Avoiding Railroading - Forked Thread: Do you play more for the story or the combat?

[Krensky]

Going one step further, i wonder what people would think if the same thought pattern held to not only encountering the challenges but to the challenge themselves.

What if the entire combat was an illusion. Attacks succeeded or not based on the DM thinking it would be cool, enemies died at appropriately interesting times and in that vein, enemies wouldn't go down until an appropriately cool moment.

While I have played in games/storytelling exercises where the primary player/writer handled things like that, everyone knew that was how things worked. It can work extremely well, if everyone knows that's how things work. I assume that wasn't the case, in which it's not particularly cool. Now, if the GM was GOOD at it, you either wouldn't have noticed or cared but, again, that doesn't sound like that's the case here.

When I run more normal games, I tend to oscillate between fudging every other thing and letting the dice fall where they may. I don't really have any particular policy on it.

 

[SKyOdin]

You don't plan encounters in the typical D&D sense, you outline scenes and beats. Much easier to adjust reality when you have some improve notes rather then a tight script.
(snip)
I never said it's a panacea, just that it's an important tool. I also reject your premise that the GM will have to either railroad or throw his notes out. Most of my games run using stock elements re-skinned as needed and hung on the appropriate structure.

This gets down to the heart of things. My big theory on railroading is that it is the result of a DM who plans things out heavily beforehand. The more heavily planned out a campaign is, the more likely it is to involve a lot of railroading.

For example, a certain DM may have his entire campaign planned out in advance, with every encounter pre-built before the players even start (which can easily happen if the DM relies heavily on modules). Specific NPC dialogue may already be written out. In order to use this material as written, the DM needs to be a little heavy-handed with railroading.

Another DM may write out an adventure in the week leading up to the D&D session where he comes up with a plotline and a set of of pre-built encounters. The DM intends to use all of the encounters in order during the session, but leaves himself enough room to fiddle around with details and modify events to match player actions.

A third DM comes into a D&D session with his notes on what happened last session, his notes on the motivations of various NPCs, and an index of various monsters he could throw together to form an appropriate combat encounter. From there, he wings it. This DM is almost incapable of railroading, since he doesn't have a particular direction for the adventure in mind.

This is obviously a very simplified way of looking at things, particularly since railroading vs. not-railroading vs. illusionism vs. sandbox is more of a broad spectrum, but I think it is a useful one. Now then, Krensky, because you mention that you use "improv notes", talk about doing some significant tweaking and swapping of antagonists, plot structure and the like around, I don't think that you are actually doing something different than the illusionism that some others proposed. As far as I understand it, illusionism involves using the exact same stats, encounters, etc. no matter what path the PCs take, in order to give the illusion of player freedom. Since you are talking about making tweaks and adjustments, what you are doing is one or two steps removed from that. Since I haven't played in one of your games, I won't presume to say how much player freedom your set-up allows.


Going back to the basic point of this thread, I think that the most important step to avoid railroading is to not plan out the future of the campaign in meticulous detail. A DM's campaign notes should be more "improv notes" than a set script. A DM who doesn't want to railroad should be prepared to adapt material, change encounters, improvise NPCs on the spot, and rewrite the story at the drop of a hat.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Lot of interesting stuff on this thread, but I'm going to go back to the OP's (hi, Darrin!) question:

How do the really great DMs out there manage to keep intricate campaigns with great story elements without making the players feel like they've been railroaded?

I tend to run pretty intricate campaigns and plot-oriented adventures. I think this is because I really enjoy them as a player, and, as a DM, one of the most satisfying moments comes with the big "reveal": the moment the players discover some key element of the story that makes them suddenly see everything in a new light. I don't know if I'm one of the "really great DMs," but judging from the longevity of my campaigns and the responses I've gotten from multiple groups over the years, I must be doing something more or less right.

So here are some of my thoughts on how to make story work without creating a sense of "railroading":

Establish clear context: Every story has a setting, and to one extent or another every story interacts with its setting. The more your players understand the setting, the more likely they are to behave predictably within it. (For example, if a player is conversant with Ebberon and knows the campaign is starting in Sharn, he's more likely to create a character concept that works in the Eberron setting and has a reason for being in Sharn than he would be if he was just told to make up a D&D character.) This predictability of behaviour is key, because it helps you write adventures that your players are likely to move through as anticipated.

Understand your story, but outline loosely: I find the three-act structure useful: In Act I, introduce or foreshadow the key elements that will drive the story, and end the act with the event that really sets things in motion. Build through the meat of the story in Act II, ending it with a major plot twist. The players' reaction to the plot twist leads to the climax in Act III. (This is just a loose guideline that helps me plan; my players are no more aware of these delineations than a movie audience or novel reader generally is.)

