D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[Scott Christian]

Let's grant that this is true.

Yes, let's grant it because it is true.

It doesn't tell us very much about railroading.

Incorrect. In fact, it tells us everything we need to know about railroading - it rarely exists in its strict definition. Why? Because if you sit down to a table, the game is almost always the same, except for those rare outliers I talked about.

How did the GM decide what scenario to describe? Or what to describe as happening in response to the actions the players declare for their PCs? That is what makes the difference, when it comes to railroading.

Incorrect. And that is the frustrating thing about these discussions. The fact that you can sit down and play at any general table (not an outlier) and not tell the difference, let's you know everything. The difference is negligible, and even more importantly, more negligible to the player.

Back when I played in a club environment (quite a while ago now)

Correct. "Quite a while ago." Try to enter the fray now with an open eye and see if you draw the same conclusion. The answer is - you won't.

 

[pemerton]

Incorrect. And that is the frustrating thing about these discussions. The fact that you can sit down and play at any general table (not an outlier) and not tell the difference, let's you know everything. The difference is negligible, and even more importantly, more negligible to the player.

But one can tell the difference. It's just not captured by your description "DM describes scenario, players react, DM tallies results, and then the DM or players describe what happened."

If you think I can't tell when I am playing in a game I don't enjoy, because of the method the GM uses to decide (i) what scenario to describe, and (ii) what happens after the players' actions are resolved, then you're wrong. Of course I can!

 

[kermit4karate]

But one can tell the difference. It's just not captured by your description "DM describes scenario, players react, DM tallies results, and then the DM or players describe what happened."

If you think I can't tell when I am playing in a game I don't enjoy, because of the method the GM uses to decide (i) what scenario to describe, and (ii) what happens after the players' actions are resolved, then you're wrong. Of course I can!

Multiple people have said they rarely see it, yet you're still trying to make it sound like a sizable percentage of players are sitting down at any of the thousands of D&D tables playing on any given night in game stores and living rooms across America and being railroaded by authoritarian DMs. That's a bigger fantasy than anything in D&D is.

 

[pemerton]

Multiple people have said they rarely see it

I'm not sure what you're referring to by "it". Do you mean railroading?

you're still trying to make it sound like a sizable percentage of players are sitting down at any of the thousands of D&D tables playing on any given night in game stores and living rooms across America and being railroaded by authoritarian DMs. That's a bigger fantasy than anything in D&D is.

I've never used the word "authoritarian". I don't think it's useful. I've talked about the methods used by the GM to decide what they say about the fiction.

And my view is that most D&D play is very GM-driven. Which you seem to agree with!

 

[DinoInDisguise]

I might be nuts. Like seriously, I might need a professional.

I read this thread and I asked myself, what?

I think I have it figured out, though. This is a thread about semantics. Not railroading. Not how we play the game. No. Semantics. Only semantics.

I like semantics.

We know what the term railroading is. It has a clear origin and definition. Originating not with D&D but with landowners in the 1800s. A time and place where railroad companies, the namesake of our word of the day, coerced or pressured landowners into selling land or accepting railroad projects. We should put that word "coerced" in our pocket, for roughly 38 more words.

Woah. A real history to the slang, and, in it, a meaning.

By the turn of the century it was used in legal discourse to mean being unfairly or quickly pushed through the legal system. One could even say coerced through the system, but that's just hypothetical.

It was in the 1970s, when D&D groups started using the term to describe a DM who forces the story along a set path, ignoring or overruling player choice. Coercing, one might say, the players to abide by their wishes.

But this all is because I wanted to inflate my word count. In reality, railroading is about whether a player feels coerced. So we aren't arguing semantics, we are talking past each other about a subjective feeling we get during game play.

But the battle lines are drawn, so, carry on.

 

[kermit4karate]

I'm not sure what you're referring to by "it". Do you mean railroading?

I've never used the word "authoritarian". I don't think it's useful. I've talked about the methods used by the GM to decide what they say about the fiction.

And my view is that most D&D play is very GM-driven. Which you seem to agree with!

