What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[Fenris-77]

Interesting, I had not thought about GM fiat as a form of railroading.

The is interesting, I have GM fiat right at the heart of my definition. Deployed in particular/bad ways mind, not generally.

 

[Celebrim]

If PC travel into Undermountain for the first time and discover that their teleportation spells do not work and can thus come to the assumption they can only leave the way they came through...is that Railroading?...If the answer is because its established prior play, it is only established on the DM's side, it is not necessarily player-facing, so how does that matter?

Yes, but perhaps potentially very minor. A lot of railroading for me depends on the why of what you are doing.

To me the real issue is whether the justification for planar lock is based on the internal logic of the setting or whether it is based on the desires of the GM for how he wants the scenario to play out. In this case, a good question is why the Winter Court would want to seal everyone in the first place (as opposed to say sealing everyone out) and whether they believably would have the tools to do so. In particular, if they can devise a spell that steals all the tuning forks in the domain without a saving throw or other check, then they could conceivably by the same powers do a whole lot of things that would make them basically omnipotent relative to PCs. Does the logic of everything that is happening match the actual goals of the NPCs and the listable powers on their stat block, or are the powers being invented on the spot solely so the GM can get the scenario he wants?

So in the case of Undermountain, did the creator have a good reason for wanting to planar lock all of his stronghold? Did he have the sort of resources that would have made this possible and available? How did he do it?

The reason those questions are important is that they determine whether you are railroading. If a wizard's tower is planar locked that to me makes a ton of sense, because as a PC if I had the wherewithal I'd do the same thing. But obviously, planar locking a huge area takes a ton of resources. If the cost of planar locking a huge area amounted to 100's of thousands of XP, would any wizard do it? Or wouldn't they instead spend more efficiently on just locking the important parts? Perhaps if the goal was to create a prison to contain evil spirits, then it would make sense to do that if the containment made sense in the first place. But then you'd almost certainly not make it sprawling, and in my game the backstory would almost certainly be the place was crafted over centuries by many wizards working diligently and not one wizard trying to pay for the whole thing all at once.

One reason this is important is that if you are working on the basis of "what should this be like according to the rules and logic of the setting" these things are discoverable, analyzable, and often will have rumors or other means of learning them ahead of time. If they are just because the meta requires them, then there is probably nothing the PCs can do about it because the whole point was "stop the PCs". So for example, in the case of a planar lock, it would show up the first time you cast detect magic - "So you notice that the whole area is radiating this blinding abjuration magic on an epic scale." And potentially, depending on what your rules said, the whole thing might be subject to Break Enchantment or some other recourse. The more you as a GM are wiggling around a making special exceptions to make the normal rules not apply in this situation and the more you are inventing special powers that couldn't be on a PCs stat block to justify it, the more in my opinion you are railroading.

Which again, I'm passing no judgment on just saying you as a GM should be aware of that.

 

[Fenris-77]

Yup, I think that gates established pre-play and justified by the internal logic of the setting generally escape the gravity of 'railroading'. Gating adventures in various ways is a normal part of the design process.

 

[Celebrim]

The is interesting, I have GM fiat right at the heart of my definition. Deployed in particular/bad ways mind, not generally.

I not only have GM fiat at the heart of my definition, but since I don't really judge railroading on the basis of "good/bad", my definition is probably more expansive than yours. Any GM fiat which wasn't justified prior to play as part of an honest analysis of what the "reality" of the setting demanded and which wasn't crafted with the "rules as physics" in mind, is probably (almost certainly) railroading. Because to me the core of railroading is, "Does anything happen that the GM doesn't "want" or prefer to happen?" If nothing is happening except the GMs preferences, it is a railroad. And fiat is by definition the GMs preference.

To me prep is necessary to establish your preference in a concrete manner. Then, if you break that preparation because you don't like the outcome, that's pure railroading. Likewise, if you prep in such a way that isn't based on "what happened before this point" but is instead focused on "what you want to have happen in the future" that's probably railroading to. "I don't want the PCs to unlock this door" is very different to me than "The PCs probably won't be able to get through this door because some NPC didn't want it to be easy to get through this door and logically had the resources to achieve the goal of making the door hard to get through." The later isn't railroading or at least not very much, while the former is definitely railroading.

 

[Reynard]

Yes, but perhaps potentially very minor. A lot of railroading for me depends on the why of what you are doing.

To me the real issue is whether the justification for planar lock is based on the internal logic of the setting or whether it is based on the desires of the GM for how he wants the scenario to play out. In this case, a good question is why the Winter Court would want to seal everyone in the first place (as opposed to say sealing everyone out) and whether they believably would have the tools to do so. In particular, if they can devise a spell that steals all the tuning forks in the domain without a saving throw or other check, then they could conceivably by the same powers do a whole lot of things that would make them basically omnipotent relative to PCs. Does the logic of everything that is happening match the actual goals of the NPCs and the listable powers on their stat block, or are the powers being invented on the spot solely so the GM can get the scenario he wants?

