Recently, while delving into the doomscrolling dungeon known as reddit, a forum post from r/rpg crept its way to the surface. Diving deeper, it looked to have been posted 11 years ago titled as “The Quantum Ogre: A Dialogue”. Intrigue escalating, there was indeed an actual dialogue between a hypothetical DM and their player.
It goes as follows: the Dungeon Master presents a fork in the road with two choices—left or right? Described to the Player down either path is nothing indiscriminately different from one another. Besides the fact that the left path toward the fortress seems slightly more direct. The Player moves towards the left pathway, and after about a mile and a bend in the road, the Player encounters an Ogre.
The Player is outraged, “You’re giving me a quantum ogre!” he spouts. Confused, the DM asks for clarification. The dialogue between the two continue, with the player accusing the DM of railroading, stating that either way would have lead to the Ogre. While the DM disagrees, you can’t help but relate to the player as well.
“Player: You’re giving me a quantum ogre!
GM: A what?
Player: A quantum ogre. It’s an encounter you had planned ahead of time, and intend to carry out no matter which way I went, thus robbing my character of agency.”
-Excerpt from The Quantum Ogre: A Dialogue, U/SCVannevar
Consider checking out the full dialogue here and then reading the rest of the article – here.
The Quantum Ogre: Is it Real?
The Quantum Ogre is in reference (assumingly) to Schrodinger’s cat. A box has a 50/50 chance of flooding with poison and killing the cat, but you do not know if the cat is dead or alive until you open the box. The same ideal applies to the ogre dilemma. On first reading, you might assume the ogre might have appeared on either side of the path regardless of choice. Think of it more as, we do not know which side of the path the ogre is on until we travel down said path.
The basis of the problem lies between the trust of the Dungeon Master and their players. The whole idea of railroading is the direct path that is forced upon the players, hence no player agency. The way the DM navigates this in this dialogue is an illusion that can hide railroading, thus the fork in the road. Without metagaming, there is no real way to prove if railroading has occurred.
So yes, could there have been an ogre on either side of the path? It is very possible, but there is an explanation to the Player from the DM. If they had gone down the right path, there could have been a completely different experience, but they didn’t. It was their choice to follow the left path, and now the right path will pass into the many what ifs of the campaign. As a Dungeon Master, you shouldn’t have to explain every action you plan. As a Player, part of the magic of the game is imagining what might have happened. Demanding answers ruins the immersion and creates meta gaming. Not even mentioning that, if everything was revealed then the DM can not use the encounters (if any) of the right path at a later date.
Player Agency vs DM Authority
Reading further, the bickering between the two continues. The Player just wants to “have fun” that gives consequences in line with their player agency. So what can a DM do in this situation? They allow the Player to skip pass the Ogre, just this once, following further down the path. Continuing, the Dungeon Master describes other encounters down the path, including gnomes, felled trees, a leper, and even a beautiful women tied to a tree.
GM: So, do you want to move the campaign to a location without ogres?
Player: Well no, I want to go to the Fortress of the Evil Warlock so that I can kill the Evil Warlock and seduce the Well-Bosomed Wench, so I have to stay in the Ogre Basin.
GM: You just want guaranteed safety from ogres.
Player: I want to have fun! Is that too much to ask?
GM: No, but your idea of fun seems to involve the exercise of omnipotent powers in a framework where, by design, you have the power of a mere mortal.
-Excerpt from The Quantum Ogre: A Dialogue, U/SCVannevar
The Player has decided they do not want to even entertain an ideal that could interfere with their use of free will. So they skip every encounter the DM gives out, the Quantum Ogre far down on the list of passed encounters. Finally they reach a outstretching chasm that has no clear entrance. With an inflated ego that would have probably worked, the Player says they will fly across with their Helmet of Flight.
The Player does not have a Helmet of Flight or gold, so the pattern of excuses continues, with the DM even allowing the Player to go all the way back to the village to purchase it. Fast forwarding back to their location, the maiden has been “saved”.
Consequences
GM: Fine. Your journey back to the village is uneventful. You find a Helmet of Flight without difficulty, and procure it without incident. Your journey back to the Fortress is uneventful. You don the Helmet, rise up the ground, fly over the heads of the terrible shadows and into the tower window, where the Well-Bosomed Wench is waiting with open arms and open bodice.
Player: Great! Although… look, I hate to complain, but you made that too easy. I mean, do you really understand the meaning and the spirit of a tabletop role playing game? …hey, what are you doing with that pencil?
-Excerpt from The Quantum Ogre: A Dialogue, U/SCVannevar
Let’s set something straight, player agency is important to Dungeons and Dragons. In a truly sandbox style or west marches game, the game has unlimited freedom and is built upon from the previous game. In this setting, the DM was following a pre-made campaign, which many others follow as well, so to a degree there may be some idea of railroading especially when you only have two paths to go down.
The way the game is set up can create the illusion of railroading. As mentioned above, we will never know what would have been on the right side of the path. Could it have been a Quantum Ogre? We can’t rule out that possibility, but we do know that on the left path there was indeed an ogre. In moments like this, backing down as a DM allows the players to set the stage, not the Dungeon Master.
At the end of the game, there were no inspirational speeches, no real battles, and, not surprisingly, no fun. It was a lose-lose situation, the DM can not explain what is down the other path without ruining the immersion and meta gaming, and the Player felt like they were being railroaded towards their destination. While we do not recommend forcing your players to go down any certain path, it is the duty of the Player to enjoy the mystery and immerse themselves into the game.
If you liked this article, make sure to sign up for our newsletter to get updates on future blogs!
Sources:
The Quantum Ogre: A Dialogue
byu/SCVannevar inrpg
Leave a Reply