All Aboard the Invisible Railroad!

What if I told you it was possible to lock your players on a tight railroad, but make them think every decision they made mattered?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

While this may sound like the evil GM speaking, I have my reasons. Firstly, not every GM has time to craft a massive campaign. There are also plenty of GMs who are daunted at the prospect of having to figure out every eventuality. So, this advice is offered to help people scale down the pressure of being a GM and give them options to reuse and recycle their ideas and channel players through an exciting adventure that just doesn’t have as many options as they thought it did. All I’m suggesting here is a way to make sure every choice the players make takes them to an awesome encounter, which is surly no bad thing.

A Caveat​

I should add that used too often this system can have the opposite effect. The important thing here is not to take away their feeling of agency. If players realise nothing they do changes the story, then the adventure will quickly lose its allure. But as long as they don’t realise what is happening they will think every choice matters and the story is entirely in their hands. However, I should add that some players are used to being led around by the nose, or even prefer it, so as long as no one points out the “emperor has no clothes” everyone will have a great game.

You See Three Doors…​

This is the most basic use of the invisible railroad: you offer a choice and whichever choice they pick it is the same result. Now, this only works if they don’t get to check out the other doors. So this sort of choice needs to only allow one option and no take backs. This might be that the players know certain death is behind the other two doors ("Phew, thank gods we picked the correct one there!"). The other option is for a monotone voice to announce “the choice has been made” and for the other doors to lock or disappear.

If you use this too often the players will start to realise what is going on. To a degree you are limiting their agency by making them unable to backtrack. So only lock out the other options if it looks likely they will check them out. If they never go and check then you don’t need to stop them doing so.

The Ten Room Dungeon​

This variant on the idea above works with any dungeon, although it might also apply to a village or any place with separate encounters. Essentially, you create ten encounters/rooms and whichever door the player character’s open leads to the next one on your list. You can create as complex a dungeon map as you like, and the player characters can try any door in any order. But whatever door they open after room four will always lead to room five.

In this way the players will think there is a whole complex they may have missed, and if they backtrack you always have a new room ready for them, it’s just the next one on the list. The downside is that all the rooms will need to fit to roughly the same dimensions if someone is mapping. But if no one is keeping track you can just go crazy.

Now, this may go against the noble art of dungeon design, but it does offer less wastage. There are also some GMs who create dungeons that force you to try every room, which is basically just visible railroading. This way the players can pick any door and still visit every encounter.

This idea also works for any area the player characters are wandering about randomly. You might populate a whole village with only ten NPCs because unless the characters are looking for someone specific that will just find the next one of your preset NPCs regardless of which door they knock on.

What Path Do You Take in the Wilderness?​

When you take away doors and corridors it might seem more complex, but actually it makes the invisible railroad a lot easier. The player characters can pick any direction (although they may still pick a physical path). However, it is unlikely they will cross into another environmental region even after a day’s walk. So as long as your encounters are not specific to a forest or mountain they should all suit “the next encounter.”

So, whichever direction the players decide to go, however strange and off the beaten path, they will encounter the same monster or ruins as if they went in any other direction. Essentially a wilderness is automatically a ‘ten room dungeon’ just with fewer walls.

As with any encounter you can keep things generic and add an environmentally appropriate skin depending on where you find it. So it might be forest trolls or mountain trolls depending on where they are found, but either way its trolls. When it comes to traps and ruins it’s even easier as pretty much anything can be built anywhere and either become iced up or overgrown depending on the environment.

Before You Leave the Village…​

Sometimes the easiest choice is no choice at all. If the player characters have done all they need to do in “the village” (or whatever area they are in) they will have to move on to the next one. So while they might procrastinate, explore, do some shopping, you know which major plot beat they are going to follow next. Anything they do beforehand will just be a side encounter you can probably improvise or draw from your backstock of generic ones. You need not spend too long on these as even the players know these are not important. The next piece of the “proper adventure” is whenever they leave the village so they won’t expect anything beyond short and sweet. In fact, the less detailed the encounters the more the GM will be assumed to be intimating it is time to move on.

Following the Clues​

Finally we come to the most common invisible railroad that isn’t ever considered railroading (ironically). Investigative adventures usually live and breathe by allowing the player characters to uncover clues that lead to other clues. Such adventures are actually openly railroading as each clue leads to another on a proscribed path. The players aren’t forced to follow the clues, but what else are they going to do? The players are making a point of following the railroad in the knowledge it will take them to the denouement of the adventure. What makes this type of railroading entertaining is that the players feel clever for having found the clues that lead them along the path. So if they start to divert too much the GM can put another clue on their path or let them find the next one a little easier and you are back on track.

The "Good" Kind of Railroading​

Now, all this may all seem a little manipulative, but modifying events in reaction to what the players do is a part of many GM’s tools. Any trick you use is usually okay as long as you do it to serve the story and the player’s enjoyment.

That said, never take away player agency so you can ensure the story plays out the way you want it to. This sort of railroading should only be used just to make the game more manageable and free up the GM to concentrate on running a good game instead of desperately trying to create contingencies. So, remember that you must never restrict the choices and agency of the players, at least knowingly. But it is fine to make sure every road goes where you want it to, as long as that is to somewhere amazing.

