DM Issues: Railroading

[steeldragons]

My dear gentlefolk and assembled sentients...

Let us set aside this senseless debate of subjective playstyle.

Instead, let us acknowledge our differences and enjoy our respective games. The Sandbox is no more rightgoodfun than the Railroad badwrong.

Are you and your players (if you're the GM) or your follows and GM (if you're a player) having a good time? The answer should always (or mostly) be a resounding "Yes!" Consequences, "good/perceived reward" or "bad/perceived punishment" are matters of subjective opinion and individual playsytle perference.

The game's the thing! This or that playstyle is neither "right" nor "better" than the other for anyone besides the particular group. The collective "Yes we're having fun" is all that matters.

If you prick the Sandboxer, do we not bleed? If you tickle the Railroader do we not laugh? If you poison either, do they not die?

I...have a dream.

A dream of a thread when the sandboxer and the railroader enjoy their game.

A dream of a thread when the 2e player and the 4e player join together with their respective groups and tell us about their good times.

I dream of a thread when the "gamist" and the "simulationist" compare notes and laughs, not insults or snarkery.

I dream....a dream of a day when the Dragonborn shall lay with the Kender, the Gnome with the Tiefling...

A dream of a day when PCs across this great forum of ours, from post to post, shall ROLL THEIR DICE...withOUT prejudgement or accusation.

But instead, roll their dice for GLORY...for FUN...FOR NARNIA!...no, wait...

For KILLIN' THINGS n' TAKIN' THEIR STUFF or defeating the BBEG and saving the world...or whatever the players AND GM decide will be FUN without declaration of UNfun at other tables!

Yes, I have a dream.

--Steel Dragons
(Pay no attention to that Lead Drake behind the curtain!)

 

[pemerton]

A railroad happens when the players cannot make a choice because the dm will not allow it. "No, you can't go east, there are Dragonarmies."

I will repeat the proposition that just because your choices suck doesn't make it a railroad.

<snip>

there is a point where the pcs really do lose their ability to make choices because of the strength of the threat. I guess where we differ is on where that line is. It seems as though my tolerance for Devil's choices is far higher than most.

If you can get off the tracks, even if it sucks, you aren't on a railroad.

I notice that at the start of what I've quoted you refer to "the players", and by the end you are referring to "the PCs". I'm not sure how much of that is inadvertant slippage. I think it might be important, because something can suck for a PC but not suck for a player - and that is the spot I'm looking for in presenting hard choices to my players.

If you don't draw such a clear distinction between player and PC - eg because you're looking for a very first person, immersive play experience - then I can see that you wouldn't think about hard choices in the same way.

I think that this might be relevant to the different ways we are approcahing this issue, but I'm not sure.

 

[pemerton]

As someone said early on; Railroading <-> Sandbox is not an either or, it is a spectrum, a sliding scale. Things can be not railroady and still not be fully sandbox. In fact, I believe the best games avoid either extreme, but that is a personal opinion.

<snip>

This leads me to a more general solution to the problem of story vs. sandbox - focus where the character's focus.

<snip>

I realize this is not a "true" sandbox, in that reality changes in response to the PC's actions, but it is very far from a railroad. It does empower the PCs and makes the plot revolve around them.

I agree with your concluding paragraph. Which also refutes your opening paragraph! Because it shows that there are approaches to play that lie off your suggested spectrum.

The sort of approach you describe - in which the GM follows the lead of the players in shaping and presenting a gameworld that engages their interests - is not widely discussed on ENworld, in my experience, but is discussed on other forums (eg the Forge). The key to making it work is for the GM to assert situational authority - the GM sets the scenes for the players, in response to their expressed and revealed interests - but for the players to exercise plot authority - ie the choices of the players determine how the situations actually resolve. The GM then takes those resolutions into account in setting up new situations (this is what you called a "flexible sandbox").

A game like this will flop if the GM can't set up situations that the players see as worthwhile to engage in. "Worthwhileness", here, may be influenced by any number of factors, but would normally include considerations like "fits sensibly - or at least plausibly - with what came before" and "doesn't make everything we've done up to now worthless or meaningless". The problem you identified in your initial GDS example, as I read it, is that the GM has failed on this second count.

And in case I've completely misunderstood you, I'll apologise in advance for projecting my own ideas and preferences onto your description of your preferred approach to play!

 

[the Jester]

I notice that at the start of what I've quoted you refer to "the players", and by the end you are referring to "the PCs". I'm not sure how much of that is inadvertant slippage. I think it might be important, because something can suck for a PC but not suck for a player - and that is the spot I'm looking for in presenting hard choices to my players.

If you don't draw such a clear distinction between player and PC - eg because you're looking for a very first person, immersive play experience - then I can see that you wouldn't think about hard choices in the same way.

I think that this might be relevant to the different ways we are approcahing this issue, but I'm not sure.

It was a total slip, but I do prefer a very immersive play experience. You might be on to something here.

 

[Starfox]

I agree with your concluding paragraph. Which also refutes your opening paragraph! Because it shows that there are approaches to play that lie off your suggested spectrum.

As the xp comment was cut short I have to make a post.

I think we are in agreement.

I don't see the two paragraphs as in conflict - they both point to the big grey are in between the two extremes - sandbox and railroad. (And I mean extreme sandbox here, as "sandbox" seems to have a much wider range of meaning that railroad).

As I read it, the rest of your post also talks about this grey area and subdivides it further, which is beside my original point but fully compatible with what I said.

 

[Starfox]

Let us set aside this senseless debate of subjective playstyle.

But debate is FUN! As long as it does not degenerate into flame wars, why not debate to our hearts content? It does not mean we are enemies, or even seriously disagreeing - railroad vs. sandbox is a pretty fine distinction that would be largely incomprehensible to someone outside the hobby.

