D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[kermit4karate]

I'm not sure how this relates to the issue of coercion.

It relates to DM railroading and how the rules allow it.

Exactly.

If @Celebrim would prefer it, think of "railroad" as meaning an on-rail public transit system, such as Chicago's "L" trains.

Passengers do not get a choice about:

• when trains arrive. They appear when they appear.
• where a given train goes. It follows a planned route.
• where they disembark. Stations are fixed places.
• how frequently trains arrive. The number of cars is set.

That is what "railroad" is referring to. This, then, in contrast to driving, biking, or walking, where--up to the limit of safety and legality, which are pre-existing obligations and thus not impinging on any freedoms, assuming the laws are reasonable--the driver/cyclist/pedestrian has full control over all of the above. You decide when to depart, where you go, where you disembark, and how frequently you travel.

That is what railroading communicates. You are on rails. You do not get to go anywhere other than where the train is going. If, by sheer coincidence, you only ever want to go to train stations, then awesome! But it is exceedingly unlikely that ALL you ever want to do is visit (say) London underground stations. It is much more likely that you want to visit places that you can reach from said stations. And, therefore, it's also much more likely that there can be friction because you'd prefer a stop closer to where you want to go.

GMs desiring to have fun and to run a campaign they're interested in running are not railroading solely for those reasons. That, in fact, is one of the biggest benefits of a "session 0"; it helps you tell your players what you want to do, so they can make an informed decision about participating. I, for example, was up-front with my players that I'm not into grimdark $#!+, I think that's the most tedious garbage ever committed to the page--but I do include dark things in the world. It is a bright world threatened by darkness...and heroes can be (part of) what prevents or permits that threat to come true.

First, about railroading, I would say who the heck cares? Why define it if it very rarely rises to the point of being a problem?

This is like the two hundredth post about what railroading is, but there has yet to be a single one that presents a compelling case as to how it's a pervasive problem.

Magic the Gathering is a total railroad. Strict rules the players must follow. Every board game? Strict railroad. Every RPG video game ever made? Railroad, even when they pay lipservice to having an open world.

Is railroading a thing? Yes. Is it bad? No. Are some GMs jerks who shout at their players or lie to them for malicious (not gameplay) reasons? Absolutely. Does that really have anything to do with railroading? No, it has to do with them being jerks.

 

[Celebrim]

What @Celebrim is doing is something like this:

"What it really means "to punch" someone?

So many people just don't want to engage with what I'm saying.

Arguments by analogy are almost always wrong. I used to make them all the time but then I realized I was usually doing this because my thinking about the subject was fuzzy. But it doesn't get any less fuzzy by bringing an analogy in, because all you are doing now is complicating the argument rather than simplifying it. Now in addition to the original argument, we have additionally to argue over whether the analogy is apt and whether you have correctly described the thing you have brought in to be the analogy.

In this case the analogy isn't apt, because a punch is defined as "too much force applied usually with a close fist or other solid striking surface (else it is a slap)" and not as merely touching, yet no one even of my critics has claimed that the definition of railroading was "to use too much GM force to get your way". Everyone has been saying that the definition of railroading was to use GM force to reduce player agency in order to get what they want. If people had from the start the idea that "railroading" was just "using too much GM force to get your way" we'd barely have anything to talk about because then people have to admit that this thing was quantitative and that railroading techniques did reduce player agency but that that was acceptable as long as you didn't do it too much. We'd have completely congruent mental models but just slightly different language. All we'd have to do to get agreement was just map our different terminology to each other's terminology.

Instead the problem is people are holding different mental models of what railroading is.

So why complicate the discussion by veering off into an analogy when you could just address what I actually said?

 

[Celebrim]

Magic the Gathering is a total railroad. Strict rules the players must follow. Every board game? Strict railroad. Every RPG video game ever made? Railroad, even when they pay lipservice to having an open world.

