Railroading is bad?

[yennico]

There are good railroads and bad railroads.

It's a good railroad when the players don't realise they're on a railroad. Prime examples are where the players head off the track, and miraculously come across the track anyway.

ie - You have a cursed sword. The players want to destroy it. You have a quest all set up to destroy the cursed sword. One of the players commissions a forge with magical protections so he can destroy the sword.

Do you
a) Just tell him it doesn't work, and that he should go to the library to find out how to destroy the sword.
b) Allow him to torture the information for the 'destroy the sword' quest out of the sword in his forge?

Your players are setting up a trip to the belgian congo. Do you
a) Tell them that all the planes are not flying to the belgian congo, and they'd better go somewhere else
b) Tell them that they can either fly later, or catch an earlier flight as long as they're willing to share and make an extra stop? Naturally the people they're sharing with are the cultists on the way to the REAL destination...

All these are railroads. The difference is that the B answers are railroads which take the player choices into account.

I totally agree.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I think the word 'railroading' has become an umbrella phase, a catch all.

The plot/story has to have a path and the players while not having to stay on it need to keep coming back to it. How this is done it in the control of the DM and railroading does happen but sometimes a lot of methods get dumped under that railroading umbrella.

 

[Rasyr]

So far in this thread, I have seen at least two different definitions of "railroading".

To me, railroading is when the GM makes things happen to the PCs or forces the PCs to do something against their will and/or with no choice.

For example, take the door to another dimension mentioned earlier. Say one PC has a spell that allows him to see the most probable outcome of opening the door. Given that knowledge, the PCs decide to leave the door alone.

Now, if the GM has the door just pop open and suck them in - to me that is railroading, or if the spell gives the PC the wrong information (without a plausible reason for doing so), then that is railroading.

In short, railroading, to me, is when the GM forces events upon PCs without allowing the PCs a choice or a chance to avoid/counter/overcome such events solely for the purpose of advancing his (the GM's) plotlines.

However, the example given about the fork in the road, and the GM situating the encounter on whichever fork the player's take, is not railroad, it is just being a flexible GM, adapting his plotlines to the actions of the players.

If he forced the players to go after the kidnapped girl without giving them the choice, that would be railroading. But in the situation he set up, he is just being flexible in providing them with the opportunity to have the choice of whether or not they help the caravan or rescue the girl.

THe difference can be a very thin line sometimes, but there is a difference. Railroading is forcing the players to stick to the plotline developed, being a flexible GM is adapting the plotline (and encounters, etc..) to the actions of the PCs.

At least that is the way that I see it...

 

[Jupp]

There is a situation where even the most ignorant player will see that the DM is railroading, at least in 90% of all cases: "The Armageddon Plot" (tm)

See, there are alot of things a player can do to avoid railroading, even if the DM doesnt want that to happen. But if the DM draws the Armageddon card there are only two choices. Either you play along and go on the raily road or you say "no-no" and let the world fall apart. There isn't much to do inbetween. I genuinely hate that kind of plot because every time I had that happen to me I instantly felt tranformed into a plot device for the DMs pleasure.

At the moment the DM in one of our groups has started with such a stunt some sessions ago and already people start to cringe. I predict a fast end of that game if he doesnt find a way to change the plot considerably. The main problem is that none of the players wants to save the world. We are about level 5-6 and we havent even seen a fraction of the game world. Now we go hopping around and try to save the world without a possibility to move away from the plot for even just a bit because we even have a set timefram in which we have to accomplish the world-saving part :/

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

We are about level 5-6 and we havent even seen a fraction of the game world. Now we go hopping around and try to save the world without a possibility to move away from the plot for even just a bit because we even have a set timefram in which we have to accomplish the world-saving part :/

See, I don't have a problem with this at all and don't consider it railroading. Sometimes, you are caught in a situation you can't control. Also, almost every character I've ever made, if faced with the end of the world would WANT to stop it and give his entire life to save the world.

I think this has more to do with a player type than a character type though. I know players who feel the game is about their personal story. They want to loot dungeons, become famous and buy land and a castle. They don't want to risk their life in a forgotten temple of an ancient, powerful, evil to save the world.

I think it's just fun to test myself against the forces of evil to save the world. I know that I'm currently running an "Armageddon Plot" adventure. It's written by one of the creators of 3rd Edition D&D. *grin*

 

[cmanos]

Sticking to a plot isn't a bad thing, but if the characters are off doing something else, what are the bad guys doing? They aren't just waiting around for the PC's to find the, they are going to be furthering their diabolical schemes.

 

[Pinotage]

I just thought I'd ask about something that's been touched on in this thread. Are the players to a certain extent responsible for going along with the plot? I mean, not all DMs create a campaign world where the PCs can just do whatever they want. Certainly, one would imagine that as a player you have to 'suspend the disbelief' and invent motivation for your character to follow the DMs plot? Basically I'm asking if players can also be responsible for railroading?

Pinotage

 

[Stormborn]

OK, I just have to point out that in my group "Going to the Belgian Congo" is a phrase that means following a false clue or wandering too far away from the real plot or adventure to some place that was never supposed to even come up, but may have been placed as an ad lib flavor line from the DM.

And I think people on these boards have very different ideas of "railroading" from all the threads I have seen. Ask yourself:

1. Do the Players feel like they have a choice in what happens to their Characters in the game?
2. Are you and they having fun?
3. Are there at least some consequences to their actions or inactions?

If the answer to these 3, or even only number 2, are Yes then you don't even need to define railroading.

 

[Jupp]

Sticking to a plot isn't a bad thing, but if the characters are off doing something else, what are the bad guys doing? They aren't just waiting around for the PC's to find the, they are going to be furthering their diabolical schemes.

Sure, if the players decide not to follow a plot the DM should let the plot unfold and decide what happens in the end due to the fact that the players didn't interfere. Then the players have to bear the consequences of their (non-)actions. Otherwise it would be static world, which would be kinda boring in my eyes.

 

[The_Universe]

Ahh. Seems my definition of railroading is wrong. I thought it meant sticking to the plot and trying to get the players to follow it, not taking the game out of the story.

See, many players would consider that railroading. Many will even consider it railroading if you merely enforce the logical consequences of their in-game decisions. Fortunately, that "many" is not "most."

Railroading can be a lot of things...

In my experience, in a "high stakes game" (setting doesn't particularly matter, but I consider "high stakes" to be any game where the characters actions, decisions, successes, and failures affect the fate of the known world) "railroading" has to become a great deal more common. If your characters inadvertently let the King or President (or whatever) die/get kidnapped, the chances of getting aid from that person's allies are essentially nil for the rest of the game. It's like like approaching a fork in the railroad. Purposefully or not, the train has taken a left turn, and it can't just jump back onto the right track. It's heading in that direction, and there's very little that the characters can do to go back to their previous "track."

Now, the above is just one example, but it illustrates that *my* experience with "railroading" has most often been a complaint about the consequences of poor/unlucky decisions, rather than any malicious story-sticklerism by the DM. If you dump the woman who turns out to be the Queen in the first adventure (or tell her she's ugly, or get caught with a different girl), perhaps one should not be surprised when (no matter what you do) she's not all that thrilled about marrying you when it turns out you're the most suitable dynastic match.

Now, I'd consider those things railroading. Certainly, they don't give the players unlimited ability to affect the path of the story. However, despite hyperbole to the contrary, it doesn't take it away either. The fact is, if you plan to emphasize *story* in any way in an RPG, some reasonable limit has to be made as to when and how the players can "change direction." Railroads are always on track, but tracks can and *do* split.