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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Do Plot-Based Adventures Necessarily Involve 'Railroading'?
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<blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 2516033" data-attributes="member: 1106"><p>I think there's several levels you can railroad at.</p><p></p><p>Dungeon corridors are railroads where the level of choice can be restricted to left or right, or more accurately, the sequence in which rooms are explored (so left or right is less of a choice than it seems, perhaps). I think the main reason why wilderness and city adventures are by comparison so hard to do seems to be the very lack of these corridors, and the much greater scale (thousands of miles and hundreds of buildings, as opposed to 20 rooms) and lack of granularity (this room is area 21, versus this patch of dirt 5 miles in size is area 21, a problem exacerbated by DMs not using wilderness maps with grids or hexes to delineate finite areas). Decision points such as "who do we talk to next" in a city aren't dungeon corridors, and therefore difficult to control.</p><p></p><p>You can railroad at the level of the plot hook (which is really the choice of which adventure to do next). Most DMs do this because it only means they need to prepare one adventure at a time. I think this level has the greatest potential for defeating railroading, because by deciding which plot hook to pursue of several presented to them, and having that decision actually affect the course of the campaign, the DM has effectively put the players in control of the course of the campaign story arc. Where the DM doesn't do this and tries to run an epic continent-spanning campaign you end up with the Dragonlance Chronicles problem, where the entire story arc is on railway lines. The model of this type of campaign succeeding is probably Baldur's Gate II, where there are perhaps two campaign points that are set in stone, and the ending is railroaded, but how those campaign points are reached can be through multiple adventures which can be performed at will or skipped. Most DMs don't do this because it's far too much work - clearly that's probably why it's only really seen at the P&P table when the DM prepares nothing and is gaming off the top of their head.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="rounser, post: 2516033, member: 1106"] I think there's several levels you can railroad at. Dungeon corridors are railroads where the level of choice can be restricted to left or right, or more accurately, the sequence in which rooms are explored (so left or right is less of a choice than it seems, perhaps). I think the main reason why wilderness and city adventures are by comparison so hard to do seems to be the very lack of these corridors, and the much greater scale (thousands of miles and hundreds of buildings, as opposed to 20 rooms) and lack of granularity (this room is area 21, versus this patch of dirt 5 miles in size is area 21, a problem exacerbated by DMs not using wilderness maps with grids or hexes to delineate finite areas). Decision points such as "who do we talk to next" in a city aren't dungeon corridors, and therefore difficult to control. You can railroad at the level of the plot hook (which is really the choice of which adventure to do next). Most DMs do this because it only means they need to prepare one adventure at a time. I think this level has the greatest potential for defeating railroading, because by deciding which plot hook to pursue of several presented to them, and having that decision actually affect the course of the campaign, the DM has effectively put the players in control of the course of the campaign story arc. Where the DM doesn't do this and tries to run an epic continent-spanning campaign you end up with the Dragonlance Chronicles problem, where the entire story arc is on railway lines. The model of this type of campaign succeeding is probably Baldur's Gate II, where there are perhaps two campaign points that are set in stone, and the ending is railroaded, but how those campaign points are reached can be through multiple adventures which can be performed at will or skipped. Most DMs don't do this because it's far too much work - clearly that's probably why it's only really seen at the P&P table when the DM prepares nothing and is gaming off the top of their head. [/QUOTE]
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