All Aboard the Invisible Railroad!

What if I told you it was possible to lock your players on a tight railroad, but make them think every decision they made mattered?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

While this may sound like the evil GM speaking, I have my reasons. Firstly, not every GM has time to craft a massive campaign. There are also plenty of GMs who are daunted at the prospect of having to figure out every eventuality. So, this advice is offered to help people scale down the pressure of being a GM and give them options to reuse and recycle their ideas and channel players through an exciting adventure that just doesn’t have as many options as they thought it did. All I’m suggesting here is a way to make sure every choice the players make takes them to an awesome encounter, which is surly no bad thing.

A Caveat​

I should add that used too often this system can have the opposite effect. The important thing here is not to take away their feeling of agency. If players realise nothing they do changes the story, then the adventure will quickly lose its allure. But as long as they don’t realise what is happening they will think every choice matters and the story is entirely in their hands. However, I should add that some players are used to being led around by the nose, or even prefer it, so as long as no one points out the “emperor has no clothes” everyone will have a great game.

You See Three Doors…​

This is the most basic use of the invisible railroad: you offer a choice and whichever choice they pick it is the same result. Now, this only works if they don’t get to check out the other doors. So this sort of choice needs to only allow one option and no take backs. This might be that the players know certain death is behind the other two doors ("Phew, thank gods we picked the correct one there!"). The other option is for a monotone voice to announce “the choice has been made” and for the other doors to lock or disappear.

If you use this too often the players will start to realise what is going on. To a degree you are limiting their agency by making them unable to backtrack. So only lock out the other options if it looks likely they will check them out. If they never go and check then you don’t need to stop them doing so.

The Ten Room Dungeon​

This variant on the idea above works with any dungeon, although it might also apply to a village or any place with separate encounters. Essentially, you create ten encounters/rooms and whichever door the player character’s open leads to the next one on your list. You can create as complex a dungeon map as you like, and the player characters can try any door in any order. But whatever door they open after room four will always lead to room five.

In this way the players will think there is a whole complex they may have missed, and if they backtrack you always have a new room ready for them, it’s just the next one on the list. The downside is that all the rooms will need to fit to roughly the same dimensions if someone is mapping. But if no one is keeping track you can just go crazy.

Now, this may go against the noble art of dungeon design, but it does offer less wastage. There are also some GMs who create dungeons that force you to try every room, which is basically just visible railroading. This way the players can pick any door and still visit every encounter.

This idea also works for any area the player characters are wandering about randomly. You might populate a whole village with only ten NPCs because unless the characters are looking for someone specific that will just find the next one of your preset NPCs regardless of which door they knock on.

What Path Do You Take in the Wilderness?​

When you take away doors and corridors it might seem more complex, but actually it makes the invisible railroad a lot easier. The player characters can pick any direction (although they may still pick a physical path). However, it is unlikely they will cross into another environmental region even after a day’s walk. So as long as your encounters are not specific to a forest or mountain they should all suit “the next encounter.”

So, whichever direction the players decide to go, however strange and off the beaten path, they will encounter the same monster or ruins as if they went in any other direction. Essentially a wilderness is automatically a ‘ten room dungeon’ just with fewer walls.

As with any encounter you can keep things generic and add an environmentally appropriate skin depending on where you find it. So it might be forest trolls or mountain trolls depending on where they are found, but either way its trolls. When it comes to traps and ruins it’s even easier as pretty much anything can be built anywhere and either become iced up or overgrown depending on the environment.

Before You Leave the Village…​

Sometimes the easiest choice is no choice at all. If the player characters have done all they need to do in “the village” (or whatever area they are in) they will have to move on to the next one. So while they might procrastinate, explore, do some shopping, you know which major plot beat they are going to follow next. Anything they do beforehand will just be a side encounter you can probably improvise or draw from your backstock of generic ones. You need not spend too long on these as even the players know these are not important. The next piece of the “proper adventure” is whenever they leave the village so they won’t expect anything beyond short and sweet. In fact, the less detailed the encounters the more the GM will be assumed to be intimating it is time to move on.

