How Much of a Railroader Are You?

[Treebore]

I come up with story goals, usually based on some module. The players always end up accomplishing my story goals. They rarely do it as expected/predicted, but they accomplish the story goals I come up with.

So in that regard I am always RR my players.

But I never come up with a clearly defined path that they have to follow in order to accomplish what I want them to do. So I never RR in that manner.

But I will create crypts, or "safes", that require specific ways to be entered, so I do RR to a cartain degree.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The player characters in my campaign tend to surround themselves with NPCs to varying degrees. The NPCs all have opinions, and yes, if the players are doing something stupid (or even if they're not), the NPCs will speak up. Sometimes this is tantamount to me prodding them in the right direction, other times the NPCs give bad advice, depending on what they know, their motivations and their Wisdom scores.

 

[Ravellion]

"I RR all the time. It's the only way to get the players doing what they're supposed to." isnt' quite right. It's more like: ""I RR all the time. It's the only way to get the players doing anything other than staring at me slackjawed"

 

[Shadowslayer]

I guess in a sense, I let them railroad me.

I ask them what they want to do next week, and I go to work at it. That's pretty satisfying for everyone. They know what I'm good at and what I'm not, so they usually pick the stuff I'm good at.

 

[Ourph]

What do you call it when the players board the train, sit down, look at the DM, and ask, "Where are we going today?"

That happens a lot in my group.

Me too. It seems like if I don't lead them by the nose they just start killing random NPCs.

 

[the Jester]

No railroading for me. I drop lots of plot hooks left and right, but if the pcs choose not to save the world from the BBEG it's time for a new milieu.

 

[Arnwyn]

Problem is, I don't consider the occasional prod, or even firm nudge, to be railroading. If the players have absolutely no choice in a matter, it's railroading. Anything else may be pressure, but it's not an RR.

That's how I define "railroad". Defining it any more loosely is inappropriate.

Thus I voted "never".

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

I don't write plots; I create adventure environments that I think will be interesting and challenging, and turn the players loose to seek their fortunes or achieve whatever goals they set themselves.

However, occasionally, I do give the players a quick taxi ride to the next adventure location.

I'm also sometimes guilty of handwaving a situation that's free of meaningful decisions.

 

[Lanefan]

I railroad all the time, but the tracks are invisible. My players generally willingly follow the "hook of the week" but after that they railroad themselves. See, I've been playing with pretty much the same group for almost a decade (since high school) and they're by best friends, and I've gotten pretty good at predicting their actions in real-life...so i just extend that into the game. If I want the players to do X, i just set it up in such a way that i know that so-and-so's personality will compel them to do just that. It's taken years to get to this point, but now it's fun for me to watch them behave consistently in a manner that (without their knowledge) propels the plot forward.

Exactly! They railroad themselves. As a player, I've done it too...known full well that a certain course of action is what the plot wants, and that we shouldn't do it, but the character I'm playing *would* do it, so down the track we go...

It also depends on the particular adventure. Some adventures are completely open-form, sometimes to the point where it's hard to define where the "adventure" starts and ends; while others are glued to the tracks ("you go to sleep, and wake up somewhere very different...what do you do now?"), which can be fun once in a while.

Lanefan

 

[Presto2112]

Problem is, I don't consider the occasional prod, or even firm nudge, to be railroading. If the players have absolutely no choice in a matter, it's railroading. Anything else may be pressure, but it's not an RR.

Using this definition as a guideline, I have to say that I haven't been guilty of railroading yet. But I've only DMed 3 sessions, so gimme some time.