D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[kermit4karate]

For the post you don't understand? The premise is pretty simple, and it's in the post.

"If the players end up where I wanted them to be the fact that theoretically they had some other choice is irrelevant...One doesn't need to use total force to steer the players where you want them to be. You just have to put your thumb on the wheel."

The rest is an essay in a roughly Ciceronian manner. I tell you what I am going to set out to prove. Then I provide supporting arguments. And then I conclude by telling you what I said.

I could probably arrange everything into five paragraphs or so if that would help. What part of the premise do I need to clarify?

Your first paragraph is clear to me, and I agree with it. I do the same thing.

I'm also assuming that your players like to play with you? You aren't tying them to bedposts or otherwise forcing them to play against their will?

If they're onboard with the game, then that's also how I look at it.

If I were you, I'd leave it at that. Never mind the term "railroading" because that's just a word, and people clearly see the word differently. No further explanation is necessary to get your point across, IMO, but really, nor is it helpful.

 

[Celebrim]

I guess we will just have to disagree. I ve always interpreted railroading as the tracks only go one way that can be coercive or no Coercive. Willing or unwilling. Else you say or I say is going to move this needle so I'm done.

One of the many problems with @EzekielRaiden 's definition being dependent on "consent" is it makes it very hard to communicate to someone else your particular style of GMing. Because if someone tells me that when he runs the game he's always careful to ensure he has player buy in, I might not immediately realize that he means that he runs a game that is on rails. And in fact, maybe he doesn't run a game that is on rails. But if he tells me that he runs a game that is narrative focused and relies heavily on the GM in director stance, well then I'm going to immediately assume player agency isn't an important part of his aesthetics of play. So which sentence has more to do with what is really core to a game being a railroad?

The inflexibly linear part seems to me pretty darn sufficient on its own to convey the idea, regardless of whether or not people at his table are agreeing to All Aboard the Choo Choo.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I don't understand half of what you said, and before you say something about my capacity for understanding, I architect multibillion-dollar enterprise networks for a living. If the information were clearly presented, I swear to you, I would understand it.

I know I've suggested it already, but if you truly hope to be heard and understood, if not agreed with, please try to summarize your premise in a sentence or two.

It is pretty common here. People try to obfuscate the weakness of their argument by overtly verbose and complex expression of it.
Coherent ideas can usually be expressed relatively concisely.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That the characters end up where the GM "wanted" them is no indication that any railroading happened. A good GM playing with people they know, taking account the interests of the players and beliefs and goals of the characters can probably predict far better than mere random chance would suggest where the characters end up. This is not railroading, this is tailoring the content to the players and the characters in order to keep the narrative focused on the characters and content interesting to the players. Like if you have player that likes exploring mysteries and their character has goal to learn about arcane, it is not railroading to put an arcane mystery in the game even though the GM can with high certainty predict that the character will end up exploring that mystery.

This is the sort of thing I do all the time. What I do not plan is how the mystery is solved. That is for the players to figure out.

 

[Celebrim]

Your first paragraph is clear to me, and I agree with it. I do the same thing.

As a software developer, I feel compelled to ask you, what first paragraph do you mean by that? Also what thing is it that you do?

I'm also assuming that your players like to play with you?

I believe so. We've been doing it for like 14 years.

You aren't tying them to bedposts or otherwise forcing them to play against their will?

Seems like a strange question to me.

If they're onboard with the game, then that's also how I look at it.

Whether or not someone is "onboard with the game" is pretty irrelevant to me. A player can enjoy the game because they've never known an alternative and they just think "this is the way it is". A player can show up to a game that they usually don't enjoy because this is their most important social outlet and most important friend group and they don't want to exclude themselves from that. Whether we have consent is both hardly even useful to know and also such a low bar that it tells us nothing that we exceeded it. People watch bad movies because they are bored with full consent yet that doesn't mean we should make bad movies or that they enjoyed the experience particularly. If our goal is to be entertaining and to succeed at our art and maximize the fun, there is so much more going on than "consent" that it's hardly even a useful paradigm to consider. Ok, yeah, let's have consent, but that's a terribly low bar.

