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?

 

[Reynard]

Can’t consent without knowledge. It’s perfectly fine to run games this way, as long as you notify your players you’re doing so. Some of them might decide not to participate, but that’s why you tell them first. So they have the opportunity to make that informed decision.

yeah, this is mostly a table agreement issue. Just open up Session 0 with: "I am interested in running a tightly plotted game and will occasionally manipulate things behind the screen to make that happen, all with the goal of creating an awesome experience for everyone at the table. Is that cool?" Ta da.

 

[Charlaquin]

yeah, this is mostly a table agreement issue. Just open up Session 0 with: "I am interested in running a tightly plotted game and will occasionally manipulate things behind the screen to make that happen, all with the goal of creating an awesome experience for everyone at the table. Is that cool?" Ta da.

Exactly. Easy peasy, most players will probably be fine with it, and those that won’t have the opportunity to decide not to play. Everyone wins.

 

[Stalker0]

Are (at least some) player choices presented as being actually meaningful? Yes/No
Are those choices that are presented as meaningful actually meaningful? Yes/No

This is the sticking point right here. Again its all a matter of degrees.

If you are railroading so hard in your game that your players NEVER have a meaningful choice, than I agree, that's a pretty crappy game most of the time. But that is really not what a lot of us are talking here.

We are talking a tool in the box, something to be sprinkled in, to be used when it makes sense to do so. Not a club that is constantly waved endlessly at all points of the game.

So no its not binary at all. Its a spectrum. One dm might throw in a tool once in a blue moon. Another dm might do it every few sessions. And a third dm might do it at every opportunity. They are not the same.

 

[jgsugden]

...It seems to me that there is a HUGE HUGE HUGE gap between your Type II Demon DM 2 and DM 3. That is, the first and second DMs are very similar, one does no planning at all ever for any reason, the other does a small bit of planning and nothing more, and the third does HARDCORE TOLKIENESQUE EVERYTHING IS PLANNED FROM MINUTE ONE stuff. One of these things is not like the others...

Please read my response(s) again and think about it. I do not say that every little element is planned in fine detail. I go out of my way to say that you can't prepare for everything and you have to find the way to strike the good balance. Having a sensible plan is what that third DM does. The floor to get into that third tier is to think things through as you build rather than build on the fly.

This is about telling stories that make sense across the board, where you have enough preparation to make sure that the stuff you're throwing at the party makes sense. That does not require you to plan out every thread on a carpet in a Robert Jordan-esque tome for each session. It requires you to make a plan, execute on a plan, and make sure that as you build your dungeon/adventure, in advance, you take the time to make sure it makes sense. Look through the examples I've listed. Look at the comments I've made about the differences in what preparation might be.

A 'DM 3' might spend 6 hours preparing for a 4 hour session, or they might spend 1. They might have all the stats printed out for the monsters or look them up as they go. They might write everything down or have it in their head. The key is that they're thinking it through.

The PCs are hunting for a bandit leader and the DM has decided the bandits are in a cave complex 2 days outside town. Why? What made that location appeal to the bandits? Is it a natural cave? Did they take it from other creatures? Is it in the mountains, a valley, a forest or somewhere else? Can they cart supplies there? If not, how do they get supplies? What is the story about how they arrived there?

How long does it take to think that through? Maybe a few minutes. However, if you do, then you have ideas on what to do and how to build the dungeon in a way that supports that story and makes the location make sense to a group of players. That results in a far superior product than deciding the bandit leader's chamber in the cave will be the last one the PCs find and letting them randomly explore a Nethack-esque complex of caves that you place as they encounter them.

Folks - there is a reason they give you maps and story around the dungeons you find in good prepublished adventures. They're doing this work for you. It is a fairly universal good thing.

 

[jgsugden]

I've also played, and GMed, PRGs for about 40 years. And I find that games in which the GM prepares a story and railroads the players through it is less fun than one in which the players contribute to the shared fiction.

NOTE: I objected to the INVISIBLE RAILROAD (the title of this thread) and encouraged people to plan to create a world that makes sense. When the world makes sense, it opens options, not closes them. Real choice is created in a world that is prepared. When the DM just shoves whatever they want in front of you regardless of the choices you make, as the OP suggests, that is the railroad. Preparation is necessary ofr players to actually have choices to make. Choice is between options, and options have to exist before you can choose between them.

And the reason is not mysterious. RPGing is essentially conversation, albeit stylised conversation: different participants talk about different things, and there are rules that tell us who can say what when. The topic and upshot of the conversation is a shared fiction.

Conversations are best when they are spontaneous and responsive. A script isn't a conversation - at best it might be a simulacrum of one. In my view, the same is true in RPGing.

