D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Maxperson]

That's "Railroading (pejorative)" as in "I felt railroaded."

Sitting down and agreeing to play an AP/plotted campaign, which goes from plot point and consequential adventure location A-> B -> C -> D (Final boss!) is a railroad in that you're on tracks.

That's linear, not a railroad. Linear is different. A railroad forces the players down a path no matter what they want to do. There's no turning back or leaving, like I can do in an adventure path.

For example, say we are on an adventure path and the party is at location A. Location B is a hermit we have to speak with. If we go north, we meet the hermit. If we go west, we meet the hermit. If we go south, we meet the hermit. We have no say, because the DM is forcing us down the path he wants, not the one we want.

In a normal adventure path, if the hermit is north and I go west, I don't meet the hermit. If I keep going west, I may leave the adventure path entirely. Now, typically we choose not to do that because the DM has invested in the adventure path and we are all friends, but it is an option for us if we choose it.

Railroads give no such option.

A full sandbox like @robertsconley is running is a very different animal in that context.

Yeah. It boils down to...

1. Railroad - Players have no choices. They are going where the DM wants them to go. It might be overt, or it might be illusionism, but their agency is gone.

2. Linear - The adventure path goes A > B > C > D, etc. and the players have the choice to go forward, backwards, or get off the line completely. Generally they choose not to, because of the social contract you mentioned, but sometimes roleplay leads there.

3. Sandbox - There is no path. The players choose the direction and goals for themselves individually and as a group.

 

[nevin]

Sandbox isn’t about game design. It is about adventure structure. You can make or have a system intended to be more sandbox friendly but it ultimately comes from play style and adventure/campaign structure

I do think some in these forums forget that the Sandbox may not be a railroad but it is very much the railroad station. It feels like absolute freedom but it's more like a gorrilla cage. Go too far and you'll hit the glass walls.

 

[Maxperson]

Again, "agency" is kinda a hard term to really nail down. Dungeon crawling to get treasure is consequential in that the rules of the game position in as how you get XP to advance, and most other procedural carrots are built around it (domain play, renown, whatever).

Did the original dungeon crawl D&D have gold is XP? I thought that was a 1e thing, and 1e had much more than dungeon crawling.

Some descriptions of sandbox play in this thread read more like "freeform RP within the context of D&D" which is fine, but not really consequential within the bounds of a game design. It may be meaningful for the people involved in play, but that's something so subjective we can't really talk much about it (much like "fun").

Freeform RP to my knowledge has few or no rules to it, so sandbox D&D play wouldn't at all be like freeform RP. Sandbox play has enough of the world nailed down that players are free to roam, explore, set goals, etc. all on their own, but not in a freeform manner.

 

[nevin]

That's linear, not a railroad. Linear is different. A railroad forces the players down a path no matter what they want to do. There's no turning back or leaving, like I can do in an adventure path.

For example, say we are on an adventure path and the party is at location A. Location B is a hermit we have to speak with. If we go north, we meet the hermit. If we go west, we meet the hermit. If we go south, we meet the hermit. We have no say, because the DM is forcing us down the path he wants, not the one we want.

In a normal adventure path, if the hermit is north and I go west, I don't meet the hermit. If I keep going west, I may leave the adventure path entirely. Now, typically we choose not to do that because the DM has invested in the adventure path and we are all friends, but it is an option for us if we choose it.

Railroads give no such option.

Yeah. It boils down to...

1. Railroad - Players have no choices. They are going where the DM wants them to go. It might be overt, or it might be illusionism, but their agency is gone.

2. Linear - The adventure path goes A > B > C > D, etc. and the players have the choice to go forward, backwards, or get off the line completely. Generally they choose not to, because of the social contract you mentioned, but sometimes roleplay leads there.

3. Sandbox - There is no path. The players choose the direction and goals for themselves individually and as a group.

You forgot 1B - The players got on the railroad by choice and are happy to go there. I'd even argue that most railroad games are that way. I've said it before. I know lots of players that love the railroad. I don't usually play with them or DM them but for this subset of D&D players a dungeon crawl to get the pot of gold or the McGuffin is expected and wanted. I think more of the railroad games fall into 1B than the no choice games.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I’ve seen this too. While we may disagree on how often it occurs, I agree it does happen. Having been involved in organized gaming and talked with others, your experience makes sense. But applying that experience to a specific referee or conversation commits an ecological fallacy. Just because something happens more often than not doesn’t mean it applies to that individual. Averages describe trends, not people. It’s a mistake to treat a common pattern as a prediction.

I'm never applying it to an individual--unless I've seen that individual actually do what I'm talking about, or heard what I consider reliable reports of them doing it.

But that doesn't stop me saying, in general, it isn't still a big problem, and when I see someone using language that suggests they've bought into that world view, I'm going to call them on it.

Earlier in the thread, I talked about different creative goals and how those goals can involve splitting authority between players and the referee in different ways to support different styles of play. I strongly believe people should pursue the goals and designs that support the kind of campaign they enjoy, not out of fear of referee authority, but because they like how the game plays.

That's a great ideal, but it doesn't tend to require too many experiences with malign examples of GM authority and its overreach before it seems like a luxury.

 

[Maxperson]

why do you assume the DM railroad is being authoritarian?

I mean, it's hard to force players down the path you want and they don't without being authoritarian.

