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?

 

[bloodtide]

I mean I think basically all the examples in the OP are just that. Guiding meandering players toward the interesting stuff, whilst creating an illusion of a bigger world.

Like sure, when the players say that they go to the forest the GM could just directly frame them at the witch's cottage. But it probably creates a feeling that the forest is large and full of stuff and they just happen to stumble on one of the many mysterious things in it, if it is done like in the wilderness example.

It seems pretty innocent to me.

I agree.

I never said you need to tell the players what was and wasn’t modified. Just tell them, from the beginning of the campaign, that you plan to modify things, so that if they have a problem with that, they can voice it.

So the first not so big problem is the irrational crazy player reaction. Even mention a railroad, and some players will refuse to play and run away from the game screaming. And, fine, let them run away and find some other game. Though the problem comes where player A is the ride or brother or best pal of player B. So if player A runs away from the game screaming "railroad bad....aaaaaahhh!", then they take player B with them. So, to keep players you need to deceive crazy player A.

Also, you can tell all the players Railroad all the live long day. But, as you can see in the thread, everyone has a different word salad definition. So the player thinks 'railroading' is X, but they can't see it or even know it's happening....other then the DM said so. But when the player makes 100 choices and "feels on rails" then are fine thinking there really is no railroad.

What are you talking about?

A couple of pages ago, someone said that a DM can just say something like "attention players I am changing things behind the scenes" and when the players nod yes and say "ok", then the DM is allowed to do anything as they now have player permision.

So if a DM, by themselves, moves an ogre, it's always wrong. DM asks players to "move things around" and the players say "ok", then the DM can do whatever they want.

 

[Charlaquin]

So the first not so big problem is the irrational crazy player reaction. Even mention a railroad, and some players will refuse to play and run away from the game screaming.

Which should be a sign that they don’t want you to do it. When people don’t want you to do something, the appropriate response is to not do it, not to do it anyway and try to hide it.

And, fine, let them run away and find some other game. Though the problem comes where player A is the ride or brother or best pal of player B. So if player A runs away from the game screaming "railroad bad....aaaaaahhh!", then they take player B with them. So, to keep players you need to deceive crazy player A.

Or, get this: you could not railroad and keep both players. Wild, I know.

Also, you can tell all the players Railroad all the live long day. But, as you can see in the thread, everyone has a different word salad definition. So the player thinks 'railroading' is X, but they can't see it or even know it's happening....other then the DM said so. But when the player makes 100 choices and "feels on rails" then are fine thinking there really is no railroad.

Which is why it’s important to discuss the matter openly and honestly with your group, so everyone is on the same page regarding what is or isn’t acceptable to them in the game.

A couple of pages ago, someone said that a DM can just say something like "attention players I am changing things behind the scenes" and when the players nod yes and say "ok", then the DM is allowed to do anything as they now have player permision.

Yes, that was me.

So if a DM, by themselves, moves an ogre, it's always wrong. DM asks players to "move things around" and the players say "ok", then the DM can do whatever they want.

Yes, because moving things around behind the scenes isn’t inherently wrong, what’s wrong is doing it without the players’ knowledge or consent. If you talk to them about it and they agree they don’t have a problem with it, then go right ahead, have fun.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I've probably missed some posts I would normally respond to, but this is already on the order of a dozen quotes and my posts run long as it is.

Yes, I did read it. Did you read it and consider what actually happens in the examples? They most rely on the player intuition to treat the fictional space like actual real physical space. But of course everyone actually knows that it isn't like that. GM made that up. <snip> It is part of the GMs job to get the layer believe that made up things are real and have them treat them as such.

This explains some of the logic behind your past comments, which were opaque to me before.

Yes, I agree it is the DM's job to make a thing which is not real, in the sense that a table is real, seem to be real in the sense that a table is real. That is NOT the same as "It is the DM's job to make the player think the game is actually what they claim the game is, when in fact the game is NOT that." This is a gulf so large it is very difficult for me to believe you truly think the two are absolutely identical. They are not. At all. This is what I keep referring to when I say "fooling the characters" (diegetic, in-universe, "Watsonian" misapprehension of what the "real" contents of the fictional world are) versus "fooling the players" (in the real world deceptions about the kind of experience being offered to the player.)

