D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[NN]

Mince

 

[AnotherGuy]

Our current experience reflects the campaign to be sandbox, but the Adventure Paths that are merged within the campaign, which has other player-driven story tangents as well, follow a predominant linear design, but not entirely as it depends on the AP.

Are there incidents of railroad, for sure, I can think of a specific series of railroad situations that I engineered because of an idea I quite liked online which had fleshed out more of the AP for play.
In SKT the party is meant to go to one giant leader, obtain the teleportation conch and travel to the Storm King's palace.
That leaves massive sections of the AP unexplored with beautiful content material (setting, personalities, relationships, locales etc) wasted. The idea I found online assisted through the various NPCs and certain character declarations to ensure the PCs visit more than 1 of these giant leaders in an effort to travel to the Storm King's palace.
I have subsequently told the players of what I did, but they did not mind - they enjoyed the storylines that arose, the in-game forces felt natural to them, their PCs benefited in the overall story for investigating these other locations and as an aside they have a lot of freedom within the campaign itself.
I think with this incident, it is difficult for me to claim that all railroading is bad.

As PCs increase in level, mechanically the game provides them greater control of the story which can emerge.

 

[Scott Christian]

But if you ask some of the players in the first group to play in the second game (or vice-versa)... the games will have a much harder time working out effectively for everyone involved. More often than not, someone is going to be annoyed by how things are run and how things progress. And even a DM that splits the difference between these two game styles and has facets of both in their game will still find the game having issues unless the players are also ones who want to see that split in difference. Even a 50-50 game will stumble if half the players are ones who are 100% preferring railroads and the other half 100% want sandboxes. It just means that half the players will be annoyed 50% of the time.

I think this is an oversimplification of players. I have known many, me included, that can shift and bend with the game and GM, and still have a great time and be completely satisfied.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Our current experience reflects the campaign to be sandbox, but the Adventure Paths that are merged within the campaign, which has other player-driven story tangents as well, follow a predominant linear design, but not entirely as it depends on the AP.

Are there incidents of railroad, for sure, I can think of a specific series of railroad situations that I engineered because of an idea I quite liked online which had fleshed out more of the AP for play.
In SKT the party is meant to go to one giant leader, obtain the teleportation conch and travel to the Storm King's palace.
That leaves massive sections of the AP unexplored with beautiful content material (setting, personalities, relationships, locales etc) wasted. The idea I found online assisted through the various NPCs and certain character declarations to ensure the PCs visit more than 1 of these giant leaders in an effort to travel to the Storm King's palace.
I have subsequently told the players of what I did, but they did not mind - they enjoyed the storylines that arose, the in-game forces felt natural to them, their PCs benefited in the overall story for investigating these other locations and as an aside they have a lot of freedom within the campaign itself.
I think with this incident, it is difficult for me to claim that all railroading is bad.

As PCs increase in level, mechanically the game provides them greater control of the story which can emerge.

I'm not entirely sure what you changed here.

Did you...give them a reason to want to talk to these other people and see these other things? I don't really see how that's railroading. Similarly, if it is merely a matter of "I took an adventure where you only need to do one of A, B, C, D, E, or F, and made it so they had to do most of A, B, C, D, E, and F before they could proceed", I'm not really sure that's railroading either.

That's not "taking away choice", other than in an extremely tenuous and meta sense of "what they theoretically could have done, if the adventure were written differently".

 

[pemerton]

I think with this incident, it is difficult for me to claim that all railroading is bad.

Good post, sensible conclusion.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I think this is an oversimplification of players. I have known many, me included, that can shift and bend with the game and GM, and still have a great time and be completely satisfied.

I only was suggesting subsets of players that are 100% in either direction, not that all players were that way.

 

[Scott Christian]

I only was suggesting subsets of players that are 100% in either direction, not that all players were that way.

Ahh.. Ok. Sorry, the way I read it, especially with your 50/50 example, seemed to indicate everyone had to be on the same page from the get-go. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Krachek]

Imagine a game where players decision can make them switch DM!

 

[AnotherGuy]

I'm not entirely sure what you changed here.

Did you...give them a reason to want to talk to these other people and see these other things? I don't really see how that's railroading. Similarly, if it is merely a matter of "I took an adventure where you only need to do one of A, B, C, D, E, or F, and made it so they had to do most of A, B, C, D, E, and F before they could proceed", I'm not really sure that's railroading either.

That's not "taking away choice", other than in an extremely tenuous and meta sense of "what they theoretically could have done, if the adventure were written differently".

So, I'm not sure how familiar you are with the AP but essentially each giant lord had a conch which the PCs needed only one of to proceed.

They visited the obese hill giant chieftain who was trying to climb the giant hierarchy by consuming as much food as she could believing if she could increase her size she would be elevated in status when the giant deity returned. The PCs did some major damage to the area likely with a spell, cannot recall exactly what, but this was the killing shot which I narrated that the floor structure gave way due to her spell and the giant's fall, dropping the chieftain to the floor below thus crushing the conch they were looking for which was hidden within the folds of her flesh.
I ruled they could repair the conch, but the magic had been unravelled from the item.

With the stone giant thane, she was being influenced by a powerful entity and was behaving in ways that turned some of her own away. In any event she was unagreeable seeking to elevate her status in her own way. When the party made their way to her she asked them as to their purpose, and one of the talkative party members offered it truthfully, while some of the other players at the table groaned realising the character had over spoken. Not wishing for them to meddle in the affairs of giants and being influenced by the entity, she took her conch and smashed it against the stalactite from which she was communing with (the entity).
Now I roleplayed her as per the AP, but the online idea had her smashing the conch which fitted well with her influenced persona.

Their team B failed their diplomacy with the cloud giants and their duplicitous Countess (roleplayed as per the AP). She imprisoned the party and they were able to rescue a helpful ally dragon (also a prisoner at the time) and thus escaped from the fortress in the clouds.

They eventually succeeded gaining a conch at the fire giants' forge.

I could have not had the conch broken in the fall with the hill giant chieftain or the stone giant act out so dramatically...I didn't leave it to dice that was my decision as I wanted the table to explore the other interesting areas and creatures of the AP.
Is that not railroading the players?

 

[Emerikol]

I think any adventure path is a railroad. The plan is for you to finish module #1 and go on to module #2. You might deviate off the beat path some but inevitably you end up back on the path. Now that is fine if the group is motivated to pursue the mission. Personally, I don't care for fast advancement and one adventure path for an entire campaign. I don't mind a path in a campaign chosen by the players that starts and ends as part of their careers but not the end all of their careers. I'm more swords and sorcery than epic fantasy when it comes to fantasy roleplay.