What is "railroading" to you (as a player)?

[Reynard]

No it's not. It's far from okay to make my play experience meaningless through illusionism. I will generally catch on eventually and then I get really angry, because the DM wasted a huge amount of my time.

I guess I should have /s'd

 

[Reynard]

Nope. Not what I said. How about just designing the most common ones you think your group will use or have fun with.

Legitimate question: what is the difference between doing this beforehand vs in the moment?

 

[Celebrim]

I guess what is the point of defining what "railroading" is? Is it about setting a standard for when players setting boundaries is socially acceptable? If it's not railroading are players allowed to object anyway? What are the stakes here? Is there genuine concern over if players have enough agency in the scenario? Whether or not it's "railroading" cannot tell you that.

Overall, trying to argue over these universal standards is silly.

I tend to agree.

I write about railroading not as an attempt to set some standard that you can't break, because I break it myself. I write about railroading in order to inform people how to do it well and artfully if they find themselves having a reason to do it, and also to make people more conscious of when they are doing it routinely or less gracefully so that they can consider whether they are respecting player agency enough and whether there might be alternatives ways of doing things.

Mostly I want to tell people things like, "No, there are other ways to play that don't depend on high illusionism to entertain yourself and your players." and "Beware too much improvisation, because it's hard to stop yourself from railroading your players when you are exercising fiat that heavily mid-session."

But I'm not trying to tell them, "There is this idealized game where you never fudge and everything is prepped ahead of time and the correct way to play is as rigid as fairy chess, and the players can be any character they want or have any goal they want, and that is the one true way to fun and mastery of the game." For one thing, I no more believe that than I believe the right way to play is heavy illusionism where your players never find out that you fudge everything.

That used to be railroading. The DM instantly narrowing or increasing chances based on how they feel. Is the pizza late and they're hungry? Did they have a bad day at work? Are they enjoying watching their players squirm and become exasperated? I think they call these DMs grognards, to note that they are old (or play old school) and are the gods of the world. And they will decide (with no forethought) as to whether the players have appeased the DM god.

I've often said that if you improv everything, even if you are doing it in response to some player choice, you are probably running a railroad. I get a lot of push back about that, but the above post - while perhaps exaggerated a bit - cuts to the heart of why I think that is. There is just no way in the middle of play to control your own bias. You can't be fair while under the emotional stress and pressure of play when you know the outcome of your choices and very often you are basically giving thumbs up or thumbs down to plans of the player. You invariably are influenced by whether you want those plans to work. If you wrote down something ahead of time or otherwise have established some conventions at a moment of less bias and less pressure and more time to think, then at least you have a check on your feelings to know whether you are being biased by your present emotions. At least you have something to base your decision on other than what you want to have happen at the moment.