I work from an outline for the campaign, which notes events that need to occur in each adventure to make the story work. For example, I might need to introduce NPC X or reveal that Faction Y has a secret agenda in the fifth chapter of the arc. When I get to that adventure, I can design it based on what's currently going on in play, weaving in the key elements from my outline. My outline makes assumptions about the outcome of key plot points along the way, but only when it needs to and only in a very loose manner.

Build from what the players give you: I look for elements in the characters' backgrounds that I can build into the story. People, locations, and events the players come up with are usually easy to weave in to my own creations. This drives player involvement in the plot, which again makes it easier to anticipate their actions.

Some players take to providing backstory like a fish to water. Others really struggle. I have a number of techniques that make it easy for most players. For example, after about the fifth session or so, I ask the players to come up with "five things everybody knows about my character." (Even players who hate thinking and writing about characters can handle five bullet points.) Some will come up with stuff like "His hair is brown," while others will write detailed treatises on how their parents were abducted by demon worshippers. Both results are fine and help build character concept and a shared vision of the world, and I almost always get something interesting to build into the campaign out of each character.

Let yourself be surprised: Don't be a control freak. Things won't always go as you planned, but that's OK--in fact, it's great! I view unexpected player actions or results as a chance to revisit my story outline, often with even more inspiration and new hooks to build upon. In a recent session, a crit on a sneak attack with a high damage result killed an important NPC before he could (according to my plan) escape the scene. The players ended up with a mcguffin and some critical information well ahead of when I planned. No problem; I went back to my outline after the session and saw a number of possibilities for improving the story as a result.

I think a lot of "railroading" happens when the GM is too close to his original story idea--a great story-arc campaign has the GM's story at the helm, but is ultimately a collaborative effort.

Give everyone something to do: Understand what your players want out of their roleplaying session, and make sure everyone gets it. If you have action-oriented players, make sure you have an action scene or two every session, even in social/story/roleplaying portions of your arc. (And make sure the storyteller types get some plot advancement out of even the most combat-heavy sessions.) This keeps players from becoming frustrated, which in turn helps you understand and anticipate their actions.

For my current campaign, in which I'd be starting with a gaming group I'd never played with before, I wrote up a quiz (link in my footer) to help me understand what the players wanted before even starting the campaign.

Don't be afraid of "illusionism": I was unaware of this term before reading this thread, but I'm a strong proponent of the concept. Sometimes illusionism means "I intend for X to happen regardless of whether the heroes succeed or fail--but they don't need to know that." Sometimes it means "I have an encounter I'd like to run; I'll work it into the story when the time is right." Either way, it's the fine art of making it seem like the players' actions are driving events when, at times, it's really the demands of the story.

This is a fine art, but it's not as hard to do--and do well--as some people seem to think. When players are enjoying a story, they're more interested in story flow than whether a specific event appropriately rewards (or penalizes) them for their performance in an earlier encounter. As long as you keep things flowing logically and the players feel that they're progressing overall, it's not my experience that players want to analyze the results of a specific scene or encounter.

In my current campaign I recently had a large battle scene. I used the Victory Points system from Heroes of Battle, and wrote up four possible results based on how many objective points the heroes achieved throughout the battle. To build tension through the session, I sealed the results into four envelopes, marked with the number of VPs needed to attain each result, and placed the envelopes on the table at the beginning of the battle. At the end of the session, I handed the players the appropriate envelope, then destroyed the others unopened.

Frankly, the players (to this day) have no idea of whether the other three envelopes contained the exact same results, or each something different. They had a good time, and the result they ended up with made sense. That's what mattered.

Build hooks early and often: Constantly introduce a rich tapestry of interesting NPCs, factions, and locations--especially in the first act. Later on, you'll see things develop in the story that you can hook back to these elements. This gives the story a powerful sense of continuity and depth. Plus, your players will think you're a genius when it turns out that some event from the beginning of the campaign is tightly connected to events at the climax.

Convert exposition into activity: In any involved story, you'll inevitably have some exposition. Straight exposition is boring in every storytelling form--especially roleplaying. So avoid it by putting it in the players' hands.

I started my current campaign with a one-shot adventure set about 20 years ahead of the campaign itself. It introduced the players to the setting, established a lot of the events that underlie the main story, and let the players get a taste of the homebrew rules I'm using before committing to their principal characters. I could have done all this with some big handout or a session's worth of talk, but it was much more fun this way and the players have a much more vivid sense of what set the campaign up.