 

[Janx]

It was a total slip, but I do prefer a very immersive play experience. You might be on to something here.

With the way pemerton worded it, is there a difference in opinion on what that means

If you don't draw such a clear distinction between player and PC - eg because you're looking for a very first person, immersive play experience - then I can see that you wouldn't think about hard choices in the same way.

When I play a character, I put myself in the head of that character. I'm ruder, abrupt and quick to violence as Rau the half-orc barbarian. As my high level elven f/t/m, I'm like freaking batman.

Where that matters, is drama and challenges for my character doesn't suck for me the player. Yet I consider myself fully immersed in my character.

 

[Janx]

The sort of approach you describe - in which the GM follows the lead of the players in shaping and presenting a gameworld that engages their interests - is not widely discussed on ENworld, in my experience, but is discussed on other forums (eg the Forge). The key to making it work is for the GM to assert situational authority - the GM sets the scenes for the players, in response to their expressed and revealed interests - but for the players to exercise plot authority - ie the choices of the players determine how the situations actually resolve. The GM then takes those resolutions into account in setting up new situations (this is what you called a "flexible sandbox").

This is effectively what I try to do when I run a game. I write about 4-6 hours of material, based on what the players have expressed their PCs are interested in as goals, and as outcomes of past PC activities. If things are slow, I'll throw in a dinosaur attack against their interests to spur them into some new action.

 

[Vespucci]

Vespucci, thanks for the clear reply.

But how does 4e - or even aspects of 3E - fit into your old/new distinction?

In 3E, for example, Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is a clear example of new school - player optimisation of PC builds plus GM as storyteller - and I would go further than you have done and say that all it leaves up to the players is a bit of colour and a bit of tactical decision-making (heavily informed, of course, by the prior optimisation).

But some of the Penumbra d20 modules - like In the Belly of the Beast (Mike Mearls) or the Ebon Mirror (Keith Baker) - don't seem to fit this mould. They seem closer to the indie mould, insofar as they contemplate the players making genuinely free choices, of some thematic significance, via their PCs, which will determine how the story resolves and what the thematic import of that resolution is.

I'm sticking to the art analogy. The output of a studio famed for turning out gangster rap might contain works that stretch this definition, or outright defy it. But we could still legitimately refer to the basic axis of the studio's work by reference to its most famous and prolific artists, etc.

With D&D, we actually have it much easier. Because the industry leader produces not merely content (in the form of modules) but a guide on how to play in them (the PHB) and run them (the DMG), we can just turn to those texts when wondering "how does that play"? This doesn't tell us how an individual module, player, or ref will play, but it is what people read when they learn how to play the game.

I'm taking as non-controversial that the 3e PHB invites scripted character development. The 3e DMG, on the other hand, is explicitly ambivalent on scripting. It describes two styles of adventure: the "site-based adventure" (typically dungeoneering) and the "event-based adventure" which,

"is often described as more story-based, because it's more like a book or movie and less like exploration of a passive site. Event-based adventures usually don't involve a room-by-room key but instead notes on what happens when."
​

There's some good advice on managing event-based adventures and stern warnings about the need for choices, especially meaningful ones. There's also advice to script in an exciting climax to the adventure! And we get some useful content for non-scripted adventures (among other things, random tables for dungeon non-design)

It's hard to divine the writer's intent, but I suspect that they were trying for a "big tent" to welcome in those who thought Hickman is the messiah and seat them with those who felt Dragonlance ruined everything. However, due to increasingly complex rules, scripting had a better hand - "winging it" had become a lot harder.

Short answer? 3e trends towards the scripted New School, though the writers are trying to accommodate the Old School.

4e offers similar variety. While it has some railroady stuff that fits your notion of new school (eg a lot of the modules) it has other stuff that seems different both from this and from classic/old school D&D - for example, the guidelines on how to adjudicate skill challenges (both in the DMG and DMG2); or the discussion of journeying into deep myth in The Plane Above, which is basically HeroQuesting by another name. This clearly contemplates that the players will be genuinely free to make thematically signficant choices that determine the resolution of the scenario being played.

Once again, I assume no controversy in claiming that the 4e PHB invites character development scripting. Let's start with the 4e DMG on campaigns:

"When you start a campaign, you should have some idea of its end and how the characters will get there. Fundamentally, the story is what the characters do over the course of the campaign.
Keep that point in mind—the story is theirs, not yours... If the characters go in drastically unexpected directions, try to coax them back to the story you want your game to tell without railroading them."
​

This is somewhat contradictory, but I think it boils down to "script, but don't be heavy-handed while trying to get players back onto the script". Or, to use the author's words again:

"you’ll at least have an idea of the campaign’s climax and how the characters can get there. When they stray from your outline—and they will—you’ll have some sense of what adventures to create to get them back on course"
​

I'm not quite sure what's drawn your eye in the Skill Challenges. Some people do regard this sort of stuff as New School, pointing out that they substitute character skill for player skill, and would really beat up on the section about solving puzzles with dice rolls.

So, another short answer: 4e is the continuation of the New School. It's perhaps not the most finished expression of scripting to hand (IMO, that's Pathfinder), but it puts more weight on it than any prior D&D.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Short answer? 3e trends towards the scripted New School, though the writers are trying to accommodate the Old School.

I really like the tone of the advice in the 3e DMG. It's not dogmatic. It holds that there are multiple, equally valid, ways to run a roleplaying game - static vs tailored encounters for example. Each method has advantages and disadvantages.

"If the characters go in drastically unexpected directions, try to coax them back to the story you want your game to tell without railroading them."​

To that should probably be added - "and be prepared to ditch your planned story if you think it will make for a better game."