TSR How Did I Survive AD&D? Fudging and Railroads, Apparently

[Umbran]

Because it is negative.

Literally never met a player who enjoys being railroaded.

Right. It’s no longer a collaborative experience and is simply the referee telling the players a story as some kind of dinner theater with dice. That’s why players hate it and it’s only talked about negatively.

As if, you, personally, get to speak for tens and hundreds of thousands of people? And your personal experience is all-inclusive and authoritative? Please spare us.

It is not only spoken of negatively. If it were only spoken of negatively, you wouldn't have anyone to argue with over it!

There's a few people here that feel so strongly about it, they feel a desire to bring it up repeatedly to say how wrongity-wrong, with wrong sauce, it is, and they make a big stink and people remember that. There is a resulting perception that the only things said are ever negative.

Meanwhile, folks who don't mind it don't usually need to bring it up, and so their opinions are generally overlooked.

 

[CleverNickName]

Because it is negative.

Literally never met a player who enjoys being railroaded. Referees on the net love it and claim their players can’t tell or love it. In 40 years of playing and running, never met one player who liked it.

Right. It’s no longer a collaborative experience and is simply the referee telling the players a story as some kind of dinner theater with dice. That’s why players hate it and it’s only talked about negatively.

Oh, we're around.

Plenty of folks here enjoy a railroad game, myself included. YMMV but to me, railroads feel like the DM has put more thought into the story, carefully planned the encounters and selected appropriate rewards for them, polished the maps up, and generally just feels more "ready." Everything happens for a reason, endings are more satisfying, etc.

I enjoy sandbox games also, but they need a larger time commitment that the DM might not always have...so eventually these games tend to be rushed and over-reliant on random generators, which makes the story feel incohesive and chaotic. There's a surprise around every corner, anything can happen, the story is dynamic and planning something long-term isn't recommended. And that is a fine way to play, really...but the folks at the table who enjoy deep roleplay and structured stories get frustrated with it.

 

[Velderan]

Right. It’s no longer a collaborative experience and is simply the referee telling the players a story as some kind of dinner theater with dice. That’s why players hate it and it’s only talked about negatively.

And if what is talked about negatively online was fact, then 5e would be the least popular game and we both know that isn't true. People just like to complain online and you'll find far more complaints about anything than you will positive comments. It doesn't mean the positive isn't there.

 

[overgeeked]

And if what is talked about negatively online was fact, then 5e would be the least popular game and we both know that isn't true. People just like to complain online and you'll find far more complaints about anything than you will positive comments. It doesn't mean the positive isn't there.

I’m not just talking about online. I’ve been doing this 40 years and never met a single player who liked railroading. Ever. I get that it’s easier for the referee and it helps push a satisfying story. (Maybe that should be labeled “lazy DMing”.) But it really does completely undermine the collaborative part of this whole collaborative storytelling game people seem really interested in.

If railroading doesn’t completely eliminate the collaboration it reduces it to irrelevance. Like when you’re a little kid and “helping” a parent do a chore. You “helped” dad fix the car by holding the flashlight. You “helped” mom make dinner by getting the milk out of the fridge. That’s the level of collaboration involved for players in a railroaded game. It’s a pat on the head, not actual participation.

 

[Mort]

I’m not just talking about online. I’ve been doing this 40 years and never met a single player who liked railroading. Ever. I get that it’s easier for the referee and it helps push a satisfying story. (Maybe that should be labeled “lazy DMing”.) But it really does completely undermine the collaborative part of this whole collaborative storytelling game people seem really interested in.

If railroading doesn’t completely eliminate the collaboration it reduces it to irrelevance. Like when you’re a little kid and “helping” a parent do a chore. You “helped” dad fix the car by holding the flashlight. You “helped” mom make dinner by getting the milk out of the fridge. That’s the level of collaboration involved for players in a railroaded game. It’s a pat on the head, not actual participation.

For me, Railroading is negative because it HAS TO involve the illusion of choice and deceiving the players into thinking they have choice when none is actually there. I've always had that part hard baked into the definition, and that's negative.

Remove the illusion of choice and it's a linear adventure, where for the stated adventure to happen the players just follow the adventure along willingly. And this, I have seen many players not just like, but actively prefer.

 

[Zardnaar]

Like most things it's the degree of rail roading. And if the players even notice.

