Telling a story vs. railroading

[Lanefan]

I'm somewhat surprised that this thread is still alive and kicking.

Not just that, but it's rolling enough 20's that it might just win!

I repeat my earlier point that much of the problem comes down to trust. The doppelganger example is a good one here: when things start going sideways for the PC's (in this case, multiple charm attempts that should have worked but didn't...and by the way, how do you know if your charm worked or not unless you try to interact with the target afterwards?) there has to be trust that the DM has a valid reason for such. Here, it's a doppelganger. In another similar case it might be a device of charm resistance. In a third case it might be that having this particular person charmed to the party would destroy the whole plot...some might consider this last to be a railroad, but I'm cool with it as long as a) it's smoothly handled so as to look like an in-game issue, and b) it leads to a good adventure.

Thing is, if the DM has spent the time to design a worthwhile adventure, the players should in fairness at least try to play through it. If it proves hopeless, then have the party abandon it in character...but at least try it!

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

Different type of railroad?

Last session, after our intrepid gang had battled its way through a Giant stronghold to rescue someone (we don't really want to rescue him - he's as nasty as the Giants, or worse - but we kinda have to as he's the only one who can undo the mess he's made of the town we're trying to help out) we find clear evidence that this guy has just been given into the care of some other nasties, so we now need to go after them to get this idiot, thus entering a whole new adventure.

This isn't a railroad so far, as we have the clear choice to turn our backs on the whole thing and tell the town to use its own resources (which they have) to fix their own mess. But:

The PC's are going to railroad themselves!

There's enough goody-good types in the party (there's 9 of us) that any attempt to call the town doomed and just walk away from this scenario will be met with howls of protest, that we have to finish what we've started, that the noble thing to do is to help out or die trying, and so on. And, there's enough in-party loyalty to each other that even those who don't care about this town *do* care about their friends, and so off we'll almost certainly go.

So, is knowing what choice the PC's will probably make, a railroad?

Lanefan

 

[Kormydigar]

If I set up an encounter that will occur no matter what the players do, that's railroading. Just because the players aren't aware of it, doesn't make it any less of a railroad.

.

I can't agree to this 100%. The dungeon you described has the beginnings of turning to the dark side of the railroad but the transformation is not complete. In my games the PC's sometimes encounter events that happen no matter what they do, but thats not a railroad. Its the resolution of these encounters that define the railroad. As long as the actions of the PC's are not inconsequential to the outcome of an encounter, then encounters that happen at a specified time or place can be ok.

For example: The PC's are escorting an important NPC from town A to town B. The DM has determined that the highwaymen will attack those on the road between the towns. At this point it is simply a planned encounter that will happen along the way- no railroad.

If the DM decides that the highwaymen know about the important NPC's and writes up a plan to capture them and determines that the NPC's WILL be taken from the PC's during this encounter then the train is chugging along. If the players are wary and come up, with a good plan to skirt the encounter with a carefully planned decoy and alternate route and the encounter STILL happens with the SAME results, then yes, it looks like a railroad.

 

[RedWick]

*ahem*

If the GM spends at least half the session narrating what the PCs are doing, the game might be a railroad.

If the players actions have little to no impact on the plotline, the game might be a railroad.

If the NPCs frequently outshine the PCs, the game might be a railroad.

If the players elaborate plans for sidestepping a planned GM encounter are foiled "just 'cause", the game might be a railroad.

(I wonder how many of these people could come up with?)

 

[ThirdWizard]

Do you have the same problem with HappyElf's definition, where the happiness of the players determines whether or not railroading occurs?

Definately.

If you accept my definition (as Hussar, thus far, has said he does...still working on that ), then railroading requires a usurpation of player choice.

I think the basic difference in our oppinions is that I can see a situation in which the Player is more interested in going along with the DM's plans than excersising any real choice of his own over the campaign. So, a Player might actually delegate some of those decisions to the DM, whether through NPC interactions (implicitly) or the metagame (explicitly). I would still call this railroading, because the end result is the same as the DM forcing it.

In this case, perhaps you can't say that the DM is "railroading"since it isn't necessarily forced against the Players' wills. A better way of saying it is perhaps that the campaign is a railroading campaign.

As a DM and[ Player I would hate this style. But, one of my friends enjoys it. He is more interested in interacting with PCs and NPCs than he is about affecting the outcome of the plot, so what I think of as a fun part of the game, to him, is not necessarily important.

 

[happyelf]

I think the main problem is that most people seem fixed in their perception that railroading is, by definition, a bad thing, whereas really its quality should be one of oppinion, like high vs low magic or like grim 'n gritty vs heroic fantasy.

AS I've already said, linear or pre-determined play is not bad. Railroading is bad.

If you define raliroading as simply a bad thing, then it becomes a term more akin to munchkin: someone who plays in a way that I don't find fun. While that makes it a great desparaging remark toward a game or game style, I don't think it offers a useful definition.

I think it's absurd to define something as not useful simply because it's negative.

The fact is, linear play becomes bad primarily due to player preference. Ignore that, and you ignore the issue. You want to ignore the real issue here, go right ahead, but you'll never really solve this problem if you do.

