine to move to a no-win scenario if you present them with a challenge they can overcome and they choose a strategy that can't possibly overcome it. Or if they fail to overcome the challenge. Or if they choose an objective they can't possibly complete. But in all cases, that needs to be their choice, and you should at least point them in the right direction if they're insisting on doing something that won't work, and give them chances to cut their losses or go for a lesser objective if they've failed.

Remember, roleplaying GAME. People always forget the third letter in that acronym.

>>52174064
>, I just think that a campaign needs an overarching story that's actually interesting and not just a series of dungeons
Holy shit you can have a game where you give the players meaningful choices without lying to them AND have an overarching plot.

You can have the players learn the crystal shield is needed to defend against the flames of the evil dragon owned by the overlord.

The players are still going to likely go and fight the overlord, or die when the overlord takes over each continent in turn.

Story trumps player wank anyday. Sometimes you take off plot armor to let the players know you haven't given them god mode.

However, if I have forgotten something, or the players outsmart me and my plan, I give it to them. They earned it. Example:
>you are surrounded by 15 guards with spears. The 4 of you can fight and almost certainly die, or go quietly
>"well we are on the grate above the aquaduct. Wizard, can you just toss those polymorph to slime potions we got 10 sessions back on us and let us float down stream???"

A bad GM would say "uh, guards hit your hands and you cant.". A good GM would say "if your hands are deft enough to pull it off before your restrained, then let's roll this out." You live with the result.
If your precious railroad can't survive a track switch, then your not a good GM.

>>52173283
Imagine if this was a thing in a boardgame, or a wargame. Would you like it then?

>>52188898
>If your precious railroad can't survive a track switch, then your not a good GM.
Truth!!

>>52187982
>>is it okay for them to sometimes lose, no matter how many nat 20s they roll?
>No
And you're wrong - If their aim is to stop the BBEG and they spend 20 turns attacking the cliff wall that the BBEG made his illusory self run through I'm not going to let the players win no matter how many nat 20s they roll.

If they get a Nat 20 on perception and STILL chooses to attack the illusion, they'll fail.

>>52173283
Depends on your group and the game really. This is kind of par for the course in CoC, and can be expected in Shadowrun if you make the wrong enemies.

However, in heroic fantasy games, it'd be purest bullshit, and worth being kicked from your group.

>>52188898
I'm basically the same.
I'm only there to create challenges for the party to overcome.

I am only a new GM running my first campaign, but I've realized throwing things that are dangerous at my party is the best way for me to learn their shit, for them to feel threatened and joyous when they win.

I've had my group high fiving each other and cheering after winning one fight.
Some of them comment as if they've outdone me, but secretely I am happy they're having so much fun.

All of the bits of my campaign I remember with a smile are the moments when my contrived plan went out of the window and my group was left with big smug grins on their faces.

I throw things at them that can easily kill them in a few rounds but these things always have a flaw or weakness to be discovered and exploited.

Imo it depends, like I did an Only War campaign once where after one or two relatively easy missions what had previously been their commanding officer turned out to be a cultist of Tzeentch who totally fucked them over.

Everyone really enjoyed that, even though several of their NPC allies died and they were moved to a Penal regiment because they all felt like they had a more personal stake in seeing the villain killed than usual.

tl;dr read your party, only do it if serves a greater purpose than humbling them.