DM Issues: Railroading

[the Jester]

See, the problem I'm seeing here is people are contrasting the idea of sandbox with railroad. That's a false comparison. The opposite of sandbox is linear, not railroad. You can railroad just as easily in a sandbox as in a linear campaign.

It seems like we have different ideas of a railroad. An adventure can be linear without being a railroad as long as the pcs are free to make choices- even if it is just "We choose to leave this place behind".

That ability to make choices is the definition of a sandbox to me; a sandbox is a setting that the players adventure in without being forced into one path or another by the dm.

I'll agree that a dm can turn a sandbox into a railroad quite easily, but I disagree that you railroad in a sandbox- it is no longer a sandbox at that point.

I'll state further that I think sandbox --> railroad is a continuum, not an either-or.

Do X or bad things will happen to your character might not be forcing the players to act in a certain way, but, it's certainly pushing them in that direction. To me, there's no difference between "You can choose not to do X, but if you do, this shopping list of bad things will happen" and "Just do it".

To me, there is all the difference in the world.

A good sandbox relies on cascading consequences. The pcs' actions reverberate and make waves, and some of those may threaten the pcs or their interests. That is a feature, not a bug, of a sandbox. If the pcs feel trapped, forced to take a certain path or whatever, that's okay and it is still a sandbox. It's only when the dm actually forces them down a certain path, not when they feel like any other choice is a bad one, that the game goes from sandbox to railroad.

A big part of sanbox dming is enforcing the consequences of pc actions. It sounds like you're suggesting that, if the party attacks the merchant in town and flees to the next town, the merchants there shouldn't care because that would be a negative consequence. Well, if you kill the merchants in town A in my campaign and word gets to town B, not only will the merchants not serve you, the town will outlaw you and possibly try to hunt you down.

Because, IMO, at the end of the day, the players will do it because it's pretty obvious that's what the GM wants you to do.

Players who try to pander to the dm are poorly trained for sandbox style play.

As a dm I might want the party to go to some place I've designed that's really cool- but is out of their league. If the players pick up on my eagerness, assume that it's a path to follow right now instead of later, and don't flee after the first encounter six levels above them- TPK! And as a sandbox dm, I am okay with that.

The pcs need to go where they want in a sandbox. Maybe they develop obligations and ties that they feel a need to defend throughout the campaign. Awesome! But ultimately, the decision must be up to them.

To me, saying, "Well, you don't HAVE to do X, but, if you don't, you get punished" is railroading. Find the Disks of Mishakal or the invading dragon armies will simply come in larger and larger waves until you die may be totally justifiable from an in game perspective, but, it's totally a railroad.

Again, I disagree strongly. Saying, "Oh, you go the other direction? There's this huge army of draconians in the way! Oh, you turn west instead? More draconians!" -- THAT is a railroad. Saying, "Okay, you leave the quest behind- let's see what messed up stuff happens" is a sandbox.

And actually, "the only solution to your problem is the Disks of Mishakal" in the first place is a strong railroady element in itself. Why can't the pcs try to raise armies and take the field? Why can't they join the Dragonarmies? Why can't they infiltrate them and try to assassinate their leader? Why can't they seek out a bunch of dragon slaying weapons instead (I know, that comes later)? Why can't they try to appeal to the dragons' vanity and pride to get them to eat their riders?

None of those have to work, but the fact is, in the old DL modules there is no point whatsoever to even trying any of them, or anything else outside of the pre-written story. That's a railroad.

 

[Jhaelen]

Railroad gms run "save the world" scenarios where it is a foregone conclusion that the world will be saved. Sandbox gms, in my experience, run fewer "save the world" scenarios because it's quite possible that the world will not be saved.

That's an interesting point. Interesting to me, because it illustrates what I consider to be a weakness of sandbox games:

Sandboxes seem to work best if the heroes' actions are largely inconsequential on a world-wide scope. I think it's also best for a sandbox if the pcs are really not that special, i.e. low-powered rather than (super-)heroic. This allows for others to jump in and take over.

Heroic gameplay works best with a strong focus, like the 'save the world' scenario. If you want every action to revolve around the heroes, a sandbox doesn't work well.

What works best for myself is a middle-ground between railroading and sandboxing. In my 3e campaign the overarching scenario was "An evil, psionic race is trying to take over the world". I did not decide right away which race that was. This was decided by the players' choices in a pivotal adventure late into the campaign.

(Some additional details because I still enjoy talking about the campaign - ignore it if you like )
[sblock]
What I had decided right from the beginning was that the heroes would have to gain strong allies if they wanted to have a chance to stop the villainous race. The more allies they would manage to win, the easier it would be in the end.
After the pivotal adventure I started using a timeline with events that would happen if they didn't do something to foil the villains' plans.

Before that point adventures mostly revolved around traveling all over the place, and learning about the land and the people.

