Can you railroad a willing player? (Forked from "Is World Building Necessary?")

[Raven Crowking]

Railroading is the deliberate act of limiting or eliminating choices, so that the choices of the players, whatever they are, lead to the same point.

If the player(s) are unaware or are willing to follow the tracks, they are still tracks and it is still railroading. It is not, however, a problem. OTOH, whenever a DM says to me "I railroad, but my players don't know/don't mind" a little flag goes up in my head that reads "How well does this guy really know his players?"


RC

 

[Cadfan]

Railroading is the deliberate act of limiting or eliminating choices, so that the choices of the players, whatever they are, lead to the same point.

If the player(s) are unaware or are willing to follow the tracks, they are still tracks and it is still railroading. It is not, however, a problem. OTOH, whenever a DM says to me "I railroad, but my players don't know/don't mind" a little flag goes up in my head that reads "How well does this guy really know his players?"


RC

Heh, when someone assures me that they don't railroad, I wonder how well they know themselves.

 

[WalterKovacs]

If the players never go off the tracks, they'll never know if they are on a train, or if they are merely walking on the road. It's only when you try to turn the train/car in a new direction that you know what kind of situation you are in. Another analogy is that the prisoner doesn't know he's a prisoner if he can't see the walls.

The players and DMs have to have an understanding going in. If, for example, they are running a module, it is likely to have a limited number of options available to the player unless the DM creates new options. If everyone knew going in that it was going to be a module, than trying to derail the narrative in such a way where you are telling the DM "yeah, ignore that book you bought, we want to do something else" is a bit rude. If you aren't enjoying the module, it's probably better to talk to the group after the game, than have your character be disruptive.

On the other hand, a DM who understands that the plot is a bit railroady should at least try to give the PCs a few switch points. You do have to go from point A to point C, and you'll be hitting point B on the way, but there will be meaningful choices. If you have to get to the end of a dungeon to get to the BBEG, for example, it's probably not going to be a dungeon that is linear. There will be branching rooms that may loop back on themselves, which means that your path could end up with advantages. Certain choices may allow you to get into position to ambush some enemies, or you may find some useful loot in one of the earlier encounters and thus be able to use them against the rest of the dungeon, etc.

Some players will just want a linear 'dungeon delve' style adventure, and in that case they expect that they are taking a bullet train to encounters with few, if any, stops on the way. For them the meaningful choices they make are in character creation, item allocation and during the encounter. Other players will want more than that, but in the big picture, it's about having choices that are relevant. If there is only one viable choice, than choices are pretty much trivial.

In some cases, there is no choice. The BBEG is the last person they fight. In the dragon example, the PCs are going to have to fight the dragon. However, while you can take away the PCs choice to fight the dragon (with a plot justification such as, the dragon will come after the PCs at some future point, if the PCs don't go after it first) but you can still give the players options in terms of, which the knowledge that the fight is inevitable, they can try to determine the conditions of the fight. There may be multiple entrances to the dragon's lair, they can go to a location of their choosing and wait for the dragon, or call the dragon out. They could attack under the cover of night, or they could approach during the day, etc.

 

[Barastrondo]

I think it was Steve Darlington on RPGnet who said, and I paraphrase here, "Nobody minds taking a train ride if the view from the cars is great and the destination is Awesometown."

Railroading is probably technically independent of the quality of the experience, but to be honest you don't really need it as a phrase in those cases. I think you only need to use it as a verb in negative situations, despite the fact that fun and entertaining campaigns might technically be on rails.

 

[pawsplay]

Technically, you could railroad a willing player, since railroading is attitudinal (a willingness to remove meaningful choices if it derails the GM's plans). But how would you know? I would never say railroading is good, but a small amount might not be bad. It is a necessary evil of GMing to constrain choices to a reasonable scope that can be adjudicated.

 

[Andre]

Railroading is the deliberate act of limiting or eliminating choices, so that the choices of the players, whatever they are, lead to the same point.

If the player(s) are unaware or are willing to follow the tracks, they are still tracks and it is still railroading. It is not, however, a problem. OTOH, whenever a DM says to me "I railroad, but my players don't know/don't mind" a little flag goes up in my head that reads "How well does this guy really know his players?"
RC

I like this definition. I'll just add one other bit: if the GM is eliminating meaningful choices, railroading almost always becomes a problem.

Example: The party has decided to investigate a local dungeon. This dungeon has only one entrance, and my party lacks the resources to create another. Therfore, we have limited options for entering.

