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

I would call that « staging » or « black boxing ».
The DM setup something and PC face the situation.
I would not even bother to steal the components for the plane shift spell.

Reynard said:

Anyway. On the subject of railroads: I don't think setting up the scenario counts, even if the PCs are "forced" into the scenario by the general agreement that the GM usually has to prep something.

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Sure, but we're answering the question you asked about what we consider railroading to us as a player.

Can the party members pursue freeing their friend's soul? No, because of the mixture of being forced into the scenario and not having a reasonable way out of the scenario. So while just setting up a scenario isn't railroading, in this case it is part of a several factors that turn it into railroading.

If they had went to the faewild and then couldn't escape, that wouldn't have been railroading. If they were forced to the faewild but they could use reasonable methods (like plane shift) to go do what they want, it wouldn't be railroading. But putting the two together does constitute railroading.

Maxperson said:

Which is not what happened. In fact they have a way out if they WISH to use it. They are not forced to be there. They are not forced down a line. Force isn't enough to be a railroad. It also has to remove all agency and push them down a line to what the DM wants them to achieve. That did not happen here.

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It exactly happened. They don't know what power was used to take their tuning forks and if a wish would even work. And using up a precious and limited consumable as their only out isn't enough to not call it a railroad.

Also, there is no "ALL" in removing the agency. Otherwise "well, they can go left or right in the dungeon" means it couldn't be a railroad. They removed the agency of what they wanted to do, save their party member's soul. It doesn't matter if they can go "left or right" in the faewild.

Tigris said:

The choice with the wish is no choice, unless they know it exists. They tried a spell and it failed. Why should now this spell, which reproduces effects of other spells, work?


Their choice was "we dont give a crap, we want to get out of here" and this choice was denied.

Wish would be a choice if the feedback of the other spell failing was "thid spell seams to be too weak only a level 9 spell can get you out".

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They tried a weaker spell and wish is known to break rules. It is a choice that they know exists. The party has many choices.

1) Try Wish to get out.
2) It's the Feywild. Find a creature that can tell them if Wish will work.
3) Try to find some sort of portal off of the plane.
4) Try to figure out why the plane is locked down.
5) Try to find a creature with the ability to get them off of the plane.
6) Try to locate a deity that dwells in that plane and see if they can barter to get off.
7) They can plane shift, which means it's likely that they can commune, do augury to find out if wish will be a good idea, or contact other plane to ask.
7-a ton) Other things they can think of to do.

They are not bound to one line of travel. They are not bound in any direction that the DM wishes them to be going. Highly limited force like putting them on another plane is not railroading. It's set-up and nothing more.

Blue said:

It exactly happened. They don't know what power was used to take their tuning forks and if a wish would even work. And using up a precious and limited consumable as their only out isn't enough to not call it a railroad.

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See the above post. They have TONS of options to get off or find out how. They are not being forced in ANY direction at all.

Blue said:

Which is exactly what happened.

The players were forced to the Faewild. They want to rescue their party member, whose soul is not in the Faewild. So it doesn't matter what's available in the Faewild, they are constrained from exercising their agency.

He's forcing the party not to do what they want and instead interact with the Faewild.

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Maxperson said:

Which is not what happened. In fact they have a way out if they WISH to use it. They are not forced to be there. They are not forced down a line. Force isn't enough to be a railroad. It also has to remove all agency and push them down a line to what the DM wants them to achieve. That did not happen here.

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The Void happened when they were already trapped in the faewild.

The PCs were looking for someplace that was out of the plane to do some stuff before the BBEG could locate them (long story, but they have the body of one of his major lieutenants). They found the Fae Cabin in the remote woods, knowing the interior was no longer on the prime. When they go in, they see the Leprechaun shuffling his Deck of Many Things. (We have a running thing where every D&D campaigna run introduces the Deck at some point, and often in exactly this form.) BEFORE they started their draws from the deck, they discovered that the only way out of the cabin was into the Faewild, not back the way they came. At that time they did not know what had happened or that the Winter Court had locked down the plane.

Again, just more clarification.

I can see folks thinking of a "mandatory" side trek being railroading. I don't really think of it that way, but I can see it.

It is kind of moot tho: due to a teleport error, they ended up having a fight with a couple white dragons who were guarding the frozen Summer Court and they defeated the dragons. I just told them that they find their tuning forks among many, many others (free access to ALL the planes) in the dragons' gullets (that is where the Winter were storing them). Now it is up to them to help out or just bounce back to the Prime and recovering their friend's lost soul.