If I do everything in my power to get you to believe that you are, in fact, buying a plot of land on the Moon, even though you are not actually buying a plot of land on the Moon, that is deceptive. Even if I am extremely careful to never legally say or imply that you are buying a plot of land on the Moon, it is still deception. (Whether or not it is fraud remains for a court to decide.)

Further, you know what the best technique--literally foolproof, in fact, so long as you do it consistently--for getting a player to treat the contents of the fictional world as though they were real? Actually have them behave like real things do. Which is (part of) what I'm asking for. The deception is not foolproof; even if you uphold the deception indefinitely, it's always possible to see the man behind the curtain. If you aren't deceiving, if you actually do model the world honestly and fairly and consistently, there's nothing to see behind. The world is exactly what the players think it is.

Of course the GM should be honest. Everyone should be honest. Honesty is pretty universally regarded as an important virtue.

This is exactly why I am so vehemently opposed to DMs using these deceptive tactics. The DM is the only one who can police their own honesty. That is a tremendous amount of power, and thus requires a tremendous amount of responsibility. D&D requires trust between the players and the DM to function, so breaking that trust is an egregious abuse of power and act of disrespect towards the players.

Well-said.

If everyone has agreed that the GM runs the game in the manner they feel most comfortable with, then no one is being lied to.

Absolutely not. "In the manner they feel most comfortable with" IS NOT affirmative consent. Affirmative consent is what is needed here. As I have explicitly said, several times.

Why is it so friggin' hard to just SAY, "Hey guys. I see the rules as suggestions, and I believe my role as DM is to push things in the right direction if they get off track. So, some of the time, I'm going to invisibly bend or break the rules, or make it seem like you're in control when you aren't. I promise not to do this for any reason other than to make the game more enjoyable for you guys. As long as you're okay with that, we should all have a great time." That's all that's required! Just a couple sentences! Why is this so hard?!

You'll need to make that clarification clear for me. How is a GM presenting information that is false to drive an outcome different from an author presenting false information to drive to an outcome different? Just pointing out that it exists in different media is not sufficient to support your claim. Fundamentally, we're talking about false presentation of information with a different future outcome in mind.

Several reasons, and I'm honestly confused why you would think they're the same. (For simplicitly, I will generally assume the work is a book, and thus the audience is one or more readers, but this applies to most forms of media.)

1. Audiences do not have agency. They are passive observers. By engaging with a work (book, film, TV show, etc.) they are necessarily accepting that they have no control whatsoever over the process of the narrative. A reader cannot change what words are written in the book without, in essence, writing a new book that plagiarizes some portion of the old one.
2. By contrast, TTRPG players in a railroaded game are being told they have agency when, in fact, they do not--whatever agency they have is at best provisional and at worst completely illusory, as the OP put in the very first sentence: "What if I told you it was possible to lock your players on a tight railroad, but make them think every decision...mattered?" (Emphasis added.)
3. Video games actually present us with a useful point of comparison here. By definition, a video game can only have a fixed set of ending options, purely because video games are finite things. Only an irrational player could expect a video game to have all possible endings accounted for. However, many RPGs feature multiple different endings, depending on player choices. And we see a very similar argument to the one we're having here about railroading whenever a video game offers endings which either (a) do not make sense within the context of the story, or (b) are essentially identical despite the players making very different choices and being told that those choices would matter. Mass Effect 3 is probably the poster child of this problem, where they had built up choices and history across three games, with some of those choices being pretty major, like whether to spare the last queen of an alien hive-mind race or whether to hold onto data acquired from utterly deplorable medical experiments but which could potentially save a species. By the end, despite all the build-up and even having major, story-ending choices come up even in ME3 itself, the game boiled down to your choice of what color the explosion would be, and how damaging that explosion would be. People were rightly pissed about the ending of Mass Effect, because it boiled down literally ALL of the decisions you'd made before into a singular boring number.....which you could increase regardless by just doing the PVP mode. So they essentially made all the choices from all three games meaningless, and then left you with a final A/B/C ending despite having explicitly said they would not do that. So, even though some amount of "railroading" (really authorial force, but whatever) was accepted, even expected, the players pretty clearly expected that SOME consequences would still come up and matter, when in fact essentially nothing did. The illusion was revealed, and the players HATED it. The "extended cut" ending was a band-aid on a bullet-wound as far as I'm concerned, but at least it showed they were trying.

