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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bloodtide" data-source="post: 9734494" data-attributes="member: 6684958">It is all about Feelings.The Linear Game is nearly all RPGs as it has to be....you have to have a Start-->Middle--->End.  That is how things work.  And no matter how much you love to stay in the Sandbox Wasteland most people will prefer to do something more When most people cry Railroad they are talking about a Clumsy or Bad DM .This is the big problem with the Railroad Concept.When you have One person in a game that is creating the whole game reality.....and 1-4 people just playing characters in that reality......you will always be Playing in the DMs World.  Now this is basic, classic RPG 101.  This is how RPGs started and is how most of them are: it is the excepted norm.I will agree in general, but still point out it is very close to possible.In a harsh, cruel Old School RPG run by a Killer DM a simple adventure like ""the PC is poisoned and has 24 hours to find the cure" is a is a good Railroad.  The player will stay very focused and motivated to to the task of saving their character.  To be fair, a lot of authors run in to the classic problems of space and time.  If your given the job of witting a 32 page module, with seven pages of art and maps, so 25 pages.....that is a Hard Limit.  No matter what you write, it has to fit into those 25 pages.  And with an introduction,  set up, conclusion and even just one new monster...you can take up five more pages.  So that just leaves 20 pages for the adventure.  And you often get a fairly tight deadline: by this date.  Period.Worse, once you submit something...they get the right to edit it any way they want.Woah....um.So, you did not quite match up the adventures here.  So the "railroad" to you is where the PCs are given a plot story problem and then they actively try to solve it?  So the PCs actively go and try and find those missing persons.And the "linear game" is where the PCs are given a plot story problem and utterly waste time doing whatever they want and ignore it?  Like ok....so the players take five hours to have their PCs talk to everyone in town and learn "rumors say something fishy is going on in that warehouse".  So, what is the positive here?  The "railroad group" would have gotten to the warehouse at least 4 1/2 hours ago to play trough the adventure.</blockquote>

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