Is this railroading?

[iserith]

Alternatively, what you can do is talk to the players, give them a general idea of what you want to do, and ask if they'll buy-in to the idea of staying on the obvious path. By getting their agreement, you can't be coercing, subverting, or negating their choices during play because they already agreed to engage with the content you are presenting and act accordingly. Thus, you are not railroading.

While being on the same page with one's player is a generally good plan, this is an approach that is particularly good for one-shots or plot-based campaigns where you're following a set storyline and don't want to waste prep or have to do extra prep.

 

[Jester David]

So I have a basic scenario in my mind, and it feels a bit railroady... but I wouldn't mind a few second opinions.

Heroes have been out of town for a long time and return to home base. Oh Noes! Something important has just been stolen! But have no fear, one party member is an excellent tracker.

The thief, fearing pursuit, flees through a dangerous area that she knows very well. As the party tracks the thief, they risk running into traps, dangerous terrains and other such obstacles, diversions, false leads and hostile locals. Eventually they catch up and confront the thief to regain the McGuffin.

While the party can deal with each obstacle/encounter as they wish, and they are free to say "... screw this let her have the McGuffin", it's a very linear structure.

Is this railroading?

Something becomes railroading if there's no choice. A linear story is a railroad because they characters have no options but to follow the path and their decisions are largely made for them. They have to go from A-to-B-D, even if it makes much more sense to C.
(Theoretically, it would be possible to railroad a non-linear story. By having small, set choices but still no room for variation or deviation. It's just much harder.)

The problem with railroading is really one of player agency. If the players take the hook, follow the linear path, and go all-in with the story... it doesn't matter if it's a railroad. If the mandated decision is one they would have made anyway, so they don't realise they didn't have a choice, it doesn't matter.
In essence, if you never move off the path, it doesn't matter of stepping off the path magically lead you right back onto the path.

A good DM will present the illusion of choice in their railroads, where the players feel like they have the option of saying "no" to the quest and doing their own thing. But won't because that's not where the story is.
And an even better DM will let them make their own choices that lead them to the final destination, letting the party lay their own railway tracks.

As an example, I ran the original Dragonlance modules updated to Pathfinder. The initial bits were good, fun, and interesting. The hooks were obvious and the player's actions were generally logical. While you had a few different options and routes to take, they all led to the same destination where the plot would continue. But the mystery was apparent and the hooks clear, so it didn't matter. And I made sure to plant hooks for future paths, seeding where the party had to go next. They never felt forced because the next course of action made sense.
But in the later modules some things made less sense. There was a lot more curious logical leaps which made it problematic and took the players out of the game. They were doing something stupid, which breaks suspension of disbelief. That's when the railroading became an issue.

 

[Nebulous]

A good DM will present the illusion of choice in their railroads, where the players feel like they have the option of saying "no" to the quest and doing their own thing. But won't because that's not where the story is.
And an even better DM will let them make their own choices that lead them to the final destination, letting the party lay their own railway tracks.

This is very true. It can happen in big, plot related ways, and even in smaller, more intimate ways. For example, in Tomb recently, the PCs were exploring the College of Magic in Mezro. There were some magic items down there I wanted them to get. No matter what, they were supposed to get those magic items. There's some undead scattered around and some other traps, I didn't know where exactly, I placed them randomly as they searched on a map I randomly picked from the map box.

Along the way I listened carefully to their conversations and tweaked the encounters as needed. I actually invented a previously non-existent NPC on the spot because there was an interesting picture on the map of a giant skull on a Pedestal. This glowing skull became the Guardian of the College and communicated telepathically. The players never knew I had made it up. They *wanted* its permission to take the magic items, and that sounded so good to me that I rolled with it.

 

[Sebastrd]

So I have a basic scenario in my mind, and it feels a bit railroady... but I wouldn't mind a few second opinions.

Heroes have been out of town for a long time and return to home base. Oh Noes! Something important has just been stolen! But have no fear, one party member is an excellent tracker.

The thief, fearing pursuit, flees through a dangerous area that she knows very well. As the party tracks the thief, they risk running into traps, dangerous terrains and other such obstacles, diversions, false leads and hostile locals. Eventually they catch up and confront the thief to regain the McGuffin.

