T w e n t y S i d e d

In my Derailers post Purple Library Guy has this to say:

He’s right. That’s where a lot of this went sour. A lot of people took the “railroading” very seriously and personally. I sort of expected it to be taken in a spirit of fun – I manage to advocate all sorts of outragous stuff at the end of each DMotR comic without people getting all worked up. I realize the post wasn’t attached to a comic, but I thought some people would understand that I was being a little hyperbolic on purpose. I could have titled the post The Case for Guiding the Direction of a Roleplaying Campaign with Deference to Unspoken Social Contract in Order to Facilitate a More Entertaining Gaming Experience” but for whatever crazy reason I just thought that the “railroading” one was more appealing.

Anyway, what should have been a fun discussion between people who all like the same hobby but have different play styles turned into an angry debate. Next time I’m not going to be so tolerant when people storm in here and start a freakin’ fight. I should have reigned reined this one in sooner. There are lots of places where you can flame people over how they choose to enjoy their hobby, and I don’t want this to be that sort of place. To wit: Think twice before you come in here and call me a liar. I enjoy discussion. I have no time for babysitting the crazy people of the internet.

Thanks to everyone who joined in and put up with the huffing and puffing.

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

Once I’d gotten around to clarifying my point, yesterday’s discussion on railroading yielded a lot of interesting comments and suggestions. A few people copped out and refused to consider the hyothetical situation presented with reasons why the DM shouldn’t ever BE in such a spot or how they would avoid the situation by having the bad guy escape. This is why they are called hypothetical situations. Sheesh. The point wasn’t to argue about game mechanics or playing styles, or the appropriate strength for the antagonist in a game, but to illustrate a situation where altering the unknown portions of the gameworld was preferable to letting the story run into the ground or lose momentum

A few other people joined in with posts at their own blogs: Catalyst had interesting things to say. Big City, Bright Lights jumped in with some interesting thoughts which were diminished by stooping to petty insults.

Also, while not directly a response to my post, this post at New Media Matters has a lot of related thoughts on the subject. (Also, NMM looks like a brand-new blog, and there are already a lot of great posts there.)

A couple of people took reflexive and almost irrational offsense at my suggestion, and some were even insulting. You’d think I was barging in and telling them how to run their game or something. I have bite marks all over my ankles now.

However, many people took the time to form an interesting answer and proposed a few other ways of dealing with events that threaten to take the excitement out of the plot of the game. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Derailers”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.