Telling a story vs. railroading

[Quasqueton]

I like D&D because playing the game is telling a story. Everything the PCs do leaves a story in their footprints (wake). You may not set out to create a story with D&D, but if you play the same characters for any length of time, you’ve told a (their) story. This is a big difference between RPGs and other games. I've always thought of it as a big selling point for RPGs over other games.

If you enter the Caves of Chaos and proceed to kill or drive out all the evil there in, you’ve told a story (what you did and how you did it). A story no less than if you entered the Sunless Citadel and drove through to the evil druid and defeated him (what you did and how you did it). In both scenarios, a story unfolded through Player action in response to the adventure situations.

If the baron offers to pay you 10,000gp to go into the Dungeon of Danger and retrieve the Glorious Gem for him, you’ve started a story. How you go through the dungeon and find the gem is a story. When you turn the gem over to the baron, you’ve told a story. What the baron uses the gem for may continue the story.

If you recover the gem and decide to keep it for yourself, or perhaps to take it to another city and sell it to the highest bidder, you’re telling a story.

If you tell the baron to go screw himself, and you ignore the Dungeon of Danger to instead run off hunting goblins, you are telling a story.

If the baron sends troops and assassins after you for your actions (or inactions), that is just the natural cause/effect, action/reaction, consequences of the story *you are creating*.

The term “railroad” or “railroading” gets thrown around a lot, but I think most uses/abuses of it are just for insults. (It's like using the term "munchkin" -- it has no real meaning other than, "I don't like the way you play".) For instance, the baron threatening you with imprisonment if you don’t go after the Glorious Gem is not a railroad – you have a choice, even if that choice is to fight off his guards and escape from his palace. It is still not a railroad even if the baron has overwhelming force.

A railroad is when the DM, as a player of a game, disallows the Players, as players of a game, from taking action outside what the DM wants to have happen. You are being railroaded when the DM, as the controller of the *game*, *tells* you what happens without your taking action, or he prevents you from taking action. Railroading means the DM doesn't give the Players a choice, at all. Your actions are dictated.

In the scenarios above, railroading is the *DM* not letting you take the gem for yourself, or just telling you that you return it as instructed. You are not allowed to tell the baron off. Or the troops/assassins succeed automatically, without you being able to actually play out the fight. Railroading is a completely out-of-game (or meta-game) action.

Telling a story is not railroading. Setting up an adventure is not railroading. Having consequences to action/inaction is not railroading. “Linear” adventures are not railroading.

Telling a story is not the opposite, or in opposition to playing the game and having free reign on your character’s destiny. Telling a story is what happens when you play the game and use your free reign on your character's destiny.

Why have so many people locked "railroading" so tightly to "telling a story"? People are much too quick to shout railroading at others telling about their game story, as if merely having (or stating that you have) a story means the DM is railroading.

I've noticed it with some of the adventure design discussions going on right now -- it almost seems that if there is a BBEG at the end of the adventure, people are calling it a railroard. If there is a plot to the adventure, people are calling it a railroad. If there are consequences for acting or not acting, people are calling it a railroad.

Quasqueton

 

[lukelightning]

The term "railroading" is overused; it seems that as soon as the DM says "the prince has been captured by a dragon and needs to be rescued" there is the risk someone will say "railroading! I don't want to fight a dragon or rescue anyone!"

Many players forget that most "stories" and "plots" in D&D are really just a convenient excuse for adventuring. People generally want a game that is a bit deeper than "we are people who kill things and take their stuff" (not that there is anything wrong with that). So the DM thinks of some plot hook to get you adventuring. If you deviate from this course of action, the DM will, of course, resist, because he put in all that effort making the dragon cave or goblin mines or wizard tower or city of ghouls or what have you. Good DMs, of course, adapt, and good players adapt as well.

And for cases of "strict" railroading, well literature is filled with heroes who hate, loathe, and attempt to flee the forces of Fate, yet are bound to it.

 

[Lanefan]

Railroading rears its ugly head when the PC's lose choice over what they do. It's an easy trap to fall into...guilty as charged here, on occasion...and most often comes up when an adventure devloves into a complete-the-steps-to-finish-or-die-trying situation.

That said, once in a while (but *only* once in a while) a little choo-choo can be a Good Thing. A recent adventure I ran...a chaotic deity's revenge for prior party actions...saw a bunch of characters go to sleep one night as normal but wake up in a small strange dark room. Though there were various options on where to go, all but one led back to this room. The one that didn't led to a series of pretty much unavoidable encounters, a test if you will, that if the PC's survived (they almost all did) their "reward" would be a shot at a Deck of Many Things variant. If they survived this (most did) then all's good and they can go on with their lives.