If I were you, I'd leave it at that.

Well, you aren't me.

Never mind the term "railroading" because that's just a word, and people clearly see the word differently. No further explanation is necessary to get your point across, IMO, but really, nor is it helpful.

There are two important things to realize about the dialogue I am trying to have. First, just because I'm talking about how to railroad players doesn't mean that I think it's a particular good idea to do so. And secondly, unlike the claims of posters who keep going, "But that can't be right because I do that!", I am actually exploring the "common sense" definition of the term "railroading" that we all at some level agree on and trying to put my finger on what that means, why it describes a real problem, and what if anything we are to learn from it. I don't actually have a private definition except to the extent that I also offer an Aristotelean definition to go along with the conventional Socratic one, and I don't really care about the word but I do care about the idea behind the word - what the word points to. And yes, I could replace the word with some other word of my own devising while keeping the definition, but first "why?", and secondly that would just end up being recognized as a euphemism for "railroading" and we'd be back in the same position.

 

[kermit4karate]

As a software developer, I feel compelled to ask you, what first paragraph do you mean by that? Also what thing is it that you do?



I believe so. We've been doing it for like 14 years.



Seems like a strange question to me.



Whether or not someone is "onboard with the game" is pretty irrelevant to me. A player can enjoy the game because they've never known an alternative and they just think "this is the way it is". A player can show up to a game that they usually don't enjoy because this is their most important social outlet and most important friend group and they don't want to exclude themselves from that. Whether we have consent is both hardly even useful to know and also such a low bar that it tells us nothing that we exceeded it. People watch bad movies because they are bored with full consent yet that doesn't mean we should make bad movies or that they enjoyed the experience particularly. If our goal is to be entertaining and to succeed at our art and maximize the fun, there is so much more going on than "consent" that it's hardly even a useful paradigm to consider. Ok, yeah, let's have consent, but that's a terribly low bar.



Well, you aren't me.



There are two important things to realize about the dialogue I am trying to have. First, just because I'm talking about how to railroad players doesn't mean that I think it's a particular good idea to do so. And secondly, unlike the claims of posters who keep going, "But that can't be right because I do that!", I am actually exploring the "common sense" definition of the term "railroading" that we all at some level agree on and trying to put my finger on what that means, why it describes a real problem, and what if anything we are to learn from it. I don't actually have a private definition except to the extent that I also offer an Aristotelean definition to go along with the conventional Socratic one, and I don't really care about the word but I do care about the idea behind the word - what the word points to. And yes, I could replace the word with some other word of my own devising while keeping the definition, but first "why?", and secondly that would just end up being recognized as a euphemism for "railroading" and we'd be back in the same position.

What do you hope to achieve by this comment?

Because I was trying to meet you in the middle and reach some kind of understanding with my last comment.

 

[CreamCloud0]

linear means A then B then C. Sounds a lot like the old railroad track.

the difference being that railroading forces you to stick to the tracks the GM plans out, they WILL go from A to B to C, whether they want to or not, barring leaving the game entirely.

you might also go from A to B to C in a linear adventure but if the players so desires they can get off at any time and head for any other point they desire.

 

[Celebrim]

What do you hope to achieve by this comment?

Because I was trying to meet you in the middle and reach some kind of understanding with my last comment.

What do you hope to achieve by this comment? It doesn't seem to pertain to anything I wrote.

There is a wonderful scene in "The Golden Oecumene" where one character is trying to say "Hello" to another character via the internet, and sends a software agent to deliver the message and the software agent says, "Would you like to download 200 files pertaining to memories of the person I represent has about you, past communications between the two of you, bits of poetry to provide emotional context for how he feels about you and his current emotional state before I read the message?" And I feel so seen in that scene, and yet when you prepend to your prior message, "Because I was trying to meet you in the middle and reach some kind of understanding with my last comment." I am afraid it doesn't help me understand your meaning at all.