No, so that is mistaking the question here. MtG is definitely moving towards being more 'railroady' but not because it has strict rules. Application of the rules is not what makes something railroady. What makes it railroady is how many meaningful choices do you get to make per turn. So despite how dysfunctional the game is getting with power creep, you still with many decks have meaningful choices as to what to target, whether to attack, whether to block, and so forth. The game becomes a railroad when you can write a very simple expert system to play it - drop a land, play your only available one drop, attack if able, drop a land play your only available two drop, etc. When the game simplifies down to something like that, when it becomes very tic-tac-toe like when every move is forced and you have like two or three meaningful decisions and then only if you go first, then it's a railroad.

But having structure doesn't make it a railroad.

 

[kermit4karate]

So many people just don't want to engage with what I'm saying.

Arguments by analogy are almost always wrong. I used to make them all the time but then I realized I was usually doing this because my thinking about the subject was fuzzy. But it doesn't get any less fuzzy by bringing an analogy in, because all you are doing now is complicating the argument rather than simplifying it. Now in addition to the original argument, we have additionally to argue over whether the analogy is apt and whether you have correctly described the thing you have brought in to be the analogy.

In this case the analogy isn't apt, because a punch is defined as "too much force applied usually with a close fist or other solid striking surface (else it is a slap)" and not as merely touching, yet no one even of my critics has claimed that the definition of railroading was "to use to much GM force to get your way". Everyone has been saying that the definition of railroading was to use GM force to reduce player agency in order to get what they want. If people had from the start the idea that "railroading" was just "using too much GM force to get your way" we'd barely have anything to talk about because then people have to admit that this thing was quantitative and that railroading techniques did reduce player agency but that that was acceptable as long as you didn't do it too much. We'd have completely mental models but just slightly different language. All we'd have to do to get agreement was just map our different terminology to each other's terminology.

Instead the problem is people are holding different mental models of what railroading is.

So why complicate the discussion by veering off into an analogy when you could just address what I actually said?

I would love to engage if you would summarize your premise in a single sentence.

Present a single-sentence premise, and then I'll reply with my single-sentence premise, and we'll be able to far more easily see how close/far apart our positions really are.

I think the wordiness on all sides with these cyclical arguments contributes to lengthening them.

 

[Celebrim]

If @Celebrim would prefer it, think of "railroad" as meaning an on-rail public transit system, such as Chicago's "L" trains.

Yes, pretty much exactly.

And in Celebrim's theory this is railroading via the "Small World" technique where the available choices are actually much smaller than they seem. At some point if the world gets too small, players start noting how confined they are. For example, in the worst case, trains at each station only depart for the next station in the line and all the lines are arrows that point somewhere, and so since you are confined to the rails, eventually you are forced to the station you were supposed to go to. Different groups may take a different path through the small world, but they always are forced eventually to the same point.

How big the small world needs to be and how much meaningful choice it allows is an open question. But the point is that "Small World" is a railroad technique and also that all RPG worlds are actually "Small Worlds" in the sense that they have vastly fewer locations and details in them than in a real world. So my point would be then to be conscious of the "Small World" problem when designing a session/adventure/campaign both in how it can be unfun and how it can be used to increase the fun if used judiciously and sparingly and artfully.

 

[Umbran]

but in the metaphor that represents the terminology, the tracks only go to one location, through one pre-established route, with no deviations or branching paths allowed for the players on the train,

Um... no? Here is a map of the light-rail service in the Boston area, that I ride several times a week.

View attachment 1758555833903.png


Clearly, it doesn't just go to one place. It won't get you absolutely anywhere you choose, door-to-door, no. And your choices for stopping to pick up donuts on the way to work are limited. But, I can use it to go from home, to work, to a restaurant and a movie theater pretty reasonably, without the cost in time and money of bringing a car down into the paved-cowpaths that Boston calls city streets.

This is a modern railroad. One can focus on how it limits the choice of path and destination, or one can focus on how, for getting to where it does go, it is pretty darned efficient.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

So why complicate the discussion by veering off into an analogy when you could just address what I actually said?

It has been addressed. "GM force" is more than the GM just exercising judgement and doing normal GM duties. No one is denying that what the GM does affects the course of the game. Of course it does, like contributions of all participants do. This is not GM force or railroading.

You have made extraordinarily ludicrous claims, such as that if the players wish their character to travel to a destination, the GM skipping some of the travel time so that they can actually get there is railroading. That claim is not only wrong, it is absurdly wrong.

