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

[Tigris]

Its so not useful when GMs answer in such threads. Its like dictators discussing amongthemselves why their subjects should be glad about them...


In the end the GMs will see themselves in the same situation, and of course say "oh if I would be a player I would like it", and the person asking the question will hear from fellow GMs the echo that its alright, and as always the actual player wishes will be just ignored.


@Reynard if you dont allow to use Spell A to solve the situation, but would allow Spell B, then "you want to hear Spell B" implicitly. They made their choice clear. Their choice is to use magic to get out from there and you did not allow it.


If it was because it was the wrong / too weak spell, then either it becomes a "guess what the GM wants to hear", or you need to tell them "oh this spell was a bit too weak, maybe a higher level spell could do it." else its just a railroad with a backdoor excuse.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

I would counter that you (and possibly the player) are inaccurately conflating "situation" and "plot".

If the situation only has one possible resolution, and the players will be driven to that resolution whether they like it or not, then it is a railroad.

Go back and re-read TwoSix post. And mine for that matter. As well you are making a non-valid dichotomy between situation and plot.

What a person expects in freedom of choice will set their definition of 'railroad'. And your statement will get you into trouble and heartache with my players since they don't share your definition in any way. That is to say = what you are trying to force as a limited definition of railroad no longer is valid as the only way the majority of players will accept it.

As TwoSix wrote, what limits choice will give a impression of 'this game is on rails". It does not matte if that limit came from plot, situation, rules, or player choice.

And by a very very wide margin, if I told players that they have no choice but to deal with a situation, they would say "this game is railroading me". (but that is not be a bad thing, so set aside your love hate for the term. I have players who only want to play 'railroad' games.)

 

[Umbran]

Or the knock spell they didn't try. Or... Or... It seems like you feel that anything the players try should work on the first attempt. That's not any D&D game I've ever been in. A failed attempt isn't a railroad. It's a minor setback.

It isn't even a setback, it is a failure to move forward.

Now, if there were one thing we could constructively note, it might be that just having the spell fail is probably not the best approach to resolving the attempt. This was probably a good opportunity to apply a "fail forward" technique, in which the failure doesn't just dump them right where they were, with no better idea of what they can do.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't want to get too into the weeds on this specific situation, but I really did not have a solution in mind. That is usually how I frame things. there is a situation ("You are trapped in the wintery Faewild taken over by a Winter Court coup, and you cannot simply plane shift out.") and then I let them go ("What do you do?").

Same here. Many years ago I stopped trying to figure out solutions to the obstacles I put into the game. It was a waste of my time, since the players are intelligent and creative, and would often come up with solutions I never considered. These days if there's a reason for a wall of force to be in a passage, I plunk it down and let the players worry about how to get past it.

 

[Reynard]

It isn't even a setback, it is a failure to move forward.

Now, if there were one thing we could constructively note, it might be that just having the spell fail is probably not the best approach to resolving the attempt. This was probably a good opportunity to apply a "fail forward" technique, in which the failure doesn't just dump them right where they were, with no better idea of what they can do.

In this case, the failure came with additional information: the spell did not fail, rather the caster discovered that their planar tuning fork was gone off their person. Another character (the replacement PC for the currently Voided one) confirmed that they were trapped in the Faewild too because their tuning forks had been stolen as well.

 

[Koloth]

Some clarifications:

I did force them into the faewild as a side trek, but as with most "adventuyres" I write, it is a situation and the players are free to deal with it as they may.

The player who is unhappy (it is only one person, not the whole group) did NOT expend the spell slot. I told them their tuning fork was gone as they were preparing to cast.

Right before this all happened, the players drew from the Deck of Many Things and one PC got voided. They used some magic to discover that the PCs soul was not in the faewild, and have a good idea of where it is in the prime, and what is guarding it. This matters in context because now they know that the object of that self imposed quest is not in the faewild. But the doors are still locked, as such.

Based on the clarification, still believe it is NOT railroading. Spell slot didn't work as the material component was missing. Chance for investigation into how the fork was stolen? Did any of the players think of trying Dismissal? After all, while on the Feawild, the party ARE extraplanar and should be subject to dismissal. Sometimes YOU are the outsider.... Or Locate Object to find the tuning fork?

Possible the player in question was just having a bad night and got frustrated when things didn't go perfect, or at least the player's idea of perfect. Sometimes RL issues intrude on gaming.

 

[Tigris]

Based on the clarification, still believe it is NOT railroading. Spell slot didn't work as the material component was missing. Chance for investigation into how the fork was stolen? Did any of the players think of trying Dismissal? After all, while on the Feawild, the party ARE extraplanar and should be subject to dismissal. Sometimes YOU are the outsider.... Or Locate Object to find the tuning fork?

Investigating how the fork was stolen / trying to find the fork does lead into the railroad though, to investigate this situation, exactly what the player did not like to be forced into.

If dismissal work, then again, the players choice was to use magic to get out of there, and "you need to use exactly spell X" is just an annoyance not a choice. I would assume that if a GM does not allow 1 spell, then they dont allow spells in general, because else one has in each situation to just try through all spells to see if 1 works, which is just wasting time.

Possible the player in question was just having a bad night and got frustrated when things didn't go perfect, or at least the player's idea of perfect. Sometimes RL issues intrude on gaming.

Or the player has built up frustration since years of playing. Many players are to some degree forced to play with GMs where they dont really like their playstile.

This can be because there is a general lack of GMs around, or because the GM is part of their friend group and they enjoy playing with the other players, or they had sooo bad experiences with other GMs, that they just dont want to take that risk again.

 

[Maxperson]

Based on the clarification, still believe it is NOT railroading. Spell slot didn't work as the material component was missing. Chance for investigation into how the fork was stolen? Did any of the players think of trying Dismissal? After all, while on the Feawild, the party ARE extraplanar and should be subject to dismissal. Sometimes YOU are the outsider.... Or Locate Object to find the tuning fork?

Wish spell to get off or get the forks back. Commune, contact other plane, augury or divination to get answers or see if courses of action will be fruitful. And on and on.

They had tons of things at their disposal to get off the plane or figure out how to and then just leave.

 

[Reynard]

Or the player has built up frustration since years of playing. Many players are to some degree forced to play with GMs where they dont really like their playstile.

This can be because there is a general lack of GMs around, or because the GM is part of their friend group and they enjoy playing with the other players, or they had sooo bad experiences with other GMs, that they just dont want to take that risk again.

It is neat how you can diagnose long standing player/GM/group problems with just a few posts. You should hire out and solve problems across r/dndhorrorstories.

 

[Maxperson]

Investigating how the fork was stolen / trying to find the fork does lead into the railroad though, to investigate this situation, exactly what the player did not like to be forced into.

No. Unless the player MUST investigate the forks, it's not a railroad. The players had other options for getting off of the plane. Heck, they could have just wished for the forks back and left. No investigation needed.

You're imagining a railroad where there just isn't one.

If dismissal work, then again, the players choice was to use magic to get out of there, and "you need to use exactly spell X" is just an annoyance not a choice. I would assume that if a GM does not allow 1 spell, then they dont allow spells in general, because else one has in each situation to just try through all spells to see if 1 works, which is just wasting time.

This is just factually wrong. An annoying choice is still a choice.

And really?! You would assume that just because one 7th level spell wasn't an option due to the lack of material components that all spells would fail? If you would really do that, the only one sticking you on rails is you. That's like saying that just because you couldn't find your pair of running shoes, you would assume that you couldn't put on boots, sandals, crocs, dress shoes, or just walk barefoot.