D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[kermit4karate]

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?

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.

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

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:

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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?

Rather than respond to each sentence individually, I’ll address your key themes.

As I said before, railroading appears rare at most D&D tables. Unless there’s data to suggest otherwise, I don't see evidence it's systemic, nor does it pose a threat to anything. There's no railroading D&D crisis.

Now to pivot to your other key theme, do I believe that DMs are important in D&D and drive much of the plot and the overall gameplay in a session? Absolutely. They're important today and always have been.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

What I think might encourage some railroading in D&D is the reliance on published adventure paths. A lot of people run these. And these are not necessary full railroads, but there certainly is a strong incentive for the GM to try to keep the game within the parameters of the material they have, and attempting to do so certainly has good chance to result some railroading.

And whilst GMs who create their own stuff also have prepped material they'd like to use, I don't think the dynamic is quite the same. It is rare for a GM to prep full AP's worth of stuff in advance, it is more likely that they just prep what they assume will soon be needed and if it seems that the players are steering the game to certain direction they'll just prep stuff related to that for the next session. And of course when it is stuff you have yourself created, you're probably far more comfortable with adapting and extrapolating than with material someone else has written and you might not have fully internalised.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

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.

All I can say, then, is that it is self-evident that (a) this is a practice, and (b) this practice is fairly widespread, even if it is not universal. Further, I think it's blatant rhetorical trickery to insert things like the concept of a "crisis" or "gaming is facing a problem" or the like. That's 100% your invention and has nothing, whatsoever, to do with anything I've said, nor what @pemerton has said.

I won't discuss along those parameters, because they're patently ridiculous. Railroading happens. It is a widespread practice. One does not need to look hard to find evidence thereof. On this very forum we have had multiple threads, and railroading has absolutely had its diehard defenders. Some even balking at the very notion that the term should be allowed to be a negative, and should instead be reclaimed as an entirely neutral word.

If that is not enough evidence for you, nothing ever will be.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What I think might encourage some railroading in D&D is the reliance on published adventure paths. A lot of people run these. And these are not necessary full railroads, but there certainly is a strong incentive for the GM to try to keep the game within the parameters of the material they have, and attempting to do so certainly has good chance to result some railroading.

And whilst GMs who create their own stuff also have prepped material they'd like to use, I don't think the dynamic is quite the same. It is rare for a GM to prep full AP's worth of stuff in advance, it is more likely that they just prep what they assume will soon be needed and if it seems that the players are steering the game to certain direction they'll just prep stuff related to that for the next session. And of course when it is stuff you have yourself created, you're probably far more comfortable with adapting and extrapolating than with material someone else has written and you might not have fully internalised.

Pre-written adventure paths certainly do this, yes.

But so does making the GM the absolute arbiter of absolutely everything.

Telling one person, "Everything you say goes, and nothing you don't like ever goes" is, I should think, at least plausibly going to lead to some people saying, "It's okay if I force this bit through. They won't mind. It'll make things more fun!"

Doubly so when the text outright encourages fudging rolls...and explicitly says to conceal this act from the players.

 

[TwoSix]

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.

A sizable percentage of players want the DM to tell the story and for their role to be sit back and occasionally participate.

The fact that people want that doesn’t change what the game is.

 

[Scott Christian]

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!

Honest question: How can you tell? Is it the specific scenario or the overall order of scenarios or is the specific action you are talking about? Sorry, I am just a little confused as to your answer. As always, thanks for responding.

 

[kermit4karate]

All I can say, then, is that it is self-evident that (a) this is a practice, and (b) this practice is fairly widespread, even if it is not universal. Further, I think it's blatant rhetorical trickery to insert things like the concept of a "crisis" or "gaming is facing a problem" or the like. That's 100% your invention and has nothing, whatsoever, to do with anything I've said, nor what @pemerton has said.

I won't discuss along those parameters, because they're patently ridiculous. Railroading happens. It is a widespread practice. One does not need to look hard to find evidence thereof. On this very forum we have had multiple threads, and railroading has absolutely had its diehard defenders. Some even balking at the very notion that the term should be allowed to be a negative, and should instead be reclaimed as an entirely neutral word.

If that is not enough evidence for you, nothing ever will be.

I'm fine continuing this discussion if we can move past repeating earlier points. From what I've seen, railroading in D&D is rare and doesn't constitute a systemic problem. If you have data that could move the discussion beyond anecdotes, I'd love to see it.

 

[Maxperson]

Incorrect. In fact, it tells us everything we need to know about railroading - it rarely exists in its strict definition. Why?

Because it's almost universally a very bad thing. It's rare, because it's avoided by the vast majority of players and DMs.

 

[kermit4karate]

A sizable percentage of players want the DM to tell the story and for their role to be sit back and occasionally participate.

The fact that people want that doesn’t change what the game is.

I don't doubt some players prefer a very loosely DM-led story, but calling it a "sizable percentage" implies you've either got actual numbers, or we're in the realm of subjective debate. Do you have a survey or data to back that claim? Without it, it's hard to even hint at or imply that railroading is systemic, or even what that could imply.

Stating that something happens is one thing; stating it happens to a sizable percentage without data is another.

 

[kermit4karate]

Because it's almost universally a very bad thing. It's rare, because it's avoided by the vast majority of players and DMs.

There you go again, @Maxperson, making too much sense for this debate. You better stop that!