Following the Clues​

Finally we come to the most common invisible railroad that isn’t ever considered railroading (ironically). Investigative adventures usually live and breathe by allowing the player characters to uncover clues that lead to other clues. Such adventures are actually openly railroading as each clue leads to another on a proscribed path. The players aren’t forced to follow the clues, but what else are they going to do? The players are making a point of following the railroad in the knowledge it will take them to the denouement of the adventure. What makes this type of railroading entertaining is that the players feel clever for having found the clues that lead them along the path. So if they start to divert too much the GM can put another clue on their path or let them find the next one a little easier and you are back on track.

The "Good" Kind of Railroading​

Now, all this may all seem a little manipulative, but modifying events in reaction to what the players do is a part of many GM’s tools. Any trick you use is usually okay as long as you do it to serve the story and the player’s enjoyment.

That said, never take away player agency so you can ensure the story plays out the way you want it to. This sort of railroading should only be used just to make the game more manageable and free up the GM to concentrate on running a good game instead of desperately trying to create contingencies. So, remember that you must never restrict the choices and agency of the players, at least knowingly. But it is fine to make sure every road goes where you want it to, as long as that is to somewhere amazing.

Your Turn: How do you use railroading in your games?

 

[Corone]

Ok, I promised myself not to comment on threads like this but as I've just read a page of people talking about how I do or do not either run games or intend the article to be read, I clearly have to post something.

The intent of the article is to offer another tool for the GM, not a map for how to always run every game.
As far as I'm concerned, the contract you have with your players is to work with them to deliver a great story, and a certain amount of manipulation can sometimes help to do that. Novels and magicians misdirect on several occasions and no one has a problem with it.
If you disagree, or think its unspeakable to even consider it, that fine, no one said you have to.
If you found a useful way to reduce your GM prep and take some pressure off, great, glad to help.
Run, or play the games you want to.

As previous posters have said, if you've had a chat about it and don't agree, its time to walk away (as I'm sure we'd all rather be gaming).

 

[Maxperson]

Ok, I promised myself not to comment on threads like this but as I've just read a page of people talking about how I do or do not either run games or intend the article to be read, I clearly have to post something.

The intent of the article is to offer another tool for the GM, not a map for how to always run every game.
As far as I'm concerned, the contract you have with your players is to work with them to deliver a great story, and a certain amount of manipulation can sometimes help to do that. Novels and magicians misdirect on several occasions and no one has a problem with it.
If you disagree, or think its unspeakable to even consider it, that fine, no one said you have to.
If you found a useful way to reduce your GM prep and take some pressure off, great, glad to help.
Run, or play the games you want to.

As previous posters have said, if you've had a chat about it and don't agree, its time to walk away (as I'm sure we'd all rather be gaming).

Speaking for myself, despite my strong opinion on the subject, how you just described the intent of your article is exactly how I took it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And that's fine. Perfectly legitimate. But if they're unable to articulate what those tolerances actually are, I wouldn't even in theory be unable to meet them. And like I have probably made pretty clear, I'm not terribly interested in trying in the first place. Granted, it probably doesn't help my attitude if the preference is expressed in a manner that implies that a failure to meet it to be a moral flaw.

I suspect most of the people in this thread (I'm very carefully not saying "all"--I know better) would be able to do that face to face. Regarding the latter, see my response at the end of this.

Perhaps this is the pixel hunting problem?

Its absolutely related.

The GM has designed 'the correct solution' or the 'the specific interesting thing' but the players keep poking 'wrong things' so nothing interesting happens? As a player I hate this, and I make sure it doesn't happen in my games. I think it is pretty easy to avoid by just having a world full of interesting stuff and no 'correct solutions' but certainly some low-key illusionism can help making sure that the interesting stuff is where and when the PCs are. Like if the players really fixate on something that I hadn't meant to be in anyway relevant, then I probably just make it relevant, at least in a small way. But I'm sure some people would consider that changing the prep, thus deception, or something..

Well, again, some of the people objecting in this thread would have no problem with that as long as they knew you were doing it.