But we can still choose a frontal assault, intimidation, negotiation, bribery, seduction, stealth, skullduggery, etc. We have a wealth of meaningful choices, so I forgive the GM for the small bit of railroading.

If, OTOH, regardless of my character's choices, the results are pre-determined by the GM (must fight this encounter, must be captured later, must let bad guy escape at end), I might as well read a good book.

 

[MonkeyDragon]

I define railroading as one or both of the following:

The players have no choices in their actions or how they deal with a situation. There is only one way to go, only one way to solve a situation, and only one plot to follow. Example: the one listed above with the forest on fire, etc.

or

The players' actions have no impact on their surroundings. The same things are going to happen no matter what the characters do. The outcome of certain events are predetermined. There is no way to get an advantage in a situation by thinking creatively, or otherwise influence the environment. You can roll an outstanding diplomacy check, or say "your mother!" to the NPC, and they are going to react exactly the same way.

The way I define railroading is universally negetive. Certain DMing techniques with moving encounters or keeping a plot moving by changing a roleplaying encounter to fit with the decisions players have made CAN turn into railroading, or be just plain clunky. They can also be done skillfully and seamlessly. I would say that it's not impossible to railroad someone unknowingly, but it's unlikely, because it hinges on the characters' ability to affect their environment.

I do not think it's railroading to have an adventure and expect the PCs to go on said adventure. That's part of the social contract. If I write an adventure and there are hooks presented, and the party chooses not to take them, well, you're gonna be pretty bored sitting in town until I can come up with something you'll take the hook for. I'm not going to force you to take it, but I expect you to recognize that this is where the story is, it would behoove you to go there, unless you actually have a reason not to do so.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

You can't railroad a willing person in my opinion.

I agree with this and most of what you say. With a couple exceptions.

Outcome 3: The characters find out about the dragon in the hills ahead and instead, choose to head to the forest in another direction, only to be attacked by the dragon overflying the forest. The party is being railroaded now since their choice was to avoid the dragon encounter and the DM hit them with the encounter anyway. The party exercised a choice but the DM did the dragon encounter anyhow.

Outcome 4: The character find out about the dragon in the hills and head for the forest, only to run into a dragon living the the forest. The DM says it is a different dragon but the party didn't want to mess with any dragons, so it's a railroad. Again, the party exercised a choice but still got the DM's dragon encounter anyhow.

This is what I disagree with. I don't think players should be able to avoid anything they want simply because they know about it. They might not want to deal with any dragons, but they don't have control over where the dragons live or what they do.

If they go into the forest, it might be that the dragon often hunts there and happens upon them, or he had an ally in town who overheard them talking about using the forest and warned the dragon. It could be that there actually IS another dragon in the forest.

Player choice is half of the equation, but it isn't the whole equation. I know when I'm a player I simply trust the DM to give us the most fun game. Often that means excitement, danger, some mystery, and so on. If the only way I'm going to find the powerful artifact that is the backbone of the whole planned campaign is to loot the dragon's hoard....well, then I want the DM to push me towards that any way he can. Simply because it's more interesting than chopping my way through miles and miles of empty forest.

Then again, I'm one of the people who would say, "There's a dragon nearby? Awesome, let's kill it."

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Technically, you could railroad a willing player, since railroading is attitudinal (a willingness to remove meaningful choices if it derails the GM's plans). But how would you know? I would never say railroading is good, but a small amount might not be bad. It is a necessary evil of GMing to constrain choices to a reasonable scope that can be adjudicated.

This is pretty much my point. If you define railroading as a willingness to remove meaningful choices, then that describes nearly every DM I've ever met. No DM gives their players infinite choice...that way lies madness. Some DMs have nearly no improvisational skills, but are still good DMs. If things go away from what they've planned out in advance, their games get really, really bad. So, they nudge things, fudge things, and arrange things so that things stay on track. If they plan well enough, no one should notice.

Seriously, does anyone actually let their players do whatever they want. If they ignore all the hooks you throw at them and decide they are going to become farmers, sell all their weapons, and settle down...you are telling me that you don't have any of those hooks come to them again or affect them at all? I mean, after all, if they decide not to deal with that dragon and it attacks them at their farm, doesn't that mean you are removing their choice not to deal with the dragon?

That's why I think this definition is either way too broad...or railroading is a proper DMing technique.

 

[LostSoul]

Railroading is the deliberate act of limiting or eliminating choices, so that the choices of the players, whatever they are, lead to the same point.

Do you make any destinction between choices players want to make and those they don't care about?