Likewise, whenever there's a scene in which two NPCs talk to each other for more than a sentence or two each, I write up a script beforehand and print out two copies. When the scene comes up in play, I have two players take the NPCs' roles and read through the scene. It's kind of like a cut-scene in a video game, except more hands-on, and if any of the players want to interact, I can mediate as usual. It's way more vivid than having the players listen to me talk for ten minutes. (And the players think it's especially fun when one of them gets to play a major recurring NPC for a few minutes, even if they aren't making up the lines.)

I use exposition sparingly (the script technique above maybe twice in the last year of play), but I try to make it fun when I need it.

-----

This stuff is mostly about campaign plotting, but it all generally applies to individual adventures as well. These are the ideas I can come up with off the top of my head. Frankly, after 30 years of gaming, I'm still learning. Hope they help!

 

[Tigerbunny]

As Unofficial Devil's Advocate of the thread, I'll even point out a kind of play/player for which tightly scripted adventures such as Dragonlance can provide meaningful choices that give them what they want out of play.

I have certainly played with some players for whom the principal choices they are interested in are not "how will the story turn out", "how will I beat the monsters", or even "what kind of person is my character." Some players are most interested in portrayal of their character. They want to chew scenery, strike poses, and generally do all the stuff that "a ---- does."

For that player, the important freedom of choice is more about spotlight time and expression of character. They want to be able to play their character fully - and pesky chance, risk, and realism be damned. Their reward is in seeing events unfold and reacting to them in character - usually with lots of in-character talk, florid narration, and flashy but impractical stunts.

For that player, knowing that the DM has everything all mapped out - there will be a villain, some people to rescue, a MacGuffin, a spectacular set, a tavern full of colorful extras, and a happy ending where they get medals and feasts - is a real plus. They can just go nuts playing their character and not worry about effectiveness or not getting to see all the scenes (because they have this GREAT one-liner planned for that final confrontation with the villain!).

Those choices are choices too. Not all choices are game-playing, win/loss resource allocation choices. Some are expressive.

And yeah, you can railroad those players too. Usually you do it by repeatedly quashing their ideas with appeals to "realism" or overly challenging encounters, or by not giving them enough space and time (and willing NPC partners) in scenes to roleplay.

 

[apoptosis]

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but I'll answer it anyway.

I don't think illusionism is particularly good, especially as it is likely to be pretty clunky or ham-fisted a lot of the time.

But I don't think the only alternatives to illusionism are either sandbox or railroading. A game in which the GM is primarily in charge of determining the circumstances in which conflict arises need not be a railroading game, if the players are allowed to make choices about how that conflict should be resolved, and if those choices then repercuss into future conflicts.

I agree i dont think its a trichotomous choice. I think most games provide a bit of illusionism, railroading and sandbox with varying thresholds of success vs impairment. there are also other options (player defined narrative in setting, scenes and goals).

A lot of what is talked about is determining what is a meaningful choice to the players.

Cadfans example, for me, in a general FRPG campaign would not be considered a meaningful choice, though i could imagine if i was playing in a specific game where the dramatic events of the BBG battle was what i was interested in, his approach would not be bad.

Personally i generally prefer a style of sandbox play that is player driven (my terms might be conflictual but you probably understand what i mean). This means that player choices are paramount to the game and the more i do to impair player choice the less i as a GM enjoy the game.

I caveat this with the fact as you have mentioned that there are different types of player choice and what the meaningful choices are will depend on the overall type of game.

In a generic FRPG player choices generally 'for me' need to include 'real' tangible (as tangible as a imaginative game can allow) impacting the world and setting.

 

[pemerton]

I think that the most important step to avoid railroading is to not plan out the future of the campaign in meticulous detail. A DM's campaign notes should be more "improv notes" than a set script. A DM who doesn't want to railroad should be prepared to adapt material, change encounters, improvise NPCs on the spot, and rewrite the story at the drop of a hat.

In a generic FRPG player choices generally 'for me' need to include 'real' tangible (as tangible as a imaginative game can allow) impacting the world and setting.

I guess it all turns on what is meant by "rewriting the story" or "impacting the world". In Cadfan's example, whether the story was one of last ditch defence, or final nail in the villain's coffin, was in the players' control.

If one looks at narrativist-facilitating games like HeroWars or The Dying Earth, the general approach of these games presupposes that the GM will establish a certain situation of conflict - with setting, NPCs etc - but then the players get to choose how to respond to that situation.

