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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 9732369" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, we seem to be on the same page.A good starting point for what I think is this thread:[EMBED content=&quot;thread-298368&quot;]https://www.enworld.org/threads/techniques-for-railroading.298368/[/EMBED]The reason for this is that people treat &quot;railroading&quot; as a qualitative thing like, &quot;Are you railroading or not?&quot;&nbsp; It's actually a quantitative thing, &quot;Are you railroading too much?&quot;&nbsp; Every game features a certain amount of railroading, but not every game is a railroad.&nbsp; It becomes a railroad when a particular player tries to get off the rails and the GM prevents it.&nbsp; At that point the player becomes uncomfortable with the railroading and says, &quot;This is a railroad.&quot; or &quot;You are railroading me.&quot;&nbsp; Since that point is subjective its no surprise people disagree with what constitutes railroading.&nbsp; Where they should change their thinking is to stop trying to ask &quot;What is railroading?&quot; and instead ask, &quot;How much of these things can I tolerate before I find it a railroad?&quot;The reason I prefer to talk about railroading in terms of techniques is that once you understand how to railroad we can talk about two things in a common framework.&nbsp; First we can talk about how much railroading to use and when to use it, and secondly we can talk about how some techniques for railroading arise inadvertently at some level as a result of the GM's imperfect knowledge and inability to prepare for everything.&nbsp; All RPGs are at some level &quot;small worlds&quot; for example, where there are whether the GM likes it or not forces which push against PC's leaving the area the GM is most prepared to describe if only because the canvas becomes increasingly blank and hard to fill in with appropriate levels of detail (except at best by randomness).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 9732369, member: 4937"] Well, we seem to be on the same page. A good starting point for what I think is this thread: [EMBED content="thread-298368"]https://www.enworld.org/threads/techniques-for-railroading.298368/[/EMBED] The reason for this is that people treat "railroading" as a qualitative thing like, "Are you railroading or not?" It's actually a quantitative thing, "Are you railroading too much?" Every game features a certain amount of railroading, but not every game is a railroad. It becomes a railroad when a particular player tries to get off the rails and the GM prevents it. At that point the player becomes uncomfortable with the railroading and says, "This is a railroad." or "You are railroading me." Since that point is subjective its no surprise people disagree with what constitutes railroading. Where they should change their thinking is to stop trying to ask "What is railroading?" and instead ask, "How much of these things can I tolerate before I find it a railroad?" The reason I prefer to talk about railroading in terms of techniques is that once you understand how to railroad we can talk about two things in a common framework. First we can talk about how much railroading to use and when to use it, and secondly we can talk about how some techniques for railroading arise inadvertently at some level as a result of the GM's imperfect knowledge and inability to prepare for everything. All RPGs are at some level "small worlds" for example, where there are whether the GM likes it or not forces which push against PC's leaving the area the GM is most prepared to describe if only because the canvas becomes increasingly blank and hard to fill in with appropriate levels of detail (except at best by randomness). [/QUOTE]

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