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

[Leif]

For the record, though, pawsplay's post about what is/isn't railroading wins the thread AFAICT, and I officially adopt his definition as my own. -RC

[sblock=Will Save or Click]AFAICT??? Never mind, got it, I think: "as far as I can tell"?[/SBLOCK]


Would you please refresh my memory? What was pawsplay's 'winning entry'? (And here I didn't even know there were prizes involved! )

 

[Cadfan]

1. Scenario design - The GM is in charge of this. The PCs are allowed, although not necessarily encouraged, to do whatever they want. But the GM is allowed, though not necessarily encouraged, to set up the initial scenario in whatever way the GM wants. World design, events already in motion, attributes of various characters, all of those things, the GM decides. Not railroading, however much it might contrain the PCs' reasonable choices. It's only railroading if the GM constrains the PCs' actual choices.

While I understand your definition, it is NOT the typical definition used by most people. Scenarios, particularly published ones, are regularly referred to as railroads, analyzed for railroad-i-ness, and generally discussed as if scenario design were a means by which the players can be placed on rails. Which makes sense, to me. If you've got DM A who makes up explanations why you can't do what you want, and DM B who anticipates you trying to do something and makes up explanations in advance for why you can't, which he then writes into the scenario, well, chances are that the player's experience in both situations will be nearly identical. The only difference is that GM B might come up with better explanations, or might accidentally miss something he intended to railroad.

Your opinion seems to come down to an acceptance of railroading if the presence of the rails is believably explained in-game (you also seem to add a presumption that the only way to believably explain their presence in game is to do so in advance during setting design, this may or may not be the case for a good impromptu DM, but the overall issue, believability, is core in what you've written so far).

Which gets back to my pet issue- railroading is really just restriction on player freedom, plus a negative connotation.

Railroading: restrictions on player freedom that the speaker doesn't feel are reasonable.

 

[jmucchiello]

So, basically, any GM who preps up to run a published module, and who isn't prepared to freewheel when the PCs don't choose to go into that adventure, is "inadequately prepared"?

That depends on whether the GM advertised the game as "I'm running a module" or "I'm running a sandbox". IOW, that's a social contract issue independent of railroading.

Another recurring talking point in this thread is the attractiveness of options. Suppose there is a crossroad (does not need to be an actual road) with N choices. The railroad DM wants the players to take option A. The sandbox DM doesn't care where they go. Regardless, both DMs describe option A in glowing terms and the other N-1 options in horrid terms, places best to avoid. The difference between the railroad and the sandbox is the players in the sandbox can pick an ugly option and the game progresses logically from that choice, the crossroad my never reappear in the campaign.

In a railroad either they fail while attempting option B or they take option B and are diverted for a short time. Regardless, shortly thereafter they will find themselves back at the crossroad and there will be N-1 choices. Eventually, only option A remains.

It is this inability to effectively make choices that defines a railroad.

Now to continue reading from page 3.....

 

[pawsplay]

While I understand your definition, it is NOT the typical definition used by most people.

Show me your market data. I think my definition is very good for describing most of the things people describe as railoarding, and very few things people describe as not-railroading. And I've been at this a while, so "people" involves dozens of acquaintances, hundreds of people on the Internet, and any number of writers of article. While it's possible that your experience is very different than mine has bene, my inclination is to suggest you are arguing from assertion and trying to make your facts more different than mine than they probably. However, if you can find some good evidence that railroading has a well-codified, generally accepted meaning, and I am using it in a different way, please share links.

Scenarios, particularly published ones, are regularly referred to as railroads, analyzed for railroad-i-ness, and generally discussed as if scenario design were a means by which the players can be placed on rails.

So what? Simon Cowell says people's performances are "horrible," but I've never seen anyone die from listening to them.

Which makes sense, to me. If you've got DM A who makes up explanations why you can't do what you want, and DM B who anticipates you trying to do something and makes up explanations in advance for why you can't, which he then writes into the scenario, well, chances are that the player's experience in both situations will be nearly identical. The only difference is that GM B might come up with better explanations, or might accidentally miss something he intended to railroad.

I am not quite what you are saying here, but it sounds like you are saying that planning a scenario to take into player choice is equivalent to simply pulling stuff out of your portable hole. If so, I disagree entirely and completely.

