D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[Celebrim]

A big thread for everything Railroading.

So far there is no single true definition of “Railroading” out there, which is probably the reason for many heated debates among GMs. The term “railroad” or “railroading” gets thrown around a lot, but I think most uses/abuses of it are just for insults. It's like using the term "munchkin" -- it has no real meaning other than, "I don't like the way you play". The term "railroading" is overused;

Well, we seem to be on the same page.

So what is Railroading? Well, big open question. At the most generic: A railroad is when the DM disallows the Players, from taking action outside what the DM wants to have happen. You are being railroaded when the DM, as the controller of the game, tells you what happens without your taking action, or he prevents you from taking action. Railroading means the DM doesn't give the Players a choice, at all. Your actions are dictated.

A good starting point for what I think is this thread:

Thread 'Techniques for Railroading'

Dec 17, 2010

Railroading refers to a variety of techniques use to limit player freedom of choice. Some distinction should be made in my opinion between the act of limiting player choice (“railroading”) and a game which has limited or no player choice as its most salient feature (a “railroad”). Virtually all games depend on some amount of railroading, and at least miniscule amounts of railroading is an unavoidable consequence of the fact that no simulation is perfect (and probably wouldn’t be much fun if it was) and no referee can be without bias, and many forms of minor railroading are accepted...

• Celebrim
• Replies: 18
• Forum: *TTRPGs General

• 

Of course the above definition is not really all that useful. Like a lot of destinations it is just too generic.

The reason for this is that people treat "railroading" as a qualitative thing like, "Are you railroading or not?" It's actually a quantitative thing, "Are you railroading too much?" Every game features a certain amount of railroading, but not every game is a railroad. It becomes a railroad when a particular player tries to get off the rails and the GM prevents it. At that point the player becomes uncomfortable with the railroading and says, "This is a railroad." or "You are railroading me." Since that point is subjective its no surprise people disagree with what constitutes railroading. Where they should change their thinking is to stop trying to ask "What is railroading?" and instead ask, "How much of these things can I tolerate before I find it a railroad?"

The reason I prefer to talk about railroading in terms of techniques is that once you understand how to railroad we can talk about two things in a common framework. First we can talk about how much railroading to use and when to use it, and secondly we can talk about how some techniques for railroading arise inadvertently at some level as a result of the GM's imperfect knowledge and inability to prepare for everything. All RPGs are at some level "small worlds" for example, where there are whether the GM likes it or not forces which push against PC's leaving the area the GM is most prepared to describe if only because the canvas becomes increasingly blank and hard to fill in with appropriate levels of detail (except at best by randomness).

 

[Celebrim]

Railroading >>>no-roading

Had a game where we spent all our time searching for quests and things to do. No over-arching anything. I bet 90% of combats were random encounters while trying to long rest while traveling trying to find a town where something might be happening.

This is called a "Rowboat World". You can go anywhere but you have to put in all the effort and the vast majority of what you find will be just empty, meaningless and featureless. It's an example of a dysfunctional sandbox the way a railroad is an example of a dysfunctional adventure path.

 

[Celebrim]

Does the referee negate player agency to preserve their preferred outcome?

That’s railroading.

The problem with this is that either you have to accept a dungeon map is an example of railroading, or else accept that railroading is so ubiquitous and essential to RPGs that the term has no meaning. In real world, people don't have unlimited agency. You and I are rather constrained in what we do. And so if the game simulates there being constraints on what player characters can do because in a very real sense the GM prefers this as an outcome to some hypothetical unlimited agency because he has no desire to run a gonzo campaign then your definition doesn't really distinguish between that and say a GM playing the players character for them. Some quantification is required.

 

[Celebrim]

Another one is to have things like beliefs/bonds/goals/etc. which can be used by the GM to put the PCs in a situation. Something like @bloodtide's riot scenario, for instance, might be engaging because the PCs have an established viewpoint on lawlessness, use of force, oppression, whatever.

Sure but this can verge on the GM saying, "Your character wouldn't do that." Indeed, having a game system that encourages the players to take beliefs, bonds, goals ect. and then encourages the GM to invent scenarios specifically to "challenge" those beliefs, bonds, or goals is a pretty hard core form of railroading. This just opens up the game to a lot of False Choice techniques where your character is presented with a choice like, "Do this or die" that isn't really a choice at all.

