What do you consider a "railroading" module?

[Edena_of_Neith]

I think railroading is a bad idea. Just my opinion.
That opinion is based upon my experience as a player from DL1 through DL12 (if anyone remembers the Dragonlance adventures.) We finally fell at the High Clerist's Tower, after an adventure that was good, but not as good as it could have been.

What to do?

Consider the DL modules.
If you, as DM, have them all, you need not railroad your players at all. You know the storyline, you know the enemy, you know the allies of the party, you know the whole world setting ('Long live the Lance!')
If your players decide to derail and go wandering off, you are ready for you know all that stuff. If Tanis and Goldmoon do not return to Solace and get captured, but instead set off by ship for Caergoth, you already know what's there (heh ... if they then wander up, as 3rd level characters, to Dargaard Keep, you know what is THERE, too.)

It's not easy being a DM. I do not believe 3rd edition has made it any easier, either!!
But if you invest your time, know your world, know the timeline, and work hard, you can make it work without railroading. (It's like virtual reality. They haven't got it down, because no computer is yet powerful enough to simulate everywhere you might go, and handle everything you might do. But computers are getting there! You, as DM, must be the computer, and handle the virtual reality. It's your job!)
Now, you *could* say this: 'Players, I honestly don't know what to do if Tanis and Goldmoon don't go back to Solace. I have tried hard to be a good DM, but I can't handle that. Can you, as a personal favor, have them return there?' Unlike some others, I do not see a problem with that approach. The players should appreciate your efforts. If they have ever DMed themselves, they REALLY should appreciate your efforts. And they should give you a break. Contrary to popular mythology, you the DM are not a god, but a limited mortal being with limited time. Make them respect that.

Edena_of_Neith

 

[Hussar]

Edena - I can agree with that. While it may not be the height of great DMing, asking your players nicely if they could stop screwing with your plot isn't a bad thing once in a while.

I don't mind a bit of railroading - the start of G1 is fine. Sure, you could play your way into the mountains, but, meh, the players are there to whack giants, not play with whatever random encounters you happen to roll on the way.

As far as adventure design goes, I would say that you can get away with a certain amount of railroading, however, if it gets to the points, as I mentioned before, of every group, in pretty much every combination, having nearly identical experiences in the module, then that's too much. An adventure needs a fair bit of wiggle room to allow for DM's to have the freedom to do their jobs and the players to do theirs.

 

[Arnwyn]

It's railroading when...

The text of the module says "No matter what the PCs say/do, x happens".

(Thank you Horde/Empires trilogy, courtesy of one of the greatest hacks in the biz, the incompetent Troy Denning. You suck, Denning.) The other examples provided in this thread (with pics) are dead-on.

 

[Ranger REG]

Meh. Railroading is not a bad thing.

HOWEVER, many incompetent DMs don't know how to railroad their players without being caught.

 

[Quasqueton]

The consensus on the definition of "railroad":

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=169243

Quasqueton

 

[lukelightning]

I learned how to avoid railroading from running a Call of Cthulhu game. In one adventure there is a tunnel that leads off into darkness, and if an investigator enters "he is taken away by ghouls and never seen again." My brother sends his character down the tunnel. I say "he dies and is never seen again." Argument ensues and lasts for a week.

Later I realized that even if the investigator was doomed with no chance to survive or escape, I should have played it out: A lone man vs. a horde of ghouls. My brother would have felt as if there really was a choice, and it just would have been more fun overall.

Pretty much everything Dragonlance.

Luckily when I played in Dragonlance the DM let us do whatever the heck we wanted and we ran amok and killed all the "Main Characters" (Raistlin, et. al.) and took their stuff.

 

[Gentlegamer]

From Knights of the Dinner Table #9, "The Straight and Narrow"

B.A., tired of his players "wrestling control" from him by ruining the "awesome adventures" he prepares by constantly straying off course on tangents and screwing everything up, applies the advice in Appendix J of the Hackmaster Manual of Adventure Weaving, There and Back Again: Mastering the Linear Adventure. Frustrated, the players peek at the map when B.A. is called away from the table . . .

 

[jeffh]

I have one nitpick on the definitions on railroading. I think RR-ing is not when the PC's have no choices; it's when the PC's believe that they have no choices.

Nitpicking your nitpick, I would say railroading (or the objectionable sort of railroading, anyway) involves both the PCs having only one choice and this being clear to the players.

I would supplement this with some of the other qualifications that have been mentioned upthread - the railroad must not be a natural consequence of the PCs' own actions and/or the internal logic of the game setting - indeed, railroading is at its most objectionable when it flies in the face of one or both of these, as in the "boxed text paralysis" cases - and initial setup of the campaign (or individual adventure, for more episodic campaigns) is at least partially exempt from the railroading charge.

I suspect there's a workable definition in there.

 

[Ranger REG]

Nitpicking your nitpick, I would say railroading (or the objectionable sort of railroading, anyway) involves both the PCs having only one choice and this being clear to the players.

I would supplement this with some of the other qualifications that have been mentioned upthread - the railroad must not be a natural consequence of the PCs' own actions and/or the internal logic of the game setting - indeed, railroading is at its most objectionable when it flies in the face of one or both of these, as in the "boxed text paralysis" cases - and initial setup of the campaign (or individual adventure, for more episodic campaigns) is at least partially exempt from the railroading charge.

I suspect there's a workable definition in there.

Well, railroading is about manipulating.

HOWEVER, some [lazy] DM's think it's more convenient for them to RESTRICT players' choice. That is how you get caught.

 

[Hussar]

The consensus on the definition of "railroad":

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=169243

Quasqueton

The problem with that, as has been pointed out, is using the word "usurpation" in one of the options is a bad idea. The poll was skewed from the get go.