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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 4744617" data-attributes="member: 15538">If the DM decides, because the players choose Unexpected Thing X, that Unexpected Thing X will fail, that is railroading. Stacking the deck is not railroading... the players still have the choice to ice-skate uphill. The game world still has integrity. Whether the path set forth by the DM is good or not is just an aesthetic decision.Similarly, "all roads lead to Rome" is not a railroad. You can arrange it such that both paths A and B lead to the boss vampire... but having done that, you need to establish how that is logically so. In some cases, there are multiple paths that do lead to the boss vampire, while in other cases you are intentionally removing one meanginful choice and you simply flip the map/NPC helper/whatever to the reverse, if need be. Simply removing a meaningful choice is not railroading. Even if the PCs save Sweet Sue from the orcs, you may have it set up so she will be murdered later anyway. Railroading is a meta-decision that breaks the integrity of the game. The PCs take path A to the vampire, but wise up along the way, backtrack, and choose the logically necessary B, forcing you to consider them avoiding or running into situations you did not intend. If you respond by removing logic, the game has degenerated and you are now a railroader. Luke may join the Dark Side; a kender may shatter the orb of dragonkind; the PCs may choose to estimate the position of the dragon's lair and drill into it from the surface; the players may choose to play with an artifact you put into play; wealthy PCs might give away their positions and go to live in the wilderness until they are called again; PCs die; NPCs die; nameless minions get interrogated and must suddenly have names; innocent tavernkeepers get shanghaid into intrigue or felonies; hapless hirelings are used as living mine detectors. While striving in every way to make a scenario flexible, logical and entertaining, the GM must be prepared at any moment to watch the whole thing devolve onto decisions made by the players, or dumb luck, or being backed into a corner by logic. Keeping the bad guy alive for the third act because you wanted him there is cheating in the only way that really matters. What separates RPGs from fiction is real uncertainty, real (fictional) danger.To remove a meanginful choice can be justified. But if the choice exists, and you choose to nullify the consequences of that choice, that is the most elemental particle of the railroaded game.</blockquote>

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