 

[Celebrim]

Honestly, this is 95% of railroading to me. Rails aren't a natural feature of the landscape, after all. They're put in place because trains are too clumsy to go anywhere else. Railroading is when the GMing is so clumsy (or uncaring) that it becomes obvious that things are only happening to compel the players to do something. Then my suspension of disbelief weakens. I'm not thinking about the landscape, anymore; I'm thinking about the rails.

I think there is a very compelling argument that a game becomes a railroad when the GMs track laying and railroading techniques are so artless and clumsy that they become obvious and grating to the players.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Having "plot hooks" or prepared situations is not railroad, as long as the players have agency to choose what to do with those. Some situations might be pretty linear in a sense that there is a very likely way they will play out. This is probably what people mean with "linear," and whilst not most interesting way to play, it doesn't become a proper railroad until the GM starts to take steps to block actions that would cause the situation to take other than the GM's predicted path.

That being said, I can certainly see why this is contentious as it is blurry. What actions the PCs can plausibly take depends on the framed fiction, and if the GM constantly frames fiction in such way that there are no real choices, then it starts to become pretty railroady even no actions were technically blocked. And by "no real choices" in this context I mean that the PCs could in theory choose to do insane things no sensible character would really do, or to do boring things that lead to nowhere, but only "choice" that leads to anywhere is to follow the tracks. The most frustrating forms of this is a situation where there are "tracks", the things GM wants the players to do, but they are hidden and the players have mock agency to aimlessly wander poking at things but nothing of consequence happens until they finally manage to to accidentally do the specific thing the GM expected. This sort of pixel hunting is among the most frustrating play structures to me and I would take clearly marked tracks over it any day.

 

[Celebrim]

The most frustrating forms of this is a situation where there are "tracks", the things GM wants the players to do, but they are hidden and the players have mock agency to aimlessly wander poking at things but nothing of consequence happens until they finally manage to accidentally do the specific thing the GM expected. This sort of pixel hunting is among the most frustrating play structures to me and I would take clearly marked tracks over it any day.

This is clumsy implementation of the Tiny World railroading technique often by a GM who self-deludes themselves into believing that they run sand boxes (often by GMs who do little prep). Typically such GMs are effusively dismissive of GMs that railroad. As a result, they remove from the Tiny World one of its most important features, the big "signs" that point the players towards what there is available to do in the Tiny World, leaving the situation you describe.

 

[TiQuinn]

If sandboxing is the opposite of railroading then it should be called off-roading. (Clicks post reply and abandons thread forever)

 

[Celebrim]

If sandboxing is the opposite of railroading then it should be called off-roading. (Clicks post reply and abandons thread forever)

Sandboxing isn't the opposite of railroading. Sandboxing or "open world" is the opposite of a linear adventure or "adventure path". But it is appropriate to think of sandboxing as "off-roading" anyway I think.

The defining trait of a sandbox is that you prepare far more content than you intend to use. Sandboxing is really hard and requires tremendous effort on the part of the GM. It's basically only possible if you are spending as much effort on the game as a full time job, which is why I haven't been in one since college and have never really tried to run one. I do have relatively open areas "a city", "a dungeon", "a valley to explore", or "an island" but these are really "tiny worlds" with a few well chosen things to do and a plot hook which focuses the players on trying to find something or solve some problem or mystery within the open area.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

The difficulty with pinning down “railroading” is that the word isn’t just about technique—it’s about power dynamics inherited from the history of RPGs.

Early RPGs established a very GM-centric model. The GM built the world, enforced the rules, and delivered the experience. Players were positioned as recipients. This wasn’t just logistics—it was ideological. Designers defended their own work by elevating the GM’s authority and framing players as lucky participants.

Modern play culture, by contrast, often assumes collaboration and meaningful agency. Many players expect to co-create, not just receive. But the old assumptions never disappeared; they’re still embedded in published modules, adventure structures, and the language we use to talk about play.

That’s why “railroading” feels so slippery. When a GM nudges players toward the riot or the dungeon, are they facilitating a story or denying agency? It depends entirely on what both sides thought the GM’s job was in the first place.

Which is the point: the term “railroading” is rarely a precise critique of technique. It’s more of a diagnostic. When someone calls it out, what they’re really signaling is a mismatch between expectations—was the GM supposed to provide a prepared experience, or were the players supposed to help build it? Until that responsibility is clarified, the same debate will keep resurfacing.