Can you railroad a willing player? (Forked from "Is World Building Necessary?")

[Majoru Oakheart]

You are definitely not using meaningful choice in the same I am. I would not play with a DM who was willing to remove meaningful choices. Pragmatically, a DM might do exactly that, but if the players were interested in a certain course of action, no matter what, a good DM, IMO, lets them. As a DM, I might remove a meaningful but unimportant choice in order to present them with a meaningful, much more interesting choice. I am prepared, for instance, to ruthlessly smite a red herring, just as I am willing to let the PCs dither while the bad guys destroy the world.

EDIT: This is the definition I use:

Meaningful choices - RPG Talk

I, on the other hand, am not. I don't think most DMs are. I will throw out red herrings, but if they explore it for too long then I will arrange things so they figure out it was a red herring. I know my players get really frustrated if they spend 2 hours tracking down a clue that meant absolutely nothing. They feel like their time is wasted because it got them no benefit at all.

If the PCs dither while the world is about to be destroyed, I'm going to remind them in character any way I can that they are wasting time. I'm going to start offering them more incentive to save the world, and if none of that works, I'll step out of character and say "Alright guys, if you don't want to go on this mission then I don't have anything else planned. The world is actually going to end if you keep wasting time like this. Your characters aren't going to be spared because they are PCs or anything. The game just pretty much ends. So, really, we have 2 choices: You go on the mission or the game is over and maybe someone else wants to DM."

I've even had to do it once before.

I think almost everyone does this. You need to restrict the choices to things you can handle. No one can imagine every single possible option in a near infinite universe. Some people are better at adapting on the fly than others, true. But at any particular moment the words that come out of one of the player's mouths could be...anything. It could be, "You know, I know we've spent the last 2 years of real time trying to track down this villain and my character was the most enthusiastic about the mission...but...I've decided to retire and give up. I'm going to sail to a country not even on this map given to us by the DM and I'm going to start a new religion."

Luckily, people are more predictable than that...they rarely change so drastically all of a sudden. Which is good, because none of us can keep track of millions of NPCs, thousands of "events", all happening at the same time. Instead, we cut it down to a couple of things that we can easily keep track of and present those as options to our players while cutting out the rest.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Heh, when someone assures me that they don't railroad, I wonder how well they know themselves.

Excellent point. Unfortunately, I must spread the love around before I can give you XP for it.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Do you make any destinction between choices players want to make and those they don't care about?

Not when considering whether or not something is railroading. If they don't care, then the tracks may be invisible. If they agreed, then the tracks might even be desirable ("Hey guys! Let's play through the Age of Worms AP!"). The tracks are still there. IMHO, it is the tracks, not how you feel about them, that define the railroad.

(And, yes, this does mean that sometimes a degree of railroading is a valid GMing tool. For example, setting the begining scene of almost any campaign is a railroad simply because the players do not choose where the game starts or the conditions that it starts in.)

This sounds like a pretty good starting point for a definition of railroading, but how important would you consider the "same point" clause to be? If the DM limits or eliminates choices to allow for only two outcomes (e.g. the PCs must either fight the monster or run from it, or the PCs may only go to site A or site B) and no others (e.g. the PCs cannot negotiate with the monster, or go to site C), would that also be railroading?

The problem with that question is that, once you begin defining railroading as a reaching a limited number of points, the question becomes "How many points must a sandbox have to avoid being a railroad"?

I'd rather parse out the railroad elements and examine them seperately from the matrix in which they occur.


RC

 

[carmachu]

Forked from: Forked from "An Epiphany" thread: Is World Building "Necessary"?

So, in your view, is there an objective definition of "railroading" (and if so, what is it?) or is "railroading" entirely subjective and dependent on whether the players mind in the first place?

Depends on the player/DM dynamic. There are times I know, with our current DM, we're being elad by the nose, but I dont really care. Other times, with a different DM I dont like being railroaded as there's no choices.

 

[Umbran]

You can't railroad the willing.

You can DM in a clumsy fashion, but you can't railroad.

You also can't railroad the unaware.

I'll disagree. I mean, look at the word - as if I cannot get on the morning train to work if I am willing, or don't know I'm getting on the train? I can always choose to get on the train, and take the ride.

A railroaded plot is one that has no stops or turns that the DM does not allow. Whether the players want to be on the railroad is a separate issue. Many folks will not mind the railroad, if it is going somewhere they want to go.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I'll disagree. I mean, look at the word - as if I cannot get on the morning train to work if I am willing, or don't know I'm getting on the train? I can always choose to get on the train, and take the ride.

A railroaded plot is one that has no stops or turns that the DM does not allow. Whether the players want to be on the railroad is a separate issue. Many folks will not mind the railroad, if it is going somewhere they want to go.

Exactly.


RC

 

[Cadfan]

A railroaded plot is one that has no stops or turns that the DM does not allow.

Then all plots are railroads. [/discussion]

That's the problem. Railroading CAN'T just mean "you can't do anything without the DM's permission," because by definition, you can't.

The term "railroading" has to mean something more.

In common parlance, the something more is usually a perjorative connotation and the implication that the players have repeatedly attempted to do things which the DM disallowed, and have been stymied by contrived circumstances.

 

[FireLance]

The problem with that question is that, once you begin defining railroading as a reaching a limited number of points, the question becomes "How many points must a sandbox have to avoid being a railroad"?

I'd rather parse out the railroad elements and examine them seperately from the matrix in which they occur.

Perhaps then the relevant question is: how does the limitation or elimination of player choice differ in a sandbox compared to a railroad? I assume that even in a sandbox campaign, a DM may effectively limit choices by making certain options less attractive compared to the others?

 

[La Bete]

What we really, REALLY need is a term, separate from railroading which carries all this negative baggage, that describes a campaign or a scenario in which freedom is being taken from the players, but, it's okay because it makes sense either within the context of the game (military member for example) or because of the agreements between the players and the GM.

I have no idea what a good word for that is, but, that's what we really need.

Porbably of no help whatsoever, but I use "scripted" as a postive term for railroad.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Perhaps then the relevant question is: how does the limitation or elimination of player choice differ in a sandbox compared to a railroad? I assume that even in a sandbox campaign, a DM may effectively limit choices by making certain options less attractive compared to the others?

I am not certain that "making certain options less attractive compared to the others" = effectively limiting choice. This assumes some form of superior knowledge on the part of the DM a priori of what the players will find attractive. IME, players are far more surprising than that.


RC