But I will try to answer your query seriously by providing transparently as I can some of the context for my statements, both on the superficial and the deeper level.

So, returning to my statement:

As a software developer, I feel compelled to ask you, what first paragraph do you mean by that? Also what thing is it that you do?

By this I meant I didn't understand your sentence: "Your first paragraph is clear to me, and I agree with it. I do the same thing." The first paragraph of the post you quoted was: "For the post you don't understand? The premise is pretty simple, and it's in the post." It didn't seem to me that your comment could be about that statement, so I didn't (and don't) know what it pertained to. Likewise, I couldn't figure out what you were doing that was the same as me. At a deeper level I was frustrated by your brevity because you had chastised me about being too verbose, but here you had pronouns and referents that were basically null pointers I couldn't dereference. I was hoping you would see how confusing your bare statement was and maybe have a chuckle about it.

"I believe so. We've been doing it for like 14 years."

I said this in order to answer in the affirmative and provide supporting evidence for my belief that my players enjoy playing with me. It seems unreasonable given that I have no leverage over them to think that they'd keep playing for 14 years and they didn't enjoy it.

"Seems like a strange question to me."

I said this because I was beginning to sense hostility in your comments, starting with the one prior to this one. I don't understand why you would imply there is any chance I am forcing people to play with me against their will. That you later contextualize this as "meeting me in the middle and reach some kind of understanding" seems to suggest that I'm not wrong. I don't know. Your thought is opaque to me.

"Whether or not someone is "onboard with the game" is pretty irrelevant to me...."

I should preface the next section by saying that I honestly have no idea what you mean by "If they're onboard with the game, then that's also how I look at it." Once again we have a pronoun "that" which I have no idea what it references. Your thought here is concealed and vague to me. But, it seems to pertain to the idea that if people are having fun, then there isn't a problem. And to a great extent I agree. It's a game. It's a leisure activity. If everyone involved is having fun, then great. But "everyone having fun" doesn't really pertain to whether or not something is a railroad. It can be a railroad and everyone can have fun. I refer to this as "Everybody On Board the Choo Choo". If the style of play is a railroad, people can still enjoy it. So I'm trying to explain why I don't think everyone being on board is really relevant to judging whether it is fun, and in particular why I don't really think everyone consenting to the railroad makes it less of a railroad.

"Well, you aren't me."

I said this because by this point you'd gotten down right insulting. As a general rule, unasked for advice doesn't get more gentle by starting with "If I were you..." because contextualizes the advice as a warning and makes it seem less friendly rather than more friendly. But also once again we have another pronoun "that" which I can't tell what it actually refers to. Leave it at what? You've got a whole series of statements where you know what you are thinking about but you haven't actually written it down clearly.

"There are two important things to realize about the dialogue I am trying to have..."

Here I wanted to correct two possible misunderstandings it seemed you might be having. A number of posters have made the main thrust of the criticism of my argument that I was trying to justify railroading and that my table must be one characterized by a large amount of railroading. Another frequent criticism is that I have some private definition of railroading that really not how it might be understood by most people. Both of these statements are false. And I felt I needed to address it because you were saying things like: "people clearly see the word differently." and I'm not sure that they do. I think the disagreement tends to be more on practice and application than what the word really means. Yes, there are posters that are trying through various means to get to a qualitative meaning for the word rather than a quantitative one, either through "consent" or "outcome" being binary, but I think the underlying disagreement there isn't so much over what the term means but over practice. That is "consent" seems at first glance to give you a really nice sharp line for when the quantity of railroading is "too much" and so you can then say "objectively this is railroading and its bad". Similar arguments apply to the use of "outcome". But I don't think we actually disagree much over what the word means.

And as for your suggestion that I not use the word "railroad", well, I don't think that's very practical. At best it would be a case of Euphemism Treadmill. And that's why I said "that would just end up being recognized as a euphemism for "railroading" and we'd be back in the same position."

Clear?

 

[Celebrim]

you might also go from A to B to C in a linear adventure but if the players so desires they can get off at any time and head for any other point they desire.