Your opinion seems to come down to an acceptance of railroading if the presence of the rails is believably explained in-game (you also seem to add a presumption that the only way to believably explain their presence in game is to do so in advance during setting design, this may or may not be the case for a good impromptu DM, but the overall issue, believability, is core in what you've written so far).

If you have gotten that impression, I am sorry I did not cleary communicate my opinion to you, because that is not at all what I inteded to convey. I don't care if something is believable, although that would be nice. What I care about is that it things are logical and follow from a meanginful way from the GM's design and the player's actual choices. Whether the overall result is "believable" or not is something else. You could have a game session that consisted entirely of the GM narrating Caesar's war against the Gauls, which would be very believable but absolutely impervious to player choice.

Which gets back to my pet issue- railroading is really just restriction on player freedom, plus a negative connotation.

Railroading: restrictions on player freedom that the speaker doesn't feel are reasonable.

That is not how I am defining it. My definition:

Railroading: GM actions that negate meaningful choices simply because of what was chosen.

 

[Cadfan]

That is not how I am defining it. My definition:

Railroading: GM actions that negate meaningful choices simply because of what was chosen.

That's not your definition at all. Your definition is, at best, "restrictions on player freedom that I don't like."

You apparently don't mind restrictions on player freedom that are built into the setting. Meanwhile you heavily dislike restrictions on player freedom that the DM comes up with on the spot because he doesn't want the PCs to follow a particular path. That's fine and all, for you.

But.

1. Restrictions on player freedom that are built into the setting can be done for the same motivation as restrictions on player freedom that are thought up on the spot,

2. Restrictions on player freedom that are built into the setting can be just as clumsy or worse than restrictions thought up on the spot, and

3. Most everyone else acknowledges this.

I don't really feel the need to prove to you that people talk about published modules and discuss whether the module is a railroad. I feel that this is sufficiently self evident that it is your credibility that is undermined by disputing it, not the credibility of my point. Type "adventure railroad D&D" into yahoo or something. Its inexact, but in the two seconds I spent on it I found discussions of a paizo adventure as a railroad, a WOTC article on "travel" plotlines and how they can be railroads, a review of thunderspire labyrinth that suggested that it was on rails, and an accusation that the entirety of dragonlance was so much of a railroad that it ruined D&D, permanently. I'm sure I could find more, but I don't feel that this should be my job.

 

[Cadfan]

For the record, this conversation almost exactly mirrors law school discussions about the meaning of "judicial activism," another term with a basic meaning (an exercise in judicial discretion...) coupled with a heavy pejorative connotation (...that I don't like). Half the people in the discussion always want to come up with an objective definition for the term, but never can because any attempt they make involves taking their own preferences, declaring them objective, and using them to fill in the "...that I don't like" portion of the definition. The other half want to throw the term out as meaningless beyond the "exercise in judicial discretion" aspect.

You can guess where I fall in.

 

[pawsplay]

That's not your definition at all. Your definition is, at best, "restrictions on player freedom that I don't like."

You apparently don't mind restrictions on player freedom that are built into the setting. Meanwhile you heavily dislike restrictions on player freedom that the DM comes up with on the spot because he doesn't want the PCs to follow a particular path. That's fine and all, for you.

That's not my definition. I do not condone any restrictions on player freedom in terms of decision-making. What I think is permissible is limiting the reasonable character choices for a given situation; that is an inevitible and logical part of scenario design. The way you describe my opinion does not sound at all like what I think. Obviously, there is a communication problem.

 

[Raven Crowking]

In a railroad either they fail while attempting option B or they take option B and are diverted for a short time. Regardless, shortly thereafter they will find themselves back at the crossroad and there will be N-1 choices. Eventually, only option A remains.

It is this inability to effectively make choices that defines a railroad.

Or the DM will make whatever option the players choose into his option A. All of the N options are illusory from the begining; all roads lead to Rome.


RC

 

[Noumenon]

Type "adventure railroad D&D" into yahoo or something. Its inexact, but in the two seconds I spent on it I found discussions of a paizo adventure as a railroad, a WOTC article on "travel" plotlines and how they can be railroads

That one was a good read, by the way.

 

[jmucchiello]

Or the DM will make whatever option the players choose into his option A. All of the N options are illusory from the begining; all roads lead to Rome.

I was attempting to imply that. That's for being explicit for me.