So in the case of Undermountain, did the creator have a good reason for wanting to planar lock all of his stronghold? Did he have the sort of resources that would have made this possible and available? How did he do it?

The reason those questions are important is that they determine whether you are railroading. If a wizard's tower is planar locked that to me makes a ton of sense, because as a PC if I had the wherewithal I'd do the same thing. But obviously, planar locking a huge area takes a ton of resources. If the cost of planar locking a huge area amounted to 100's of thousands of XP, would any wizard do it? Or wouldn't they instead spend more efficiently on just locking the important parts? Perhaps if the goal was to create a prison to contain evil spirits, then it would make sense to do that if the containment made sense in the first place. But then you'd almost certainly not make it sprawling, and in my game the backstory would almost certainly be the place was crafted over centuries by many wizards working diligently and not one wizard trying to pay for the whole thing all at once.

One reason this is important is that if you are working on the basis of "what should this be like according to the rules and logic of the setting" these things are discoverable, analyzable, and often will have rumors or other means of learning them ahead of time. If they are just because the meta requires them, then there is probably nothing the PCs can do about it because the whole point was "stop the PCs". So for example, in the case of a planar lock, it would show up the first time you cast detect magic - "So you notice that the whole area is radiating this blinding abjuration magic on an epic scale." And potentially, depending on what your rules said, the whole thing might be subject to Break Enchantment or some other recourse. The more you as a GM are wiggling around a making special exceptions to make the normal rules not apply in this situation and the more you are inventing special powers that couldn't be on a PCs stat block to justify it, the more in my opinion you are railroading.

Which again, I'm passing no judgment on just saying you as a GM should be aware of that.

While I don't wholeheartedly disagree, I think this sort of appeals to the authority of the books and/or rules in a way that is unsatisfactory. It suggests that the players should always have perfect information and always have the right tool. That just isn't true.

Now in this case I started with a premise -- the PCs can't simply escape out of the Faewild with Plane Shift -- and developed reasoning to fit that fiction -- the Winter Court has locked down travel out of the Faewild using its newfound control over the plane. it is the same reason it is a constant blizzard in the plane: it is theirs now. There reasons are less "stop travelers from leaving" and more "stop faeries from escaping there control." Like how all despots lock down borders. The logic is that they have very strong control over the nature of the plane, and because Plane Shift is a common way out, that specifically would be the first thing nerfed. But, as you say, all this is in service to the scenario and not a "natural" outgrowth of the rules or lore.

 

[Fenris-77]

I not only have GM fiat at the heart of my definition, but since I don't really judge railroading on the basis of "good/bad", my definition is probably more expansive than yours. Any GM fiat which wasn't justified prior to play as part of an honest analysis of what the "reality" of the setting demanded and which wasn't crafted with the "rules as physics" in mind, is probably (almost certainly) railroading. Because to me the core of railroading is, "Does anything happen that the GM doesn't "want" or prefer to happen?" If nothing is happening except the GMs preferences, it is a railroad. And fiat is by definition the GMs preference.

To me prep is necessary to establish your preference in a concrete manner. Then, if you break that preparation because you don't like the outcome, that's pure railroading. Likewise, if you prep in such a way that isn't based on "what happened before this point" but is instead focused on "what you want to have happen in the future" that's probably railroading to. "I don't want the PCs to unlock this door" is very different to me than "The PCs probably won't be able to get through this door because some NPC didn't want it to be easy to get through this door and logically had the resources to achieve the goal of making the door hard to get through." The later isn't railroading or at least not very much, while the former is definitely railroading.

I think there's nots of room beyond strictly 'rules as physics'. Lots of games, using all kinds of rules systems, have internal logic that isn't strictly rules as setting, but something more like genre. A 20's noir game, for example, probably has some setting logic that indexes film and literature - certain things tend to happen in certain ways. More generally, if we look at games that are more play to find out, we see GM adjudication resting strongly on what has come before, but not in terms of GM prep, and GMs can still adjudicate there without sliding into railroading.

 

[TheSword]

I think almost stealing the tuning forks probably caused more afront than if you had simply stopped planar travel magic working because of a gods power. Theft is such a personal affront, almost guaranteed to get players backs up. It’s also something most people would want a chance to detect or avoid.

Stealing their stuff is something that is done to the player. Stopping planar travel is something done to the world. I don’t think it changes the railroading issue, but I see why it got on the players wick.

 

[Reynard]

Also, and this might better be a subject for a second thread, I don't think "prep fiat" is any more valid than "play fiat."

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think almost stealing the tuning forks probably caused more afront than if you had simply stopped planar travel magic working because of a gods power. Theft is such a personal affront, almost guaranteed to get players backs up. It’s also something most people would want a chance to detect or avoid.

Stealing their stuff is something that is done to the player. Stopping planar travel is something done to the world. I don’t think it changes the railroading issue, but I see why it got on the players wick.

Stealing their stuff is something that is done to the character, not the player.

 

[TwoSix]

Also, and this might better be a subject for a second thread, I don't think "prep fiat" is any more valid than "play fiat."

I mean, obviously you're uncomfortable making new threads.