Once we accept that railroading can be a good thing, I think we can start to find a definition that is more suitable to reality.

My definintion is more suitable to reality than any wich seeks to avoid the ral issue: what kind of choice does the player enjoy, and are thye getting it? That is reality. That is the issue.

As is, people are probably going to be more concerned with making sure the term stays far away from their own preferances than giving it any kind of suitable definition.

Railroading by my definition is that wich is not in line with the preferences of the group, so that's not the issue. If the group is genuinly ok with being geased into a fedex quest, then it's not railroading by my definition.

A fantasy world where player characters have unlimited freedom and no responsibilities - for me, that lacks any sort of dramatic tension or interest, and you may as well just hack your way through the Monster Manual.

Nobody's suggesting that.

Simply accepting the player's views of things is not terribly useful.

It may not be terribly useful to support your pet definitions, but it is immensly useful if you want to run a good game, and understand the reality of what takes place in a situation where, for instance, a player is not enjoying the game for some reason.

Within this hobby, prefernce varies a great deal. The reason everybody in this thread has different takes on what railroading is, is ebcause their preferences vary. Thus, the only useful definitions of railroading is one wich accepts this as a primary factor.
Anybody who does not accept that is ignoring reality.

I'm somewhat surprised that this thread is still alive and kicking. Like a lot of arguments on the Internet, a lot of it seems to stem from not being able to make a concrete definition of the topic at hand. If you can't agree on what railroading is, other than it's somehow a bad thing, you can't come to a consensus on how to avoid it.

Nobody is suggesting such a vague definition, elast of all me. I am suggesting the most useful and effective definintion of any of those offered.

The consensus on how to avoid it is simple. To avoid railroading, you talk to your players and try and understand the kind of restrictions they would not enjoy being placed on their character's actions in the game.

To my mind, a definition of a term needs to be both specific and general enough so that it can have some meaning. If railroading is any time the players don't have complete 100% freedom to do absolutely anything and have the GM instantly ready for it, then about 99.9% of all RPGs are railroads.

Again, nobody's arguing for such a definition, least of all me.

 

[Hussar]

How can it be a bad thing if some people enjoy it? If a group loves railroading, are you telling them they're having wrongbadfun? A player in my group likes railroaded campaigns, with arcs and decisions made by the DM long before the first session begins, knowing exactly how the entire campaign is going to end. He even told another DM in another group he plays in to make his background so it would fit into the story-line better. I would hate that campaign. But, he enjoys it.

I actually agree. However, if the players enjoy it, it's not railroading is the point I'm trying to make. If there's no foul, then it's not railroading, by my definition of railroading. Which, actually, is fairly close to HappyElf's definition.

As I said in my post, there are a number of actions which a DM does which override the player's choice. Many of these are considered perfectly acceptable actions of a DM. Deciding that the party meets in a tavern is about as railroad as you can get. However, since it moves the game along, it's generally considered acceptable.

If it's considered acceptable, then, by my definition, it's not railroading. I would add that it should be considered generally acceptable. Just because one player happens to like being led by the nose doesn't mean the entire group does. Nor should it be taken as a universal point.

I agree that there is lots of grey in the definition. And the level of railroading that is acceptable will vary from group to group. However, we should be able to come up with a fairly decent scale of railroading that most people can agree with. Everything below a certain point is, by and large, unacceptable and is railroading. Everthing above a certain point is, by and large, accepted as part of DMing and is NOT railroading. The stuff in the middle is a honking big grey area, but, that can be dealt with on a case by case basis.

 

[Hussar]

The consensus on how to avoid it is simple. To avoid railroading, you talk to your players and try and understand the kind of restrictions they would not enjoy being placed on their character's actions in the game.

Now, that I agree with to some degree. However, there is a real danger here if the players figure they are entitled to certain things. For example, if the players say that charming their character's is a railroad, then I can't use vampires without running the danger of making my players very unhappy.

Yes, we should always talk to our players. However, I do not think DM's should be held hostage to what the player's want. There are times when the DM is going to do bad things to the player's characters. Sometimes that means things like charm or turning to stone, or being Held or polymorphed or whatever. Since the players are likely not going to be terribly happy with any of those options, does that mean if I use any of them I'm railroading?

This is why I have a problem with your definition HappyElf. There are far too many perfectly legitimate DM actions included for my tastes. If the sole judge of railroading is not some sort of objective scale based on experience but is rather what the player's happen to think, then there is a real risk of player entitlement creeping in.

 

[SteveC]

Nobody is suggesting such a vague definition, elast of all me. I am suggesting the most useful and effective definintion of any of those offered.

Well I'm certain you believe that and perhaps I would agree with you too. Would you care to summarize what your definition is? As a matter of fact I believe that the definitions of railroading that have been used here are completely clear to the individuals who have made them.

The consensus on how to avoid it is simple. To avoid railroading, you talk to your players and try and understand the kind of restrictions they would not enjoy being placed on their character's actions in the game.

Again, nobody's arguing for such a definition, least of all me.

