What's Wrong with the Railroad?

[Toben the Many]

I've been mulling this over for a while, and there seems to be a strong resistance and dislike for railroad-type games. This dislike has manifested on a number of threads all over the web and on podcasts. I guess it's part of the current gamer zeitgeist.

My question is - what's necessarily wrong with a railroad plot? Now, hear me out. I understand *how* a railroad can be bad in games. If the plot of a game feels completely artificial and the PCs are not allowed to do anything that deviates from the predetermined plot, sure. The game feels fake and you might as well show up for the DM's novel every week.

However, I'm playing in a railroad campaign right now and here's why it's fun for me and our group. The campaign, the plot...all of that is background. The true *story* of our D&D game is our characters. How they grow, and how their interactions change with each other. To understand, we're playing young characters in our campaign, so the theme of the campaign is essentially growing up. Another way this campaign works is that it's one big mystery. We keep finding out bits and clues about an ancient civilization. However, the DM never spells out what these clues mean. So much of our time and fun is spent on speculating on these clues.

All that said - it's a railroad plot. Our objectives are very clear and there is very little deviation from those objectives. I will say that this is a benevolent railroad in that our characters are all highly motivated to stay on task with this particular plot. It'd be a serious deviation from character to want to do something else.

It seems to me, too, that a railroad plot certainly works with a module. Module series seem to be extremely popular these days. What with the Pathfinder series, and all. But when you play a module series, you are essentially signing up for a railroad. Right? So why no complaints about that?

Just throwing this out there. Wanting to get feedback.

 

[Crothian]

My first thought was "There is nothing wrong with locomatives."

The times railroading goes bad is when it forces the players to act in ways they don't want or to pursue plots and adventures they don't want. Railroads can be done right. I've had a lot of fun with the Eberron series of modules and Shackled City and Savage Tides, and others like them. But they are not for everyone and there are ways to run and play them to ensure more fun for everyone just like there are ways that can really make them not fun.

 

[Obryn]

I'd say if your group is on-board there's really no wrong way to play D&D. (Well... few wrong ways to play D&D.)

There's also an often-overlooked difference between a "plotted" game like an adventure path or what you're describing; and a true railroad. The definiton of "railroad" has expanded over the past few years, and I'm not really on-board with the newspeak.

-O

 

[Ourph]

You're conflating a monolithic campaign plot with railroading. By definition, a railroad is a game where player choices don't matter to the outcome. I think even with mystery and character development, most players would find such a game unsatisfying.

 

[Maldor]

what you are describing is not a railroad you said yourself you are all going along becuase you want to. A railroad is when the DM forces the party to fallow a story arc that they have no current intrest in or tell you how your character is acting.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

It's a matter of preference, but personally I have made the experience that if you allow the PCs to drive the train off the tracks, the DM has as little clue as the players where the wagons will end up - which in my opinion makes it far more interesting for the DM.

My Exalted campaign started out with a bunch of fairly normal people ending up in a fantasy world who gained godlike powers. Now some of them are actually trying to change the very laws of reality of their new world in order to alter the system of reincarnation.

I could not have predicted that when the campaign started. And I found this very satisfying.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The worst example of published railroad that I ever encountered was one of White Wolf's Year of the Reckoning adventures, where the PCs are dragged along from point to point, in order to witness the death of Baba Yaga. Not participate, mind you, witness. And they are not even allowed to jump off the railroad, being told that 'your character does not want to do that.'

I know that I would have jumped anyway, the game would have gone hang, I'd go read a book.

The thing about a good railroad is that the players never notice it. Once it is noticed then it will result in a train wreck. Railroads have been the number one reason that I have seen campaigns die - players like to feel like they are in control of their characters, not the DM.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* A line went missing there. How?

 

[Chainsaw]

I'd say if your group is on-board there's really no wrong way to play D&D.

This.

 

[Storm Raven]

What you have described your current campaign as is not necessarily what many people would define as a "railroad". Having clear objectives is not the markings of a railroad campaign. A railroad campaign is one in which the decisions of the players have little or no impact on the unfolding events of the campaign, or the decisions of the players are to a certain extent predetermined by the DM.

 

[Edena_of_Neith]

(light humor, off topic)

What's wrong with the railroad? The train derailed!
Why? Because it hit the cute female wizard with the Stoneskin, that's why!

Stoneskin is a spell that is much like Teleport - it has an unlimited effect, but only under specific conditions. In the case of Stoneskin, the limitations involve a deliberate attack, with something that is being used as a melee weapon (whether intended as such or not.) Stoneskin stops a certain number of those attacks, no damage accrues to the wizard struck at, and no other effects of the attack are visited on her (such as, she cannot be moved.)

Well, once upon a time, an ogre - a stupid one - was chasing our cute, female wizard, and they stumbled onto a railroad.
When the giant juggernaut of a 10,000 ton train appeared, the ogre got a great idea. He mustered his courage, jumped onto the engine, climbed in, threw the engineer out, and took the thing over.
He would run the cute girl down!
She, realizing the effect of Stoneskin, stood her ground, waiting.

Since the train was being used as a melee weapon, the Stoneskin did what Stoneskins do ... it stopped it.
The fact that it weighed so much, or that it derailed as a result, or that it made one heck of a mess, didn't make a difference (and only 1 charge was expended from the Stoneskin!)

The ogre was not killed in the crash, so the wizard paralyzed him with Gemidan's Paralytic Missile, then bound him, then left him for some very puzzled authorities to deal with.

Would the Stoneskin really have done that? It would have in my game, so it did for the cute young lady.

I now return you to your Regularly Scheduled Thread.

Edena_of_Neith