D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[Maxperson]

No. Notice I said that the DM knows what's going to happen in the end, like an adventure path. The DM framing a new complication in the next scene is just how to play standard RPGs!

If the DM knows the game is going to go from 1st to 10th level, and that the PCs are going to track down the three Orbs of Elemental Macguffin in order to enter Gozar the Gozarian's palace on Limbo and save the duchy (unless there's a TPK), that's a railroad.

What if after getting one orb the players decide not to get the other two?

 

[bloodtide]

I am confused. That is the definition of an RPG. Players make choices, and then the GM reacts to those choices. The DM's Guide and PHB literally state this.

Only the modern RPG view, where the demand is made that the DM only react to the players. And if the DM does anything else, like say just do something or have something happen at their whim, is wrong.

I am sorry, but I don't share the negative cinema viewpoint that many do. Yes, there are always plot holes, and yes, there are always crazy things that happen. I mean, why would Indiana Jones reach under a 100,000 pound closing stone door and risk getting his arm crushed just to grab his hat? Cinema is the answer. Why would Conan get drunk before going into the wizard's tower, only to have the wizard kidnap the person he is supposed to protect? Cinema is the answer. If it can flesh out a character or forward the story, and isn't too contrived, then it is probably ok to do.

It is not really the negative viewpoint of Cinema. It is what it is. They have less then two hours to tell a story with a limited budget.

I'm talking more like instead of having Iron Man just fight and kill the bad guy......he calls someone to overload the generator and blow up the bad guy in the blast?!?

Players watch that, then when they play a game...they won't just fight the dragon, they will try a beyond dumb plan like "we look for a big tree to chop down and have it fall and auto kill the dragon".

Anyone can bash cinema and point out its ridiculous flaws, its hyperbolic storytelling, and its over-simplified character choices. But, I choose to look at the glitter on the poorly drawn crayon pictures.

Of course, the average five year old could fix most of them.....

 

[Maxperson]

I don't know if I agree.

"Well, I'm Altherian. I'll just go to the Altherian embassy; I'm not a Big Damn Hero, after all. I should probably get out of the way."
"A rioter blocks your path, and does some fancy karate moves in a threatening manner."
"Well, then I'll go to the Milandiri embassy, as I made friends with people in Milandir in my backstory; maybe I can meet one of them."
"A different rioter blocks your path, and does some fancy judo moves in a threatening manner."
"... Are we in a district with competing martial arts schools?"
"There is a break in the crowd of rioters in only one direction. That is the only direction where you don't see any rioters making threatening martial arts moves."

It's still a railroad, because the "ilusion of choice" ("We're on a street in a city that has a grid of streets and locations we can go.") is not real -- you must go in the direction the module specifies.

Now, as DM, you can totally run something else. "You get to the Altherian embassy. After you arrive, you see the Ambassador striding through the hallways, dispatching people to trouble spots. He approaches your party, 'Hey, we received word that <the necessary NPC> is in trouble. Could you go see if they need help?'" But that's not only not covered in the module, the DM is specifically instructed not to let it happen, and provided with ludicrous tools (an infinite number of maximum-level monks) to enforce it. And doing anything else means you're basically running a different adventure.

That's the Railroad. It's in playstyle. Of course, a module can't actually enforce a playstyle, but many authors try.

There's no illusionism going on there. It's clear that the group has no choice and is being forced down a path, so no illusion of choice is happening.

The illusion of choice would be something instead of the rioter blocking the path, the DM has the players roll for various things until they roll low and then inform them that they got turned around in the chaos. And look! There's the place the DM wanted you to go right in front of you. That makes it appear like the players could have gotten to one of the embassies, but failed due to bad luck. Their chance of success was an illusion.

 

[Maxperson]

The again, I have encountered the idea that all "sandbox" games are actually "railroads" simply because, as nothing is predetermined, the GM is always manipulating the outcome of the narrative to suit their vision.

That's just simply untrue. As the DM, I'm responding to the player's vision, not my own. I have no vision for how things should turn out. I just have the world respond to the things that they do and their vision runs the game.

 

[Scott Christian]

It is not really the negative viewpoint of Cinema. It is what it is. They have less then two hours to tell a story with a limited budget.