Blatant railroad, but it worked in that case. And it'll be many, many a year before I pull such a stunt again.

Lanefan

 

[Crothian]

The term "railroading" is overused; it seems that as soon as the DM says "the prince has been captured by a dragon and needs to be rescued" there is the risk someone will say "railroading! I don't want to fight a dragon or rescue anyone!"

Ya, that's when people yell rail road but there is actually three steps that make a railroad not just the first two.

1) DM comes up with plot
2) Players choose not to follow it
3) DM forces them to follow it

 

[Ourph]

This may just be semantics, I'm not sure what your actual meaning is, but I think there's a distinction to be made between "telling a story" and story being one of the results of playing the game. IME the players who are exploring the Caves of Chaos, killing monsters and rolling dice don't consider themselves to be in the act of "telling a story" they consider themselves to be in the act of "playing a game." (YMMV)

I think the reason the distinction is important is because people who are focused on either story or game have different priorities and a DM focused on story is much more likely to be tempted to railroad his players than one who is more focused on the game aspects of competition and challenge.

 

[werk]

Quas,

I think I agree with you 99%. I count myself lucky to have had the experience of several very talented DMs, and a few bad ones. Railroading usually gets accused on the bad ones, while not even mentioned on the good ones, no matter how narrow the plot.

I think maybe instead of railroading vs non-railroading it is rather a matter of how wide the tracks are, and maybe how many different routes lead to the end of the line. Some have a really wide bearth and a spiderweb of tracks, the PCs can do most anything and still continue in the direction he want's to go...others chafe when PCs stray even the slightest from the One-Path-to-Glory^TM.

Engaging DMs have players that want to drive toward the goal, so their job gets easier. Lacklustre DMs may have players that get a little bored, or lack a clear focus, and start to wander, soon everyone starts to wander, and when the DM tries to reign them back in...Choo choo!

 

[Grymar]

Railroading isn't always metagame...if the DM keeps building obstacles to you doing anything but what s/he wants, it can be railroading. This often goes along with super-DMPCs who are 10 levels higher than the party so can boss them around and tell them what they WILL do.

 

[AuraSeer]

Note that railroading and story are not mutually exclusive. You can be telling a story, and still railroading the party.

If the Baron sends out fifty minotaurs and a pair of Wiz20s to apprehend a 5th-level party, and tells them "go on this quest or die," that is railroading-- even if it makes perfect sense for plot reasons, and even if the DM is playing the NPCs with total objectivity. The players still have no choice to make; it's do the quest or roll up new characters. They are stuck on rails, going in one direction with no turnoffs, and that's what railroading means.

 

[Agent Oracle]

It looks like Game master and Goofus time!

"After giving the heroes the quest seed, they are taking an agonizingly long time choosing a route through some pretty basic terrain with minimal chance of encounters. What do you do?"

A Game Master Smiles and confides in his players "Guys, it's really not that dangerous. I think you can leave the siege engine at the castle."

A Goofus clears his throat and narrates "So you're traveling from here to here. Nothing happens along the way, capiche? Oh, and you each loose 50 xp for delay of game."

"A lucky critical strike means that the bard just killed your carefully-constructed BBEG in the first of three planned encounters that you had between him and the party. All he was supposed to do this round was show up, taunt the players, and activate the machinations of his plan! If they kill him now, you're out three week's game plans."

A Game master blinks in surprise, and then puts on his best game face, and pulls something out of his arse. "As you pull your blood-stained blade out of his chest, he pales, and staggers backwards, gasping... "You... you will suf-fer..." before fading into thick cloud of oily black smoke." There! an elegant solution to a bothersome problem. and if you give the players enough rope, they'll draw (and quarter) their own conclusion about what happened to him!

A Goofus declares that there was a Wall of Force between the BBEG and the bard, which must have just appeared this initiative count. Yeah. 'cause, it works like that.

 

[sniffles]

I agree that railroading in the most derogatory sense is not having a plot, but taking all choice away from the players. I'd narrow it down even more and say that true railroading is when the GM determines all the player-character actions, right down to their emotional responses. Sometimes it's okay to take away choices, as long as that situation is temporary. But the GM should never tell the players what their PCs think or feel. Not even when they're under some type of magical effect - the GM should only suggest, IMHO.