D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[kermit4karate]

I don't agree with that. Illusionism isn't perfect and when players find out, quite often they are upset about it. I much prefer to let the players have fun without forcing them overtly or covertly down paths.

Never had them ever discover something that consequently upset them, but I hear you. My games have always been kinda railroady, but I think it works for me whatever I'm doing. I definitely don't think of my sessions as open world. I always put some prep -- not much but some -- into the games, like simple area maps with keyed encounters and whatnot, and I can roleplay better when I get the players into the funnel I've created.

 

[kermit4karate]

I still say this thread is very confusing. For starters, I think I define "railroading" in RPG'ing differently than some here.

Using my "DM magic" to coax and nudge the players back into the funnel I've planned and prepared for sounds like railroading, but I think it's a good thing for me. I'm a DM, not a hyperconverged grid with 1k processors. My brain can't maintain an open world so I don't try to.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I still say this thread is very confusing. For starters, I think I define "railroading" in RPG'ing differently than some here.

Using my "DM magic" to coax and nudge the players back into the funnel I've planned and prepared for sounds like railroading, but I think it's a good thing for me. I'm a DM, not a hyperconverged grid with 1k processors. My brain can't maintain an open world so I don't try to.

I don't think all railroading is bad, and subtle railroading might even be beneficial. It really is a matter of taste. If the players are happy, then you're doing fine.

 

[Celebrim]

No, this is just a complete non sequitur. If players choose that their characters go to a certain destination, then skipping some of the travel time so that they can actually get there in reasonable amount of game time is not any sort of railroading.

Quite often as a GM "the plot" as it were depends on the players getting to certain destinations. It's very much in the interest of "the plot" and the GM (if he has in mind what he wants to have happen next) to convey players to some destination with as few side treks and diversions as possible.

Hell, insisting that you play all of the two weeks of travel in real time would be railroading, as it would make the players achieving their goal so insanely tedious that they would surely give up and choose to do something within ten minutes walk of their current location instead. (Though realistically the players would just leave the game as this would be utterly terrible GMing.)

Oh you are so close to seeing it.

What if I as GM always time skipped to where I wanted the players to be but always played out in tedious and dangerous and unprofitable detail any travel to anywhere I didn't want them to be. This would be combining to different railroading techniques- hand waves and obdurium walls. Now, I'm not saying that this is good GMing, but it is a classic way to railroad while never saying "No" to the players.

Do you see how time skipping or hand waving away details that you'd normally deal with can be used to railroad players now?

And remember, if you are good at railroading players are choosing to go to a certain destination because you've dropped tons of rumors and hints and so forth into the scenario that steers players towards thinking, "That's where we are supposed to go." or "That's where we want to go." And so if they choose to go where you want them to go, then you make sure they get there as expediently as possible. "The road to Monomonomp proves to be safe and well maintained. After three days of fair weather you arrive at your destination."

 

[kermit4karate]

Quite often as a GM "the plot" as it were depends on the players getting to certain destinations. It's very much in the interest of "the plot" and the GM (if he has in mind what he wants to have happen next) to convey players to some destination with as few side treks and diversions as possible.



Oh you are so close to seeing it.

What if I as GM always time skipped to where I wanted the players to be but always played out in tedious and dangerous and unprofitable detail any travel to anywhere I didn't want them to be. This would be combining to different railroading techniques- hand waves and obdurium walls. Now, I'm not saying that this is good GMing, but it is a classic way to railroad while never saying "No" to the players.

Do you see how time skipping or hand waving away details that you'd normally deal with can be used to railroad players now?

And remember, if you are good at railroading players are choosing to go to a certain destination because you've dropped tons of rumors and hints and so forth into the scenario that steers players towards thinking, "That's where we are supposed to go." or "That's where we want to go." And so if they choose to go where you want them to go, then you make sure they get there as expediently as possible. "The road to Monomonomp proves to be safe and well maintained. After three days of fair weather you arrive at your destination."

Can I reframe this as...bad railroading is saying "No!" to your players and ticking them off, and good railroading is when they have no idea they're actually being railroaded and consequently have a great time? That's how I look at it.

 

[Celebrim]

I still say this thread is very confusing. For starters, I think I define "railroading" in RPG'ing differently than some here.

I don't think you do. I think you react to it on an emotional level differently than some here. You aren't feeling insulted or feeling insecurity about the idea that you might railroad your players. That is to say, you are at peace with the idea that as a practical matter you can't run a game without a certain amount of railroading, and indeed in your case you're perfectly content to consciously railroad the players because you know that you can't actually prepare as much content as exists in the imagined world. The imagined world is always in reality more barren than is implied. Since you are only human you can't detail all of it or detail all of it to a level that would be interesting. So you have to use railroading techniques to steer players toward "the fun". And you seem to be fine with that.

To understand the thread you have to understand the history of this argument about "railroading", the horrible GMing experiences that some people have had with GMs that overuse these techniques to narrate a story to the players as passive recipients of the story, and the great pride that many GMs have (rightly perhaps to some extent) at figuring out better more effective GMing techniques that ensure the players have a good time and not just the GM.