While the party can deal with each obstacle/encounter as they wish, and they are free to say "... screw this let her have the McGuffin", it's a very linear structure.

Is this railroading?

Perhaps not, but I think it is poor prep. Prep the Thief, decide where she went, and leave it at that. If the players eventually decide to pursue her, then work on the obstacles on their way to the Thief. I think what's problematic is that you're making a lot of assumptions:

• The Thief will succeed in stealing the McGuffin
• The PCs will care enough to want it back
• The PCs will discover the Thief's identity
• The PCs will discover where the Thief went
• The PCs will be willing to play Home Alone and follow the Thief through her "funhouse" getting tore up
• The PCs will fall for false leads
• The PCs will not give up the pursuit even after falling for false leads

There are too many points of failure if the players choose not to follow the plot.

 

[Ancalagon]

Perhaps not, but I think it is poor prep. Prep the Thief, decide where she went, and leave it at that. If the players eventually decide to pursue her, then work on the obstacles on their way to the Thief. I think what's problematic is that you're making a lot of assumptions:

• The Thief will succeed in stealing the McGuffin
• The PCs will care enough to want it back
• The PCs will discover the Thief's identity
• The PCs will discover where the Thief went
• The PCs will be willing to play Home Alone and follow the Thief through her "funhouse" getting tore up
• The PCs will fall for false leads
• The PCs will not give up the pursuit even after falling for false leads

There are too many points of failure if the players choose not to follow the plot.

Your point is well taken - the adventure could fail. Fortunately, half of these failure points don't apply in this case. I didn't want to write a 3 page post so a lot of details weren't included.

The most important is that the thief will succeed. The party wasn't there, and they took no precautions to safeguard the MacGuffin beyond locking a door. The "lucky" part for the party is that the theft just happened, vs say a month ago. (They were out of town for several months).

 

[aco175]

I was watching the movie 3:10 to Yuma last night and one part is that a group of bad guys are heading back to town to free their leader from being placed on a train to prison. The good group transporting the bad leader sees them in the distance and must decide to take the secret pass through Indian country and beat them to town or let the bad group get to town first and go around. Of course they take the secret pass and have run-ins with indians and natural obstacles.

I find that railroading is only a problem when you force them to take one path or another. The secret pass to beat the other party is obvious, but not forced upon them. Even forcing something in disguise of letting them choose is not railroading to me. I might plan to have an encounter with a monster that I think would be fun for the party. If they take the secret pass or follow the other party they will hit the encounter. I can only plan for so many scenarios and make so many encounters.

The only railroading I stay away from is the ones that start with "You guys are all captured..." Unless there was a TPK and I wanted to continue then capturing is ok to move the story.

 

[iserith]

I would say that, by definition, railroading is a problem. There is no "good railroading" in my view. It's all bad. What happens though is a lot of folks in the hobby conflate "railroading" with "linear plot" or suggest that players can railroad themselves (?) or that railroading is okay as long as it's not obvious. These are very broad or perhaps erroneous definitions that start to take all meaning away from what is essentially coercing, negating, or subverting the choices of one's players. I see that necessarily as bad.

The solution to having the players stick to particular content is to be honest and simply ask them to. If they agree, then again, by definition, you are not railroading when you present the agreed upon content and they stick to it.

 

[robus]

A simple rule of thumb is if you're denying player choices because they'll miss your planned encounters then you've got them on a railroad.

A linear adventure is not a railroad if players can tackle the adventure in the best way they see fit.

 

[Satyrn]

Last session, my DM had the ground open up and suck the party into a dungeon hallway. We had essentially one choice: climb back out or head down the hallway. Yet this didn't feel like a railroad - even though it was somewhat obvious to us players that the only correct choice was enter the dungeon, because that's what the DM is prepared for, and we had no other immediate goals if we chose to climb out, anyway.

 

[iserith]

Last session, my DM had the ground open up and suck the party into a dungeon hallway. We had essentially one choice: climb back out or head down the hallway. Yet this didn't feel like a railroad - even though it was somewhat obvious to us players that the only correct choice was enter the dungeon, because that's what the DM is prepared for, and we had no other immediate goals if we chose to climb out, anyway.

The right move was to climb out and head back to the inn, then spend the next couple hours posturing while talking in funny voices as you order food and ale.