Sooo...yeah. Even in contexts where railroading is logically required because, y'know, there's only finitely many things a computer program can do, there's still often expectations that choices will matter enough to truly affect endings and consequences. Video games are a sort of midway-point between a pure passive audience experience (books, movies, etc.) and a pure audience-driven experience (like a TTRPG where, as the OP wrote, "every decision they [the players] made mattered.") And wouldn't you know it, video games have people respond rather badly to railroading! You can see a similar, but perhaps more useful, example with the controversial "white phosphorus scene" in Spec Ops: The Line, where the player is forced to use white phosphorus (a horrifically damaging chemical weapon) on a target they believe to be an enemy camp. Turns out, it was exclusively civilians, meaning if the player went ahead with dropping the white phosphorus, they've just committed a blatant war crime. Prior to that point, the game was much better about recognizing player choice, giving situations which LOOKED like they could only be solved with violence, but which were totally resolvable peacefully if the player so chose. For example, you need to disperse a crowd of civilians at one point, and are given a prompt to shoot your gun. If you shoot into the crowd, you'll kill someone innocent. But if you shoot into the air, the crowd will still disperse, and you won't hurt anyone doing it.

People (again, IMO rightly) criticized SO:TL for this blatant use of force in the "white phosphorus" scene. To be very clear: If you try not to shoot the white phosphorus, the game will send infinitely-respawning waves of enemies at you, so you will eventually run out of ammunition and die. You absolutely must use the white phosphorus to proceed. You are not allowed to not do so. And then the game will repeatedly criticize you for thinking you're a hero when you just "willingly" committed a war crime. One of the lead developers even gave the god-awful excuse that the players DID have a choice: they could choose to turn off the console and stop playing!

So yeah. In interactive media, where player decisions are supposed to matter to some extent, people really dislike railroading. Even when it's obvious! This isn't new or weird or illogical. It's something that arises from the interactivity of the medium.

Right, the big player choice in the game is the metagame "what will we do today". Ok, but after that there are no "big" choices.

That's an incredibly impoverished view of player choice. You're basically saying all choices ever made in every campaign ever in the history of humanity were completely without meaning. That's...a stance, I guess, but I can't say I expect anyone to agree with it.

More importantly for this conversation, however, IF that "metagame" choice of what to play today IS in fact presented honestly and fairly--so the players are explicitly informed in advance that the game may involve the illusion of choice and/or a pretense of obeying the rules while actually breaking them--then, as I have repeatedly said, THAT IS PERFECTLY FINE. Because you have, in fact, respected player agency. They get the chance to decide for themselves whether that's a game they want to participate in or not. You have not deceived them.

But that's not what people actually DO, is it? Because in that case, the rails aren't invisible. Oh, the DM doesn't call attention to them, sure. But they're still there. The problem isn't, and never was, whether or not there are rails. The problem is, and has always been, whether any present rails are invisible.

It is the invisibility that is the problem. And it is the invisibility that is the deception. This is why the "magic trick" analogy and the "reading a book" analogy and indeed pretty much every other possible analogy you could come up with always fall down. With a magic trick, it's right in the name: it's trickery. You know it isn't real, it will merely have the illusion of being real. (Well, it will be physically real in the sense that you will see physical phenomena, but it won't be "real" in the sense that the apparent physical processes observed will not be what is actually happening. This is the problem with the word "real"--it has several different senses and it's very easy to get them jumbled up.)

