Do Plot-Based Adventures Necessarily Involve 'Railroading'?

[Mark CMG]

heh heh Steel_Wind. Humorously put....

I think since I have made my point, and after being labeled as obstructionist felt need to qualify my opinion, there's not much more that I can do than get dragged about the mud so I'll bow out at this point and leave my previous posts to stand as they will or will not. As a parting thought (not intended to be a shot), I will say that I think the heart of this discussion ("Do Plot-Based Adventures Necessarily Involve 'Railroading'?") is best served by moving beyond arguing which definition of "railroading' best serves most gamers and requires shrugging off that terminology so that a discussion cna truly commence on how to improv while presenting the most possible in-game choices that don't leave the game completely up for grabs. Subtle, seemingly open-ended, gaming that can still feel (retrospectively) like a complete story. It is an art.

 

[DarkMaster]

Now, it does get tricky. If the merchant wants the PCs to investigate the dungeion, is that railroading? I know what I think of it, but I'll leave that one unanswered for now.

Not tricky, it isn't. The PC don't have to accept the offer. The can decide to investigate the locals to figure out what is the real motive behind the investigation, investigate blindly, kill the merchant and take his gold, ..... simply ignore him and continue their journey.

 

[DarkMaster]

I don't think Plot-based necessarly involves railroading. But Dungeon Crawl surely do.
They're in my mind the pinacle of railroading.

But most players still enjoy them (myself included), proving that railroading can be fun.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

I know, I know, we're never going to get a good definition for railroading.

I'm still sticking with "Making decisions for the player that they wanted to make themselves." So it's not railroading if they wanted to do it (or went along with it), nor if it's just putting them in a situation then letting them decide how to deal with it.

 

[Ry]

Akrasia, sounds like you'd like Vault of Larin Karr, as well (although I think it needs more villainy, personally).

 

[S'mon]

The fact of the matter is that there are degrees to how much influence any DM will allow in his game and it's different for each player how much influence they believe they should have. The term Railroading becomes meaningless on its own. We're saying the same thing, I'm just acknowledging that the term is useless and you're choosing to continue using while acknowledging it is essentially useless. Tagging me as "obstructionist" really just proves the point that derogetory terms like "Railroading" will often be used by some gamers who feel more secure when they can claim to be on the "correct" side of a line they know to be drawn in the sand.

The silliness was your defining of 'railroading' as "making decisions on what information to convey to the players".

 

[S'mon]

I know, I know, we're never going to get a good definition for railroading.

I'm still sticking with "Making decisions for the player that they wanted to make themselves." So it's not railroading if they wanted to do it (or went along with it), nor if it's just putting them in a situation then letting them decide how to deal with it.

That's a pretty good definition IMO. It can include ignoring/overriding stated player choices to reach the desired result - ""We go east" - railroading GM:

1. "OK, you go west" or

2. "OK, you try to go east, but a red dragon chases you back west" or

3. "OK, you try to go east. You see an approaching red dragon. Do you want to go west?"

 

[TheAuldGrump]

It's perfectly possible to run a plot based game without railroading. The "plot" consists of what will happen without the PCs doing anything. The actual gameplay consists of what the PCs do to change this "plot" into something else. The DM has to know the NPCs extremely well and he has to have good improvational skills.

See, you get your nice linear plotline that will never actually happen. The PCs can do anything they want. Everyone gets a nice story to unfold around them. And, there's no railroading.

Pretty close to what I do.

For me railroading is simply not giving the PCs choices - read some of the Vampire Age of Reckoning adventures for horrendous examples, including one where the characters are literally dragged from scene to scene just to witness the adventure. They aren't even allowed to leave.

The Auld Grump, after reading that one I did not bother to purchase the book.

 

[Dark Jezter]

I definately agree with some of the above posters. It seems that a lot of people in this thread define railroading as "Giving the players plot hooks" or "having any kind of storyline in the campaign."

My definition of railroading means that the DM gives the players little to no control over what's happening in the campaign. Heavily railroading DMs (AKA Rick James DMs) pretty much have everything that's going to happen in the campaign planned out in advance. If the players try to deviate from the script, the DM creates situations that force them back on track. Classic example from an old D&D humor list of different types of DMs:

DM: "You pump the bartender for information and he tells you about a red dragon's lair to the west."
Player: "Too risky. We go to hear rumors somewhere else."
DM: "A man offers to hire you to clean out a red dragon's lair for him."
Player: "We say `no, thank you' and leave for the next village."
DM: "On the way to the village you stumble onto a red dragon's lair..."

 

[Akrasia]

Akrasia, sounds like you'd like Vault of Larin Karr, as well (although I think it needs more villainy, personally).

Thanks for the suggestion!