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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DumbPaladin" data-source="post: 5399583" data-attributes="member: 90770">I hate to say this, but it is true: it depends entirely upon the group and their level of involvement.  I've never been a tabletop RPG DM, but I have been a GM for an online roleplaying simulation, and have done so for 10 years.  The "crew" has changed considerably over time, and during certain years, I've had little choice BUT to railroad the players into actually DOING something, since the times when I gave them free rein or asked them to be creative in solving a problem, absolutely nothing happened.  Either literally (no one spoke for minutes on end) or figuratively (people all did meaningless things that didn't develop their characters or drive any sort of plot forward).Railroading was NOT that great in those instances, but it led to a good story being told, and somehow, the people being told what to do enjoyed themselves.  Eventually I got tired of it and made it clear it wouldn't happen this way anymore.I can definitely see a DM being stuck with a group like this.  It's not my cup of tea.  If I was in a group where the DM railroaded the group EVERY time, I'd find another group.  I'm willing to tolerate it once in a while if the plot is especially interesting, but I'm just not the kind of player where this is ever a necessity -- I try my best to keep things going, help the DM shape the story, interact with other PCs, and the like.  By the same token, if I was in a group where the players all simply demanded that the DM tell them what to do, and couldn't think of interesting things to do during "down time" in a town or village ... I'd also be looking for a new group, or at least, new players to suggest to the DM.Bottom line: there are players out there that, if relied upon to "move" the train, will cause the group to never see anything but the inside of the station.  Sometimes, there's just 1 or 2 in a group ... sometimes it's the entire group.  If you are in a group with 0 such people, I say congratulations and do what you can to keep them all happy.  My current 3.5 game has 0 such people, and I love it.</blockquote>

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