Performance Magic is pure deception, but no one says it's wrong. The vast majority of fiction used deception to shock and awe the audience, no one says it's wrong. Surprise Parties are common, and you often have to deceive the person it's for, and no one thinks it's wrong. A vast majority of games involve deception, and no one says that is wrong. The vast majority of team sports involve deception, and no one thinks that is wrong.

Again, with literally every single one of these, the problem is that any so-called "deception" is part of the initial buy-in. When you watch a magic trick, you know it's an illusion, that the trick COULD be explained with mundane stuff. There is no "deception" of this kind at all in fiction, since...the book is literally right there and doesn't contain anything other than what it contains, so I have no idea what you mean by that. (There is deception in the sense of fooling characters, but you cannot lead a reader to believe that reading the book is somehow not actually reading a book...) A surprise party is not a deception, it's just unexpected; unexpected things are not deceptions. I would actually call it wrong to intentionally deceive someone about the party though, so that's...not a great example.

Games and sports, again, you are buying into the idea that you are competing against someone. When you compete, that person will try to deceive you about what strategies they are using. That is "fooling the character" deception.

Now, imagine if you wanted to play rugby, but your group of friends think you won't actually enjoy playing rugby. (Let's say you happen to live in the US, so you have no idea what "rugby" actually entails, other than being a contact sport similar to gridiron.) So they invent a careful deception to make you think you're playing rugby. They never, technically, SAY that you're playing rugby, but they never contradict you when you say you are doing so, and because you have no reason to look deeper, you believe you are playing rugby. Then something breaks the illusion--maybe you become a real enthusiast for the sport and make a new friend on an online forum, and you suddenly realize that all the things you thought were true about rugby are in fact false, because your friends made you believe you were learning and playing rugby when you were not learning nor playing rugby.

Do you not see how there is a difference between "I want to make my opponent think I'm going to dodge left when I will actually dodge right" and "I want to make my friend think he's playing rugby when he's actually playing some sport we invented on the fly"? The difference seems perfectly clear to me. And that's what I have been expressing when I contrast "fooling the character" (diegetic deception within the fictional or strategic space) and "fooling the player" (non-diegetic deception about the game itself and what the IRL human participants are actually doing.)

It is impossible to fool, surprise or anything else "the character", as the character is not real.

If you believe that, then it is impossible for us to discuss further.

The character is a persona worn by the player. The character, as instantiated by the player, has certain beliefs about the in-fiction universe. Those beliefs may be correct, or incorrect. If those beliefs are incorrect, and were engendered by one or more NPCs, then it seems perfectly valid to say that the character has been deceived. Yes, that deception only has any value so long as the player is playing the character, but the idea is that the deception is solely confined to the actions, events, and entities that "exist" within the fictional world.

Contrast this with fooling the player. The player, who is a real living human being, has certain beliefs about what kind of game they are playing and what kind of actions they are taking as a real human being playing a game. Those beliefs may be correct, or incorrect. If those beliefs are incorrect, and were engendered by the DM, then it seems perfectly valid to say that the player has been deceived. More importantly, it seems perfectly valid to say that this deception is of a very different nature from the deception in the previous paragraph. Instead of being one about beliefs regarding the interaction of fictional entities within the fictional space, it is a deception about the interaction of real-world entities with one another, namely, the interaction of the players with the rules and with the DM.

I don't get this at all. So the DM just says some random stuff and can get away with it because the players "agree" to it?

What's not to get? I mean, you're incorrect to say that the DM "just says some random stuff." The statement needs to be fairly specific, actually, though it can obviously take a variety of forms because there's a zillion ways to say the same thing. Ultimately, the DM needs to do one of two things. Either they need to state well in advance, "hey guys, sometimes I'm going to make it seem like you have a choice when you don't." Or, they need to state at the moment they do it, "hey guys, I had some stuff prepared for this, but you would miss it by taking this path, so I'm gonna shuffle some things around so that you don't miss anything cool, alright?" The first one gets affirmative consent as a blanket: the DM has been pre-approved for using a large amount of DM "force" (directly making stuff happen, regardless of what the players are doing) without needing to provide notice to the players. The latter gets affirmative consent for the given moment: the DM secures buy-in for a deviation from the norm in this case to use a large amount of DM force.