What you haven't done yet in this thread is demonstrate that gaming is facing an actual problem here. You've said that certain things would be a problem for you -- which is your right -- but not that they're actually happening often enough in real life to be a crisis.

What's the threat you're alleging is facing the game of D&D again? Sorry, I just got back from my weekly D&D game, where I guess I was railroading my friends for three hours, so if it was stated again I may have missed it.

 

[kermit4karate]

I might be nuts. Like seriously, I might need a professional.

I read this thread and I asked myself, what?

I think I have it figured out, though. This is a thread about semantics. Not railroading. Not how we play the game. No. Semantics. Only semantics.

I like semantics.

We know what the term railroading is. It has a clear origin and definition. Originating not with D&D but with landowners in the 1800s. A time and place where railroad companies, the namesake of our word of the day, coerced or pressured landowners into selling land or accepting railroad projects. We should put that word "coerced" in our pocket, for roughly 38 more words.

Woah. A real history to the slang, and, in it, a meaning.

By the turn of the century it was used in legal discourse to mean being unfairly or quickly pushed through the legal system. One could even say coerced through the system, but that's just hypothetical.

It was in the 1970s, when D&D groups started using the term to describe a DM who forces the story along a set path, ignoring or overruling player choice. Coercing, one might say, the players to abide by their wishes.

But this all is because I wanted to inflate my word count. In reality, railroading is about whether a player feels coerced. So we aren't arguing semantics, we are talking past each other about a subjective feeling we get during game play.

But the battle lines are drawn, so, carry on.

It sure feels like someone pushing an anti-D&D agenda, doesn't it?

I'm not denying railroading exists (although I agree that the whole thread comes down to semantics), but unless there's data showing it's common, acting like it's an inherent flaw is a stretch. I've yet to see anything beyond anecdotes.

Without evidence it's widespread, we're just trading stories.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What you haven't done yet in this thread is demonstrate that gaming is facing an actual problem here. You've said that certain things would be a problem for you -- which is your right -- but not that they're actually happening often enough in real life to be a crisis.

What's the threat you're alleging is facing the game of D&D again? Sorry, I just got back from my weekly D&D game, where I guess I was railroading my friends for three hours, so if it was stated again I may have missed it.

Seems to me that this is an agenda.

Now, we can't just be making a point about approaches and their flaws. We have to be identifying a horrible existential threat that must be stamped out.

Now, we can't just be critiquing a known, oft-discussed, and fairly likely behavior from inexperienced, poorly-skilled, or bull-headed GMs, we have to be fighting a "crisis" that is poised to destroy D&D.

Now, we cannot note practices or designs which tend to encourage problem behaviors, and thus backstops or better-practice approaches. We now have to prove that your experience was badwrongfun.

This is a pretty low rhetorical trick, an attempt to reframe the discussion such that all the lines are defined by you and you alone. I refuse to surrender this ground to you; I dispute your framing and deny that any of this catastrophizing is remotely warranted or relevant. The discussion is worth having, and I won't just let you declare what we are allowed to discuss, nor arbitrary standards of proof for being allowed to participate.

Railroading occurs. It is common enough that you can, with trivial effort, find allegedly well-regarded sources of education or advice for new GMs which explicitly tells GMs to use various railroading techniques. I find that the structure of D&D encourages such things, in part because it places so much on the GM, and 5e has leaned into this even more, while simultaneously providing painfully little in terms of actual guidance or best practices. I am far from the only person who thinks this.

I don't need to prove that your game was badwrongfun to talk about the problems of railroading. I don't need to prove that the game is in crisis to note that hyper dependence on, and exultation of, a singular absolute authority has a tendency to let that power go to someone's head, and that when that happens, it is likely to cause bad outcomes sooner or later. I don't need to jump through your impossible hoops just to point out the faults in a practice I know is common because people talk about it.

I can just...do that. And if you really do think this conversation is beneath you, why do you choose to continue? Because if that's actually what you believe, I don't understand what you get out of participating.

 

[kermit4karate]

Seems to me that this is an agenda.

Now, we can't just be making a point about approaches and their flaws. We have to be identifying a horrible existential threat that must be stamped out.

