D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Crimson Longinus]

What about when they misconstrue information, and make choices that have nothing to do with anything? Do we have to quickly make up material so that, in some way, to make those choices into real ones? Like, say there never was an ogre, but they got an idea there was one, and go on an ogre hunt. Is putting a ogre wherever they happen to be going, to satisfy their desire for ogre-hunting, railroading them into their own misconceptions?

If not every choice has to be real, why do we have such a long argument about it?

Frankly, sometimes it is actually good idea for the GM to make the player misconceptions true or at least make something related to them. If players get weirdly obsessed about some thing the GM meant just to be a meaningless throwaway detail (as they sometimes do,) then the GM might as well make the thing to have at least some meaning. It is far more satisfying to the players than letting them to waste hours of their time on something that will lead absolutely nowhere. And yes, this is illusionism, and yes, I think that if used sparingly this is a good idea.

And this relates to the other side of the railroad, that is hard to articulate, and one which I feel is prone to cause at least as much frustration than railroading (or "railroading.") I feel that in fear of railroads, some GMs simply let the PCs aimlessly wander around, chase wild geese, and generally get frustrated as nothing coherent or interesting happens. Yes, there might be some interesting things the GM is planned, but the GM will certainly not "railroad" the players to them! No, they must have perfect unhindered agency to waste their time on boring inconsequential things (that they have no way of knowing are inconsequential.)

Now that was pretty hyperbolic description, but I've seen episodes of something like that crop up in several games, and I frankly find it more frustrating than "railroads." My personal motto as a GM is something like: "whatever you do, something interesting will happen." And if it requires illusionism to do it, so be it!

 

[FrozenNorth]

If the players spend a week of downtime in Greyhawk, the GM probably doesn't roll random encounters for every day of R&R. So why roll encounters for every day of travel if the PCs spend a week journeying from Greyhawk to Urnst? Obviously in resource-based hexcrawls, there's an answer: the journey is not meant to be resource-expenditure free. But in 5e D&D, where everyone knows that (on the standard rest sequence) a 1x/day encounter is likely to just be a nova-fest, why bother? I'm serious here - what reason is there, beyond fetishisation of the tradition of random encounters?

To me, this is a completely different question (and one I’ve personally grappled with). My response has been to make such randoms encounters interesting.

What does that mean? This depends in part on the players. But an encounter with a memorable NPC can provide world-building or allow a player to add characterization to their PC. A combat, even if it is a 1 per day, can be interesting if it introduces new monsters, monsters have interesting abilities, or the DM goes through the effort to make the encounter dynamic. And of course, there is always the possibility that the encounter will result in treasure the PCs might find interesting.

The result has been tables of fewer random encounters but more time spent designing each one.

 

[Asisreo]

If the players spend a week of downtime in Greyhawk, the GM probably doesn't roll random encounters for every day of R&R. So why roll encounters for every day of travel if the PCs spend a week journeying from Greyhawk to Urnst? Obviously in resource-based hexcrawls, there's an answer: the journey is not meant to be resource-expenditure free. But in 5e D&D, where everyone knows that (on the standard rest sequence) a 1x/day encounter is likely to just be a nova-fest, why bother? I'm serious here - what reason is there, beyond fetishisation of the tradition of random encounters?

The question is formed under the assumption that the only reason behind Random Encounters are to expend the party's resources through combat/conflict.

That is not the only reason to use Random Encounters. In fact, outside of resource expenditure, the DMG lists these reasons to use Random Encounters:

• Create Urgency: Incentivize pushing forward with the threat of an encounter.
• Establish Atmosphere: Help create a consistency in tone of adventure.
• Provide Assistance: Instead of hurting the party, the encounter helps them.
• Add Interest: foreshadow future events or instill worldbuilding.
• Reinforce Campaign Themes: Reminds players of the overall tone of the campaign.

 

[Don Durito]

There are of course a number of ways to handle travel. You can skip it, skill challenge it, montage it 13th Age style etc. You don't have to have a string of encounters random or otherwise.

I only brought up encounters on a journey, because it seems to be an underlying assumption behind the way people are reframing a lot of the quantom ogre situations. (People often assume the quantom ogre is an encounter because it's sounds like the sort of thing that is a mostly incidental encounter; however in it's original context it was clearly a destination).