So, just to check that "suddenly improving" that the mine just happened to have some super metal is no Railroading as the players CHOSE to go there.

Seems correct to me? I would personally be at least somewhat cautious with this, as it could drift into railroading if one isn't careful. But this doesn't seem problematic to me: the players have chosen something which made a hard swerve in the campaign, and now the DM is responding to that. New discoveries are made, which would not have been made if the players had chosen differently. Their agency is respected, because instead of forcing the players to do any particular thing, the DM is supporting the direction the players chose for themselves.

So you had a plan and changed it based on some random stuff the players said. So, because the players randomly said something this is not a railroad. That makes no sense.

You keep using this word "randomly." It's not "randomly" at all, neither the previous example nor this one. These are very clearly purposeful things; the players are purposefully working toward creating a new political body (perhaps a city-state), and the previous stuff was about the DM purposefully, specifically seeking player consent for taking a particular action. These are ABSOLUTELY NOT random. They are done with purpose and the form of the action is pretty specific. That's not random at all.

Right, you just sat back and let the players DM the game and made everything in the game that they liked. The players want X, and you rolled out the red carpet and said "ok". But I also notice there is no adventure here, it's just free form role playing. Your just sitting back and making the game reality whatever the players want.

Firstly? You're being incredibly rude and mocking here. Is that productive? I don't really think it is.

Second, I think your reading is completely wrong. Supporting what the players do is absolutely not the same as any of the scathing descriptions you've given here. Just because you lean into what interests the players does not mean you "let the players DM the game" or any of that stuff. It means that you recognize the stuff that excites them, gets them enthusiastic, and you work to ensure that that stuff will be supported going forward. They could quite easily fail to make their desired nation. They could make it, but it might be full of problems they didn't anticipate. Or trying to make it could push them toward taking actions they find reprehensible, causing them to re-evaluate their priorities and maybe abandon the new nation idea. Or they could find that it's just a really hard, long, tedious task to put together a new nation, and thus freely choose to focus on other things instead. There are probably more directions that could go that I'm not thinking of--because I wasn't present for that game and haven't the foggiest what the players' goals were.

Supporting your players' goals does not mean making a trivially-easy game where every single thing they ever ask for is instantly delivered to them on a silver platter. The fact that you assumed so, and then went full-bore for put-downs on that assumption, does not reflect well on your argument.

I disagree. If the players are going to just toss the adventure away on a whim, then they can find another DM. This is not about player choice, this is about not being a jerk.

I'm sorry....you're literally going to say that the players choosing to do something which doesn't comport with an adventure they literally don't know is coming and could not possibly predict makes them jerks? Really? Come on man. You're not a jerk if you tell someone you can't make it to their party when you don't realize your SO intends to propose to you at that party. That's not how this works.

So if your having fun and enjoying the game, do such things matter?

To me? Absolutely. Because a very large portion of the fun I derive from roleplaying is knowing that when I make a decision with consequences, those consequences are because of my decision. Likewise, when I'm playing a game, I expect the game's rules to be enforced both fairly and consistently, so that I can actually learn to play better. If either of these principles is violated--if my actions are irrelevant to the consequences I face, or if the rules are not fairly and consistently enforced--then nearly all joy I derive from the roleplaying experience is gone. (I say "nearly all" because if it's an entirely non-serious game, where we're just screwing around, then I can handle some fudging because I'm not there to learn to play, I'm there to goof off--the enjoyment becomes restricted mostly to "spend time with friends" and "say or do something funny," the roleplaying game being reduced to just a tool to have that happen, rather than the core of the experience.)

The big question here is how and why did avoiding encounters become this big badge of honor player thing? How is choosing not to play the game such a big victory? A great many players would say encounters are a big part of the fun of the game. A lot of platers would much rather have an encounter then a "well nothing happens" for hours. So why is avoiding one a good thing?

You need only read Sun Tzu to get your answer: "Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting." To fight and conquer once battle is joined is certainly excellence, but to forestall even the need to fight in the first place is true excellence, because you spend no resources and take no risks, and yet still achieve your goals.