Now, we can't just be critiquing a known, oft-discussed, and fairly likely behavior from inexperienced, poorly-skilled, or bull-headed GMs, we have to be fighting a "crisis" that is poised to destroy D&D.

Now, we cannot note practices or designs which tend to encourage problem behaviors, and thus backstops or better-practice approaches. We now have to prove that your experience was badwrongfun.

This is a pretty low rhetorical trick, an attempt to reframe the discussion such that all the lines are defined by you and you alone. I refuse to surrender this ground to you; I dispute your framing and deny that any of this catastrophizing is remotely warranted or relevant. The discussion is worth having, and I won't just let you declare what we are allowed to discuss, nor arbitrary standards of proof for being allowed to participate.

Railroading occurs. It is common enough that you can, with trivial effort, find allegedly well-regarded sources of education or advice for new GMs which explicitly tells GMs to use various railroading techniques. I find that the structure of D&D encourages such things, in part because it places so much on the GM, and 5e has leaned into this even more, while simultaneously providing painfully little in terms of actual guidance or best practices. I am far from the only person who thinks this.

I don't need to prove that your game was badwrongfun to talk about the problems of railroading. I don't need to prove that the game is in crisis to note that hyper dependence on, and exultation of, a singular absolute authority has a tendency to let that power go to someone's head, and that when that happens, it is likely to cause bad outcomes sooner or later. I don't need to jump through your impossible hoops just to point out the faults in a practice I know is common because people talk about it.

I can just...do that. And if you really do think this conversation is beneath you, why do you choose to continue? Because if that's actually what you believe, I don't understand what you get out of participating.

First, my comment wasn't directed at you. It was directed at @pemerton. You interrupted.

Second, you're feigning outrage because someone asked you to substantiate your hypothesis with data. You and @pemerton have already left dozens of comments on this thread insinuating widespread railroading in D&D, and then when someone asks you to back it up with data, you're pretending to be the victim.

I have as much right to continue in this thread as you do, and I'm not being disingenuous. Asking someone to substantiate a disputed claim after they've repeated it dozens of times isn't unreasonable.

 

[pemerton]

What you haven't done yet in this thread is demonstrate that gaming is facing an actual problem here.

Why is gaming facing an actual problem? From time to time various individual RPGers, or RPG groups, fact actual problems: namely, GM techniques that produce play that is more GM-driven than they prefer. Many of those individuals have that experience while playing; some have it while GMing - they are looking for ways of reducing the GM-driven character of the game they are GMing, but don't know what those would be.

Over the years, on these forums (just as one example of where conversation takes place), there has been discussion of both techniques that cause problems for those RPGers, and of alternative techniques that will reduce those problems. I'm not sure why you object to that discussion taking place?

You've said that certain things would be a problem for you -- which is your right -- but not that they're actually happening often enough in real life to be a crisis.

What does crisis have to do with anything? Who is talking about a crisis?

What I can tell you is that most GMs I have played with have been pretty railroad-y by my standards, and 3 have had their campaigns fail as a result. Currently, when I play (as opposed to GM) it is with a friend of mine who does not have all that much GMing experience (probably a dozen or so sessions of Burning Wheel), but who is able to avoid an overly GM-driven game.

What's the threat you're alleging is facing the game of D&D again?

None? This language of crisis and threat is yours, not mine.

You and @pemerton have already left dozens of comments on this thread insinuating widespread railroading in D&D, and then when someone asks you to back it up with data, you're pretending to be the victim.

When have I "pretended to be a victim"? I'm posting about my preferences, and also about what I understand to be common in contemporary RPG play?

Do you deny that a lot D&D play is heavily GM-driven? If I go back to this post:

Here's my tentative attempt to say what I think makes for railroading: If the GM is more-or-less unilaterally deciding the significant content of the presented scenes, and/or what is at stake, and/or what follows next, I will describe that as railroading. And so, conversely, non-railroad play (as I think of it) means that the players exercise real influence over the significant content of the presented scenes, and their stakes, and what follows next.

My impression is that, in a lot of D&D play, it is the GM who decides, pretty unilaterally, the significant content of the presented scenes, and what is at stake, and what follows next. Do you disagree?