D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Stalker0]

As I mentioned a few times upthread, even on a railroad you have choices. If I take a train from Los Angeles to San Diego, I'm on a railroad. That doesn't mean that I can't buy snacks, have my choice of which snacks, go to the bathroom or hold it, look out the wind or nap(or do both), etc. Having choices, no matter how many of them there are, won't take you off of a railroad.

No. The amalgamation determines whether it's a long or short railroad, not whether or not a railroad is happening.

Again, it's not about what the players know. They could be quite happy being deceived and railroaded by you. Being happy doesn't make it okay in the first place. I mean, if I stole 5 dollars from a buddy who never noticed and then used it to buy him some candy that made him happy, is that okay? Just because they don't notice and got enjoyment out of it, doesn't mean that it was okay to deceive and railroad the players in the first place.

If you're going to engage in railroading and deception, you should get the players' okay on it during session 0.

It appears we are at an impasse then, our beliefs are too divergent.

I have answered the OP to my satisfaction.

 

[Mercurius]

I've only read the first two posts, but like just about any such "controversies," I think there is a meta-question that should be asked before going into it any further:

Is it fun?

Meaning, is everyone at the table having fun? If the answer is a resounding "yes!" then it isn't bad or wrong for those at the table, which in the context of a tabletop RPG is all that matters (unless you care what others are doing in the privacy of their own homes/tables).

Now of course there isn't always a resounding or consensual yes. Sometimes it is "yes, for the most part, but..." Or if some or all of the people aren't having fun, then something is wrong, and that's where all the complications lie (e.g. if one person isn't having fun and everyone else is, maybe it is a mismatch for that person and they're better off finding a different group or adjusting their expectations; if two or more aren't having fun, maybe something needs to shift in the group, etc etc).

If a group has a strongly "railroady" style and everyone enjoys it, then I don't see the problem with continuing as-is. It doesn't matter what your pet RPG philosophy is, or what seems "true" in the abstract, it is always trumped by the Rule of Fun (or, we could say, the Rule of Consensual Fun).

This also applies to just about any aspect of RPGs. If everyone enjoys killing things and taking their stuff, that's great. If everyone wants to focus on social-emotional role-playing situations, fine. That's one of the best things about RPGs: they can be infinitely customized to suit different styles of play, and different people.

That said, of course railroading is a problem when a DM does it and multiple players don't like it. But if a DM railroads and the players are enjoying themselves, what's the problem? This may surprise the diehard game theorists of the world, but some players just like to show up and roll some dice, and even prefer it when there are clear tracks to follow before them. I find that most players tend to want some degree of freedom, but again this is calibrated around the specific players and group.

I would also suggest that some of what people consider railroading is just the reality of hard choices. Sometimes we are faced with impossible choices: get the dream job, but lose the relationship; play D&D or hang out with significant other; eat ice cream, but get fat. Etc etc. I feel that some of the "anti-railroading" sentiment is about avoiding such choices. But as is taught in jujitsu, there's always an escape. If DMs don't allow that, it is a problem. So while I will argue that the Rule of Fun trumps all, as a general rule, it generally is best facilitated by a "not too tight, not too loose" approach. Meaning, a game involving challenges, hard choices, but always a path through. Too tight, and players feel like they have no real choices; too loose, and it feels like their choices don't matter. Just right...well, that's where a good game lies, but it differs for every group, and is usually quite flexible, especially if the Rule of Fun is the primary barometer, vs this-or-that abstract element of game theory.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Given all this talk of simplifying and getting away from canned examples with too many assumptions and such...fine. Let's talk in the absolute simplest, non-specific-example means we possibly can.

The DM offers a choice. This choice seems to matter to some degree. But the DM has decided in advance* that, absolutely without regard for whatever choice the players make, one and only one consequence will result. It is not possible, even in principle, for the players to get a different consequence, so long as they continue to play the game up to the point of that consequence occurring.

Is this railroading? Is this good? Is this likely to produce fun? Will DMs try to hide this from their players? Would players have less fun if they realized this was being done?

*If you truly do invent something on the spot, without ANY preconceived notion about what should be there, I might give that a pass....but that's still not great, as knowing that the world is simply ad-hoc invented on the spot with every choice rapidly drains away the consequences of choosing to go left or right, forward or back. The choice is still irrelevant, it's just irrelevant because the consequence is totally random rather than utterly deterministic--neither of which is good for making choices matter, because the result takes no (or absolute bare minimum) input from player choices. There are no consequences when everything is random Johnny-on-the-spot, just happenstances, and I've had players legit actually become frustrated by this, though not enough to criticize it at the table. (It came up during the one-on-one retrospectives of my adaptation of The Gardens of Ynn, and I've been keeping that feedback in mind going forward.) Going from a rigged game of craps to a truly random game of roulette doesn't make your choice of moves any more meaningful. A game of blackjack or poker, on the other hand, actually permits meaningful choice, even though it still includes randomness, because your moves really do affect the state of play. There's information unavailable to you, but you can take actions to minimize risk and maximize your possibility of return. Etc.

 

[Malmuria]

Is this railroading? Is this good? Is this likely to produce fun? Will DMs try to hide this from their players? Would players have less fun if they realized this was being done?

For me, it's just pointless. If the dm knows something is going to happen, spending time creating the illusion of a choice is uninteresting. As a dm, I'd rather play the game than perform these kind of uninteresting magic tricks to create the illusion of depth.