I've seen many a game where the DM had an hour or so to come up with a game and literally had no other place to go if they players decided to "rewrite the game".

I've had to improvise things quite a bit when stuff like that happens.

Not all DM's are good at improv. Not all DM's are experienced.

There's nothing wrong with saying, "Yes, you can go there, but as I haven't had time to prepare anything in that direction, we will have to pause the game until next week."

There have been a few times in the last few decades when even as experienced and as adept at improvisation as I am, the players have go so far into left field with their direction that I've had to do that.

I've also seen a table pull the we are going south instead of north and then troop out like sad puppies 30 minutes into the game because the new DM had to stop the game and go home and start a whole new one. Your comment comes across as very selfish and very narcississtic. It takes a lot of work to prep games prepare for the characters and some of us can pivot on a dime weave a whole new story or at least pretend too while we recover and some just can't. DM your own games instead of complaining about others.

Nice to be called names for essentially no reason.

How about instead of calling people names, you take the time to understand what I have been saying. If the group agrees to be on those rails, railroading is not a bad thing in that instance. My saying that is a far cry from complaining about the games of others. If you can't respond in a nice manner, don't respond to my posts at all.

 

[Maxperson]

You forgot 1B - The players got on the railroad by choice and are happy to go there. I'd even argue that most railroad games are that way. I've said it before. I know lots of players that love the railroad. I don't usually play with them or DM them but for this subset of D&D players a dungeon crawl to get the pot of gold or the McGuffin is expected and wanted. I think more of the railroad games fall into 1B than the no choice games.

You're right. I did forget that, but I said it in at least one recent post before the one you quoted.

What I disagree with you on is the idea that most railroads are like that. Most of the ones you are references fall into the linear category where there are ways to go other than forward, so long as the players don't get off of the line. Instead of only being able to go forward where the DM wants you to go no matter what, the player can go back and forth to various locations within the line as they see fit.

 

[nevin]

I mean, it's hard to force players down the path you want and they don't without being authoritarian.

I've had to improvise things quite a bit when stuff like that happens.

There's nothing wrong with saying, "Yes, you can go there, but as I haven't had time to prepare anything in that direction, we will have to pause the game until next week."

There have been a few times in the last few decades when even as experienced and as adept at improvisation as I am, the players have go so far into left field with their direction that I've had to do that.

Nice to be called names for essentially no reason.

How about instead of calling people names, you take the time to understand what I have been saying. If the group agrees to be on those rails, railroading is not a bad thing in that instance. My saying that is a far cry from complaining about the games of others. If you can't respond in a nice manner, don't respond to my posts at all.

I pointed out how I interpreted your comments. As I've said several times I think we are arguing about a tiny amount of games and that more players willingly get on the railroad than not. A new DM pulling out a Module generally runs the railroad because they have nothing else to go on or do. IT's been that way since 1e launched.

I've not seem that presumption by a single person in other than those speaking out against DM authority. Not one person on my side of this discussion has said that. At least not in the posts that I've read. Admittedly, I've missed about a few dozen pages.

Can you link someone saying those things?

I've read many posts that make me think that's the narrative of some people. People are bad about assuming words mean the same thing to them as others without taking the time to actually learn what they mean.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I do think some in these forums forget that the Sandbox may not be a railroad but it is very much the railroad station. It feels like absolute freedom but it's more like a gorrilla cage. Go too far and you'll hit the glass walls.

I don’t see that at all. The whole point of a railroad is you are promising the players total freedom. Now you can also have linear adventure if you want in a railroad. And you can have sandboxes with roads. But the ideal is full freedom to explore and smash the scenery. There may be some boundary of course. But that is usually very expansive (the boundaries in my setting go all the way out to heavenly and infernal realms)

 

[nevin]

I mean, it's hard to force players down the path you want and they don't without being authoritarian.

I've had to improvise things quite a bit when stuff like that happens.

There's nothing wrong with saying, "Yes, you can go there, but as I haven't had time to prepare anything in that direction, we will have to pause the game until next week."

There have been a few times in the last few decades when even as experienced and as adept at improvisation as I am, the players have go so far into left field with their direction that I've had to do that.

Nice to be called names for essentially no reason.

How about instead of calling people names, you take the time to understand what I have been saying. If the group agrees to be on those rails, railroading is not a bad thing in that instance. My saying that is a far cry from complaining about the games of others. If you can't respond in a nice manner, don't respond to my posts at all.

1. We weren't talking about you we were talking about DM's who might not have the skills or time to improvise.
2. There is something wrong with a group of players that doesn't understand the DM's time constraints and causes game stops like that. If it's Ocassional then fine stuff happens but if the DM isn't up to wide open full throttle and they keep going there the players need to leave and find another game, or the DM needs to leave and find other players.
3. I pointed out how your statement came across not sure I actually called you names. You were arguing as if everything said was about you instead of the topic. If it was taken that way. My apologies
4. I do understand what you've been saying I've been arguing that those games are a tiny amount or at least new DM's struggling to deal with a table full of players and no skills to do it. Remember sometimes we are talking about 12 to 18 year olds who have literally no experience managing anything. And that most in my experience that play on Railroads do it willingly. There is a lot of comfort to putting up the rails for some players.

In my opinion this like most gaming threads is a Tempest in a Teapot. an argument about something that is a far smaller issue than the participants believe.