The only way it makes sense is if the players are just hostile and are trying to ruin the game for the DM.

Not at all, and again you insert this hostility and peevishness into the players that is simply not present. It is rational (as Sun Tzu said above) to wish to avoid putting yourself at risk in order to achieve your ends, so long as those ends can still be achieved. (It is, of course, cowardice to shy away from dangers that actually do have to be endured in order to do things you truly need to do, but it is foolhardiness to rush into dangers you DON'T have to endure.)

There is no need to presume hostility. The players are being rational agents trying to reduce their exposure to unnecessary danger.

 

[Charlaquin]

Why is it so friggin' hard to just SAY, "Hey guys. I see the rules as suggestions, and I believe my role as DM is to push things in the right direction if they get off track. So, some of the time, I'm going to invisibly bend or break the rules, or make it seem like you're in control when you aren't. I promise not to do this for any reason other than to make the game more enjoyable for you guys. As long as you're okay with that, we should all have a great time." That's all that's required! Just a couple sentences! Why is this so hard?!

So, I wasn’t going to say it, because I don’t want to put words into people’s mouths. But, since Bloodtide said the quiet part out loud, I’ll quote them.

So the first not so big problem is the irrational crazy player reaction. Even mention a railroad, and some players will refuse to play and run away from the game screaming. And, fine, let them run away and find some other game. Though the problem comes where player A is the ride or brother or best pal of player B. So if player A runs away from the game screaming "railroad bad....aaaaaahhh!", then they take player B with them. So, to keep players you need to deceive crazy player A.

^ This? This is why it’s so hard. People recognize, maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, that some of their players probably wouldn’t like it if they knew their DM was doing this, and might not want to play in that game any more.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, I wasn’t going to say it, because I don’t want to put words into people’s mouths. But, since Bloodtide said the quiet part out loud, I’ll quote them.

^ This? This is why it’s so hard. People recognize, maybe consciously, maybe unconsciously, that some of their players probably wouldn’t like it if they knew their DM was doing this, and might not want to play in that game any more.

Which is why we (you and I and others) keep saying that this isn't JUST a matter of passively not revealing something. It's an active deception, because many DMs recognize that the thing they're doing is something that would upset their players.

Incidentally, @bloodtide , this is exactly what I meant by not being respectful to your players. You are absolutely not showing any respect whatsoever to a player that doesn't want to participate in this kind of gaming. You are, in fact, actively putting down such players and painting them as nasty, mean, and petty. Is there any wonder, then, why I have said so many times that this is a matter of being respectful, and that there's a deficiency of respect going on here?

 

[Maxperson]

Performance Magic is pure deception, but no one says it's wrong.

People go see magic knowing that sleight of hand is going on. No one is being deceived.

The vast majority of fiction used deception to shock and awe the audience, no one says it's wrong.

Are you talking TV and movies? Because, yeah, no one thinks the special effects are real.

Surprise Parties are common, and you often have to deceive the person it's for, and no one thinks it's wrong.

People know that they are having birthdays and will get a party.

A vast majority of games involve deception, and no one says that is wrong. The vast majority of team sports involve deception, and no one thinks that is wrong.

You really think that the opposing teams don't know that the other side is up to trickery?

So if your having fun and enjoying the game, do such things matter?

When my fun is based on a lie and I'm not really playing the game because of it, yes it matters.

The big question here is how and why did avoiding encounters become this big badge of honor player thing?

Avoiding encounters started in Basic and 1e. But I never claimed it's some sort of badge of honor, big or otherwise. This is purely about agency, so why don't you address that instead?

How is choosing not to play the game such a big victory?

I'm not choosing not to play the game. The DM railroading me is preventing me from playing the game. Only through agency can players actually play the game. Illusionism fools the players into thinking that they are playing the game when they are not.

The only way it makes sense is if the players are just hostile and are trying to ruin the game for the DM.

