The Opposite of Railroading...

[sniffles]

I'm having a bit of a problem with the term railroading being thrown around in a negative connotation here. So instead of defining railroading which obviously means
different things to different people, define how the opposite of railroading works in your game. This means that if youre a DM who doesnt like railroads you must be running a railroad free game. For me that usually means youre running a plot free game that allows the PC's to do anything that they want to, but I could be wrong about that which is why I'm asking for examples.

Give details not some vauge outline. specific details. Thanks.

I don't think non-railroading means a plot-free game. To me it means that the GM offers options and gives the players the freedom to choose any of those options or come up with something of their own, rather than trying to push them in a certain specific direction.

For example, the players might have the choice of using the map they've recently acquired to hunt down an ancient relic, but they might also be able to investigate a series of murders in their home city, or try to find out how an enemy acquired an artifact-level evil weapon. Or they might decide not to do any of those things. The GM waits for the players to express a choice, then gives them information that may help them pursue that choice, or it may make them change their minds and go with a different course of action. The GM may actually want the players to pick a particular plot thread to follow, but he never overtly tries to influence their decision. That is what I would inperpret as a railroad-free game.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

Well, the opposite of railroading is a plot-free game, which is generally as bad as a railroad - things just happen as disconnected event and the DM has to just wing it because there's too many possibilities to prepare for. I think this is what people refer to as a sandbox game. For this type of game the players have to pick up a lot of work that the DM normally does in shaping the story and showing initiative. I have heard posts from many DMs who have tried this and had a poor game because their players don't show the necessary initiative.

Ways that are generally considered better are to either have a plot and freely modify it when necessary due to PC actions, and having multiple plots which the DM switches between based on PC actions.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I just wanted to add that the scenario with the macguffin being stolen that I described in my earlier post is exactly the situation I put my group into on my first session as DM. I was using a prewritten adventure, and it said right in it that the macguffin would be stolen from the party on the night of the festival. It came right out and said in the text that the item had to be stolen, so I followed the adventure and made sure it did.

The players were very annoyed (rightly so) that the precautions they had taken to protect it were ignored, and that nothing they did could prevent the henchmen of the BBEG from getting away. Again, the adventure described this long chase scene to be played out, but said right in the text that one of the henchmen had to get away with the item. The party came up with some great tactics to catch the henchmen, but I followed the adventure and made sure none of them would work to recover the macguffin at that point.

The players were all really upset with me by then and were all seriously calling it quits on the spot. I learned a huge lesson that day.

I am not against giving players nudges, throwing repeated hooks in the party's path trying to get them to take it, or as on one session when I wasn't really prepared for alternatives, ask them to bear with me and take a particular hook. What I will never again allow myself to do is to make the story so set that the players are unable to affect it once they begin interacting with it.

 

[CrimsonWineGlass]

I don't know, I've had troubles with my players pulling stunts. I make my campaigns usually as a combination of a handful of smaller pre-made and personally modified modules which I tie in to a larger, overreaching campaign that is the main.

This format has served me well for the last year or so, mostly since a problem in the group where the party found out the various different problems in the town and the surrounding area, what the rewards would be and, despite the fact that it was blatant metagaming (the players had every reason in the world to do these jobs) they decided to go off to a random point on the map for no reason. I told them the game was over, to go home, and that we would get together in a month after I had made a new campaign. Initially the stormed off angry, after having separate conversations with each of them we decided to start the campaign over.

 

[jaerdaph]

Anti-railroading only requires that the players have an illusion of choice. They need to feel like there are multiple possibilities in a campaign based on their actions, whether there really is or not.

QFT.

 

[Transit]

The problem isn't railroading. The problem is players KNOWING that they're being railroaded. Railroading needs to stay safely hidden behind the DM screen.

Let's say I've worked on a specific dungeon for tonight's game. I put it right outside the village where the PCs are staying. If the PCs decide to ignore it and "head south", I let them go.

Eventually the PCs pass a hill with a creepy looking Evil Temple on it. They don't need to know that the lower levels of the temple will be the exact same dungeon that I had planned for right outside of the village. And if they decide to skip the temple, they'll eventually hear rumors of a Ruined Keep to the east. Etc. Etc.

