We return now to the annals of the State Commission on Proper GMing, which as you all know interprets, creates and enforces the laws against GMs who commit serious crimes. My last post, which excerpted from the training materials on railroading, provoked quite a bit of good discussion, which is what it was meant to do. Now, though, we turn to the messy business of caselaw and re-interpretation of a particularized definition of railroading adopted by and then re-interpreted by the State Commission.
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| Karl Llewelyn could never |
Specifically, we now turn to talking about the definition of railroading adopted by the Commission in 20X6...
1. Definition.
A GM commits the crime of "Railroading" when they take an action which violates an explicitly- or implicitly agreed-upon freedom of the players. [1]
A. An agreement by a player to play a game that contains a particular designer instruction or mechanic is an agreement for the GM to utilize that mechanic or follow that instruction. [2]
B. Failing to take an action, even if agreed-upon or directed by the text, is not railroading.
Commentary by the Rules Committee
[1] The purpose of this definition is to emphasize the deception that railroading reveals. The players thought that they had freedom to do a particular thing, as a result of the written text of the game, statements by the GM, previous actions, and so on. There might be an implied agreement that the players may take their characters where they please, but actually the GM will use fictional force to take them where the GM wants. There might be an implied agreement that the GM will not alter their prep based on the luck or skill of the players, but actually the GM will use fictional force to make an outcome or process the way the GM wants it to be. There might be other types of implied or even explicit agreements or expectations that are violated by railroading. In this definition, the railroading actually reveals a prior deception, a violated promise to follow an implied agreement, a failure of expectation.
[2] This exception exists to protect GMs against false accusations of railroading by players who simply didn't read the rules or didn't pay attention when they were being taught the rules. Such players may feel railroaded, as they brought in implicit expectations of freedom from other experiences, but they have not in fact been railroaded and a GM who violates that ungrounded expectation shall be acquitted.
The Quantum Ogre Cases
An immediate turmoil came about under this definition as GMs who had been accused of quantum ogre crimes (broadly defined by one commentator as "moving prepared D&D encounters to where the player characters are") brought a variety of defenses under subsection 1(A), citing to the rules of D&D which say that the GM can place encounters where they wish.
The D&D Rules Cyclopedia, p. 91, for example, excerpted here.
The Important Note, they argue, permits the GM to pre-arrange encounters during a fictional time period, irrespective of fictional geographic location.
Players who agree to play D&D, therefore, can't have the expectation that any particular monster will be encountered in any particular place. (And the GM has the power to place a monster specifically any time they wish within the two-turn window described for encounters.) Therefore, even if it's improper in some other way, or even a bad idea, subsection 1(A) directs their acquittal.
Even more significant statements were found in places like the AD&D First Edition DMG ("never give a sucker an even break"), the AD&D Second Edition DMG and its discussion of Keys and Triggers for encounters, and so on.
Universally, GMs said they never explicitly promised not to alter their decisions from prep to table, and urged that the texts of these games urged them not to commit to such an inflexible approach.
Players pressing charges, prosecutors and auditors responded, broadly, by indicating that the 1(A) exception cannot be meant as an invitation for the accused to rummage through a rulebook looking for an escape hatch. Yes, the "Important Note" does give the GM great leeway. But if, taken as a whole, the game as experienced by the players (including statements by the GM and previous play) has led players to believe their choices in traversing a map matter, then it's deception if the GM reveals that they don't actually matter by moving an encounter to their position. And of course, why would players read the DM's Guides of any D&D game?
The replies were equally forceful. Railroading is a serious charge! Everyone hates it, the loathing for it is universal. If players are actually aggrieved greatly by railroading, as the universality of the hatred it engenders indicates they are, isn't there some responsibility on the part of players to actively take steps to learn how GM decisions are actually made in the game they're agreeing to play? Isn't that, ultimately, what the exception in 1(A) is about? A player can't cover their ears and then complain they didn't hear when the GM told them what was going to happen. And if we're all here to play D&D shouldn't people know that D&D lets GMs place monsters where they please? Before a player can say they have grounds to bring such a serious charge as railroading, which could result in being dragged on social media, having cruel YouTube videos made about them, etc., don't they have some kind of obligation to understand the game they've supposedly been duped into playing?
While these cases are of interest, I list them here primarily to give some idea of a typical sort of litigation which was conducted before the State Commission after the adoption of this definition. GMs tended to bring designer statements emphasizing their discretion as a defense, complainants tended to have more generalized arguments, that the experience as a whole had promoted a deceptive idea. The Commission then judged the evidence and issued its opinion. (Appeals from the Commission's decisions went - and of course still go - first to the Court of Appeals, then to the Supreme Court.)