Ahh, and now back to the evasion and attacks. Players who don't like to be railroaded and lied to "are just hostile and trying to ruin the game for the DM." Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Address the arguments.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I mean I think basically all the examples in the OP are just that. Guiding meandering players toward the interesting stuff, whilst creating an illusion of a bigger world.

Like sure, when the players say that they go to the forest the GM could just directly frame them at the witch's cottage. But it probably creates a feeling that the forest is large and full of stuff and they just happen to stumble on one of the many mysterious things in it, if it is done like in the wilderness example.

It seems pretty innocent to me.

Meant to include this in my quotes, must have missed it.

Firstly: it absolutely does not come across, AT ALL, WHATSOEVER, as merely "guiding meandering players toward the interesting stuff." It certainly does involve creating the illusion of a bigger world, that I'll grant you. But we have sentences like the very first one, but several others too:
"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? While this may sound like the evil GM speaking, I have my reasons."
"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."
"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."
"...as long as no one points out the “emperor has no clothes” everyone will have a great game."
"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."
"Sometimes the easiest choice is no choice at all."
"Now, all this may all seem a little manipulative..."
"But it is fine to make sure every road goes where you want it to, as long as that is to somewhere amazing."

This advice is about how "to lock your players on a tight railroad." It "may sound like the evil GM speaking." It makes players think the adventure has many options, while it "just doesn't have as many options as they thought it did." Hell, the OP even explicitly says, "nothing they do changes the story"!

It's worth noting, there are statements meant to pull back a bit from this. Things like:
"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 [sic] no bad thing."
"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."
"That said, never take away player agency so you can ensure the story plays out the way you want it to."
"So, remember that you must never restrict the choices and agency of the players, at least knowingly."

But do you see the disconnect between these two sets of quotes? The admonishments tell you not to take away the feeling of player agency, nor even to take away player agency at all...and yet the actual advice, the "what to do," explicitly does do that, by the author's own admission. E.g., "To a degree you are limiting their agency..." etc. These statements contradict one another, telling you to do a thing and then telling you you absolutely shouldn't do that thing. Only one of those two positions can be correct--and it's pretty clear, from the title alone, which of the two positions is the one actually being advocated.

And yes, I know the author is a poster here who posted something intending to clarify his intent. I frankly don't really care. Death of the author and all that. The content of the post is the content of the post, and that's what I'm critiquing. I don't really care if it was meant to only ever be a suggestion to make preparation easier. What it actually says, as in the words actually written and the connections between them, is what matters, not whether the author approves of what people see in those words.

Secondly: your "framing" example is fine, in the limited presentation of this post, because there are no meaningful choices to be had along the path. As Thomas Shey said, this doesn't even register as "railroading" to me, and I see no reason whatsoever why the DM would need to be coy about it. It would seem to be easier (and more honest) to just say, "Moving along, you reach the heart of the forest where the old cottage awaits..."

But that's not what people are talking about when they talk about the "invisible railroad" or the like. They aren't talking about scene-framing things so the action arrives more quickly or smoothly. They're talking about quantum ogres and haunted houses which show up no matter which direction the players go. They're talking about dungeons that are a linear sequence of rooms dressed up as though they were a sprawling complex. They're talking about mysteries where it is a foregone conclusion that the players will solve it, and any time they look like they might not solve it a new clue will miraculously drop into their lap so they "stay on track" (a bit more literally than is usual for that phrase.)

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I've probably missed some posts I would normally respond to, but this is already on the order of a dozen quotes and my posts run long as it is.

This explains some of the logic behind your past comments, which were opaque to me before.

Yes, I agree it is the DM's job to make a thing which is not real, in the sense that a table is real, seem to be real in the sense that a table is real. That is NOT the same as "It is the DM's job to make the player think the game is actually what they claim the game is, when in fact the game is NOT that." This is a gulf so large it is very difficult for me to believe you truly think the two are absolutely identical. They are not. At all. This is what I keep referring to when I say "fooling the characters" (diegetic, in-universe, "Watsonian" misapprehension of what the "real" contents of the fictional world are) versus "fooling the players" (in the real world deceptions about the kind of experience being offered to the player.)