And this has NOTHING to do with the type of preparation I describe. You're setting the stage. You're not limiting what the players do with/on the stage. You're preparing better for the NPCs to contriburte to that world meaningfully by giving them the background they need. If you wing the NPCs as you go, they'll come off as random and nonsensical too often. If they have goals, if they have a reason to be where they are, if they have a spark of life... then they're far more likely to be engaging.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It may be “normal GMing” and “practically always the case” to you, because of who you have played with. There is, however, a significant contingent of D&D players and DMs for whom this is very much not the norm, and in fact, considered very poor form. That’s why it’s important to discuss ahead of time. These unspoken assumptions can and do lead to dysfunction and hurt feelings when they come to light.

Everything is never preplanned. I don't rally understand where these red lines lie.

It’s not just that the DM is keeping something secret, it’s that the technique is premised around deceiving the players.

It is not a secret that the GM is in charge and makes stuff up.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

This is the sticking point right here. Again its all a matter of degrees.

I don't see how there can be a degree here, or anything other than a binary. If you present choices that are supposed to matter, but they specifically do not matter, how is there any degree to that?

Are you really saying that travelling due west and travelling due north are choices that aren't supposed to have ANY physical significance or consequences on the people making the journey, that they will have literally exactly the same experience, travel to EXACTLY the same places, etc., etc.?

If I'm allowed to choose a destination between distinct options, those options should, y'know, actually be distinct. This isn't hard, this isn't some weird narrow specific thing. This is an example people have repeatedly used in both this thread and previous threads.

A 'DM 3' might spend 6 hours preparing for a 4 hour session, or they might spend 1. They might have all the stats printed out for the monsters or look them up as they go. They might write everything down or have it in their head. The key is that they're thinking it through.

Then you really over-sold how much preparation was required. MASSIVELY over-sold it. Your statements about "you don't have to prepare everything" very much came across as "you don't have to truly prepare everything...but you should always get as close as possible to preparing everything." This came from statements like: "Quality preparation can make sure that every moment at the table matters."

If what you meant was, "Every DM does a mix of heavy impromptu improvisation, and heavy planning, and the exact balance point will vary from person to person and even from session to session," that....was not at all what I got from it. Particularly because your presentation offered zero-prep and very nearly zero-prep, and seemed to be making a very clear "more prep is essentially always better." You gave a fig leaf that "there is a point of diminishing returns" and basically never otherwise touched the possibility that one can over-prepare. Which is a serious issue for a lot of DMs...particularly those who feel they need to railroad.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It is not a secret that the GM is in charge and makes stuff up.

Again, you conflate using imagination to dream stuff up and pretending that something you told the players were distinct never was.

It is the DM's job to be inventive and imaginative, yes.

It is not the DM's job to tell players that a particular thing matters when it very much doesn't.

 

[Stalker0]

Are you really saying that travelling due west and travelling due north are choices that aren't supposed to have ANY physical significance or consequences on the people making the journey, that they will have literally exactly the same experience, travel to EXACTLY the same places, etc., etc.?

Because again, you are looking at it way too rigidly.

Lets say the party travels west. If they do so, they will likely meet the King of Arkenor, and PC 1 will be reuninted with his lost love. If they go north, they will find a people suffering a plague, and will have to decide how they want to intervene. But either way they go, the DM plans a bandit encounter.

Does this identical bandit encounter suddenly mean their choices don't matter? Of course not! Player choice can matter, without mattering in every single possible way. Maybe the DM pulls out a few of the tricks mentioned in the article, but at the end of the dungeon the players find a hostage situation in which their actions and words might be the difference of life and death for the young woman held hostage. Does that mean for that dungeon the player choices didn't matter? Of course not....it mattered a great deal....just not in every single possible way.

Its a spectrum. Just like a DM creates combat encounters that sometimes lets PC 1 shine, and sometimes lets PC 2 shine.... they craft adventurers and dungeons that are a combination of important player choices and just bits that move things along without being very impactful. and as long as you ensure that enough of the player choices are impactful and meaningful, then you have done your job. If you are railroading so much that the players feel like they are in a movie instead of an interactive story....than you have gone to far. It is a spectrum.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Again, you conflate using imagination to dream stuff up and pretending that something you told the players were distinct never was.

It is the DM's job to be inventive and imaginative, yes.

But you seem to have weirdly specific rules about how GM is allowed to make stuff up. Why it is allowed to make up "a wild beast will break loose at the market 09:00 AM, Thursday" and not allowed make up "a wild beast will break loose at the market the next time the PCs go there"?

It is not the DM's job to tell players that a particular thing matters when it very much doesn't.

GM is not telling the players the choice either matters or doesn't matter.