"Railroading" is just a pejorative term for...

[Chainsaw]

I don't like being a rider/actor on the wanna-be novelist's choo-choo/play, but some people do. Just set the expectations before things start so that no one's surprised with the playstyle.

 

[pemerton]

This issue is being hashed out in some detail in the "GM by the nose" thread.

There is, in my view, a big difference between a railroad, in which the GM sets plot hooks already knowing how they will resolve, and establishing obstacles - both ingame and metagame - to make sure that the resolution is achieved, and a game in which the GM establishes situations that are engaging for the players (as opposed to making the players "search the gameworld" for the fun) but then leaves the players free to resolve those situations as they want to.

This is the "non-sandbox, non-railroad" approach to RPGing. In the other thread it's been called the "button-pushing" approach, because the players build buttons into their PCs, the GM creates ingame situations that push those buttons, and then those situations are played out and everyone at the table sees what happens.

 

[Raven Crowking]

There is, in my view, a big difference between a railroad, in which the GM sets plot hooks already knowing how they will resolve, and establishing obstacles - both ingame and metagame - to make sure that the resolution is achieved, and a game in which the GM establishes situations that are engaging for the players (as opposed to making the players "search the gameworld" for the fun) but then leaves the players free to resolve those situations as they want to.

Mostly agreed, with the caveat that it is assumed that in a sandbox that the GM establishes situations that are engaging for the players, includes many solid hooks to those situations (as opposed to making the players "search the gameworld" for the fun), and then leaves the players free to resolve or ignore those situations as they want to, developing them as necessary to respond the PC and NPC actions.

For a good working model of setting up a sandbox, read the GM's section of Stars Without Number, which is free in pdf form.

So, except for the disconnect on what a sandbox is, we agree.


RC

 

[DragonLancer]

I was listening to a podcast today and I heard one of the guest hosts utter something that nigh made my blood boil: '"Railroading" is just a pejorative term for "a game in which the group actually accomplishes something!"' He went on to say "at least they're on the train" and not "stuck in the station."

To an extent I agree with this person. As has been said already, railroading is really when the players have no option but to follow the plot of the current adventure. However, as a player and GM both I prefer to actually take part in the scenario that GM has bought or written and that tell that story. Likewise as a GM if I'm running a campaign I expect the players (with obvious player leeway to go off on tangents) to follow the story and take part, otherwise we're both wasting our times.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I agree with the above definition, telling the players "no, you can't do that" is railroading.

The players are the main characters of the story. They should have free reign to make decisions that change the course of events.

At the same time, some players need direction. Branching paths is one way to do it. Another is to just throw out the hook and hope they bite. If they don't, you just gotta roll with it.

I think doing a lot of prep work before a game and planning out the story in advance makes for a boring game. Creative, collaborative storytelling is where it's at.

Another way of railroading beyond directly saying "no, you can't do that," is to force things to happen despite the choices of the players and their PCs. I've been in situations where the PCs have laid out a plan to get the macguffin. It is a solid plan, but everything they come up with has miraculously been anticipated by the villain and countered. It was so obvious that the script required the PCs to not get the Macguffin in this particular chapter. The DM never said the players could not do something, but he prevented anything they did from being effective in order to say on script.

 

[Piratecat]

For me, railroading is defined by an old 1e Dragonlance module my friend ran. We saw people being carted away as slaves. The module assumes you chase them, try to free them, and (I believe) get captured yourself. Our group saw the slaves and said, "Oh well. Too bad." "You have to go after them!" said the DM. "No," we answered. And the DM had a hissy fit and quit in disgust. That's railroading. And it's different from what's being discussed.

I really like the way GUMSHOE handles clues (I'm pretty sure that this is what Ken Hite was discussing in the initial quote.) The theory in that game is that the GM just gives the characters information when they look for it, and the exciting part is what they then do with that information. To me, this is vastly preferable to the traditional Call of Cthulhu method: ask for spot hiddens to find the vital adventure-defining clue, have everyone fail it, and desperately grope for another reason to ask for spot hiddens so that they can try again.

GUMSHOE (aka Esoterrorists, Trail of Cthulhu, Mutant City Blues, Fear Itself, etc.) is a very different game than D&D. You don't really want a sandbox in GUMSHOE. Like an investigative TV show, there should be a plot and several different ways to reach the resolution of that plot. That's very different than a sandbox game of D&D, where PCs can just go out adventuring with no goal in mind.

Personally speaking, I agree with Ken Hite. I want a game with plot leads that I can follow if I choose. Games where nothing is accomplished except for noodling around drive me as crazy as games where I'm forced to take specific actions. The difference, I think, is that I want the ability to decide for myself what to do with the clues I'm given.

 

[jonesy]

For me, there are two conditions which make a plot a railroad:

1. You can't leave the rails and go do something else.
2. You have only one way to get through each of the challenges within the plot without failing.

Both are the same thing. Lack of options.

For a good working model of setting up a sandbox, read the GM's section of Stars Without Number, which is free in pdf form.

Stars Without Number - Sine Nomine Publishing | DriveThruRPG.com

 

[Azgulor]

I was listening to a podcast today and I heard one of the guest hosts utter something that nigh made my blood boil: '"Railroading" is just a pejorative term for "a game in which the group actually accomplishes something!"' He went on to say "at least they're on the train" and not "stuck in the station."

This was in reference to a popular investigative RPG in which the GM is required to emplace solid, definable "core clues" in each and every scene, one that has on occasion been criticized for essentially institutionalizing railroading.