If I do everything in my power to get you to believe that you are, in fact, buying a plot of land on the Moon, even though you are not actually buying a plot of land on the Moon, that is deceptive. Even if I am extremely careful to never legally say or imply that you are buying a plot of land on the Moon, it is still deception. (Whether or not it is fraud remains for a court to decide.)

Further, you know what the best technique--literally foolproof, in fact, so long as you do it consistently--for getting a player to treat the contents of the fictional world as though they were real? Actually have them behave like real things do. Which is (part of) what I'm asking for. The deception is not foolproof; even if you uphold the deception indefinitely, it's always possible to see the man behind the curtain. If you aren't deceiving, if you actually do model the world honestly and fairly and consistently, there's nothing to see behind. The world is exactly what the players think it is.

It is not possible to do that! It is always an illusion to some degree. And everyone knows that!

Like your bizarre objection to my market example. You don't actually track timetable of literally everything happening in the world in the off-chance the PC happen to be around when the timer for an interesting thing comes up. No one does that. Players perfectly understand that sometimes the GM just has interesting stuff happen in place and time of their choosing because they want to put that content in the game.

These sort of 'deceptions' are merely about immersion, getting the contrivances of a game to seem like a real world and get the payers to buy into that.

Absolutely not. "In the manner they feel most comfortable with" IS NOT affirmative consent. Affirmative consent is what is needed here. As I have explicitly said, several times.

Why is it so friggin' hard to just SAY, "Hey guys. I see the rules as suggestions, and I believe my role as DM is to push things in the right direction if they get off track. So, some of the time, I'm going to invisibly bend or break the rules, or make it seem like you're in control when you aren't. I promise not to do this for any reason other than to make the game more enjoyable for you guys. As long as you're okay with that, we should all have a great time." That's all that's required! Just a couple sentences! Why is this so hard?!

Look mate. It is not hard, but it also is not hard for the GM to ask "I sometimes roll some dice and let them decide the result, is that cool?" but the fact remains that by the rules they're already empowered to do this. I will honestly tell you that you have a have unusually strong personal hang-up about this; this is no common. People generally don't care about incidental low-key illusionism. There are million things the GM is allowed to do that might still bother someone, and discussing things is good idea, but frankly, you're being both entitled and judgemental by elevating your personal preferences on some special pedestal.

 

[pemerton]

how would you as a PC choose to do something if not to research it then go do it? that seems the most straight forward to me.

Well I am not a PC, I'm a real person in the real world.

If I was playing a character in a RPG, then one thing I might do is declare that my PC undertakes research. Whether or not the game is a railroad depends on a range of things: where is my reason for undertaking the research coming from?; and how is the outcome of my research resolved?.

if a Player tells me they climb the tree to look for a clue, and I know there is no clue up there they can climb all they want that doesn't make a clue appear. A Player who searches for a hidden door in a wall that is solid with no hidden door is not going to make one appear most times (I say most cause if a player makes a suggestion I like I may make changes but I am under no obligation to)

When you say "I know", what you mean is I have decided. Because the shared fiction has no independent existence as an object of knowledge.

So what is happening here is that a player is declaring an action; the GM has already decided the outcome (ie nothing useful happens); and the GM is not telling the player that straight-up, but rather is allowing the player to proceed as if the search for the clue, door, etc is meaningful. That seems to fit the definition of "railroading" and "illusionism" being used in this thread.

that is not railroading... now you can have a style where that IS true, that there is no hidden passage but the Player authors it into exsistence... I just don't think saying anything short of that is railroading is helpful at all.

that is still not rail roading... by your defenition every defualt game of D&D 5e is a railroad.

I'm responding to what you (and others) are posting. As I posted, the default presentation of 4e D&D is not railroading (eg in the rules for resolving a skill challenge, there is no provision for a check to find a clue to fail just because the GM has decided that there is no clue to be found).

If the default approach to 5e is to run it as a railroad, that would of course be an interesting state of affairs.

 

[wedgeski]

The only certain railroad in D&D is the one travelled by threads like this.