These games are clearly not designed for sandbox play, but are not thereby railroading games. Quite the opposite - their mechanics are expressly designed to facilitate player input into the resolution of each conflict, with that resolution then feeding into future conflicts.

 

[apoptosis]

I guess it all turns on what is meant by "rewriting the story" or "impacting the world". In Cadfan's example, whether the story was one of last ditch defence, or final nail in the villain's coffin, was in the players' control.

If one looks at narrativist-facilitating games like HeroWars or The Dying Earth, the general approach of these games presupposes that the GM will establish a certain situation of conflict - with setting, NPCs etc - but then the players get to choose how to respond to that situation.

These games are clearly not designed for sandbox play, but are not thereby railroading games. Quite the opposite - their mechanics are expressly designed to facilitate player input into the resolution of each conflict, with that resolution then feeding into future conflicts.

Agreed some games (Dogs in the Vinyard) are good examples of games that are neither sandbox or railroading, but are also not illusionism, the players are fully aware that 'x' type of conflict will occur and are given tools to also make sure that they do.

My point was not about whether the DM sets up a setting/overarching conflict, i think they should and I also think player input should be involved in making this overarching conflict so all groups get out of the game what they want.

I personally though do not like games where after an initial set up and buy in, future events will occur regardless of what my decisions are (given that my character/player should reasonably be having an impact on this event)

That the country of Crazy Orcs is going to invade HappyLand basically no matter what my character does but itself would not bother me if i had the expectation that this is far beyond the scope of what my character could control.

This is very different than the Necromance scenario that Cadfan pointed out earlier where, if you do X you get attack band A and if you do Y you still get attack band A.

For some, the challenging conflict (fighting attack band A) is what is important to them, for me the impact of my actions on the final result of either facing attack band A or attack band B is much more important in a general FRPG campaign.

I do fully realize that this is a continuum and not an 'either' 'or' issue though.

Another example, if a band of assassins are planning to attack my character at the market, but I instead go to the tavern. If the assassins still attack at the tavern (when they should have been waiting to ambush me at the market), this does not really bother me given that the decision to go to market or tavern was really knowledge neutral (i had no idea that anything significant would happen at either location) and to which place I went was really a meaningless choice to me (in this example).

Now if i was being a cautious player and covering all my trails and chose places based on whether I thought i could get ambushed or not and got ambushed because the GM thought it would be cool (he wanted some combat), then that might be more of an issue as it removes any effects from meaningful choices that I made.

Now obviously the GM could (retroactively) make up any reason why they could track me (they had a permanent scrying on me or something) for the ambush, but on some level I would want the GM to respect meaningful choices that my character (or player) makes.

These are different resolutions though there is obviously a big grey area.

Apoptosis

 

[pemerton]

I do fully realize that this is a continuum and not an 'either' 'or' issue though.

<snip>

These are different resolutions though there is obviously a big grey area.

I think this is true.

Another example, if a band of assassins are planning to attack my character at the market, but I instead go to the tavern. If the assassins still attack at the tavern (when they should have been waiting to ambush me at the market), this does not really bother me given that the decision to go to market or tavern was really knowledge neutral (i had no idea that anything significant would happen at either location) and to which place I went was really a meaningless choice to me (in this example).

Now if i was being a cautious player and covering all my trails and chose places based on whether I thought i could get ambushed or not and got ambushed because the GM thought it would be cool (he wanted some combat), then that might be more of an issue as it removes any effects from meaningful choices that I made.

What if the assassins attack you, but in the course of the fight (or after it) it becomes clear to your PC how hard they had to work to track you, given the precautions you'd taken?

Is the player's desire (i) to avoid attacks vs his/her PC, or (ii) to play a character who is, in the gameworld, understood to be a stealthy individual who's hard to track? If (i), then the player has been railroaded. If (ii), then not.

I think it is not always clear which dimension of meaningfulness players care about. Certainly, in a typical D&D game, most players want interesting combats to occur - otherwise they wouldn't be playing D&D. This is some reason to think that, at least to an extent, it is (ii) as well as (or even instead of) (i) that is meaningful to the player.

I personally though do not like games where after an initial set up and buy in, future events will occur regardless of what my decisions are (given that my character/player should reasonably be having an impact on this event)

I agree with this - but I still think it leaves it open how we individuate events. The case against Cadfan depends upon individuating events by reference to their component game-mechanical elements (eg same number of zombies). The case for Cadfan depends upon individuating events by reference to their thematic character as manifested by ingame context (last-ditch assault vs triumphal conquest, despite same number of zombies). Do most players really prioritise game-mechanical individuation of events over thematic/contextual individuation of events?

