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?

 

[Thomas Shey]

this also reminds me of the player that my style REALLY rubbed the wrong way.

This gets into the other, complex issue of designing difficulties with the players in mind.

On one hand, you have the virtue that the players never are liable to be absolutely out to sea on a problem, but on the other, it also means that the players probably never feel like they have any slack; they have to use their core ability effectively every time, or to one degree or another or its a failure state.

I suspect in many groups they'd rather have a more middle-of-the-road case where they occasionally struggle (because they're not perfectly set up to deal with a problems) but also sometimes relax (because sometimes they have more ability to deal with a problem than is needed).

 

[Thomas Shey]

yeah this reminds me of another arguement... this one me trying to set up a con game and running it as a playtest before the con.

the players had to get from A to B. there were 3 routes they could take. They could go up and over the mountain, that was the longest it would take almost 3 weeks. They could go through the pass this was the quickest less then a week. They could go through the woods avoiding the path entirely but it would take anywhere from 1-2 weeks depending on skill checks.

the PCs had the choice to try to get more into in point A, but by default they knew the pass was the most dangerous and the mountain was the least dangerous. SO they got to pick speed or safety. I then designed level appropriate challenges for each path. And again they had resources they could choose to use (but would take time) to get more info on any/all paths. BUT there was a timer of sorts. the thing they needed to get from A to B was a magic elixir that would heal a disease that was plaguing the town. One of the pregens was also a paladin that could help when he got there.

the argument was that I wasted too much time and energy making 3 paths. Since I would only be running this twice at most it would have 2 paths used and my home group bet anything that both would take the more dangerous faster route. At the very least just have over the mountain or threw the pass no one would be dumb enough (especially since no pregen was a ranger or druid) to try to trail blaze through the woods.

now we play tested all 3 paths anyway (even though they thought it a waste) and of the 2 times I ran it both in 4 hour slots... 1 time they never left point A. They spent the entire aloted time trying to decide. the other time they took the fast dangeus path, and TPKed.

so what do you think, was I wasting my time giving those choices?

To a point. I'm not sure I'd put that much effort into a con game, honestly, if for no other reason your first situation (everyone spends too much time arguing about which way to go) seems too likely. The last thing you want on a convention game is anything liable to bog things down.

 

[Cadence]

Rails don't have to be long in order for it to be railroading. Even if there are different things down each passage way, being unable to avoid the ogre no matter what we choose is still railroading. In this situation my agency in the short term(which door do I choose) is completely negated.Pick a side that has an ogre and let me have a choice that matters.

What about...

If there's a 50/50 chance it's on either side and I roll?

If both sides have an ogre until they hear the other door open, and then it tries to run around and join it's compatriot the long way?

If I hadn't had plans for anything until you opened the door and thought and Ogre would be appropriate?

 

[Mort]

If you're playing you probably aren't going to be aware that you were railroaded. That's how illusionism works. Which in my opinion is what makes it worse than overt railroading. At least with the overt method I can see it and opt to leave the game, rather than continuing to play a game where my choices don't matter at least some of the time.

Well yeah, Illusionism works great - right up until it doesn't.

I remember a Werewolf game from a long time ago. Things were moving along; we were doing the typical Werewolf campaign. Then the DM stepped out to take a phone call. He left his notebook in plain view and one of the players decided to take a look at it (yes, that's a big no-no).

He looked and frowned then bade us to take a look. He was so insistent, that everyone did. Turns out the railroading was BLATANT. stuff like - spot x, PC gets maimed etc. Just obvious no player agency plot.

Game collapsed from that. Should the guy have looked at the notes? No, that's terrible form. but it exposed the game and that was that.

 

[Cadence]

I can see it and opt to leave the game, rather than continuing to play a game where my choices don't matter at least some of the time.

If I were stupidly rich and had given a ton of my money to good causes, I'd love to take a few grand and commission a study of what choices matter and don't matter in different GM's games. (As in what things down the road change or not if the party dilly dallies, what plot points they miss or don't miss, etc ..). Just because I'm curious how many stationary points there are (like one of the MCU show episodes) and what variety of techniques there are for missing them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I literally don't get why people would care about effectively blind choices, especially if they would be fine with improvising or randomising the outcome. It doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Cadence]

I literally don't get why people would care about effectively blind choices, especially if they would be fine with improvising or randomising the outcome. It doesn't make any sense to me.

How many choices are? And how many aren't?

 

[Thomas Shey]

Three things...

I'm envisioning a show where the omniscient narrator knows how important every seemingly meaningless choice is. ("Ooh, should have gone to the lounge instead of your room in the dorm, now you'll never meet, fall in love with, and marry her." ::: hits erase button on a bunch of possible futures ::: )

Even if two doors have a stochastic ogre the first time, does having two doors sometimes make a building seem more realistic, and give options later (split the party or not, for example)?

The stochastic ogre honestly opens a lot of cans of worms about the situation as to whether there's any meaningful decision making involved. Is it possible for them to avoid it at all? If not, why not (and I don't even mean in-world, but whether the ogre encounter is actually serving some game purpose its lack would harm)?

I tend to agree with a poster above that if there's no way to determine that there's a difference between the two doors, there could be an ogre behind each one for all that it really matters (though I think when you head in that direction you can run into questions about player completism and whether it would make them end up fighting two ogres, which depending on the answer to my question can be unattractive for metagame reasons (over consumption of resources, use of time, experience assignment).

It hit me that I don't think about building layout enough as a player or DM. Which door would go to rooms more likely to have windows, closer to the surface of the mountainside, to the sacred direction, etc... Feels like that should change things.

Yeah, but as you note, very few "dungeons" (even ones that are avowedly functional buildings or were at one time) think that through. Even people who sell maps professionally for RPG use are hit or miss about this.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah, I totally get that using illusionism to frustrate the players' attempts to gain information might seem pretty questionable, but no one has suggested that, none of the examples in the OP are that.

Of course, he also doesn't address what to do about it, either. If you don't, your "invisible railroad" pretty quickly stops being either invisible or stops being a railroad.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Should random encounter tables need to be different depending on the door too? (Why let me pick if all the random stuff is just the same?)

Sometimes. Ideally when generating random encounters there should be some differences depending on what parts of buildings and/or other locations you're using. Sometimes that falls on the sword of "too much work" (and it almost always will on some level, sooner or later). Usually that's worked around by the GM simply ignoring results that don't make sense in context, but the more you do that, the more it approaches just deciding the encounter yourself.