Is this a cop-out? I personally think that the PCs should be given all the freedom in the world to rund own blind alleys and chase red herrings; indeed, interesting roleplaying situations can pop up when this happens and it can end up leading to more interesting RPG experiences than the GM had originally intended.

On the other hand, are GMs missing out on something by not railroading? Is all this "the PCs must be free!" chatter robbing us of our right to tell a good story?

While I do think it's a cop-out to an extent, I think the larger issue is that GMs & players forget to step back from their own experience. What works for one group doesn't work for all.

In my own experience, (waaay back) I started out strictly running modules. As play progressed through those modules faster than they were being published, I started into creating my own adventures. Originally, they were very open-ended/sandbox-ish. However, over time, I gamed with groups that wanted a path laid out before them to follow. Consequently, my adventures became more story-driven and linear (railroad-ish) at times.

Now that we're married with a full time job & kids, my adult group can't meet as often as we'd like. Long story arcs don't work b/c they take too long to finish -- we've returned to more sandbox-style games & a much looser story arc tying them together (and I'm taking big cues from Paizo's Kingmaker).

For my kids' campaigns (yes, we're now up to 2), it's a combination of modules & home-made adventures bridging between the modules. So I've come full circle.

Ultimately, as a GM, while I love working on a strong plot, the more defined it is, the more I try to anticipate what the PCs will do in each encounter. Once I start doing that, I can virtually guarantee that at some point, things are going to go off the rails when they do something unexpected and I'm winging it.

Linear/railroad adventures have their place, but they're a tool. They're not the One True Way.

 

[Dausuul]

I was listening to a podcast today and I heard one of the guest hosts utter something that nigh made my blood boil: '"Railroading" is just a pejorative term for "a game in which the group actually accomplishes something!"' He went on to say "at least they're on the train" and not "stuck in the station."

This was in reference to a popular investigative RPG in which the GM is required to emplace solid, definable "core clues" in each and every scene, one that has on occasion been criticized for essentially institutionalizing railroading.

Putting clues in scenes is not railroading. It's only railroading if you shove the PCs' faces in the clues and force them to follow up. Whoever said this has never played with a railroading GM; when you've seen what real railroading looks like, the difference is like night and day.

Now, I'm not familiar with the RPG in question and haven't listened to the podcast. Maybe shoving the PCs' faces in the clues and forcing them to follow up is exactly what the game tells the GM to do. In that case, yes, it's institutionalizing railroading and that's a bad thing. However, if all it's doing is telling the GM to make damn sure every scene contains some solid clues--for an investigative RPG, that's just good sense.

However, when the password was needed, he didn't remember and he didn't have it written down. I called for a INT-check, and it failed. They were unable to continue the adventure, and their attemps to otherwise circumvent the situation were unsuccessful. The password was simply necessary.

Whether this was railroading depends on whether the players made a good effort to come up with a way to circumvent the need for a password and how you reacted. If they made some lame, halfhearted gesture like "Uh, I ask to be let in and make a Diplomacy check. Does he let me in now?"--then you were justified in saying, "Sorry, it's not that easy." And if they came up with a good plan but botched their skill checks, well, so it goes*. On the other hand, if they came up with a creative, workable solution (a clever bluff, say, or arranging a distraction so the rogue could slip past) and you smacked it down without giving it a fair shake, that's railroading.

As a DM accustomed to the old-school, autocratic approach to running a game, I'm usually on the "DM is Da Boss, if you don't like it run your own game" side of these arguments. But the statement "the password was simply necessary" raises some red flags for me. The only things that should be "simply necessary" in an adventure are the elements at the core of the story.

If the adventure is about saving a princess from a dragon, then keeping the princess alive** is "simply necessary." If she dies, there is no way to bring the adventure to a successful conclusion, and that's fine--there should be a risk of failure. However, if you start thinking that (for example) slaying the dragon is "simply necessary," that's a problem. The players should be allowed to come up with clever solutions that bypass the dragon, and if this results in changes to the plot you had in mind, you just gotta roll with it.

[size=-2]*Having said that, it's still a weakness in the adventure if it can be stymied by something as simple as a forgotten password and a couple of botched skill checks. This is where I'd take a few moments to think up a way to get the action going again, bringing the fight to the PCs as it were. The punishment for failure should be additional threats or obstacles, never boredom.

**Assuming no access to resurrection magic.[/size]

 

[Remathilis]

There is railroading and there is railroading.

There are some players/groups who want plot-hooks and storylines to give them a sense of narrative flow. To them, they like the fact Frodo HAS to take the ring to Mordor and that is his quest of that Luks HAS to defeat Vader to become a Jedi. It gives the campaign a focus and tells a story akin to narrative fiction.

Some react violently to this very notion and wish to have the freedom (as real life offers) to handle several different events at the same time; they want to carve a kingdom out of the wilderness, explore the 4th level of the Dungeon of Terror, slay Ashheart the Dragon, while stopping the Slaver Ring working out of Portview all at the "relative" same time. There is not destiny, not overarching plot, except what I create as my epic deeds to be sung in my Keep as I lounge under Ashheart's mounted head on my wall.

Moreso than sandbox and railroad, I think the terms "open event" vs. "narrative flow". Open event implies events happen as you experience them and continue to happen depending on your action/inaction, thus the player creates his own "story" based on his deeds and actions. Narrative flow implies an overarching narrative that can encompass sidetracks (Luke rescuing Han from Jabba) but ultimately boils down to a single event (confronting Vader).

The other difference: open event implies players are in charge of the narrative (with the DMs job to be scene-setter and chief poop-stirrer) vs. narrative flow putting the narrative on the DM, with the players as main actors in the plot.