What do you consider a "railroading" module?

[Melan]

Any module where decisions are made in stead of the PCs/players outside establishing the starting conditions. I think that's a vital distinction. In campaigns, even the latter may be railroading in some cases - but in its milder forms, probably acceptable in order to get the game going.

 

[Kishin]

I'll see your Avatar Trilogy, and raise you one Hour of the Knife!

I raise your Hour of the Knife with one Silver Anniversary Dragonlance Classics, complete with a scene in DL1 where someone falls into the fire at the Inn of the Last Home and the ONLY way to deal with it is to whack them with the Blue Crystal Staff, as it was in the book. (The text literally forbids ANY other solution. Even stop, drop and roll.)

 

[Mark Hope]

I ran that adventure and there was no railroading. The group did create challenges for themselves and me.

The book said go from point A to B to C.

The group went from A to B to something nearer to Z then back. When the adventure was "near complete" they really altered things and this lead to many new adventures as they now were on the run from House Cannith.

You know, I would have loved for our DM to take this approach. There were a number of areas in the adventure where I could see really cool alternate consequences to our actions (ending up on the run from House d'Cannith being one of them, but a cool and scary alliance with the Karnathi was another, and I'd really have liked to have found a way to get our hands on that magic car thing). Alas, 't was not to be

I did not run Vampire Blade because I saw no way to avoid the PCs having to follow a specicific path, at a specific time only to always just miss confronting Lucus. Eventually I borrow elements from the adventure and rewrite it but that will take time that I currently don't have.

Heh. Well, after our howls of complaints about Shadows..., the DM said that we probably wouldn't like its sequels, as they have a similarly restrictive plot, so he felt he shouldn't run them. A moot point, as he had already TPKed us and given me a mad Eberron trauma from which I have still to recover...

We went through that one too and didn't have any problems. I might have to borrow and read through these mdoules to see what they are really like

Sounds to me like you had a quality DM for those games. Good show.

After Eberron we played some Traveller and then some Dragonlance. In the case of the DL games, the DM had a chase-style plot which had some railroaded elements in it. However, his artistry was sufficient that I either didn't notice or didn't care (which, as others have pointed out, is the essence of skillfully running a plot-restricted game - the illusion of choice is as powerful as the choice itself). And in the Traveller games, we had a hugely experienced GM who had run many games at cons in addition to those for his regular groups. As a consequence, he was confident, adaptable and allowed us to maraud about the place in what felt like complete freedom, all the while spinning a gripping tale around his plot and our actions. Top class. Those Traveller games still rank as my all-time most enjoyable games in many years of gaming, in no small part because the story ended up being about our characters. What a novel concept!

 

[Thomas Percy]

The Shadowdale / Tantras / Waterdeep!!!
Back in `90 I didn't know the term "railroad", but when I found these modules, I was sickened TSR calls pseudo-novel script a rpg.

In the one of my favorite adventures Witch Fire The Longest Night there is a moment of terrible railroading, when the PCs explore hideout of one-of-all-trilogy-bad-guys and they meet "him". There is possible to talk, fight, but if you dare to catch "him", "he" has even >>specially modified hold person spell<< .

 

[Thanee]

Pretty much everything Dragonlance.

Bye
Thanee

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Before I start, I think there's bad railroading and good railroading.

To me, before it's railroading at all, there has to be:

• Only one choice; and
• An artificial constraint; and
• Not the consequence of the player characters' own actions.

For example, a dungeon might contain a choke point. A number of dungeons only have one entrance, for example, or only one staircase between levels. To me, that's a geographical choke point, not a railroad.

It becomes a railroad if the player characters have no other choice but to pass through it. (So for example, the player characters are forced into the dungeon because the King's ordered them in, and there's a bunch of armed guards directly behind them to force them into the dungeon, then a dungeon with only one entrance becomes a railroad.)

But, that only applies if it isn't the player characters' fault. If, during the previous session, a PC stood up and, in front of the Queen and the whole Court, asked the volatile and bad-tempered King to explain why he has three eighteen-year-old mistresses in town, for example... then the King orders his powerful guards to take the player characters away and throw them in jail... then that doesn't count as a railroad to me because it's a natural consequence of the players' actions.

"Bad" railroading is when this happens during play. So to me, the bit in A3 where the players are captured because the plot requires it is "bad railroading" -- particularly since it deprives them of the climactic battle with the evil Slave Lords themselves, when the Slave Lords are directly in sight!

The bit at the beginning of G1 where the player characters are given a reason to go kill the giants, told to go kill them, then suddenly appear near the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, is a railroad but it's used to shift the players quickly to the beginning of the adventure where they can start making interesting and tactically valuable choices.

Thus it strikes me as a railroad that's relatively less unpleasant for the players than one that happens during play. Hence, "good" railroad -- effectively a taxi-ride to the start of the adventure.

 

[jdrakeh]

Pretty much everything Dragonlance.

I can't say anything about the new DL stuff, but yeah. . . the original DL modules are pretty bad. People often complain about the iconic FR NPCs hogging the spotlight, though the case to made against the DL iconics is even stronger -- the whole freaking setting (well, Krynn, anyhow) is largely designed around them. PCs don't matter a great lot in DL of old (again, I have no idea how the new stuff fares).

 

[Huw]

The main reason was the story line / plot line stood at the core of official FR canon and therefore, had to play out a certain way, regardless of player intervention. Unless the DM was prepared to depart from established FR canon for all time, certain events simply had to happen and happen in a predetermined fashion. Just plain wrong.

That's the problem with any adventure linked with an official storyline. How Mighty are the Fallen is another one. Go off the rails here and you change the history of the Realms!

Now, I'm going to do something controversial and defend the original Dragonlance's series railroad. It was a flexible road. Although you had some NPC's the players were not meant to kill, the final end had a number of permutations. Verminaard or Kitiara get killed? Well, someone else has just got promoted in the Dragonarmy. Lost the maguffin? Don't worry, it wasn't as important as it seemed. Players familiar with the books? That certain elf and certain dragon aren't necessarily the same being. Some of the modules (DL12 especially) were really open ended.

 

[howandwhy99]

Railroading almost always happens in "adventures". Modules by definition aren't railroads as they are designed to fit modularly into your campaign world (i.e. you are meant to run them at home, not in convention tournaments). That's my understanding of the difference between modules and adventures, anyways.

Railroading occurs whenever the adventure has a PLOT for the PCs. If you know the synopsis of events that will occur before they occur in play, then you are railroading. Plots (and plotting) are for the NPCs of your world. Let the players choose their own adventure.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Some people definitely have too strict of a definition of "railroad". They must have some real life "railroad" situations going on that make them extra sensitive.

I hope that you are not thinking my definition too strict? I thought it was fairly straightforward, and perhaps even useful.

A railroad has to have linear elements. If you are given 7 or 700 choices, it isn't a railroad....even if you aren't happy with the choices you believe are available. If the DM is doing something within the bounds of his authority (i.e., not taking authority that is legitimately the players') it is not a railroad. Setting a campaign in Ravenloft isn't a railroad; neither is role-playing an NPC, even if the PCs do not like what the NPC does.

I would agree with you in your definition as well. I don't think that they are incompatable.

Wait until you have a DM that repeatedly keeps you from successfully doing stuff, because it will kill an NPC he simply does not want dead yet, or somehow ruins his "story" plans. That is railroading.

Yup.


RC