Railroading is blocking player action declarations or their desired effects because they would take the game off the GM's preferred path. This is not happening here.

Your "everything is railroading" stance is extremely counterproductive.

 

[bloodtide]

Absolutely. IMO, RPGs are not now, nor have they ever been, Monopoly or poker. Vastly more complex and multifaceted than that. They're also cooperative and lack a clear "winner." Winning happens when the entire group has a good time, and it's the DM's actual job to facilitate that, concealed behind an opaque DM screen.

Some may disagree, and that's great. No problem. I'm not looking for everyone's approval, especially on this surprisingly controversial subject.

I have always said RPGs are a special, unique type of game.

Is the threat not implicit? The railroading GM, sooner or later, applies the threat of being ejected from the game.

Why would this need to be true?

If a player is disruptive they will get thrown out of the game quick.....but that has nothing to do with the railroad.

Magic the Gathering is a total railroad. Strict rules the players must follow. Every board game? Strict railroad. Every RPG video game ever made? Railroad, even when they pay lipservice to having an open world.

Is railroading a thing? Yes. Is it bad? No. Are some GMs jerks who shout at their players or lie to them for malicious (not gameplay) reasons? Absolutely. Does that really have anything to do with railroading? No, it has to do with them being jerks.

Agreed.

Even in most sandbox total random freedom type game play....at some point...a DM will find themselves taking some sort of game action not 100% approved liked by all the players: so that is a Railroad to most players.

 

[Celebrim]

It has been addressed.

Not by you. You've repeatedly failed to address any of the substance of the post you are supposedly responding to.

You have made extraordinarily ludicrous claims, such as that if the players wish their character to travel to a destination, the GM skipping some of the travel time so that they can actually get there is railroading. That claim is not only wrong, it is absurdly wrong.

Ok let's jump back and I'll repeat myself.

Railroading is blocking player action declarations or their desired effects because they would take the game off the GM's preferred path.

Mostly agreed. "Blocking" is a very general term here and I don't want it understood as only "saying "no"". A GM can railroad for example by making all the choices he prefers easy and all the choices he doesn't prefer hard or boring. For example, "Yes, but nothing happens" is a great way to railroad. If the GM says "Yes" to everything, but only those things he thinks are good for the game have meaningful consequences and in particular "open doors" or "find breadcrumbs" or "reveal hooks" to further play, then the GM has railroaded just as effective as if they said "no" to everything that they didn't want to have happen. Reward what you like and don't reward what you don't like. We agree that is railroading - "blocking" in the most general sense of the term.

Your "everything is railroading" stance is extremely counterproductive.

I didn't say everything is railroading. I said all hand waves (of which time skips are the one most under discussion) are railroading techniques.

To understand why I would say a counter-intuitive thing like that about a common RPG technique you have to dig into the weeds a bit. Hand waves or time skips are processes of play where you don't play out the scene according to the normal procedures of play, you just use GM fiat to declare that something has happened and we are now in the state in the fiction, usually one significantly removed from the current state in time or space. Time skips in particular are hand waves of this sort by definition moving the fictional state forward in time by a considerable degree with "nothing happening" that is meaningful in the meantime.

Now everything here depends on having a traditional GM with traditional GM authority. That is to say that "railroading" can only happen when there is tension between the secret keepers agency and the player's agency. And my assumption is that all participants have conscious and subconscious desires for how things play out, if only because they want to enjoy the session (or ideally want the other participants to enjoy the session).

So GMs are always biased regarding player decisions. Being secret keepers they have some notions about how well some course of action is likely to work out, some bias about how much fun it will be (for themselves and the group), and some stake in an a proposed action because of how much stress or effort it is on their part to respond to it (by inventing things, making judgment calls, etc.)

Now the players purpose that they want to go from A -> B (a desirable location that will advance the fun) or from A -> C (a location I feel poorly about because I don't think it will be fun), and now the GM has two choices about how to play this out. They can time skip it or they can play it out according to the usual rules that would govern travel, describing the events in greater detail and granularity and maybe having meaningful encounters on the way.

