Is railroading sometimes a necessary evil?

[tzor]

I love railroading; the artificial smoke puffing from the engine as it moves through the detailed scenery realistically slowing down as it approaches the station while the crossing gates are activated ... oh wait that's not the railroading you're talking about is it.

Railroading is effectively the lack of choice ... but what if you choose to simply follow along? Well that is, technically, a choice and thus isn't really railroading. In the end the game is all about choices and consequences.

I've never thought of myself as a railroader. I did meet the exact oppsite of a DM railroader, a group of players with plot ADD. They would drop plots right in the middle and wander off to do something else. NPCS would count on the players and the players always let them down. Finally I could stand it no more. "Would you at least have the decency to actually finish a plotline for once?" One of the players got personally insulted and the group disbanded after that.

 

[Korgoth]

I'd like to know something about the "Adventure Paths" series because I haven't read them. Why are they called "paths"? I'm not passing judgment, but that sounds like a railroad-y name. As if there is a pre-planned story and the PCs are supposed to follow that story, regardless of their individual wishes or personalities. Are they like that?

When I think of a good module, I think of something like B2, X1, I1, the S series, etc. which detail locations. The locations may or may not have machinations going on behind the scenes, but the point is that the DM can just populate his campaign setting with these locations and leave it up to the players as to where they want to go and what they want to do. Don't want to go into White Plume Mountain? OK... you refuse to take that quest. No big deal. Maybe you can come back to it, or maybe not. Want to go into the Tomb of Horrors instead? Are you sure... you know it's called the Tomb of Horrors, right? Rather mount an expedition to the Isle of Dread? OK... here are the costs for chartering a ship, etc....

 

[buzz]

I'd like to know something about the "Adventure Paths" series because I haven't read them. Why are they called "paths"? I'm not passing judgment, but that sounds like a railroad-y name. As if there is a pre-planned story and the PCs are supposed to follow that story, regardless of their individual wishes or personalities. Are they like that?

Depends.

If you're talking about the original 3.0 module series that started with Sunless Citadel, then no. While there were some threads that went through all of the modules (e.g., the dragon Ashardalon), they were basically individual scenarios. The "path" part just came form the fact that each successive module started at the PC level at which the last one left off.

If you're talking about stuff like Paizo's Age of Worms or the new WotC Expedition series, it depends. My group played the Ravenloft expedition, and other than the over-arching goal of defeating Strahd, the players can go all over the place. AoW seems more strongly plotted, though our group has only been through the first two parts, iirc.

I dunno. The only obvious published railroads I've encountered in the last few years have been the 1st edition AD&D and GW modules I've played for nostalgia's sake.

I think most published adventures can't help but assume that the players will be pursuing the basic goal lain out in the product. D&D is prep-heavy enough that trying to account for every possibility would just be unfeasible.

 

[Felix]

Railroading is the biggest blight to ever afflict gaming. If the events and outcomes are predetermined, it's no longer a game. If, during the last Super Bowl, the NFL had told the Colts and Bears what plays they could run, and what the final score would be before the opening kickoff, would that be a game? NO! It would be a big pair of clownshoes like pro wrestling.

If railroading is good for D&D, it must be wonderful for chess, poker, blackjack, backgammon, dominoes...

Of course anyone who tried to "script" (i.e. rig) any of those games would be lucky if he escaped with just scathing ridicule.

I'm curious how you define railroading, or actually, the lack thereof.

The DM tells you the party approaches a T-intersection in a dungeon. You may choose to go left or right. Choosing to go left or right will take you to different parts of the dungeon.​

The DM tells you the party approaches a T-intersection in a dungeon. You may choose to go left or right. Choosing to go left or right will take you to the same part of the dungeon, and result in you not being able to return to the other direction.​

The DM tells you the party approaches a T-intersection in a dungeon. The dungeon is caved in on the left, so the only choice is to go right.​

These examples exist as metaphors. In the first case between two choices, going one way will make the game different from going the other way. In the second, the choice will produce the same result either way, but the players are unaware of this fact. In the third, the players are not really given a choice, they are aware of this, and must go where they are allowed to go.

First Question
The third is set up to be the bad kind of railroading. Is there a fundamental difference between the second and the third? There exists an illusion of choice, but the result will be the same in either case; the players remain unaware that this is the case.

Second Question
The first is set up to give the players absolute choice in where they go, and have that choice impact the result of the game. Is there a fundamental difference in the player's experience between the first and the second options? That is to say, in both cases the players feel they have control over the direction and the outcomes of the game.