I am going to argue against this because two hours in movie time in twenty hours in story-telling time. Think, book to movie. Hundreds of pages can sometimes equal one section or episode.

nly the modern RPG view, where the demand is made that the DM only react to the players. And if the DM does anything else, like say just do something or have something happen at their whim, is wrong.

Again, sorry to disagree, but this is not modern. The reaction to the of the GM to the players has been in existence since I started playing - the early 1980s.

Of course, the average five year old could fix most of them.....

We'll just have to agree to disagree. Because of course, a five-year-old could fix The Hobbit or Harry Potter.

 

[Maxperson]

Some of it will come down to the writing and some GM execution. Not all adventure paths avoid tendencies to railroad and a GM cleaving too close to the script might lean railroad to save it. Though they are not inherently railroads ime.

Right. I have an example that shows why the DM simply having a specific end goal in mind isn't a railroad.

Decades ago a buddy and I had only LARPED Vampire the Masquerade. We hadn't played the sit down version. One of the three Los Angeles game conventions arrived and we decided to enter the pencil and paper Vampire tournament to experience that version of the game.

The premise was that the prince of the city had been killed and we the primogen had to track down and kill the assassin. Whoever of us contributed the most to the goal would become the new prince. They ran the first half of the adventure like 6 or 8 times on Friday and Saturday, and the two groups who did the best at the first half, would play on Sunday and the best group would win the tournament prize.

So this was a linear adventure. Let's say they went from A-Z in their adventure, with Z being the showdown with the big bad at his compound after breaking through his defenses. Day 1 would be A-M, and Day 2 N-Z.

We figured out who did it very early on. This game was set in Las Vegas and the guy who killed the prince owned a casino. We got to the casino just in time to see him walk out of the casino towards a heavily armored limousine. My character was the Tremere primogen and I had maxed out fire magic. The highest level said that I could create fire like a bonfire, so I wasn't sure if that meant strength, size or both. I had the idea to use fire magic to burn the guy alive as he walked to the limo, but I didn't do it because of my uncertainty.

We went through the end of the first session and were in the process of figuring out how to break into the big bad's compound when the session ended. We were told that we got farther than any other group, so we were in the final two for sure.

At that point I asked one of the DM's(there were 3 or 4 handling the two groups playing that night, all in the same large room) if the fire magic could have been condensed into a small area to immolate the guy as he was walking to the limo. He blanched a bit and was like, yeah, you could have. He then said that would have been a breach of the masquerade. My reply to him was that no vampire was seen, and spontaneous combustion was well documented and many people believed in it. I also let him know that my character controlled the city's entire media and I would have had all the stations and papers printing articles about how he spontaneously combusted.

That was when he ran over to the other DMs and they had a huddle. When he got back he was like, "Yeah, that would have worked. The adventure would have been over and a success right then and there."

Despite having the clear end goal of fight the big bad in his lair, I could have ended the game at step D or E and not Z. THAT'S why linear isn't a railroad. My agency was there and I could have completely negated their set up end goal. They could have come back and told me that it should have worked, but they would have stopped it from happening because the other groups who were vying for the prize wouldn't be able to win, in which case that would be DM force stopping me from acting as I should be able to. Then and only then would it become a railroad.

Linear is never inherently a railroad. DM force must be added to it for any kind of railroad to happen. Absent that force, the group could achieve the victory early, find a completely different route to victory, or just say screw it and leave. If they don't have to go to the DM's end goal, no railroad is present.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't quite understand what the definition of "a linear game" is. Because if it is literally linear, from A to B to C etc, no room for deviation or change of the player actions to affect the outcome, I really do not see how it is not a railroad, albeit possibly one the players willingly follow. Or is that the difference? Railroading is defined as the GM using force to prevent the players from deviating from the path, but if on the linear adventure the players never try to deviate from the path then technically such force is not needed?

There can be deviation. The plot is set up in a line, but there are other ways for you to go. You can create your own lines if you think of things the DM didn't(quite common). You can walk away from the line completely. You can push the plot in directions the DM didn't consider. You can completely overrun the plot and create a new one.