I keep tempting them with different entrances until they find one that they want to explore. The dungeon that I planned to use tonight WILL get used tonight WITHOUT the players knowing they were railroaded into it.

(I might need to do a little on-the-fly modification - like picking which specific god is represented if they enter the "Evil Temple" or describing shields and banners on the walls if they decide to explore the "Ruined Keep" but the rest of the dungeon is the same.)

This lets the players feel like they can go anywhere in the world and find adventure waiting, and I need only design and keep a few different adventures ready to "plant" on my campaign map as the players travel and explore.

(I keep a couple dungeons, a few monster lairs, a wizards tower, etc. ready to go at all times. As locations are discovered and explored, I create a few more adventures ready to be "found." My players are constantly amazed at how detailed my world is. They feel they can go down any road and find adventure waiting for them.

Of course, my larger adventure areas are in fixed locations so that my campaign can have a plot. But having smaller "floater" adventures that can be plugged in anywhere lets my players feel like they have complete freedom to go anywhere in the world, and avoids any appearance of "railroading."



P.S. I guess that the opposite of railroading could be called "off-roading." The PCs feel they are free to go where ever they want.

 

[Doug McCrae]

The opposite of railroading is player freedom. The PCs have more than one reasonable, meaningful option. This can be quite hard to do within a session. (It's relatively easy between sessions as the GM has time to prepare.) To do it at the session level the GM needs one of the following:

1) Skill at winging it.
2) Have multiple plots prepared.
3) Be able to twist the prepared material to fit a variety of player choices. This is something of a hybrid between (1) and (2) and, I would guess, is what the majority of GMs do.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

I just wanted to add that the scenario with the macguffin being stolen that I described in my earlier post is exactly the situation I put my group into on my first session as DM. I was using a prewritten adventure, and it said right in it that the macguffin would be stolen from the party on the night of the festival. It came right out and said in the text that the item had to be stolen, so I followed the adventure and made sure it did.

The players were very annoyed (rightly so) that the precautions they had taken to protect it were ignored, and that nothing they did could prevent the henchmen of the BBEG from getting away. Again, the adventure described this long chase scene to be played out, but said right in the text that one of the henchmen had to get away with the item. The party came up with some great tactics to catch the henchmen, but I followed the adventure and made sure none of them would work to recover the macguffin at that point.

The players were all really upset with me by then and were all seriously calling it quits on the spot. I learned a huge lesson that day.

I am not against giving players nudges, throwing repeated hooks in the party's path trying to get them to take it, or as on one session when I wasn't really prepared for alternatives, ask them to bear with me and take a particular hook. What I will never again allow myself to do is to make the story so set that the players are unable to affect it once they begin interacting with it.

I think most DM's who have been running games for a long time have experienced this at one point or another, I know I did waaaay back in 1st Ed. This is part of the reason that while i use pre-written adventures I tend to read them first for possible trouble spots and modify them accordingly. And by modify, I mean if the adventure ties into a bottleneck where the progression of the adventure relies on ONE SPECIFIC thing happening I find a bunch of different ways for the plot to progress. Sometimes I wind up having to run interim plot hooks then watch as the PC's work themselves back into the main story.
One of the great things about D&D is that sometimes your players will come up with better solutions for your problems as DM than you would have.

 

[Prince of Happiness]

(I keep a couple dungeons, a few monster lairs, a wizards tower, etc. ready to go at all times. As locations are discovered and explored, I create a few more adventures ready to be "found." My players are constantly amazed at how detailed my world is. They feel they can go down any road and find adventure waiting for them.

Of course, my larger adventure areas are in fixed locations so that my campaign can have a plot. But having smaller "floater" adventures that can be plugged in anywhere lets my players feel like they have complete freedom to go anywhere in the world, and avoids any appearance of "railroading."

Ooo! I like that a lot! I've been striving for that "Morrowind/Oblivion" feel and I think that ought to hit the spot exactly if I work it out that way. I remember writing up a host of "random" encounters that I had detailed quite nicely for Basic D&D (basically, I went through the list of monsters given and wrote up encounters and lairs). I gotta kick my butt into gear to get working on that. Goodman Games's Dungeon Geomorphs set should help me generate some goodies on the quick. Thanks!

 

[mhensley]

Railroading = game is all about the dm's plot.

Railless = game is all about the motives of the pc's.