 

[UngainlyTitan]

There are of course a number of ways to handle travel. You can skip it, skill challenge it, montage it 13th Age style etc. You don't have to have a string of encounters random or otherwise.

I only brought up encounters on a journey, because it seems to be an underlying assumption behind the way people are reframing a lot of the quantom ogre situations. (People often assume the quantom ogre is an encounter because it's sounds like the sort of thing that is a mostly incidental encounter; however in it's original context it was clearly a destination).

The quantum Ogre, as it originally turned up in this discussion, was as I remember, an encounter not a destination. The players could go to A or B but a ogre encounter would occur on the way because that is what the DM had prepped.

The problem I have with these discussions, is that, it presents, sandbox play, pre-generated sandboxes as the only way to legitimately play D&D, characterising all other play types as railroading and makes it tiresome and difficult to discus AP play or other "plot driven" play in a generic sense as to best practise because the discussion gets bogged down in the strange attractor of railroad.

 

[Don Durito]

The quantum ogre, as it originally turned up in this discussion, was as I remember, an encounter not a destination. The players could go to A or B but a ogre encounter would occur on the way because that is what the DM had prepped.

When I said the original context I meant the original context of the Hack'n'slash blog of 2011 as I linked to earlier in the thread.

The way it originally turned up in this thread was an example of the kind of misconception I was talking about.

 

[Bedrockgames]

The problem I have with these discussions, is that, it presents, sandbox play, pre-generated sandboxes as the only way to legitimately play D&D, characterising all other play types as railroading and makes it tiresome and difficult to discus AP play or other "plot driven" play in a generic sense as to best practise because the discussion gets bogged down in the strange attractor of railroad.

This isn't sandbox though. Lots of campaigns feature a choice between two, three, or four different things at a certain point. Sandbox play is about being able to freely explore the map as a whole. Even in the most linear of campaigns, if you give players a fork in the road, that creates the expectation of a choice that leads to two very different locations, outcome, events. The question we are trying to answer isn't whether this is okay or not, there may be situations where it is, but whether it is railroading to begin with that choice of A or B; but then make the choice lead to the same outcome: an encounter with an ogre. Now there may be exceptions, but exceptions don't break the rule. For example this could be a situation where there is an ogre hunting players and is waiting between the paths to strike no matter what direction they go. If it is an exceptional situation, or an exceptional type of game, fair enough maybe not a railroad. But if the GM keeps using that tactic it is seems a text book case of a railroad

 

[Thomas Shey]

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?)

You might not know from one or two situations. But if I happen to notice that there's always an elaborate, detailed location or encounter in every place we go, I'm going to start assuming the fix is in simply out of a knowledge of how much prep time is involved. And this is from someone who was prone to using a few random table rolls and pulling things like a barrow-field encounter entirely out of my butt on the fly at need on occasion in my GMing career (I only use that because a player flat out asked me afterwards whether that was preplanned and looked, not disbelieving but boggled when I said no).

That's the gig with a lot of forms of illusionism. It becomes harder and harder to pull off over time when people start to notice your patterns, and most people are not nearly as good at misdirection when it comes to it as they think they are. That's why I generally think its best used sparingly and/or with people who've already bought in to you doing it.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

When I said the original context I meant the original context of the Hack'n'slash blog of 2011 as I linked to earlier in the thread.

The way it originally turned up in this thread was an example of the kind of misconception I was talking about.

I was not aware of the blog post or the term prior to this thread and do not really care whether it refers to an encounter or a destination, "quantum whatever" is an obvious name for something that is in a indeterminate state as to location or other characteristics before it is presented to players. Good luck in enforcing your particular nomenclature.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh, and on the topic of not having locations be on random encounter tables or be otherwise mobile -- you're absolutely missing out on a great encounter tool. "Monster lair" is a great encounter idea. As is "fairy grove" or "thin place between planes." These don't need to be in fixed places, planned beforehand. They can be on encounter tables, or encounter lists, or just dropped in when it feels cool.

In fact, in a lot of traditional hexcrawls, it was pretty unlikely you'd have such things coded to exactly where they were, because the mapscale being used was too big for that. At most you'd have "basilisk lair in hex 4032", but since the hexes were five miles across, it was going to be entirely possible to go through the hex and never hit that lair. So you were likely going to have some process for whether they did so or not.