Heavy handed players tend to hate it espicially if the DMs doing it to hit pre determined plot points.

Good Railroading.

DM prepares an adventure. Espicially if they asked the players if they want to play it.

Dropping in the critical NPC encounters to move said adventure along. When and where it happens DM drops it in as needed.

Neutral. May or may not be good.

Adventure is heavily scripted with little deviation. Players go from A to B with very little agency.

Bad railroading.

DMs written a novel and over rides player agency to force pre determined outcomes

 

[Velderan]

I’m not just talking about online. I’ve been doing this 40 years and never met a single player who liked railroading. Ever. I get that it’s easier for the referee and it helps push a satisfying story. (Maybe that should be labeled “lazy DMing”.) But it really does completely undermine the collaborative part of this whole collaborative storytelling game people seem really interested in.

If railroading doesn’t completely eliminate the collaboration it reduces it to irrelevance. Like when you’re a little kid and “helping” a parent do a chore. You “helped” dad fix the car by holding the flashlight. You “helped” mom make dinner by getting the milk out of the fridge. That’s the level of collaboration involved for players in a railroaded game. It’s a pat on the head, not actual participation.

Aside from the part where you could probably find less insulting ways to illustrate your point instead of comparing people to small children, let me fix my previous quote for you then since in general it matches my experience chatting with random people in FLGS as well as people online:

And if what is talked about negatively was fact, then 5e would be the least popular game and we both know that isn't true. People just like to complain and you'll find far more complaints about anything than you will positive comments. It doesn't mean the positive isn't there.

I've had random people come up to me at a FLGS to complain to me about how bad 5e is when I picked up a copy of some random OSR game to look at. Meanwhile when I was playing 5e, I never had a random 5e fan come up to me and talk up how awesome the game was. I have had PF2e fans talk up the game while I've looked at books and you know what? None this means anything significant about the larger population of gamers or what is good or bad. The number of people both of us have played or interacted with is a drop in the bucket when you think about how many people play TTRPGs. Your experiences just aren't as universal as you seem to think they are.

 

[Velderan]

Bad railroading.

DMs written a novel and over rides player agency to force pre determined outcomes

Yep. In DL2 if the PCs somehow kill Verminaard, he'll be back later for the actual final encounter that has to happen no matter what the PCs do. I think his final death is described where he has to fall into a pit or something, I forget.

To me that's not fun and I wouldn't like to play in a game so heavily railroaded that if I manage to do something cool earlier than it's supposed to happen it gets undone. Meanwhile if the party I'm in is searching for a NPC hiding in a new town and the DM already decided we'll find them in the 3rd house we search which allows us to learn more about the town we're in from the first two houses and we don't know the first 2 houses don't advance anything important, I'm ok with that as long as the first 2 houses are interesting or something fun happens.

 

[Xamnam]

For me, Railroading is negative because it HAS TO involve the illusion of choice and deceiving the players into thinking they have choice when none is actually there. I've always had that part hard baked into the definition, and that's negative.

Remove the illusion of choice and it's a linear adventure, where for the stated adventure to happen the players just follow the adventure along willingly. And this, I have seen many players not just like, but actively prefer.

Very much agreed. Railroading, as an active verb, is the specific term used because trains can only go where tracks are already laid. If players are "being railroaded", that requires, at least to me, that they are actively trying to leave the tracks and not being allowed to do so, or are roughly forced back onto them, and therefore is inherently a negative/confrontational term. If players are happily steaming straight towards a destination that they share with the DM, entirely under their own volition and without having their choices unfairly stymied, then the term doesn't really make sense, and it's inaccurate to say that the DM is railroading them.

This is separate from describing a module/adventure as a railroad, and there are different nuances at play there, though I still end up in largely the same place, and why I think Linear Adventure is a very useful term as a distinct concept / more neutral variation.

 

[Umbran]

I’m not just talking about online. I’ve been doing this 40 years and never met a single player who liked railroading. Ever.

Mod Note:
Look, we get it. You don't like railroading. That's fine.

Your efforts to make assertions for others (in fact, for every gamer, everywhere) are not fine.

If you cannot allow more space in your discussion to allow for people to like things you don't, without calling them badwrongfun, I expect you will not be happy with the results.

Chill out. Speak for yourself. Don't speak for everyone else. Thanks.