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

[Fenris-77]

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

He's got a very well-used Go Thread Me account.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

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.

My issue with the fork stealing is that is is weirdly specific and feels contrived. It weakens the player buy in into the fiction of the situation as it comes across so blatantly as what it actually is: the GM not wanting the PCs to leave. I think the same result could be achieved in ways that would feel more organic, even though the ultimate motivation was actually the same.

 

[Reynard]

My issue with the fork stealing is that is is weirdly specific and feels contrived. It weakens the player buy in into the fiction of the situation as it comes across so blatantly as what it actually is: the GM not wanting the PCs to leave. I think the same result could be achieved in ways that would feel more organic, even though the ultimate motivation was actually the same.

I mean, in D&D, the tuning forks are literally the way that magic works across all planes. Why is this "weirdly specific and contrived"?

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I mean, in D&D, the tuning forks are literally the way that magic works across all planes. Why is this "weirdly specific and contrived"?

How was this theft achieved? Why were the characters targeted? How did the culprits know of their arrival and that they possessed a fork?

 

[Umbran]

If railroading as a term is kind of fraught, isn't "GM force" just as challenging? I don't know what boundary I would draw around "GM force" and "normal GM play", and my gut feeling is that it's certainly game specific.

Whether the term is "fraught" isn't the point I had for the question. And, you kind of lay it out there...

You would separate "force" from "normal play". As if some use of force is abnormal, or wrong?

 

[Celebrim]

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.

I don't see how or why you would claim that.

It suggests that the players should always have perfect information and always have the right tool. That just isn't true.

And I understand where you got that idea even less.

Now in this case I started with a premise -- the PCs can't simply escape out of the Faewild with Plane Shift --

Right. That's what makes it heavy handed railroading. The premise I would start with is probably more like, "Given this villain, what stat block would they have? What minions? What resources? Now how would they allocate those resources to some task?"

That they could perfectly seal the border would never occur to me. I probably wouldn't be allowing that for something less than something with Divine Rank, and unless the PCs were very nearly divine rank themselves I'd never start with the premise, "These are villains the PCs should be doing anything about." I wouldn't put the PCs into that contest because I wouldn't be interested in it. Sure, in theory the PC's could have come directly into contact with Keeropus the Archmage at 1st level, but that wouldn't have been particularly interesting. Instead I'd try to come up with what they could do that would be fair or reasonable. Generally this would be determined by, "Would I ever consider granting the PCs the power to do this, should they obtain similar level?" If I wouldn't let the PCs do it, the NPCs don't get to do it either.

Which is why I'd never take any object from the PCs without a saving throw. And saving throws can always be passed on a natural 20 at the least, so if I'm giving it a saving throw then I'm suggesting an out - a way my plans could go wrong. And note that in my game, hard saves are rare. It's not like 3.5 where saving throw DCs routinely just scale up into the 30s or 40s, and for the most part I couldn't justify a save that high within my rules (maybe a Greater Deity working within their portfolio).

But, as you say, all this is in service to the scenario and not a "natural" outgrowth of the rules or lore.

Right. Which is why it is to me very heavy-handed railroading. You have a particular scenario you want to force and you are figuring out how to do that.

Now of course, GMs have unlimited fiat and resources. You can always fill in the sort of background that would let the thing be reasonable in the setting. Artifacts created by deities or near deities would be the sort of thing that would justify NPC of level X having access to powers of level X+Y. But then, artifacts immediately become weaknesses, things that can be stolen or which have drawbacks or limits. The process I'm talking about of fiction first to me produces different outcomes than meta first. And it tends to leave lots of opportunities for your plans to get wrecked.

And if your plans don't get wrecked, you are railroading. In fact, as a player that's one of the ways I detect whether a GM is fudging or otherwise using illusionism. Honest games always go off the rails at points, and are less fun than imagined or are less well paced than hoped or more difficult or less difficult than envisioned without balancing adjustments suddenly appearing. Whether you consider this a good idea or not depends on your theory as a GM. I know a lot of GMs online and in the community that are like, "You want to run the most fun games, just throw illusionism at everything." And that works, just as long as the veil doesn't get torn.

 

[TwoSix]

I mean, in D&D, the tuning forks are literally the way that magic works across all planes. Why is this "weirdly specific and contrived"?

I think there could definitely be different assumptions about how widespread knowledge of any one spell is within the greater setting. It is a 7th level spell, after all; players bringing in an assumption that possessors of that spell aren't common seems like a rational assumption.

 

[TwoSix]

Whether the term is "fraught" isn't the point I had for the question. And, you kind of lay it out there...

You would separate "force" from "normal play". As if some use of force is abnormal, or wrong?

I mean, railroading as a term is "fraught" in the sense that it's generally considered to be pejorative if used to describe a particular game or gameplay. (I've argued against the term's use as purely pejorative in the past, but I do appear to be in the minority in that opinion.) Using a term that might insult someone seems fraught to me!

And yes, I would separate "GM force" from other kinds of GM actions. If all GM play is "force", then it really isn't a credible term, correct? There's no reason to use it if not to differentiate it from something else.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It may be one of those player kneejerk reactions that are kind of inexplicable. You can beat their PCs up, even kill them, and some players will shrug it off. But, oh man, imprison them or <shudder> destroy their stuff and they'll go ballistic.

I don't think it's remotely inexplicable. If you kill a PC the player soon gets another. If you beat them up they need a long rest. But taking their stuff and that's potentially permanent.

And this brings me to the subject of this thread. I don't think that "railroading" is the problem; I think the right words are "disrespect" and possibly even "violation".

I suspect that had someone tried to use the tuning fork and you said "instead of ringing it makes a leaden thud. Someone has set up a dimensional lock; Plane Shift won't work and there's no point burning the spell slot but bigger spells might" then they would have been fine. There is always a bigger fish.

But you didn't do that. Instead you stole small, valuable, and implicitly well protected objects off their persons despite their being high level adventurers. You disrespected their competence and gave them no possibility to avoid this. And you claimed the right to take just about anything off their characters because you want to. What next? Their boxers while they are wearing them, with no roll?

 

[Thomas Shey]

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

You also have the issue of what I sometimes think of as "negative GM engagement"; this is more likely to come up with an individual PC who decides to go off and do his own thing, but in general its a representation of the GM only being interested in running certain sorts of game or adventure, and if the PC swings far afield of that, they just ignore them and pay attention to the players who are staying within that. This can happen with people who avowedly buy-in to the campaign premise but the moment it's inconvenient or annoys them, start trying to do other things or even actively working against it.

In the extreme case where a whole player group does this, the GM simply stops running the game altogether.