"Railroading" is just a pejorative term for...

[Barastrondo]

This seems like a relevant link to the discussion. For those who would like a little hint rather than a cold link, it's essentially a look at modules as how their maps demonstrate linearity or branching paths.

One of my favorite module series from back in the day was the Slave Lords series. I still find it very interesting how radically different that series went, from the sprawling stockade map and chance to explore Suderham to the linear dungeon in A3 and the outright "if you want to run A4, your players will board the railroad right now" ending to it.

 

[Hussar]

Something that occurs to me, reading this, is perhaps there isn't such a large divide between linear campaigns and sandboxes as I thought. Would the following be a fair characterization?

A sandbox campaign is one where events will occur with or without PC interaction and the expectation of the table is that the players will determine for themselves which events to interact with, if any at all.

A linear campaign is one where events will occur with or without PC interatction and the expectation at the table is that the players will interact with the events presented.

Where railroading comes into the picture is when the DM decides how the players will interact with the event and removes any options of interacting with an event in anything other than the proscribed way.

Is this fair?

 

[pemerton]

We tend to frame the discussion in terms of railroad at one end of the spectrum and sandbox at the other. On the surface, that seems pretty logical.

<snip>

In my mind, the discussion should be framed as Linear vs Sandbox. A Linear campaign will follow a fairly well defined path forward.

I've been spending the whole thread arguing against this dichotomy.

There is a type of game that is neither linear - in the sense that it has no defined path - but is not a sandbox. It is a game in which the GM presents the players (via their PCs) with situations that engage the known concerns of the players (signalled via PC backstories plus choices made in previous episodes of play) and then sees how the players respond.

Thus, The Shaman says about his sandbox:

when I decide 'what happens next,' I'm guided by what makes sense in the context of the situation, not what makes for a 'better story' or averts a tpk.

Whereas in the sort of game I'm taling about, when I decide "what happens next" I'm guided not only by what makes sense in the context of the situation, but by what will push the players to keep engaging. (Like in the quote from Paul Czege that I posted above.)

There is a long and interesting thread in which I observed several qualities of sandbox play. My summary

Good summary.

Let me suggest some definitions:

<snip list of types of game>

This list is not exclusive. In particular, it doesn't contain the sort of play that I describe above.

 

[Lanefan]

What would you call a game where the DM's pre-designed story is somewhat linear but it's almost completely irrelevant whether the players stay on said storyline or not? (assume it's a given that they'll be on *a* storyline, whether it's the one the DM intended or not)

What would you call a game where several somewhat-linear storylines cross paths and interact with each other as they go along, with the players forced to make choices as to which storyline (if any) they wish to engage with? What would you call it if each storyline had its own party following it but the parties sometimes interacted with each other to the point of exchanging characters and-or players, and the outcome of one story could and would affect some or all of the others? (in other words, multiple parties bashing around concurrently in the same region of a game world)

What would you call a game where the DM had several pre-designed storylines that may or may not eventually meet, and in fact may or may not even get played depending on how the campaign goes?

Lan-"the above situations all describe my current campaign"-efan

 

[pemerton]

Lanefan, that sounds like Celebrim's "play set".

But I'm curious as to what you mean by pre-designed story.

In my game, I prepare encounters that, everything else being equal, I will present to the players. For example, currently the PCs are trying to move through the foothills from point A (where they've just destroyed a demonic temple) to point B (where they have to pay some duergar slavers to redeem some prisoners). I am doing this via a skill challenge, and at certain points in the challenge certain encounter will occur (with the PCs getting advantages or disadvantages depending on how the skill challenge is going). So unless the players decide to abandon the trip to point B, and thus to abandon the skill challenge, those encounters will occur. But how they play out is up for grabs - for example, one is with some hags, and I have that statted up as both a negotiation skill challenge and a combat, because I'm not at all sure how the players will handle it. (In the previous game the same players had their PCs befriend rather than kill a night hag who had useful info for them - they have a soft spot for helpful information-dispensing NPCs even when those NPCs are evil.) Indeed, I'm anticipating that this encounter could be what prompts the players not to keep going to point B, and instead to decide to try and enter the Feywild.

Is this anything like what you have in mind when you talk about "the DM's pre-designed story"?

 

[Sorrowdusk]

Also, I'm going to take issue with your remarks about linear adventures; a "series" of rooms is almost unknown in RPGs. You would be talking about the 18 hole golf course of the Demented God, or the Very Long Corridor on the Borderlands.

Dungeon Mapping

Take a look at that, one of the things that makes an adventure interesting is how much choice you have. A dungeon can have all the friggin twists in the world, but its "decision map" what the above is really all about, can effectively be linear. Some would call that railroady. And really, whether its indoors or outdoors under or above ground, a "series" of rooms.

 

[Celebrim]

I've been spending the whole thread arguing against this dichotomy.