The Dragonlance Case
Of course the State Commission is not exempt from activist litigation. It is from this category that we find the astonishing Dragonlance Case, one of the most controversial of the era of this definition.
Undisputed Facts
The accused in the case, Dungeon Master Erin M., offered to her group to run the classic Dragonlance series of modules. The players knew, broadly, the rules of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and had some concept of the world of Dragonlance. They didn't really have a conversation about Dragonlance specifically before the game began.
Ms. M. diligently followed the module instructions of Dragonlance, perhaps, it was later theorized, in preparation for this litigation.
The party proceeded through the first parts of the first module, Dragons of Despair, without much trouble. However, instead of proceeding to return to Solace as the dragon armies swept across Krynn, the party decided to double back and attempt to penetrate the armies of the dragons in order to obtain information about the crystal staff they were seeking.
Encounter key 43 in Dragons of Despair indicates that if the party attempts this they encounter 1d10+10 Baaz every game hour. "The number", says the book, "is unlimited."
The party managed to survive the first encounter with the Baaz but was killed by the second, and the campaign ended.
An auditor making a random check of campaigns conducted by registered and certified GMs in the state discovered the matter and after interviewing the players, brought charges of railroading against Ms. M.
The Defense
Believe it or not, this was not the first case brought to the Commission by a GM disputing charges of railroading in Dragonlance. Most relied on a reputational defense. "Everyone knows" the original Dragonlance series explicitly directed the GM to use force to keep the "story" on track ("story" is used directly in the text of Dragons of Despair as a motivation for GMs to do this.) Therefore, if everyone knows Dragonlance authorizes the use of various methods of GM force (excessive monsters, enforced captures, kidnappings, etc.), the argument goes, nobody can truly be "deceived" into thinking that their games will be free from such coercions in the event the party goes off the rails. Sometimes this did lead to acquittals, in circumstances where players were forced to admit that they knew what they were getting into. But the Commission was firm that if even one player wasn't (for example) on Twitter and didn't really participate in broader RPG discussions, and therefore approached Dragonlance in a spirit of innocence, that deceiving them could form the basis for a finding of railroading. Few groups lacked even one such participant.
Instead of this approach, Ms. M's court-appointed lawyer, Mr. Bartolino, attempted a different tack - that, from the perspective of an AD&D player, Dragonlance's GM "force" in the form of overwhelming monsters was not force at all, that Dragonlance's supposed reputation for "railroading" had no basis, that the play of a Dragonlance game in which a total party kill occurred from going "off the rails" was simply a valid and textually correct way to play AD&D.
The following transcripts may be of use.
Testimony of C.L., player
Mr. Bartolino: Ms. L, you testified in response to the prosecutor's question that you were familiar with the rules of AD&D, is that correct?
Ms. L: Yes, I'd played it a few times before with different DMs.
Q: Read the rules carefully? Knew them well?
A: It's a complicated game with lots of sort of tangled text. I wouldn't say I was an expert.
Q: If we gave you a quiz on the rules, but didn't let you look in the book, what would you estimate your grade to be, today?
A: Today? Probably a C.
Q: And if we let you use the book?
A: I got pretty familiar with the book when we were arguing over this. I'd say a B plus or an A.
Q: I think that's pretty typical for players with your background and experience. You understand that a great deal of the issue in today's case is what your expectations were for this game, don't you?
A: I think so.
Q: You testified you entered into the campaign with a general understanding of what an AD&D campaign would be, didn't you?
A: I think the answer's yes. I'd say yes.
Q: You testified the fact that it was a Dragonlance campaign didn't really enter into your expectations. You were just going to play some AD&D. Correct?
A: Oh yes. That's correct. I'd sort of heard of Dragonlance but nothing really specific.
Q: Now I'm going to ask you about your expectations for an AD&D campaign generally, all right? First, when you play in an AD&D campaign, do you have an expectation that every character will survive to the end?
A: No.
Q: In fact, your expectation of AD&D campaigns includes the possibility of what is often termed a "total party kill", in which every player character is killed in a dreadful battle. Correct?
A: Yes, that's right.
Q: You might be disappointed at the outcome or even surprised but you wouldn't consider it a violation of your expectations?
A: I'm not sure I follow.
Q: It doesn't happen all the time, but you know going in that it can happen, correct?
A: Correct.
Q: What are the circumstances in which you would expect a AD&D game to end in a total party kill?