If the desirability of the location determines whether you choose to time skip or not even subconsciously, then we have a situation that is in fact we both agree was railroading: "blocking player action declarations or their desired effects because they would take the game off the GM's preferred path". "I don't want to play this out" or "I do want to play this out" is a very powerful tool. You can railroad either by "Ok, fine, you make it to Canterbury in three days. There is nothing to do here. It's an empty room." (minimizing the time the players waste on this "wrong" action). Or you can railroad by, "You go another mile down the road and you are attacked by another patrol of the draconian army. This one looks even stronger than before. Roll for initiative." Of course, in practice the force used here is going to be less obvious but it's there none the less even when not exaggerated for subtly. Likewise, time skips are often GM initiated. The GM proposes to the players, "Hey, do you want to skip over this?" like a pusher offering a free sample. Don't try to tell me that when a GM proposes a time skip isn't influenced by his feelings about the course of action. IF the process of play is influenced by GM desires to get what he wants, then we have railroading behavior - by your own definition.

And can occur when you don't intend it. For example, my players know to a certain extent that they are on "the right path" when they can tell I'm reading from my notes and not merely extemporizing. They can't always tell that, because I often paraphrase notes, and I can improvise pretty well, but they can tell fairly often. Am I subconsciously (and sometimes consciously!) more eager to offer time skips when I think the result gets the story and the action back on track? Probably or certainly so.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Mostly agreed. "Blocking" is a very general term here and I don't want it understood as only "saying "no"". A GM can railroad for example by making all the choices he prefers easy and all the choices he doesn't prefer hard or boring. For example, "Yes, but nothing happens" is a great way to railroad. If the GM says "Yes" to everything, but only those things he thinks are good for the game have meaningful consequences and in particular "open doors" or "find breadcrumbs" or "reveal hooks" to further play, then the GM has railroaded just as effective as if they said "no" to everything that they didn't want to have happen. Reward what you like and don't reward what you don't like. We agree that is railroading - "blocking" in the most general sense of the term.

Sure.

I didn't say everything is railroading.

But only because you do not apply your own logic coherently. It lead so that.

So GMs are always biased regarding player decisions. Being secret keepers they have some notions about how well some course of action is likely to work out, some bias about how much fun it will be (for themselves and the group), and some stake in an a proposed action because of how much stress or effort it is on their part to respond to it (by inventing things, making judgment calls, etc.)

And in a game like D&D, the GM makes judgement and decisions that affect the content of the game and how the players perceive said content all the time. Like literally apart purely mechanical things that could be automated that is what GMing is! And your logic about time skips apply to all of this, ergo, everything is railroading.

Now the players purpose that they want to go from A -> B (a desirable location that will advance the fun) or from A -> C (a location I feel poorly about because I don't think it will be fun), and now the GM has two choices about how to play this out. They can time skip it or they can play it out according to the usual rules that would govern travel, describing the events in greater detail and granularity and maybe having meaningful encounters on the way.

If the desirability of the location determines whether you choose to time skip or not even subconsciously, then we have a situation that is in fact we both agree was railroading: "blocking player action declarations or their desired effects because they would take the game off the GM's preferred path". "I don't want to play this out" or "I do want to play this out" is a very powerful tool. You can railroad either by "Ok, fine, you make it to Canterbury in three days. There is nothing to do here. It's an empty room." (minimizing the time the players waste on this "wrong" action). Or you can railroad by, "You go another mile down the road and you are attacked by another patrol of the draconian army. This one looks even stronger than before. Roll for initiative." Of course, in practice the force used here is going to be less obvious but it's there none the less even when not exaggerated for subtly. Likewise, time skips are often GM initiated. The GM proposes to the players, "Hey, do you want to skip over this?" like a pusher offering a free sample. Don't try to tell me that when a GM proposes a time skip isn't influenced by his feelings about the course of action. IF the process of play is influenced by GM desires to get what he wants, then we have railroading behavior - by your own definition.

But again, this is not about time skips existing. Like this example shows, the GM can block by not timeskipping! And again, the railroading is by very intentionally and obviously blocking, which can be done in many different ways. It still does not follow that your ludicrous claim about all time skips being railroading is even remotely true, any more than all forms of GM narration or obstacle setting being railroading just because they could be used to block.