You see, I think we can agree on this for the most part, but when you say "having a villain cast a charm spell could be railroading" I guess I'm really not sure where you're coming from. Suppose a player is playing a rogue on an adventure into the forgotten crypts of doom<tm>. Does the player have a right to call railroading on the fact that most (if not all) of their enemies in the adventure are immune to the greater part of their attack?

Color me confused, but not surprised at the confusion.

--Steve

 

[Abe.ebA]

Having read this whole giant thread, I agree wholeheartedly (I think) with RC, Hussar, and Quas. Now let me go ahead and shoot my mouth off

The primary goal here, I think, was: What is railroading and how does it relate to d&d as a storytelling medium? So, in an attempted answer:

1) Railroading is (as others have stated) the DM usurping player control of their characters' fates in unprecedented and arbitrary ways for the purpose of furthering his private goals. Railroading is always a bad thing(tm). Railroading is sometimes an acceptable thing. To make analogies: murder is always bad, but sometimes is acceptable; lying is always bad, but is sometimes not only accepted but expected. In all such cases, the bad behaviour becomes acceptable when it serves a greater good.

Railroading is a purely local phenomenon, IMO. The sort of macro-railroading that Rounser and others have a problem with I have difficulty even comprehending as railroading. I've only played in two campaigns where the entirety was mapped out adventure-for-adventure beforehand and, in both cases, that was why I played. They were A Night Below and The Rod of Seven Parts, specifically. In no other campaign I've taken part in or heard about has the DM had a series of adventures laid out end to end without said adventures being, in truth, all part of one large adventure which the players agreed to take part in at the outset. Perhaps the players decide they no longer enjoy the adventure partway through, as was the case when we played A Night Below. After several months of adventuring we were no longer having fun with the campaign and the DM no longer had fun running it. We aborted it and took up a new one. I can't imagine a case where a group decides they don't like a campaign and the DM forces them to go along with adventure after adventure.

Railroading, in my definition, occurs when PCs wish to take a course of action which, for one reason or another, would throw a monkey wrench in the DM's plans. Easily circumventing a trap that was meant to diminish their resources before an encounter, killing the BBEG with a lucky shot during a non-final encounter, exploring an area that the DM has absolutely nothing prepared for. DM fiating the situation back into control is always bad because a good DM should be capable of rolling with the punch. Sometimes it's acceptable because not fudging it has potential to ruin an entire campaign. Sometimes the PCs have to step through that magic portal or listen to that crusty old-timer in the bar.

Other issues, like pet NPCs who trounce the PCs for no apparent reason or baddies who always know precisely how best to take advantage of the party's weaknesses and instantly adjust to the PCs' changes in tactics are not, by my definition, railroading. They're bad, certainly, but they're totally different issues.

HappyElf keeps bringing up "power issues" when trying to define railroading which, I think, is telling of the disconnection between HappyElf and the rest of the posters on the thread. He/she has problems with a lot of specific things that (presumably) DMs have done to him/her in the past (charm/domination for exorbinant periods, continual party capture scenarios, etc) which all certainly reek of a DM with dominance issues. They will surely cause a group to break up but they aren't inherently railroading. Domination, kidnapping, imprisonment, and the like certainly can be used to railroad, but they're a method not the problem. Yes, it's a matter of semantics but that's the point. Terms get thrown around a lot here by people seeking advice. "Am I a railroading DM?" "Are my players munchkins?" It's important to know what these terms mean in order to offer constructive advice. Maybe the DM in question doesn't railroad but is still guilty of using over-powered NPCs and DMPCs. That's a whole other issue and should be dealt with a whole different way.

And specifically to HappyElf: we're not discussing the issue in order to let bad DMs off the hook. A DM who keeps a PC charmed for a full session, much less several sessions, without the player's consent is a Bad DM. He may also be a railroading DM, not necissarily, but he's most certainly bad.

2) How does railroading relate to storytelling in d&d?
The same way that railroading relates to everything in d&d. It can be used to reach a goal, but it is rarely necessary. The bit at the beginning of the WLD is necessary, acceptable railroading but it's barely part of the story. It could be the first sentence of a multi-tome epic fantasy series: "The heroes stepped into the dimness of the cavern and the enterance sealed itself silently behind them."

I can see where someone could feel that railroading is necessary for storytelling. If you have a plot laid out before-hand with certain points which must be hit along the way, then yes you'll likely have to railroad on occasion as it's doubtful a group of 4+ humans will accidentally drive themselves into your waypoints.

However, it's a perfectly viable proposition to state that a story can develop purely through player reactions to spontaneous (or at least semi-spontaneous) DM challenges. A party enters an old tomb and, finding themselves terrified by the prospect of dread ghouls and life-devouring ghasts, turns and flees. That's a story right there. It's kind of a lame story, but it's still a story. You could say that in order to tell the story of heroic warriors striding boldly into the dark and slaying the Lich King the door had to magically vanish and all potential means of egress become null and void. Maybe it's like the WLD and you're right, or maybe you could just toss in a local bravo at the tavern boasting of the easy pickings in the Lich King's tomb and the pushover undead to be found there. The party won't realize until they're surrounded by wights that the trinkets the bravo flashed were cheap fakes to bolster his reputation (unless they've got a good Sense Motive) but by then it's too late.