A: Well, usually it's because you tangle with a group of foes that's too powerful. My experience is that a single foe, even a quite powerful one, in AD&D, rarely kills the whole party because of the turn order and the rarity of multiple attacks. Someone is usually able to run away even if the party can't beat the monster.
Q: You mention a 'large number of foes.' Even relatively weak foes like goblins or bandits might be dangerous in large numbers?
A: Yes. Well, it depends on the level of the party. Usually one or two big groups of monsters can be handled by wizards, with area of effect spells. But in AD&D that runs out pretty fast and if you're in the wrong environment it can be disastrous.
Q: Would you classify the Baaz in Dragonlance as weak foes?
A: Somewhat. They're meant to be used in large numbers so they're individually not too strong. They're not as weak as kobolds or goblins. I would put them on par with orcs. They can be dangerous in groups or in the wrong place.
Q: By the time you reached Encounter key 43, you had come across several Baaz. That's what you base that opinion on?
A: Yes.
Q: Not only the characters, but the players also knew, by the time they reached Encounter key 43, that the Baaz were about as dangerous as orcs. Correct?
A: Correct.
Q: Were there anything about Baaz that made them more dangerous in numbers than orcs?
A: I'm not sure.
Q: Well, what happens when a party member kills a Baaz with a melee weapon?
A: Oh, that's right. The Baaz turns to stone and there's a percentage chance that the melee weapon will be trapped in the stone of the statue for several rounds.
Q: How would that affect the party's chances in a fight with a large number of Baaz?
A: I see what you're getting at. Yes, the fighter can't really intercept the next Baaz if they're still trying to pull their sword out of the first one.
Q: A large number of Baaz is more likely to trap the melee fighters' weapons at least once, correct?
A: Correct.
Q: And if they do, even once, the larger numbers of Baaz are more likely to be able to move towards the more vulnerable party members?
A: That's actually what happened in our last fight. I mean yes.
Q: Now...this ability of the Baaz, turning to stone when they die. That's simply a unique monster trait. Lots of those traits across AD&D monsters, correct?
A: Umm...not sure I follow.
Q: You might have been surprised when Erin said 'the dying Baaz turns to stone', but it's just a feature of the Baaz like any other monster feature. Correct?
A: Right. Correct.
Q: What I'm getting at is, in the previous encounters with the Baaz, before Encounter key 43, you didn't think "Hold on, these things are too dangerous" and worry that Erin might be doing something improper?
A: No. They seemed like normal monsters.
Q: And you faced an army of Baaz - and more powerful monsters - invading this part of Krynn. You knew that by the time the party hatched the plan to try to infiltrate their lines.
A: Yes.
Q: According to the registered record of the campaign, the party killed a total of 26 Baaz before the last party member fell in Encounter 43. Does that fit with your memory?
A: Yes, that sounds right.
Q: I want you to think back to before you went to Encounter 43. You've fought Baaz before. If I told you "the next encounter will be 12 Baaz and the encounter after that will be 14 Baaz", would you expect the party to survive those encounters, or to fall?
Ms. Williams, prosecutor: Objection, speculation.
Commissioner Z: Sustained.
Mr. Bartolino: Did you think that the army of Baaz ravaging Krynn was larger or smaller than 26 Baaz?
Ms. Williams: Objection, relevance.
Commissioner Z: Sustained.
Mr. Bartolino: Is there an expectation in the normal play of AD&D that a party of your level will be able to handle an entire army of invading orcs?
Ms. Williams: Objection, relevance. Speculation.
Commissioner Z: I'll allow it. You may answer, if you can.
Ms. L: I don't know that I understand. What do you mean by 'handle'?
Mr. Bartolino: I'll ask the question another way. Your party was a typical AD&D party, correct?
Ms. L: More or less. Erin said something about there being no clerics but by the time we got to the end we had one.
Q: Any rangers?
A: One. Riverwind.
Q: Thieves?
A: One. A kender, Tasslehoff Burfoot.
Q: Invisibility spells?
A: Raistlin picked stinking cloud for his second level spell, not invisibility.
Q: No pass without trace?
A: We could have had Goldmoon cast that but we needed those spells for healing. Anyway, our party was too large and we had to cover too much ground for pass without trace to be feasible. It only lasts a few turns.
Q: What I'm trying to get at is, you weren't really outfitted either in skill or equipment for an extensive overland campaign in the hostile territory held by an army, were you?
A: We thought we could at least make a raid to find out more information.
Q: I'd like an answer to my question. You weren't outfitted for a counterattack on an army of Baaz, let alone an army of Baaz headed by more powerful creatures, were you?
