Confession: I like Plot

[Doug McCrae]

For me, railroading is intimately connected with the amount of material I've prepared. I like to have several adventures ready for each session, just in case, but there are times when I don't due to lack of time or laziness and I think I become more railroad-y as a result. I have to be, unless I want the session to end early.

Also I've noticed my game can suffer when I over prepare a particular adventure, because I want to use my material and I become more negative about the players crazy ideas instead of running with them.

The ideal situation seems to be to have half-a-dozen or so adventures ready, but each one shouldn't be very detailed, only an outline. This does run the risk of plot holes, however.

 

[KidSnide]

I like this definition, although I would modify it slightly:

A railroad is a very specific type of degenerate game condition in which the players attempt to make choices that they should reasonably expect to be able to make that the GM thwarts.

Excellent definition -- very helpful.

-KS

 

[Raven Crowking]

Excellent definition -- very helpful.

-KS

Hobo gets the credit.

 

[The Shaman]

In a game where you are playing the roles of the command crew of the USS Enterprise: . . .

There's another factor in play (literally, in this instance): the command crew of Enterprise has some measure of responsibility to respond to the situation, whereas adventurers may or may not (I assumed the latter) have any responsibility toward or even affinity for Princess Pinkflower.

 

[Raven Crowking]

There's another factor in play (literally, in this instance): the command crew of Enterprise has some measure of responsibility to respond to the situation, whereas adventurers may or may not (I assumed the latter) have any responsibility toward or even affinity for Princess Pinkflower.

That is why I think it is necessary to distinguish between framework and story. You easily accept the framework of Star Trek because you know it. It should be obvious that a non-Star Trek RPG could have a similar framework.


RC

 

[Desdichado]

I do like the concept of Princess Pinkflower being kidnapped by the Baron de Bauchery. You can't get more suggestive than that. :win:

 

[Ariosto]

Soo . . . You're saying there is an objective level of uncertainty at every decision point, which is equally understood by the players and the GM?

No; I'm saying a real game is not rigged so that the player's play is futile.

OK, but how is that relevant? I was talking about whether knowing about the end-game constitutes railroading.

And I was saying, yet again, that an idea as to what "probably" will happen is simply not a plot.

So, no, it does not constitute railroading.

 

[Ariosto]

I think the plan or main story of an RPG need not necessarily specify something that /must/ happen to the PCs.

Then how the heck is it "the plan or main story"??!!

But so be it. Just realize that, apart from the semantic quibble, you have no bone to pick with the "plotless sandbox" crowd.

 

[Ariosto]

You certainly can't deny that it's a game, because we're playing it. We're going through each of these steps in real time, plumbing each dungeon, overcoming each barrier. At any time along the way, we could fail.

Yes, that is a game. It's reminiscent of some video games.

In the context of D&D, that's a notably hobbled game. An occasional bottleneck can be part of the challenge, but it should not be a continual gauntlet.

 

[Ariosto]

Hobo, RC: So, if you're defining it for us then a "railroad" is all in the eye of the beholder, eh? It has absolutely no referent to a scenario in itself.

A scenario can allow no choices at all and it's not a railroad if someone, somewhere happens to like going through it.

Your repeated objection, Hobo, indicates that I am not entitled to my opinion but must -- like everyone else in the world -- be bound by the opinion of that one hobo who says, "I like to ride the rails, so it's not a railroad."

In other words, no scenario is a railroad.

On what do you base this?

Hobo's notion of the historical context of "story telling game" in another thread does not give me confidence in his credentials as an authority on game-jargon history.

Guess what? The objective referent remains. Even if -- and I think it unlikely -- you manage to deprive us of the "railroad" term, we can (and of necessity will) come up with another.