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The Quantum Ogre Dilemma
The Quantum Ogre stands as one of the most fascinating concepts that has come across my feed. At its core, it highlights the difference between player agency or the illusion of choice presented by the Dungeon Master
I recently did a unpacking the true ideals of this dilemma, giving my own clarification on the idea. From a Player perspective it is hard to denounce the idea without metagaming, and vice versa with a Dungeon Master. How do you prevent railroading and if you do it, why?
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The Quantum Ogre (QO going forward) only exists if the player perceives the encounter to have been inevitable, but that can't be the only requirement or nearly every campaign's BBEG would be considered an example of a QO, as would most surprise encounters. I believe that a secondary condition must also exist, which the original QO dialogue touches on a bit but leaves mostly unexplored. That secondary requirement is that the player must feel that it was unfair if the encounter was forced.
I think it's important to draw a distinction between the QO and Railroading. The QO is one of several ways to railroad players, but using it sparingly isn't what I'd personally refer to as railroading. Railroading itself isn't even explicitly bad, the problem comes in when the player's expectation of their character impact and agency don't align with what the GM believes; at its core the QO is a similar idea.
To recap a bit, that means that a valid example of a QO is an encounter that was going to eventually happen no matter what the characters choose to do and that the encounter being ultimately unavoidable feels unfair. By definition, an encounter is only provable as a QO if the GM admits it to being one since the characters/players have no way to otherwise validate their suspicions.
My opinion? This is a non-issue for any experienced and reasonable GM, since it's merely how the encounter is framed to the players that gives the impression that the QO was unavoidable. Railroading is a whole different ball of wax that feels very different depending on the context and the style of game and which warrants its own response.
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Railroading.
I think people worry about this too much, and that accusations of railroading indicate either; that the GM is less experienced and thus IS just straight up railroading because they don't know how else to guide the game, or the the players have a different expectation than their GM of what sort of game that they are playing. That depends totally on the style of the game and the GM's style of GM'ing. Personally, I start designing campaigns with the end of the game as generally the first idea I form, then build the world engine to make that event happen, the rest is completely up to the characters.
As our own little thought experiment, consider the following scenario:
You are the forever GM of your group, and what to run a narrative heavy campaign with a very long term overall plot, let's say you are aiming for over one hundred sessions. The core of your plot is revealed to your players around session twenty, the remaining eighty+ sessions involve the characters growing to trust each other, gaining power and influence, and seeking out arms and equipment in order to tackle the threat of your BBEG. Over the course of those sessions, your players delve into dungeons in search of the magical mcguffin of destiny to keep it out of the hands of eeeeeevil, they hamper the plans of the BBEG as much as they can prior to the final conflict, and in general prove to be a boon to the kingdom/world and a bane to ne'erdowells everywhere. Then they have their final showdown with the BBEG, emerging victorious to thunderous applause.
This sounds like a typical (if unabashedly unoriginal) campaign to me. Maybe it's longer, or shorter, than you're used to, but the same basic elements are there that are common in MANY games in the fantasy genre. Pick basically any RPG of off the shelf, TTRPG or video game RPG, and it will almost certainly match that general flow. Even open world games like Skyrim or The Bloodline use this same pattern, you just have the option of choosing to ignore the plot entirely.
I'm of the opinion that if you want to run a narratively complex game with a predefined plot, railroading is somewhat unavoidable. After all, the players can see the train (in the form of the BBEG) coming from miles away and know that the final showdown is inevitable, unless they collectively decide to abandon the game as it's been designed for them by you the GM. Like the QO scenario though, it's a matter of framing. A properly designed game that matches the structure I outlined above would give the players compelling reasons to WANT to stop the BBEG, the trick is to make your design choices feel like their decisions while allowing yourself enough wiggle room to make it so that all choices ultimately lead where you want them to.
Some would say, and not incorrectly, that I just described the core tenet of railroading; the same outcome happens no matter what choices the characters make. Is it still railroading though if there's six thousand choices made along the way, with events and actions and reactions all contingent on what the characters choose to do at any given time?
The joy of a good campaign is the journey, after all, the shared experience at the table with your friends.
GM of Stream of Kairos - 2025 Campaign of the Year
GM of Rise of the Durnskald: Wrath of the Fallen Goddess - February 2016 CotM
GM of Core: The Ashes of Alcarna - April 2020 CotM
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Hey @Abersade, thanks for the interesting read!
"I met a traveller from an antique land....."
CotM May 2016: Mysteria: set in Wolfgang Baur’s MIDGARD.
Previous CotM Aug 2012: Shimring: High Level Multiplanar Campaign
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I agree completely, although I have to add that not only inexperienced GM's railroad- sometimes, (rarely I sdd) the GM is just a jerk, and then it is time to leave a group- as I said, rarely, but it does happen....
I second Twiggy's statement- it was a really good read, and I agree with it.... Thanks @Abersade
Just trying to help out.