A: No.
Redirect testimony elicited by Ms. Williams
Ms. Williams: The party didn't fight all 26 Baaz at once, did they?
Ms. L.: No. We fought 15 in the first encounter.
Q: How did that go?
A: Badly. Actually we had to fight a smaller guard encampment to even get into their territory, I think that was a separate encounter. [Technically a small Baaz encampment is actually the first part of Encounter 43; before the "endless" number of Baaz patrols that find the party once per hour. - Ed.] We managed to avoid one patrol and proceeded further in, searching for any kind of larger encampment or command post. We then got caught by a patrol of 15 Baaz. I saw Erin roll for how many there were. The wizard still had some area of effect spells so we did all right. We killed several, badly wounded several more, and drove off the rest.
Q: What did the party decide then?
A: We had captured one Baaz but he was a fanatic and didn't respond to our questions. After wandering around in the area we had no idea where to go. That's when [player A.F.] pointed out that we had seen flying enemies throughout this territory. It made sense that the more powerful draconic monsters, the ones in charge, had access to flight and could be anywhere in the region, so the intel we wanted might be extremely hard to find. The party decided to back off and head back to Solace.
Q: Did Erin let you get back to Solace?
Mr. Bartolino: Objection, leading, calls for a legal conclusion.
Commissioner Z: Sustained.
Ms. Williams: What happened after the party decided to withdraw from the area?
Ms. L: We made for Solace as quickly as we could. But we didn't make it out of the area in time. We ran into another patrol. This one had 11 Baaz in it, including some of the survivors of the first battle. If we'd been at full strength, we might have made it. But we were out of spells, low on hit points, out of healing, there was no safe place to rest, and were running out of magic items. Our front line fighters got a couple of bad rolls and both got their weapons stuck in the first Baaz they killed. That was that. We went down.
Q: How did you feel?
A: It sucked. We were all really down. We had thought we might be able to find out something. It was a creative way to try to get ahead of the army at least in terms of intel. But we just got obliterated, lost the campaign and achieved nothing. There should have been something for us to do other than run away, you know? In Dragonlance a lot of the characters are literally chosen, we thought, by gods. Couldn't they have looked out for us a little more? There's lots of things Erin could have done to help the game out and she just killed us instead, all because we had a creative idea about doubling back on the bad guys, trying to find out more about them.
The Commission's Decision
The Commission's decision was against Erin M. The Commission determined that Ms. M. should have openly told the players that taking the party to Solace was the only way to proceed in the module.
"Encounter 43," wrote the Commission, "is simply a 'rocks fall, everyone dies' dressed up in more AD&D terms. The accused should have recognized this and told the players. By concealing this, Ms. M. deceived the players into thinking there were more options available other than flight. The characters had been fleeing for some time, watching the pastoral world of Krynn fall beneath the draconic claw. A creative player would start searching for other options, and these did. They were engaging with the overall premise of Dragonlance, which is the struggle of goodness - manifested in the emerging powers of Goldmoon and others- against the evil of the draconic armies. Ms. M. should have heard their debate and simply said 'there may be future times to strike back but for now you must continue to flee if you want to continue.' By withholding that information Ms. M. was deceiving the group about their situation - not the party, but the players. This Commission therefore finds Erin M. to be guilty of railroading. The punishment should be severe since Encounter 43 is so simple and direct in its obvious use of force. As an experienced GM she should have remembered her training, fulfilled the requirements of her state certification and warned the players."
Erin M. was sentenced to having shit talked about her at EN World and two Discord servers of the Commission's choice for two months. However, before the sentence could be carried out, she appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals.
The Court of Appeals Decision
The Court of Appeals overturned the Commission's decision. They put great weight on the open and obvious fact of the ongoing successful invasion of the draconic armies into the region.
"The players testified that Ms. M. made it clear that the draconic invasion was succeeding. The only apparent weakness of the villains was their obsessive searching for a crystal staff. With that information, the characters might rally a defense, but not until they reach a place of safety. Even setting aside the literal, from a figurative perspective the situation could not be made more clear. The town is literally named Solace. The inn is literally named the Last Hope. The characters have visited there before. The accused's omission to directly tell the players 'don't try to fight an army that has defeated everyone north of here' is not a deception. Indeed, the players' decision to turn away from the obvious course presented and into a dangerous situation without proper preparation or outfitting was well known, in the play and rules of AD&D, to risk the death of the party. That well known risk occurred. But the accused did not deceive them into thinking it didn't.