Sure, and GM probably wouldn't ask about clothing unless there was some special occasion for which they might expect the PCs to dress differently than usual. Though that totally could be just for flavour. But like I said, a lot of 'choices' are not actually the GM asking questions, they're choices the players spontaneously make in response to the situation. Like the GM describes how the weather is chilly, and a player in response describes how their PC dresses in a fur cloak. But perhaps the weather was intended just for flavour and GM was not planning for freezing checks... except then later due unforeseen circumstances the character gets trapped in an ice cave for a long time and whether they have warm clothes suddenly becomes relevant.

And most of the time most people aren't going to care about that. Its all about framing in most cases.

Ok. Let's try to unpack this. I wouldn't mind 'deception' if were it used as a technical term, but it really isn't. It comes along with 'lies' and 'dishonesty.' It is not just used to refer artistic technique of misdirection, it is used as a value judgment.

Okay, now let me do my brief spiel about "scar tissue".

This is a term I picked up from my wife. She refers to it as the baggage everybody--and I mean everybody--carries forward from prior experiences in their life. Sometimes its minor, sometimes its not, and sometimes its, from lack of a better term, "localized".

Gamers are very prone to having scar tissue. Gamers who participate in lots of gaming discussions even more so. And gamers with apparently minor populace tastes, more yet.

This is because the topic at hand is not the only thing being responded to. The last four, 20 or 100 times they've been in a related discussion is also right here, right now. That's just how people work. So when you see hyperbole, its in response to all the arguments they've ever had on this subject; its only about you to the degree that you're in the general category of people who've acted in the past like Illusionism is the Only Right Way to Play, and anyone who doesn't like it is a giant killjoy, and are perfectly happy to throw their own hyperbole around on it. I've seen at least 2-3 examples in this thread of it, and its far from the most extreme I've seen on this.

[I occasionally think a general thread about the effect of "scar tissue" on problems in RPG groups would be worth starting, but I'm never sold it'd not turn into a trainwreck, and I participate in enough of those I don't need to start my own.]

And for the record, I don't think DMG gives advice on illusionism, I don't think it gives much useful GMing advice at all, good or bad. It however gives advice on fudging, as thing GM might do, so I don't think such trickery is in any way considered out of bounds.

Well, its defensible that at least some fudging is illusionism, when you do it acting like the actual result of the die roll is being honored. Its just on a very limited scale. I just try to limit my comments about what is or isn't in 5e because I'm neither a 5e player nor GM, I just read it enough to figure out its not my cuppa.

But let's look what is actually happening in the examples in the OP. They're GM making up stuff, and then describing that stuff to the players. That's it.

Uhm, no. Consider why he, himself, calls it an invisible railroad. Its the deliberate concealment that is as much or more an issue than the railroad.
(though there are absolutely people who don't like that too.)

And that is what GM is supposed to do. The 'deception' that is happening is having the players to think that the world is independently and objectively existing, and not mutable and altered on the spot. But certainly that would be true if the GM would be just improvising this on the spot too?

It--depends. Is he making things up to steer things in a certain direction? Or is he just improving off what's currently happening? I think in terms of railroading at least, they're pretty different.

And certainly in broad sense the players are aware that at least some of the world actually is not predetermined (as everything never can be) and is just decided by the GM when relevant. So I really don't think that there is any significantly more nefarious deception going on here than in the general process of making some haphazard notes and stray thoughts coming across as real and existing world the PCs can interact with.

Again, I think the "nefariousness" is the idea you can steer people where you want and they won't know. If they do know, then the "invisible" part doesn't apply. Some people still aren't going to like it because they're going to question if their decisions actually mean anything (and that turns very much on what the GM is doing with that improvisation), but at the very least there's no bones about what's going on.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Also, I think it's still a definitional issue - even after all these pages. I simply prefer railroading keep its negative connotation as a definition. Otherwise, the waters are just that much muddier as people argue "good" vs. "bad" railroading as opposed to the good vs. bad techniques involved themselves - and WHY some people have such a big issue (not that it's all THAT complicated - some people just place a very high value on player agency and consider any infringement verboten.)