I don't think we can in general say that.

"Tomb of Horrors" is a very linear adventure for the most part. With a few exceptions in the early part of the adventure you go from A->B->C. There are technically a couple of ways to go from A->B but it's pretty linear.

But I think it would be a mistake to think that if we are playing "Tomb of Horrors" that a player can "get off at any time and head for any other point they desire." If we have met to play "Tomb of Horrors" then that is what we are doing, and "get off at any time" is functionally an agreement to stop playing. There isn't necessarily anything available for that session if you decide you don't want to do the tomb anymore, however sympathetic we might be to that decision. Likewise, if this isn't a group decision, where everyone is on board the idea of heading for some other point, then an individual player is really signaling only that they intend to sit out a few sessions until everyone else is finished with the tomb. "It's not a railroad if the player can just leave" doesn't I think deal with the reality of what a railroad is or the social contract and the need to consider the game in the larger context of a friendship.

In short, I don't think you are meaningfully distinguishing between a linear adventure and a railroad with your criteria.

I think you have to take seriously what I said earlier about having meaningful choices. Your agency as a player in Tomb of Horrors is, "Can I play in such a way that I don't die?" And is solving that problem of not dying interesting enough to justify playing the scenario? And that's subjective. Because some people look at the Tomb and go, "I'm railroaded into my death!" and some people look at it and go, "That's one of the coolest fairest most interesting sorts of puzzle I've seen in D&D!"

I don't think ToH is a railroad despite being highly linear because you do have important agency as a player. Now it does lightly use some railroading techniques in a few places with a lot of "ONLY THIS WORKS!" written into it, but I put that down to trying to convey how it should be ran in a tournament type scenario where everyone's rulings should be on the same page, and not to attempts to squash agency.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I don't think we can in general say that.

"Tomb of Horrors" is a very linear adventure for the most part. With a few exceptions in the early part of the adventure you go from A->B->C. There are technically a couple of ways to go from A->B but it's pretty linear.

But I think it would be a mistake to think that if we are playing "Tomb of Horrors" that a player can "get off at any time and head for any other point they desire." If we have met to play "Tomb of Horrors" then that is what we are doing, and "get off at any time" is functionally an agreement to stop playing. There isn't necessarily anything available for that session if you decide you don't want to do the tomb anymore, however sympathetic we might be to that decision. Likewise, if this isn't a group decision, where everyone is on board the idea of heading for some other point, then an individual player is really signaling only that they intend to sit out a few sessions until everyone else is finished with the tomb. "It's not a railroad if the player can just leave" doesn't I think deal with the reality of what a railroad is or the social contract and the need to consider the game in the larger context of a friendship.

In short, I don't think you are meaningfully distinguishing between a linear adventure and a railroad with your criteria.

I think you have to take seriously what I said earlier about having meaningful choices. Your agency as a player in Tomb of Horrors is, "Can I play in such a way that I don't die?" And is solving that problem of not dying interesting enough to justify playing the scenario? And that's subjective. Because some people look at the Tomb and go, "I'm railroaded into my death!" and some people look at it and go, "That's one of the coolest fairest most interesting sorts of puzzle I've seen in D&D!"

I don't think ToH is a railroad despite being highly linear because you do have important agency as a player. Now it does lightly use some railroading techniques in a few places with a lot of "ONLY THIS WORKS!" written into it, but I put that down to trying to convey how it should be ran in a tournament type scenario where everyone's rulings should be on the same page, and not to attempts to squash agency.

no, the players CAN just leave the tomb, there should be a world outside that singular dungeon, and at any point if that is what they should choose to do then they should be able to retrace their steps and go out, even if it causes hell for the GM and forces them say 'if you're really making this decision you're going to have to let me end the session here tonight so i can go plan things to be outside the dungeon', the GM doesn't have the dungeon seal the entrance after they walk in and the only way out is forwards to complete the thing because that's what railroading would be in that situation.

the ability to leave a linear adventure is a significant part of what defines it as a different thing from a railroad.