D&D General Why defend railroading?

[EzekielRaiden]

Well yes. That was my whole point!

Understood. I think I mistook Socratic questioning for either Devil's advocate or criticism.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The first hex out is woods in every direction. Haunted house is on the woods no table. Do you automatically assume you were railroaded if you don't know a table exists?

I don’t assume anything. But if it starts to feel like any direction I pick, it doesn’t matter because the thing the gm wants to happen, always happen, I will begin to suspect I am on a railroad. And if the GM is moving things on the map to fit the directions we are moving in, whether we know it or not, that seems a pretty concrete railroad

 

[Bedrockgames]

I assume the players choice if direction has now put a haunted house on the map now.

How do you have the slightest clue you were railroaded if you knew nothing about a haunted house?

What if you chose that direction for one of six things (one for each hex side) and that thing is still in the direction you chose?

this isn’t something you will normally sense from a single instance. The Gm could probably fool me that that time, the direction I chose led to the haunted house on the map. But I think over time this type of railroading becomes more obvious. And I think more experience a player has makes it easier to spot

 

[Bedrockgames]

Door A: underground creek and mushrooms
Door B: WOLVES!!

If the player take door A and the DM moves the Wolves, no railroad.

Door A: Ranger hears creek and detects a dampness in the air indicating possible underground growths.

Door B: Ranger hears growling and scrabblimg of claws on stone. A soft yipping indicates the presence of some sort of canine.

If the players take door A and the DM moves the wolves, railroad. More like a force feed than a railroad but I find our nerd nomenclature to be misused anyways.

I would say both are railroads. In both cases the gm is objectively moving things to railroad the players into encountering them . They don’t have to be aware of the railroad for it to be a railroad

 

[Cadence]

I don’t assume anything. But if it starts to feel like any direction I pick, it doesn’t matter because the thing the gm wants to happen, always happen, I will begin to suspect I am on a railroad. And if the GM is moving things on the map to fit the directions we are moving in, whether we know it or not, that seems a pretty concrete railroad

How do you know what the DM wants to happen? You mean, things like have interesting encounters? And you don't have anything marked on that hex - do you suspect DM shenanigans whenever you have a non-trivial encounter that wasn't foreshadowed before you chose a direction? (Volo travels guide subscription?)

 

[Malmuria]

Player knowledge of how options differ is what makes the choice meaningful. That being said, if the players encounter a house, and it seems spooky, and then 10 min later the dm pulls out terrain and mini's perfectly suited for the house (or a map and tokens on a vtt), it's not too hard to guess that this was the adventure for the night. I'd avoid calling that railroading because it's clearly not the most useful term, but it is a style of play, one that balances player agency with respect for time the dm puts into prep. This is also because the implicit question is, 'how can we avoid railroading,' how can we make player choices as meaningful as possible.

 

[Ovinomancer]

It's worth quoting this from the original Quantom Ogre Post

"Palette Shifting

Let's take just one moment and talk about palette shifting. There is some misunderstanding of what is meant by this term.

This can be as simple as the bandit encounter (Bandits to the east - we go west! ack, bandits here too!), or as complex as totally different monsters who lead you to exactly the same place. This can be used to either negate the players choice (You're going to fight my special bandits anyway!) or to negate player freedom (It doesn't matter what you do, you will meet the cultists of Bane!).

Pre-scripting 12 encounter lairs, and randomly generating which is in a hex that was unknown is not palette shifting. Having undefined "white space" in a campaign, and dynamically filling it with pre-generated content later is not palette shifting."

I'm not sure I follow this. Let's say we have path A and path B. The players learn that there is an encounter of a specific type on path A -- an ogre. They choose to go down path B explicitly to avoid this encounter. The GM determines (however) that they still have some encounter along path B. Okay, we have the setup. I see a few ways this can play out, and I'm not sure it's at all visible to the players:

1) The GM moves the ogre encounter, but reskins it as something non-ogre (I guess there's a useful set of stats)? The players do not encounter an ogre, but instead a stat-block like an ogre but with a few flavor changes and perhaps minor mechanical ones?

2) The GM rolls on their random encounter table, and gets an ogre. I'm not sure where this leaves us.

3) The GM has an entirely different encounter than an ogre or re-skinned ogre.

So, across 1, 2, and 3, the players still have an encounter no matter what. In 1) the GM "palette shifts" but the players may or may not be able to discern this, but they don't encounter an ogre, just a ogre-y stat block. In 2) there's nothing at all railroad-y or palette shifting or quantum ogre-y, but the players still encounter an ogre. In 3, the players don't encounter an ogre (yay!) but still have an encounter. This might looks the same as a successful palette shift to the players.

This appears that "palette shifting (1)" is somewhat overblown, in that you can have the same appearance without the attempt (3), and an even worse appearance without the attempt (2). I'm not sure this concept does a lot of work.

 

[Cadence]

I would say both are railroads. In both cases the gm is objectively moving things to railroad the players into encountering them . They don’t have to be aware of the railroad for it to be a railroad

Is it ok if they hear a large mechanism creaking as they go to open the door? Or later find out it's a living dungeon?

 

[Bedrockgames]

What if you chose that direction for one of six things (one for each hex side) and that thing is still in the direction you chose?

then my choice mattered because the direction I picked is the direction it was in. It’s the GM shifting things do it comes up no matter which direction I choose that it’s a problem

 

[Mistwell]

I wasn’t mansplaining and I wasn’t telling you what you can and can’t do with your daughter. Can we tone the hyperbole down a notch?

Sure. Why would you start with "you must not understand what railroading means" if you were unsure if I knew what it meant?