Your Turn: How do you use railroading in your games?

 

[iserith]

When I was regularly running pickup games for a Discord server of hundreds of people, there were some rules in place for what kind of treasure you could award per tier of character for the one-shot, since they could take that same character and play in someone else's one-shot.

In every single adventure, among the treasure, I would include one of the approved magic items: A skeleton key. This key basically had a 10% chance to open any lock and, if it did, it would disintegrate. I always awarded it because I figured, however remote, somewhere, someway, it would wreck someone's plot or railroad gated behind a door or chest or whatever. I know it happened at least once based on feedback from one of the players.

It's horrible, I know, but I won't deny getting some sense of satisfaction out of it.

 

[Reynard]

This is why I tend not to pre-roll random elements of an adventure. I like not knowing something.

I like not knowing as much as possible. I set up situations rather than plots and then just let the players loose. Between player shenanigans and swingy dice, I get to be as surprised as them.

 

[CleverNickName]

I like not knowing as much as possible. I set up situations rather than plots and then just let the players loose. Between player shenanigans and swingy dice, I get to be as surprised as them.

This is the way.

 

[pemerton]

I would for sure let them look for the portal and/or spell jamming ship... but I get to decide if there is one to find. In my current world the place the players are is locked... you CAN'T planar travel to or from it but they don't know that... I would not stop them from trying though.

So how is this not a "railroad" (or whatever you want to call it)? The GM has already decided that what the players are trying to have their PCs achieve can never succeed.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Honestly, DMs railroad all the time--even if they don't realize they are doing it. I refuse to believe anyone who claims they "never do it"... it just means they don't realize they are doing it. And frankly, railroading, in and of itself, is not a bad thing.

 

[Mort]

Honestly, DMs railroad all the time--even if they don't realize they are doing it. I refuse to believe anyone who claims they "never do it"... it just means they don't realize they are doing it. And frankly, railroading, in and of itself, is not a bad thing.

Railroading has a negative connotation for a reason - it is MEANT to express a negative concept.

If you are using the term in such a way that it is "not a bad thing..." then the term itself loses its intended meaning.

 

[Guest 7034872]

This is the way.

That leaked Mando trailer has me pretty geeked.

 

[Charlaquin]

Do you adjust frequency of rolling or how you use the chart based on party health or the like?

I use the Angry GM’s tension pool mechanic for random encounter rolls. Basically, every “turn” I add a d6 “tension die” to the tension pool. A “turn” is approximately one day during downtime, 4 hours during overland travel, or 10 minutes during dungeon exploration. Most time-consuming actions (e.g. spending a day on a downtime activity; traveling 6 miles at a slow pace, 12 at a medium pace, 18 at a fast pace; trying to pick a lock) take 1 turn; some take multiple turns (a short rest takes 6 turns at a 10-minute scale, a long rest takes 2 turns at a 4-hour scale, etc). Risky actions (e.g. spending downtime carousing, traveling at night or through dangerous territory; trying to break down a door in the dungeon), which may or may not also be time-consuming, trigger a roll of all the dice currently in the pool. When the sixth die is added to the pool, I roll them all and then remove them all from the pool. Any time a 1 is rolled on any of the tension dice, I roll for a complication, usually on one of those 1d12+1d8 tables. (I don’t roll multiple times if multiple dice turn up 1s; it’s just a binary if one or more dice turns up a 1, roll, if no dice turn up a 1, don’t roll).

Complications can include wandering monsters, hazards, events, etc, and obviously there are different tables for the different time scales; the sorts of complications that are likely to occur during downtime are different than the sort that are likely to occur while traveling, or in a dungeon. Importantly though, complications are never positive for the party. They should always involve some kind of risk or challenge, or consume PC resources, or at the very least just be ominous and put the PCs on-edge. The point of the pool is to create rising and falling dramatic tension, which means the players need to fear the roll of the tension dice, and positive random events, or too many neutral ones, undermines that.

So, in a sense, party health and the like can sort of affect the chances of complications, indirectly. If the party is low on health or other resources, they can try to avoid taking risky actions, especially when there are a lot of dice in the tension pool, to avoid triggering extra rolls. But crucially it’s their decisions that affect it, not just my assessment of their condition. And they can only try to mitigate the risk of complications, not eliminate it completely.

 

[MGibster]

I don't know about your players, but when I'm playing and my choices are blind and the information I try to gain is unconnected to what happens when I act on it, I don't feel I have agency.

As a player, I'm fine with exploring the uknown in this way. But you're right, that it isn't a meaningful choice because I don't have enough information to pick one door over the other. A meaningful choice would be something like, "If you go through the south door, you'll risk angering the Qwigibo and her many suitors. But if you go through the east door, your journey will take longer but you will likely encounter no dangers. Which way do you proceed?"

 

[Magister Ludorum]

I will not play at a table where GMs use quantum encounters or meaningless choices. I have a lot ofgaming options.

And I will state that I never consciously railroad characters by taking their choices away, not in 45 years of GMing.