It's fine. I just wanted to do a fine side quest to let them level up and gain allies before they made their final run at the BBEG, but if they don't want to do so, it's their game.

Maxperson said:

See the above post. They have TONS of options to get off or find out how. They are not being forced in ANY direction at all.

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They are being forced NOT in the direction of what they want to do -- save their party member's soul. It doesn't matter if there are myriad choices they don't want to take.

Reynard said:

The Void happened when they were already trapped in the faewild.

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And just as your first clarification switched me 180, then your second clarification switched me back. Okay, they didn't have a goal beforehand that you locked them out of.

Reynard said:

The Void happened when they were already trapped in the faewild.

The PCs were looking for someplace that was out of the plane to do some stuff before the BBEG could locate them (long story, but they have the body of one of his major lieutenants). They found the Fae Cabin in the remote woods, knowing the interior was no longer on the prime. When they go in, they see the Leprechaun shuffling his Deck of Many Things. (We have a running thing where every D&D campaigna run introduces the Deck at some point, and often in exactly this form.) BEFORE they started their draws from the deck, they discovered that the only way out of the cabin was into the Faewild, not back the way they came. At that time they did not know what had happened or that the Winter Court had locked down the plane.

Again, just more clarification.

I can see folks thinking of a "mandatory" side trek being railroading. I don't really think of it that way, but I can see it.

It is kind of moot tho: due to a teleport error, they ended up having a fight with a couple white dragons who were guarding the frozen Summer Court and they defeated the dragons. I just told them that they find their tuning forks among many, many others (free access to ALL the planes) in the dragons' gullets (that is where the Winter were storing them). Now it is up to them to help out or just bounce back to the Prime and recovering their friend's lost soul.

It's fine. I just wanted to do a fine side quest to let them level up and gain allies before they made their final run at the BBEG, but if they don't want to do so, it's their game.

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They had options. Hard choices =/= no choices. You didn't do anything wrong, and I'm one of the most anti-railroading folks I know.

TwoSix said:

Any time a scene is framed as "your characters are trapped", players are going to be somewhat unhappy. We instinctually want to escape from a trap, it's not surprising that a player who burns a 7th level slot on an escape spell that doesn't work is going to be salty about the combination of "still being stuck" and "wasted a big slot on something that didn't work".

I'm not saying it's a railroad, exactly, but the adventure design is closer to the train station then I would prefer as a player. As a GM, I probably would have framed that concept with more carrot, less stick.

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I feel like @TwoSix really captured what I know my players would have also said. Word for word, this is perfect ^

Reynard said:

Anyway, two questions:
1) Do you specifically think what I did here was "railroading"?
and 2) In general, how do you define "railroading" or being railroaded as a player ina game?

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1) Compared to grand theft auto style "you are in a city what do you do?" Yeah, your scenario was "on rails". They MUST face this situation, therefore they are "on the plot train". Was there options for how to resolve? sure, but was it ANY option? such as just walking away? No. So they were forced into a situation.

2) I think that ttrpg is getting old enough and diverse enough that terms we used in the 90s may not have as much clarity. Video games have brought extra play options and expectations into the table, so that can shift what words mean to any given person. Try running 2eAD&D Demonweb Pits for a group of 15 years olds and again for 65 years olds = will be a different approaches and concerns for sure.... IMHO...

I personally have enough diversity in games and plots that "sandbox" is closer to Grand Theft Auto, where you just... do whatever, the GM comes to the table with 0 plots or scenarios. And then as players poke at things, they generate drama, problems, and plots evolve from that. And at any time they can abandon a plot or blow it up. I may not have called this 'sandbox' in 1992...

I personally think that Railroad games are good, great even. A railroad game to me is largely the scenario that @Reynard described. Choices are limited, characters are 'stuck in', and by and large we are playing to see how this specific scenario resolves. But, I love that, as a player and a GM. As long as I am aware of it, playing to see how well I can accomplish a scenario is fun! And players I run games for love it too, works great for Star Wars canon plots too. We also see a lot of rail-road-ish games at rpg conventions, due to time constraints and wanting to 'finish' the plot.

I also think there are varying degrees of either. I have been on so few games where there we no right choices except for the single specific ones, and those were fun. Usually a Cthulhu style game, short, punchy and deadly. But I have been on Vampire games where the players did whatever they wanted, and then they made choices that "locked them in" to a problem they had to face, almost railroady. Or how TwoSix put it, "At the train station" for sure.

I no longer think you can wave a hand and call a game any one thing. And that goes for a scenario. It can shift mid-way too.