 

[apoptosis]

I think this is true.


What if the assassins attack you, but in the course of the fight (or after it) it becomes clear to your PC how hard they had to work to track you, given the precautions you'd taken?

Is the player's desire (i) to avoid attacks vs his/her PC, or (ii) to play a character who is, in the gameworld, understood to be a stealthy individual who's hard to track? If (i), then the player has been railroaded. If (ii), then not.

If the DM could manage to show that them tracking me was difficult and that is expressed in game..then that is good.

It is why i like games that give out such gems like bonus dice. This allows these a good way (though not the only way) to reward (or penalty dice to penalize) choices to make them more meaningful. This way i could get bonus dice during the assassins conflict to denote the difficulty they had in tracking me.

The other option would be to lower the number of assassins. Of course the counterargument is that unless the DM outright tells me (or somehow in-game informs me) there is no way to know that there are fewer assassins than i should have encountered.

This of course opens another can of worms (conversations with you tend to do that...i say that as a compliment as simple discussions are boring). If he does let me know it (in game or metagame-wise) it could also seem that the DM is just saying that there are fewer assassins than there would be had i not tried to be sneaky just to retroactively make it seem like my choice was meaningful, so we are back where we started in some some ways.

Now if i had a GM that i knew plotted such stuff out to great detail i knew it would be the truth and my choice would feel meaningful, but very few GMs have such time to do that. This is an advantage to such tools like bonus dice.

Other people probably have even better ways to solve this issue.

I think it is not always clear which dimension of meaningfulness players care about. Certainly, in a typical D&D game, most players want interesting combats to occur - otherwise they wouldn't be playing D&D. This is some reason to think that, at least to an extent, it is (ii) as well as (or even instead of) (i) that is meaningful to the player.

This is true, which is why we generally agree that player input is so vital to the success of the game. And yes D&D is about interesting combats and 4E was designed i believe to specifically to ramp up the interest level of combats.

In some ways it is why i really liked the 1E spellcasting idea. Spells were more rarely cast (in my games at least) but they were very meaningful choices when they were used (albeit i know many do/did not like this paradigm). it is why i really liked old M-Us. They didnt do stuff often but when they did it was really challenge altering (not all peoples games of 1E played out like this i know).

I agree with this - but I still think it leaves it open how we individuate events. The case against Cadfan depends upon individuating events by reference to their component game-mechanical elements (eg same number of zombies). The case for Cadfan depends upon individuating events by reference to their thematic character as manifested by ingame context (last-ditch assault vs triumphal conquest, despite same number of zombies). Do most players really prioritise game-mechanical individuation of events over thematic/contextual individuation of events?

You make a really good point. I can only say for me (about my enjoyment can NOT expand to others), the thematic choice, on first perusal, seems more like a facade of a meaningful choice than a substantially meaningful one. This would be similar to the choice of killing the bad guy by slashing him versus impaling him. It is a choice and there could be some symbolic thematic differences between the two choices (a slashing wound vs a impaling wound, say he had killed others by impaling them etc.) but it tends to in general be a rather cosmetic choice in most cases.

Now i say that this is somewhat specific to this particular example (i apologize to Cadfan, i dont mean to seem like i am attacking your example so consistently). I do value thematic choices, but i would want the actual event to follow mechanically (in world i guess) with differences in last-ditch vs triumphal conquest.

Some of this is this is colored by the fact that...i don't mind the 'final BBEG' conflict that ends in one round if the players made such a choice that engineered a one-round win over the BBEG (honestly the theory of the final BBEG conflict as an ideal, i tend to not favor ,in general. I think it tends to set up expectations that i find very manufactured and takes away from player control....unless of course THEY set it up so that there is a BBEG conflict at the end)

PS i wrote this hastily so please excuse poor writing.

 

[wedgeski]

Am I the only one wondering whether people who constantly decry any form of railroading and 'illusionism' actually [a] DM a game, have ever practiced what they preached and [c] have happy players?

I've played D&D under about tons of different DM's over the years, and next-to-none of them have achieved this zen-like campaign state where absolutely everything we did had an impact, and where the ultimate journey of the campaign was completely dictated by player action. On the contrary, all but a few of them ran us through stock off-the-shelf adventures, and of those that were left, only one managed a campaign that was anything except random and uninspired. Almost *all* of them, however, were great. None of them felt more, or less, 'right' than the next. There was always fun there to be had.

Railroad vs. sandbox vs. illusionism vs. whatever always seems to me to be an academic totem which reflects very little of my own experience as a roleplayer. Anecdotal but there you go.