 

[Celebrim]

Can I reframe this as...bad railroading is saying "No!" to your players and ticking them off, and good railroading is when they have no idea they're actually being railroaded and consequently have a great time? That's how I look at it.

Well, not entirely. I am personally not a fan of illusionism, because it's fragile. If the way you tell an RPG narrative depends on the players being tricked, then it's very likely at some point they will become disillusioned in both senses of the word and then they won't have a good time.

But I will agree with your reframing to the extent that good GMs do use railroading techniques artfully to achieve certain results knowing that a true naturalistic open world is not only probably impossible but might even be undesirable because realistically - as anyone who has lived a real life knows - "the fun" in the sense of dramatic stories worth retelling isn't always everywhere all the time. Much of life is repetition and drudgery and RPGs unrealistically skip over this.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Quite often as a GM "the plot" as it were depends on the players getting to certain destinations. It's very much in the interest of "the plot" and the GM (if he has in mind what he wants to have happen next) to convey players to some destination with as few side treks and diversions as possible.

But player introduced goals also often depend on getting to certain destinations. So how it can be railroading to time skip in order to make this possible?

Oh you are so close to seeing it.

What if I as GM always time skipped to where I wanted the players to be but always played out in tedious and dangerous and unprofitable detail any travel to anywhere I didn't want them to be. This would be combining to different railroading techniques- hand waves and obdurium walls. Now, I'm not saying that this is good GMing, but it is a classic way to railroad while never saying "No" to the players.

Do you see how time skipping or hand waving away details that you'd normally deal with can be used to railroad players now?

And remember, if you are good at railroading players are choosing to go to a certain destination because you've dropped tons of rumors and hints and so forth into the scenario that steers players towards thinking, "That's where we are supposed to go." or "That's where we want to go." And so if they choose to go where you want them to go, then you make sure they get there as expediently as possible. "The road to Monomonomp proves to be safe and well maintained. After three days of fair weather you arrive at your destination."

Here the railroading is done by inconsistent handling of time depending on what the GM wants to encourage or discourage. It is not time skip, which is literally necessity for any sort of functioning game, that is the railroading, it is the GM privileging certain goals and stalling to block others. So the claim that time skip is always railroading is still absolute balderdash.

 

[kermit4karate]

I don't think you do. I think you react to it on an emotional level differently than some here. You aren't feeling insulted or feeling insecurity about the idea that you might railroad your players. That is to say, you are at peace with the idea that as a practical matter you can't a game without a certain amount of railroading, and indeed in your case you're perfectly content to consciously railroad the players because you know that you can't actually prepare as much content as exists in the imagined world. The imagined world is always in reality more barren than is implied. Since you are only human you can't detail all of it or detail all of it to a level that would be interesting. So you have to use railroading techniques to steer players toward "the fun". And you seem to be fine with that.

To understand the thread you have to understand the history of this argument about "railroading", the horrible GMing experiences that some people have had with GMs that overuse these techniques to narrate a story to the players as passive recipients of the story, and the great pride that many GMs have (rightly perhaps to some extent) at figuring out better more effective GMing techniques that ensure the players have a good time and not just the GM.

Holy crap! Did I just read a lengthy reply
to something I posted on enworld that included an affirmative declaration of mine and come away feeling better??

This is almost unprecedented, but I think I did! Thank you, good sir or madaam, for the pleasant exchange.

 

[Celebrim]

But player introduced goals also often depend on getting to certain destinations. So how it can be railroading to time skip in order to make this possible?

So my argument depends on the idea that even the most conscientious GM isn't going to be always alert to their bias or alert to their own metagaming because perfect ability to be unbiased in your judgment just isn't a human thing. You can't always be fair which is why we defer decisions to a balanced dice or other randomization method and try or best to adhere to consistent judgments that don't depend on the circumstances.

So knowing that my assumption here is that there an unconscious bias to accept or more importantly encourage time skips when you as the GM don't want to play something out, and equally there is an unconscious bias to reject and more importantly discourage time skips when you as a GM do want to play something out. And by "playing something out" I mean, add difficulty to the journey or make sure certain events happen.

So in the case of a player introduced goal I'm still making a judgment (consciously or unconsciously) about what I want to happen by how I deal with the time and the journey. And therefore:

Here the railroading is done by inconsistent handling of time depending on what the GM wants to encourage or discourage.

There you are. There. You are right on top of it. If we admit that the GM themselves is biased (perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not) then any inconsistent handling of time invariably involves what the GM wants to encourage or discourage. The only way we could avoid this is by always handling time consistently (in some fashion, even if we had complex rules around how we handle time). Whenever we do the time skip or hand wave away the details where ultimately the GM is the authority as to whether to accept, reject, or modify the handwave, we are invariably introducing GM bias into the game.

which is literally necessity for any sort of functioning game

I don't disagree.

it is the GM privileging certain goals and stalling to block others.

Which you are always doing if you are handling time inconsistently. I mean I suppose we could always time skip, but in a game that alway cut/banged to the next scene, my expectation would be, "All aboard the choo choo" is how you were expected to play.