While I would have been prepared to continue playing if they didn't save the world (either for lack of trying, because they were too slow, or because their allied forces turned out to be too weak), I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't have been an appealing option for my players.
But who knows, considering we just started a Dark Sun campaign

What happened was that they allied with Aboleth, Duergar, Githzerai and Orcs to defeat a combined force of mind flayers of Thoon and Ilsensine. (The orc allies were not something I ever had had in mind: It was an accidental side-effect of the druid player using reincarnate on a key npc, who was reborn as an orc!)

They failed to ally with celestials (because of questionable behaviour), a draconic cult, the drow (for lack of investigating/contacting them), githyanki, and an undead army led by a vampire lord (because they didn't want them as allies or didn't realize they might be won as allies, respectively).

In the end, they did defeat the threat (and several players actually felt the finale was too easy - but that was only a logical consequence of their effectiveness at utilizing their allies' resources and a bit of luck).[/sblock]

When I introduced my campaign idea to the players, they basically agreed they were interested in battling the psionic villains and accepted that they would have to play characters that were lawful members of a border patrol - at least initially.

So, they started on a railroad with a fixed destination, got to change a couple of switch points (and once replace a wagon), stop every once in a while at a tiny sandbox, and choose to skip a few stops.

 

[Doug McCrae]

And actually, "the only solution to your problem is the Disks of Mishakal" in the first place is a strong railroady element in itself.

Yeah. The term 'pixelbitching' has been put forward for that type of thing, from videogames where you have to click on one particular pixel or nothing will happen. Although the PCs are free to go anywhere, nothing very interesting will happen unless they pick the single correct solution.

Why can't the pcs try to raise armies and take the field? Why can't they join the Dragonarmies? Why can't they infiltrate them and try to assassinate their leader? Why can't they seek out a bunch of dragon slaying weapons instead (I know, that comes later)? Why can't they try to appeal to the dragons' vanity and pride to get them to eat their riders?

None of those have to work, but the fact is, in the old DL modules there is no point whatsoever to even trying any of them, or anything else outside of the pre-written story. That's a railroad.

What if a GM allows the players to try any or all of these things but makes them extremely difficult and/or unrewarding for the PCs? So the GM's preferred path thru the campaign is easy street, the path of least resistance. Everything else is, not impossible, but much, much more difficult. For example if the PCs join the draconian army they get given all the terrible jobs, are constantly insulted and occasionally attacked by their own side (friendly fire!) and their new allies steal any nice treasure they acquire. Railroad? Heavy-handed? Passive-aggressive GMing? "You guys are free to go anywhere and try anything you want! (It's just that if you don't do what I want you'll always fail.)"

 

[Doug McCrae]

Sandboxes seem to work best if the heroes' actions are largely inconsequential on a world-wide scope. I think it's also best for a sandbox if the pcs are really not that special, i.e. low-powered rather than (super-)heroic.

Sandbox = low fantasy? Adventure path = high fantasy?

 

[Nagol]

Yeah. The term 'pixelbitching' has been put forward for that type of thing, from videogames where you have to click on one particular pixel or nothing will happen. Although the PCs are free to go anywhere, nothing very interesting will happen unless they pick the single correct solution.

What if a GM allows the players to try any or all of these things but makes them extremely difficult and/or unrewarding for the PCs? So the GM's preferred path thru the campaign is easy street, the path of least resistance. Everything else is, not impossible, but much, much more difficult. For example if the PCs join the draconian army they get given all the terrible jobs, are constantly insulted and occasionally attacked by their own side (friendly fire!) and their new allies steal any nice treasure they acquire. Railroad? Heavy-handed? Passive-aggressive GMing? "You guys are free to go anywhere and try anything you want! (It's just that if you don't do what I want you'll always fail.)"

Bad DMs exist across the spectrum of games. The expression of bad DMing varies by the philosophy at the table. Passive-aggressive "soft railroading" aka "Do what I want or expect to be miserable" is at least as possible in a linear campaign structure.

 

[billd91]

What if a GM allows the players to try any or all of these things but makes them extremely difficult and/or unrewarding for the PCs? So the GM's preferred path thru the campaign is easy street, the path of least resistance. Everything else is, not impossible, but much, much more difficult. For example if the PCs join the draconian army they get given all the terrible jobs, are constantly insulted and occasionally attacked by their own side (friendly fire!) and their new allies steal any nice treasure they acquire. Railroad? Heavy-handed? Passive-aggressive GMing? "You guys are free to go anywhere and try anything you want! (It's just that if you don't do what I want you'll always fail.)"

How would you know if any particular course of action is harder than another or unrewarding without trying or without having already tried in the same campaign? How does a player know which path is the one of least resistance?

If you don't trust your GM to make the consequences of an action fair, why would it matter if it's a railroad or a sandbox you're playing with? As a player, you're screwed anyway.