There is a type of game that is neither linear - in the sense that it has no defined path - but is not a sandbox. It is a game in which the GM presents the players (via their PCs) with situations that engage the known concerns of the players (signalled via PC backstories plus choices made in previous episodes of play) and then sees how the players respond.

Without knowing more about how you play and prep, I can't really say whether you are on an adventure path or in a sandbox. But the important point that has to be made is that I can't know which of the two you are doing because what you have described is (IMO) simply 'good DMing' and is a feature of either good linear or good sandbox play. Whether you are doing a sandbox, or whether you are constructing an adventure path from week to week, presumably the good DM is feeding the players situations that engauge their known concerns signalled via PC backstories plus choices made in previous episodes of play. I'd be doing that even if I was running the Dragon Lance moduels (as written, a very railroady adventure path) or if I was running an open ended 'pirate campaign' where the PC's sailed around in a boat exploring a world I had detailed.

There is of course more than one axis by which game structures can be plotted and described. Linear vs. non-linear is not the only feature of games, adventures, and campaigns. Just because you can pick out a salient feature of your game that doesn't lie on the llinear vs. non-linear axis doesn't mean that the distinction between an adventure path and a sandbox isn't real. It could be that you are playing in a fuzzy grey area in the middle where you switch back and forth between linear preperation for the session (tonight A will happen, then B will happen, then C will happen) and sandbox preperation (typically a map, location details, random encounter tables of various sorts whether events, monsters, or weather, large lists of wandering NPC's, etc.), and so the most salient feature of your prep is the tailoring you do to the dramatic conflict and themes proposed by the players.

The axis you are talking about, who controls the dramatic theme of play, is an interesting one - one that gets alot of discussion at Forge - but it doesn't mean that play isn't linear vs. non-linear. One additional way to describe a Railroad (the game type, as opposed to the act of railroading) is that it is not only linear, but the players have no ability through play to control or choose the dramatic conflict or the themes of the story. It is usually a feature of sandboxing that the players have greater control over the theme than in linear play, but its quite easy to imagine a Rowboat world where the players don't control the theme because there is no theme and they lack the ability to create meaningful dramatic conflict because the GM simply isn't putting enough effort into the story. Similarly, we could imagine a DM running the Dragon Lance modules with player created characters rather than pre-generated ones, and the DM tailoring the game to the conflicts generated by those party and intraparty conflicts rather than the stock ones presented by the modules and official story. The story is still on the whole linear with familiar places and events, if slightly different from the linear one presented in the modules, but the small events of the story revolve around different tensions and the PC's may have different presumed relationships with various NPC's. One of the original PC's might for example turn out to have been a dragon all along. Another might end up being a dragon Highlord's son, etc.

Lastly, I don't want to give the impression that I think good GMing means that the players are solely in control of the stories dramatic themes. The GM is a player too, and as the player most invested in the game (in terms of time and effort put into it, for example) the GM has a the reasonable expectation of having very large say what the story is about. Most players expect and have a reasonable expectation that the GM has a very interesting, exciting, twist filled, and thought provoking story in mind. Very little to me says poor DMing like a DM that doesn't have a story in mind and expects the players to effectively do all the work of world and story creation. I'm just saying that the good GM, in addition to crafting his own compelling story, takes cues from the players regarding what they are interested in.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Another very good post, Celebrim, and sorry I cannot XP you for it at this time!

 

[P1NBACK]

I would argue that (using my definitions) a good story-based game does not have to be linear but it cannot be a sandbox.

This is so, so wrong.

Care to define "story-based"?

 

[Umbran]

Just because you can pick out a salient feature of your game that doesn't lie on the llinear vs. non-linear axis doesn't mean that the distinction between an adventure path and a sandbox isn't real.

And, as a corollary - just because you can make a real distinction between path and sandbox, doesn't mean that distinction is always particularly meaningful.

I do frequently wonder exactly how "real" the distinctions we draw are. Many of the forms we talk about (GNS theory, say, or the sandbox/path dichotomy) are theoretical constructions made after the fact. Honestly, it seems a lot like the development of Freudian psychology - people working off of anecdotes and what seems reasonable in their own minds come up with a form that kinda-sorta hangs together.

If we accept that Good GMing stands outside the dichotomy, then it seems to me that the dichotomy is of rather academic interest, as compared to the far more practical, "How do I be a good GM?" Our discussions often seem to forget that.

The theoretical structures are often helpful for analysis - giving you a language and framework in which to structure thoughts. But ultimately you ought to be able to remove your analysis from one framework, and move it to another. If you cannot, that means that the framework is no longer your tool, but your master.

The axis you are talking about, who controls the dramatic theme of play, is an interesting one - one that gets alot of discussion at Forge - but it doesn't mean that play isn't linear vs. non-linear.

A good point - and maybe lack of this insight has created one of the major sticking points we come across in these discussions: player's having "meaningful choice" in the game.

Imagine a player with a lot of thematic choice. Many themes imply a direction of action, so that a GM who creates to the thematic choice has a very good idea where the players intend to go, and may not need much beyond a very linear play.