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I suggest that the second option is railroading, as is the third. I also suggest that more important than actual *real* choice is the illusion of choice and the player's experience. If railroading can provide the players with a good experience where they believe they have control over the progress of the game while simultaneously reducing the workload of the DM by 50% (thereby allowing him to improve other areas of the game's experience), then railroading cannot be seen as a necessarily bad thing.

Sure, railroading can be done poorly. Railroading can be over-used. But it is also possible that selective railroading while the players remain ignorant of this fact will lead to a much better gaming experience for everyone.

 

[gizmo33]

I'd like to know something about the "Adventure Paths" series because I haven't read them. Why are they called "paths"? I'm not passing judgment, but that sounds like a railroad-y name.

This was the point of my other post though. It's not up to the module designers to detail every single possible contingency. The adventures are presented as a "path" because it's typically envisioned that information will be revealed in a certain way and that PCs are likely to proceed in ways that the module describes.

It's like the boxed descriptions in the old modules. You walk into the room and the DM reads this box about what is in there. A good DM should probably read the box ahead of time, and adjust the descriptions if the PC has a true seeing spell active, etc. It's not the module's fault that it didn't provide upteen descriptions for all possible perspectives. Similarly, an adventure path's linearity, IMO, is an example of how to run the scenario. It's only laziness AFAICT that makes DMs feel they are confined to the "path".

 

[gizmo33]

I suggest that the second option is railroading, as is the third.

I think the examples IMO don't quite do the subject justice. In the third case your choices are also -
1. leave the dungeon
2. excavate the collapsed passage
3. camp out in front of the dungeon and wait for something else to enter it, then follow them.
4. check for secret doors
and other things I can't think of.

So IMO it's not so much what options the DM presents as it is how he handles those things the players decide to do. Say I decide to excavate the passage, so I return to town to hire some dwarven miners. Then the DM has all of the miners turn me down for no reason at all. That's railroading.

I think that in a game like DnD the PCs always have options, and there's no way to say they only have one option. What happens though, with railroad DMs, is that they get their mind made up on the players taking one option. So IMO it's more of an issue of what options the DM considers fairly, rather than what options he presents.

Railroading DMs say to themselves "What? I wanted them to take the right passage. Hiring dwarves is stupid! That's not heroic! I'm going to have some wandering monsters come along and punish them until they learn to do what I want them to do."

 

[buzz]

I suggest that the second option is railroading, as is the third. I also suggest that more important than actual *real* choice is the illusion of choice and the player's experience. If railroading can provide the players with a good experience where they believe they have control over the progress of the game while simultaneously reducing the workload of the DM by 50% (thereby allowing him to improve other areas of the game's experience), then railroading cannot be seen as a necessarily bad thing.

I think this is essentially being dishonest with your players, regardless of whether it saves you work. You're essentially saying to them, even if covertly, that you know better where the game should go than they do. That they may be unaware of what you're doing is not really a reasonable justification, IMO.

I also know, from experience, that players will eventually figure out that you're not giving them any real choices, and the feelings this can potentially create in said players are a lot more damaging than if you had simply presented them with obvious non-choices (e.g., option 3).

That said, some players don't care. They want you to either tell them a story, or just get their PCs to where the monsters are so they can kill them and take their stuff. In that case, I still think it pays to be up-front about the strong hand you're using. Instead of going through the motions of pretending they have some say in what happens, just get them to the encounter (or the meaty story scene).

I'll reiterate that good group communication makes all this stuff moot.

 

[LostSoul]

I agree with buzz.

(I should put that in my sig. )

 

[marune]

I'm curious how you define railroading, or actually, the lack thereof.

The DM tells you the party approaches a T-intersection in a dungeon. You may choose to go left or right. Choosing to go left or right will take you to different parts of the dungeon.​

The DM tells you the party approaches a T-intersection in a dungeon. You may choose to go left or right. Choosing to go left or right will take you to the same part of the dungeon, and result in you not being able to return to the other direction.​

The DM tells you the party approaches a T-intersection in a dungeon. The dungeon is caved in on the left, so the only choice is to go right.​

IMHO in those three cases, asking for the players to choose to go left/right could be "bad" DMing because even in the first one, the choice is a random/arbitrary one.

 

[Marshal Lucky]

Here's another scenario:

A low-level party is approaching the tower of an evil magic-user. The tower is nothing special, nor is the evil magic-user for that matter. But the DM has already made up his mind that they will find a secret entrance and sneak in because he thinks a game should be pre-programmed. The party decides "Screw that! Half of us will scale the tower and attack from above while the rest assaults the main entrance." The DM then starts making one excuse after another as to why the party can't climb the walls or attack the main entrance.

Railroading is a symptom of poor DMing, period.