Players: Does anyone else not mind railroading?

[awesomeocalypse]

Note: Since I know thread about ill-defined gamingterminology can easily devolve into semantic argument, for my own purposes and the purposes of this thread I'm going to define "railroading" as :"A process in which the gamemaster of a tabletop RPG has a predefined story for a session, adventure or campaign, and either makes minimal allowance for significant deviation, or makes significant efforts to ensure the players follow the story as planned." If "railroading" means something completely different to you, and therefore you hate it, great. But we're not talking about what it means to you, we're talking about the process identified in the definition above, which I am choosing to call railroading.

With that out of the way...

I know railroading is something of a dirty word in a lot of circles. It tends to go hand it hand with quasi-pejoratives like "video gamey" and discussions of control-freak GM "auteurs" who hold the players hostage to their artistic delusions.

Which is interesting to me, because maybe I've just had good luck with decent DMs (since I mostly play D&D) who I happened to be on the same page with, but I would say that a fairly high percentage (at least half) of the campaigns I've ever played in have met the railroad definition I posted above (predefined story with an expectation that the players would more or less stick to it), and while a few have been bad experiences, many more were great ones. There have been campaigns I've been "railroaded" through that rank among my favorite gaming experiences ever. Moreover, while I've also played in and enjoyed more sandboxy or improvisational campaigns, I would not say my experiences with sandboxes have been universally or even mostly more enjoyable than my experience with railroads. What is lost in freedom is often gained in terms of awesome elaborate set piece encounters and locations and a sense of real narrative cohesion such that I feel like a character in the fantasy fiction that tends to inspire our games.

Basically, when I'm in a railroad campaign, it tends not to be that big of a deal to
a.) Talk with the DM at character creation so I can give my character a personality type and motivation that will be more or less in line with the goals of the adventure or campaign, such that I can simultaneously stay in character and follow the story without issue

and/or

b.) maintain a general willingness to take hooks as they're presented and be willing to see where the plot takes us, aka simply NOT being the guy who, when told the princess has been kidnapped, declares "who cares, the princess is a bitch, lets try to take over the underworld of the city instead."

Now, maybe some people find this onerous or so overly restrictive that it destroys their fun, but I never have. And I've found that, by and large when I stick to those two principles, most railroads are fun. The ones that haven't been have generally been run by DMs who were simply bad, and who I'd not want to play in a sandbox with either.

I dunno, maybe I'm alone in this, but given that most of the people I've played with seem to have had little trouble going along with railroads, and have also tended to have enjoyable experiences, I have to wonder how rare my mindset is.

So I ask you enworld, do railroads get a bad rap? Does they deserve all the hate slathered onto them, or is an entirerly legitimate playstyle being unfairly forced to bear the stigma of sandbox fetishism and a few famously bad modules (at least half of which were probably 2nd edition Ravenloft modules)? Are there any other players out there who actually don't really mind a railraod?

 

[Fifth Element]

Railroads do get a bad rap. Done well, there's nothing inherently wrong with railroading.

I don't mind them as a player, assuming, as you say, that the DM is any good. A bad DM will spoil any game, of course, not just a railroaded one. But it's probably worse in a railroaded game, where the story is more reliant on the DM than the players, so his influence is greater.

 

[Umbran]

Message board discussions tend to be driven by dichotomies, and tend to concentrate on the extremes. My personal experience is that the real meat of most gaming lies in moderation - it seems to me that few really play at any of the extremes you see argued over around here.

So, railroading? Sure, on occasion, in moderation. I'll follow the GM's lead on occasion, if he'll follow mine on occasion. Cooperation, and all that.

 

[Grymar]

It depends on how it is done...carrot or stick.

Carrot - you can do anything you want, but I'm going to toss out hints to the easiest, most obvious things.

Stick - you are hear-by unallowed to do anything but what I have written down on my flowchart. If you are meant to be captured, then the guards have unlimited reinforcements and impossible AC. If you are meant to go right, then when you try and go left an earthquake will strike.

I've played in both types and the carrot type is great fun and I have ZERO problem with it.

 

[Piratecat]

When I want to do what the GM intends - and that's usually a decision made in-character - then I don't mind at all. I also don't mind in four hour one-shots. I only get bent out of shape when the GM tries to run my character for me, or when we seem to be unable to influence the game world.

My most egregious recent example was when I tried to play Seventh Sea at a local gaming con. Apparently the PCs were based on heroes in the GM's home campaign, and he repeatedly told me "no, your character wouldn't do that." I now know one of the few things that really makes me angry!

 

[Cadfan]

Well, by the definition you've created, even many campaigns typically thought of as sandboxes might be railroads. If your sandbox has a lich who's zombie hordes are slowly conquering the world, you might not tell the players that they have to fight him, but I know that my players would, based on their own personalities and the personalities of their PCs, feel a sense of obligation. That's all the effort I would need to take in order to pressure them into following the lich-fighting course of action: the existence and nature of the threat that the lich poses to the gameworld.

 

[Aegir]

I could answer this a couple ways. A railroady game tends to depend more on the DM's plans and whether they're any good or not, so a good DM and story can make even an obvious railroad fun... but it can get old when its obvious you're just along for the ride, so to speak.

OTOH, as a DM, I've run for players that, regardless of what they'd say/admit, damn near *required* a railroad, because anytime a situation arose where they were required to think/make a decision, they simply stopped and did nothing. Some players just want to be brought along and told to hit stuff.

But, as Umbran said above, while discussions tend to veer towards the extremes, most truly good games have a little bit of everything tossed in (or at least, everything that the players truly want).

 

[ExploderWizard]

As long as I know what's going on, no problem at all. If the DM offers to run a particular adventure and asks for players that are interested in playing that adventure why should a player get angry and try to ignore that adventure?

 

[Scribble]

Well, by the definition you've created, even many campaigns typically thought of as sandboxes might be railroads. If your sandbox has a lich who's zombie hordes are slowly conquering the world, you might not tell the players that they have to fight him, but I know that my players would, based on their own personalities and the personalities of their PCs, feel a sense of obligation. That's all the effort I would need to take in order to pressure them into following the lich-fighting course of action: the existence and nature of the threat that the lich poses to the gameworld.

I think really when you get right down to it, the only way to discover the true nature of The Railroad is to move to Tibet and meditate long enough to become enlightened.

I mean really it just boils down to a debate over the whole fate verses free will thing. (And we're no where close to discovering the answer to that one!)

If in a non railroad game there is a cult, and that cult is bent on destroying the megaverse... If the players choose not to stop the cult, sure they got to make a meaningful choice, but then the result is the campaign ends.

Doesn't that basically boil down to go on this adventure or we're no longer playing this campaign?

 

[Morrus]

There's nothing inherently wrong with railroading; some folks like it and some don't; most folks are in the area in between where they recognise that a degree of railroading is necessary to move the plot along, but it should be disguised as well as possible.

If you have no railroad, you have a complete sandbox campaign. That's definitely a valid preference, but it's hard to do well. 90% of them are crap. But as an ideal, it's certainly a valid option and can create immense enjoyment for a gaming group.

My preference is a disguised railroad with some options. Moves the plot along, and gives the players a sense of freedom (even if a lot of it is illusionary). But preferences vary.

But don't let anyone tell you a style of play is bad. Railorads, sandboxes, things in-between - they all suit different people. And they're all perfectly valid.