I don't think its so much of an issue whether there's "good" or "bad" railroading so much as whether people on the ground prefer it one way or another. Make it definitionally bad tells people who'd rather just follow their chalk lines that they're "playing wrong" and I have as much an issue with that as people who think everyone should just accept illusionism and be happy with it.

Me? I'm fine just having a good time, and I don't get to play (vs. DM) nearly enough - so just about ANY style is fine as long as it's entertaining. But I do prefer knowing what style I'm actually playing.

And, despite a lot of naysaying in this thread, most of the various techniques used to railroad actually work fine when used out in the open and often actually work better since, out in the open, you are working WITH your players instead of against them (where against means trying to keep the techniques etc. hidden).

And hear you seem to get that. But as long as "railroading" is only viewed as negative, it privileges some play styles over others, which I think is a problem.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, that's fair. It just is that with vague terms like "railroading" and "illusionism" that people cannot agree on, demanding "none at all" becomes rather tricky position. Like I said, I literally couldn't promise that even if I wanted to, because there is a good chance that they might consider something to fall into those categories that I wouldn't.

Yeah, but as I said, at the table you can unpack the matter more with them, and if everyone assumes each other is behaving in good faith, missteps can be adjusted after the fact--or someone can decide that its fundamentally hard for you to give them what they want and walk away in a no-fault kind of way.

 

[Thomas Shey]

This is, as I have repeatedly said, the main problem.

If you (generic) as DM choose to use these techniques and get explicit affirmative consent to do so in advance (e.g. during session zero), then awesome. That gives folks like me a chance to ask you to please not, and if no understanding can be reached, we can break amicably.

Sure. But the great truth is, communication is hard and some people really don't like doing it for various reasons. As such, a lot of things get done by assumption and guess that really probably shouldn't. Like I said, I've never had the discussion, but the majority of people I game with I've played with for 20 years or more. If the small amount of this I do was bothersome, I think I'd at least have gotten a hint by now.

I'd be far less blase about this with someone new to my game. Even less so if they didn't play with other people who's game culture I was familiar with.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Time for my regularly scheduled," I trust the DM will use their judgement to run the game well. They're empowered for a reason."

 

[bloodtide]

It’s literally premised on doing one thing while making your players think you’re doing another. That’s why it’s called “the invisible railroad.” It’s hidden, and hiding your actions is deceptive. If the players know you’ll be shuffling things around so they don’t miss the cool stuff you had planned and are ok with that, great. Have fun. If you actively hide the fact that you’re doing it though, that’s were there’s a problem.

But why? Beyond some vague "it's generically wrong".

For example, in order to surprise the players you have to hide things, be deceptive and such. They can only be surprised for real. You can't tell the players the supprie and then have it happen: it will fall flat. Real emotions are always better then fake emotions.

That's because railroading is universally negative. It's literally forcing someone to do something against their will or tricking them into it through lies. If the players agree to it, it is okay, but then it's no longer a railroad and is simply linear.

Except it's not. Even if I was the only pro Railroad poster, I alone would make it not universal. And I'm not alone.


So I'll ask "what is wrong with railroading?" Other then you don't like it. And other then some moral high ground to say "all lies, deception and such are always wrong", because that is not true.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well that stems from the fact that this is a forum....designed for discourse. And discourse is not possible when two sides have intransigent positions.

Doesn't mean I can't understand the other side, but it just means there is nothing left to talk about.

Well, there's nothing left to talk about if you assume the only relevant question is how to use that technique. It seems to me that "how to get these kind of results without doing that" is a valid topic that doesn't require the other side to accept the legitimacy from where they sit of your approach. It may not be a discussion you're interested, but its not "nothing left to talk about".

 

[Thomas Shey]

Time for my regularly scheduled," I trust the DM will use their judgement to run the game well. They're empowered for a reason."

And for my "I trust a GM's intentions explicity or I won't play with them, but I don't trust any GM's judgment unlimitedly, and don't see any necessity to do so."