As a player in a Dragonlance campaign, if my non-draconian PCs joined a draconian army as a mercenary or opportunist, I would expect some resistance for a while. Hazing, dominance games, and so on. These are the corrupted offspring of dragons we're talking about here. My PC would need to prove his chops before he could expect any respect, and even then it wouldn't be universal. I wouldn't necessarily call that out as a railroad or punishment.

 

[the Jester]

What if a GM allows the players to try any or all of these things but makes them extremely difficult and/or unrewarding for the PCs? So the GM's preferred path thru the campaign is easy street, the path of least resistance. Everything else is, not impossible, but much, much more difficult. For example if the PCs join the draconian army they get given all the terrible jobs, are constantly insulted and occasionally attacked by their own side (friendly fire!) and their new allies steal any nice treasure they acquire. Railroad? Heavy-handed? Passive-aggressive GMing?

Heavy-handed, yes, but as long as the option is there it's not a total railroad. (As I posted earlier, it's a spectrum.) I don't have a problem with this. As another example, in Temple of Elemental Evil, the easiest way to deal with

Spoiler

Zuggtmoy

is to

Spoiler

not open those intriguing magic doors

- super easy, because you don't have to do anything at all! Other courses are somewhere in between extremely difficult and lethal. Yet there is no railroad there.

"You guys are free to go anywhere and try anything you want! (It's just that if you don't do what I want you'll always fail.)"

Well, that's a bit more extreme- but it's not the same as "this choice is the easy one and the others are harder".

That's an interesting point. Interesting to me, because it illustrates what I consider to be a weakness of sandbox games:

Sandboxes seem to work best if the heroes' actions are largely inconsequential on a world-wide scope. I think it's also best for a sandbox if the pcs are really not that special, i.e. low-powered rather than (super-)heroic. This allows for others to jump in and take over.

It's a weakness for certain styles of play, absolutely. For others, what you see as a weakness is a great strength. I like not having to preserve the pc the prophecy is about or whatever.

 

[S'mon]

When I think of sandbox, I think of something like the West Marches campaign or The Vault of Larin Karr. The bad guys are disunited, localised and largely static. The setting as a whole is also static. There are no impending plots to take over or destroy the world. There is no great pressure on the PCs to choose one adventure location over another. This lack of pressure increases player freedom.

(Spoilers for Vault of Larin Karr)

I'm running VoLK, and it's not written as static. At the beginning, the Orcs are plotting with the Hobgoblins. If the PCs wipe out the hobgoblins, the Orcs start trying to recruit the Gnolls instead. This takes time, but if the PCs don't wipe out the Orcs quickly enough, eventually they attack and destroy the PC's home base.

BUT the PCs are probably unaware of all this! They certainly were IMC. IMC they were off on a side trek - they'd just cleared out the Forge of Fury - when they heard that Pembrose was destroyed, Chaos forces had overrun Quail Valley and had joined those from the Caves of Chaos to besiege the Keep on the Borderlands.

None of that would have happened if things had gone differently, but the players were not aware of the bad guys' plans.

 

[S'mon]

That's an interesting point. Interesting to me, because it illustrates what I consider to be a weakness of sandbox games:

Sandboxes seem to work best if the heroes' actions are largely inconsequential on a world-wide scope. I think it's also best for a sandbox if the pcs are really not that special, i.e. low-powered rather than (super-)heroic. This allows for others to jump in and take over.

Naw, I've run very high level sandbox games, where the PCs' decisions (and sometimes their errors) literally reshaped the political map of the world. High-power sandbox works fine if you're prepared to let PCs change your world. It's only a problem if you're afraid to let them 'mess up' your precious campaign setting.

 

[S'mon]

Yeah. The term 'pixelbitching' has been put forward for that type of thing, from videogames where you have to click on one particular pixel or nothing will happen. Although the PCs are free to go anywhere, nothing very interesting will happen unless they pick the single correct solution.

What if a GM allows the players to try any or all of these things but makes them extremely difficult and/or unrewarding for the PCs? So the GM's preferred path thru the campaign is easy street, the path of least resistance. Everything else is, not impossible, but much, much more difficult. For example if the PCs join the draconian army they get given all the terrible jobs, are constantly insulted and occasionally attacked by their own side (friendly fire!) and their new allies steal any nice treasure they acquire. Railroad? Heavy-handed? Passive-aggressive GMing? "You guys are free to go anywhere and try anything you want! (It's just that if you don't do what I want you'll always fail.)"

If the DM is making all other options implausibly horrible, then that would seem to be railroading. Having the Draconian forces initially distrustful, but won over by the PCs destroying an elf city or somesuch, would be fine. I'd let smart PCs potentially maneuver into becoming Dragon High Lords or whatever the BBEGs are called. Or maybe they'd lose the intrigue game and get their throats slit.