Just as we have not excused GMs from railroading charges because of the reputation of Dragonlance as a 'railroaded campaign', so too we will not impose them on GMs who do not railroad while running the Dragonlance campaign in an ethical and honest manner."
Of interest in the decision is a concurring footnote prepared by Judge Enright, which noted that Encounter 43 required Ms. M. to roll 1d10 and add 10 to determine the number of Baaz in each hourly patrol encounter. By making the second Baaz encounter only contain 11 Baaz, including wounded and dispirited Baaz from the first one, Ms. M. had actually made the second Baaz encounter easier than the text of Dragonlance would suggest. Not only did it contain the minimum number of Baaz in the patrol, some of them were already wounded and low-morale. Judge Enright opined that this indicated Erin M. actually wanted the players to escape and did what she could under the rules of the scenario to allow it to happen. But the "dice fell where they may" and the party did not escape.
The conviction was vacated. However, the Commission appealed to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court Decision
The Supreme Court reinstated the conviction.
"If Erin M. hasn't railroaded," the opinion averred, "there is no railroading in AD&D. A GM can't escape a railroading charge by claiming 'when I threw those literally endless monsters at the PCs, and they all died, I was just following the combat rules. The players knew what the combat rules were!' The combat rules of AD&D which make taking on a large number of monsters a serious challenge are not the rules for the placement of monsters in AD&D. Knowing how the monsters fight doesn't impute assent to knowing that in certain places in a module that there will be 'endless' monsters to fight without respite."
Instead, the Supreme Court urged a limited interpretation of the 1(A) exception to the railroading definition. The player has to have made on some level an assent to the specific type of action that is at issue. Here, the placement of "endless" monsters, but in other games it might be something as simple as a printed mechanic. "A simple disclosure that engagement with the army will result in hourly contact with an 'endless' enemy would have given the players sufficient information to either take the risk or try something else," concluded the Supreme Court.
Interestingly, however, the Supreme Court acknowledged Judge Enright's reasoning as it pertained to Ms. M's creation of the weaker second Baaz patrol once the characters attempted to return to Solace, and ordered that it be considered as a mitigating factor in punishment. "While it would have been better to simply allow the party to return to the rails it has to be said that Ms. M did at least make some attempt to mitigate the harm done. If she can do so within her rules, surely the Commission can do so within its rules."
On remand, the Commission issued a revised sentencing requiring only that Ms. M. be subtweeted by two blue check Twitter accounts of no less than 25,000 followers. Her friends were allowed to post "blue check, opinion discarded, lmao" memes in response.
Questions for Further Discussion
1. There is no "coming back" from railroading - once you've done it, you can't undo it, by the 20X6 definition. However, the Supreme Court decision and the Enright footnote seem to indicate that perhaps there should be some kind of "safe harbor" from the accusation. If Ms. M. had allowed the party to limp safely to Solace after being beaten back by the evil army, should that have given her a defense from accusations of railroading? Or would that just encourage railroading GMs to hit hard enough to get people to go along with their illicit desires?
2. To quote from the appellate brief of Mr. Bartolino to the Court of Appeals, "where is the lie?" The 20X6 definition of railroading approaches it from the perspective of wishing to prevent deception. What, specifically was Ms. M's deception? She never promised the characters could take on an army. She never promised that in the event of a massive invasion that there is any fighting back to do initially. The AD&D rules about stealth and infiltration are what they are. Both the Commission and the Supreme Court (and, in her final bit of testimony, the player, Ms. L) said that Ms. M should have disclosed something further about the situation. But did she withhold anything that the players weren't already told - that there was an army, that it was very dangerous, that it was advancing, that it was everywhere (for now) triumphant, that Solace was in the direction of safety (also for now). Ms. M never told the players that everything they come up with has a chance of working because the players came up with it. "Where is the lie?"
3. The proposed "solution" for Erin given by the Supreme Court and the Commission was to outright tell the players that they were turning into infinite peril. Is this a flaw in the definition of railroading, that a GM who simply directly says "you must go south to continue this adventure" can escape prosecution? To put it another way, does the 20X6 definition of railroading which focuses on deception fully encompass the crime of railroading, or is there a type of objectionable, criminal railroading that takes place "in the open"? Can a GM simply erase all player freedoms by doing so directly and vocally just before imposing their will in each decision, and defend themselves by saying "well, I didn't trick them"? If Erin M. had said "you have to go south to continue the adventure", before the players reached the decision, it seems the Supreme Court would have acquitted her. But should they? Or is it just railroading in another form?