*If you truly do invent something on the spot, without ANY preconceived notion about what should be there, I might give that a pass....but that's still not great, as knowing that the world is simply ad-hoc invented on the spot with every choice rapidly drains away the consequences of choosing to go left or right, forward or back. The choice is still irrelevant, it's just irrelevant because the consequence is totally random rather than utterly deterministic--neither of which is good for making choices matter, because the result takes no (or absolute bare minimum) input from player choices. There are no consequences when everything is random Johnny-on-the-spot, just happenstances, and I've had players legit actually become frustrated by this, though not enough to criticize it at the table. (It came up during the one-on-one retrospectives of my adaptation of The Gardens of Ynn, and I've been keeping that feedback in mind going forward.) Going from a rigged game of craps to a truly random game of roulette doesn't make your choice of moves any more meaningful. A game of blackjack or poker, on the other hand, actually permits meaningful choice, even though it still includes randomness, because your moves really do affect the state of play. There's information unavailable to you, but you can take actions to minimize risk and maximize your possibility of return. Etc.

The Stygian Library showed me what fun it can be as a dm when you don't totally know what's going to happen next and you let the dice decide. And the library does change depending on how the PCs interact with the librarians. Without much work, you can start to create an emergent situation, where the character the PCs meet at level 8 knows the character that's back at level 5, and so forth.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Given all this talk of simplifying and getting away from canned examples with too many assumptions and such...fine. Let's talk in the absolute simplest, non-specific-example means we possibly can.

The DM offers a choice. This choice seems to matter to some degree. But the DM has decided in advance* that, absolutely without regard for whatever choice the players make, one and only one consequence will result. It is not possible, even in principle, for the players to get a different consequence, so long as they continue to play the game up to the point of that consequence occurring.

Is this railroading? Is this good? Is this likely to produce fun? Will DMs try to hide this from their players? Would players have less fun if they realized this was being done?

Out of how many choices? Let’s assume a campaign taking place over 6 months real time. Let’s also assume your example, a pretty clear-cut case of removing agency from players.

If the example occurs once during the 6-month campaign, was the campaign a railroad?

 

[Mercurius]

Given all this talk of simplifying and getting away from canned examples with too many assumptions and such...fine. Let's talk in the absolute simplest, non-specific-example means we possibly can.

The DM offers a choice. This choice seems to matter to some degree. But the DM has decided in advance* that, absolutely without regard for whatever choice the players make, one and only one consequence will result. It is not possible, even in principle, for the players to get a different consequence, so long as they continue to play the game up to the point of that consequence occurring.

Is this railroading? Is this good? Is this likely to produce fun? Will DMs try to hide this from their players? Would players have less fun if they realized this was being done?

I don't have a problem with this, as long as the DM does not, in any way, reveal that's what they're doing.

It is neither good nor bad on its own. If the DM is doing such a thing to provoke more fun, then why not? It is only a problem if the players know they had no choice.

A relatively benign example would be discovering a special magic item. Maybe the DM is using a dungeon in which the magic item -- which, say, is either really cool or is significant for player's character background/arc -- is in a very specific place. Let's say the players don't discover it. I see nothing wrong with the DM placing it somewhere else.

To put it another way, what goes on behind the screen doesn't exist until it occurs in front of the screen. A skilled DM knows how to utilize this in a way that serves the campaign as a whole.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

A relatively benign example would be discovering a special magic item. Maybe the DM is using a dungeon in which the magic item -- which, say, is either really cool or is significant for player's character background/arc -- is in a very specific place. Let's say the players don't discover it. I see nothing wrong with the DM placing it somewhere else.

Yeah, that's a great example. And we don't even need to think it as the location of the item being changed. It really didn't exist until the players found it. The item will simply be found in the next reasonable location the characters will look and in which it can reasonably be found. And in a D&D campaign such opportunity is practically guaranteed to occur, so the item is guaranteed to be found. I really see no value in insisting that the item that was completely made up in the first place must exist in one specific predefined fictional location, and if the characters for one reason or another never happen to go there the item will never be found.

 

[TheSword]

Railroad has

Yeah, that's a great example. And we don't even need to think it as the location of the item being changed. It really didn't exist until the players found it. The item will simply be found in the next reasonable location the characters will look and in which it can reasonably be found. And in a D&D campaign such opportunity is practically guaranteed to occur, so the item is guaranteed to be found. I really see no value in insisting that the item that was completely made up in the first place must exist in one specific predefined fictional location, and if the characters for one reason or another never happen to go there the item will never be found.

Another example would be an NPC who communicates with the PCs via a projected image. The PCs can’t capture or kill this NPC so does that make this situation a railroad? Or can we acknowledge that restricting some options doesn’t mean all options are restricted?

 

[Don Durito]

We're not using it in its original context, but just as an example of something that can happen in multiple choice points.

Then there's nothing to discuss because it's clearly not railroading unless we're assuming things that are unstated to be the case.

That's why I brought up the original context. Because it's absolutely worthless without it.

 

[Asisreo]

I think there's alot of assumptions that players can't tell if things are getting shuffled around, but its adding extra work ensuring that they can't tell.

If you have a bunch of generic encounters everywhere, sure, shuffling stuff around can be easy. But if you have your encounters married to your worldbuilding, its much harder.

If the cultists are looking for the ancient sword and they know its location, why are they in The City of Brass when the sword is not? And then you'll have to improvise. Having great improv skills are a talent but most players can tell the difference between things on-the-fly and things pre-written because of quality. Your descriptions falter or you give details you need to take back.

Rather, having a well-known merchant living in the City of Brass sell a map to the sword's location both gives players a hook and could possibly direct them back to the cultists, who are in their proper locations.