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

[GrimCo]

So, to answer posts about "find and retrieve quests" being bad or outdated design.

Find and retrieve quests, including the classic hook of players losing a valuable item, have endured because they reliably create motivation, clarity, and momentum at the table. Structurally, they are a direct evolution of "find the MacGuffin" quest, but with the key improvement that the MacGuffin already matters before the adventure begins. Instead of relying on an NPC, prophecy, or abstract threat to explain why the object is important, the value is established through player ownership and attachment, which makes engagement immediate and intuitive. These quests have withstood the test of time because they simply work, producing a play loop that players consistently understand and engage with across editions, systems, and mediums. Some people don't like them, call them punitive or as removing player agency, but this is more due to poor execution rather than an inherent flaw in the structure. When the loss is contextualized, telegraphed, or meaningfully tied to player choices or in setting reason, the quest functions not as punishment but as a clear catalyst for play, channeling agency toward action. At the start of adventure, it functions as framing device and kick starts adventure into motion.

It's dead simple structure is part of why it's still popular and used, especially in a casual beer&pretzels game. You don’t need complex setup, deep lore, or convoluted mechanics to get players invested. Losing a valuable item instantly gives them a reason to move, interact, and make choices. That simplicity keeps the table flowing, minimizes decision paralysis, and makes the game feel fun and immediate. In settings where the goal is social enjoyment and lighthearted adventure, find and retrieve hook shines because it works without over complicating the story or slowing the pace.

Other popular quest hooks include escort/protect missions, kill or neutralize a threat, investigation/mystery, defend a location, heists or infiltration, deliveries or timed transport, exploration/survival challenges. These basic plot hooks endure because they reliably create tension, meaningful decisions, and player engagement.

While character driven, open ended, sandbox style games are a thing, not every group is suited for them. They rely on players who are self motivated, collaborative and comfortable making decisions without constant direction. On the other hand, some players prefer clear goals, immediate stakes or structured challenges, which is why classic quest hooks like find and retrieve or escort missions remain valuable and viable. They provide engagement and momentum without requiring the group to generate their own narrative entirely.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It never occured to me that the plot "your stuff got stolen" was particularly common, I've not had any adventures involving that yet. I definitely do not like that premise if that's a pre-ordained plot. If it occurs by happenstance because some thief really used his thievery skill succesfully in some plausible scenario, I could probably accept that. But even then, I also had stuff like rust monsters and similar "gotcha" moments. But as an adventuring premise - the stuff should be stolen by some NPC and we care about the NPC or something like that. Taking stuff from my character feels too intrusive.

I don't even care if you call it "railroading" or "violation" or those words sound too harsh to you or just mean something else for you. I don't like it. I'd not neccessarily raise a stink about it, that depends on context (and mood?). I don't think the important thing is what you call it here, the important thing is how it makes me feel. It feels like an intrusive removal of my agency as player. I feel like the stuff my character has is something that I am in control of, that is under my purview, I decide when and how to use such stuff. If someone else gets to take over control of a part of this, I need to feel that I have some agency about it, that there is stuff that I can know I can try to do. (Even if in the end, the dice say no).
Someone casting a Dominate Person spell on me and I fail the saving throw - at least I knew beforehand this was possible, since I knwo such magic exists, and I had a chance to resist.

I'd probably reacted a lot more favorable to such a situation if instead of stuff being gone, an illusion appears and says: "Currently outgoing planar travel is blocked for security reasons, we apologize for the inconvenience. Until this ongoing situation is resolved, we ask for you patience. If you think you recieved this message in error or have an urgent travel need, please contact your nearest Winter Court representative and ask for an exemption voucher" (and the spell probably doesn't go expended). Some might still find that railroady, though.

It probably woud also still be good if they had known before entering the Feywild, that most planar travel options are blocked off everywhere due to some "ongoing fey court matter" (not just in the immediate vicinity of the place the entered), it might have east things better. Then they chose to risk being stuck, knowing that there regular options wouldn't work.

 

[TheSword]

So, to answer posts about "find and retrieve quests" being bad or outdated design.

Find and retrieve quests, including the classic hook of players losing a valuable item, have endured because they reliably create motivation, clarity, and momentum at the table. Structurally, they are a direct evolution of "find the MacGuffin" quest, but with the key improvement that the MacGuffin already matters before the adventure begins. Instead of relying on an NPC, prophecy, or abstract threat to explain why the object is important, the value is established through player ownership and attachment, which makes engagement immediate and intuitive. These quests have withstood the test of time because they simply work, producing a play loop that players consistently understand and engage with across editions, systems, and mediums. Some people don't like them, call them punitive or as removing player agency, but this is more due to poor execution rather than an inherent flaw in the structure. When the loss is contextualized, telegraphed, or meaningfully tied to player choices or in setting reason, the quest functions not as punishment but as a clear catalyst for play, channeling agency toward action. At the start of adventure, it functions as framing device and kick starts adventure into motion.

It's dead simple structure is part of why it's still popular and used, especially in a casual beer&pretzels game. You don’t need complex setup, deep lore, or convoluted mechanics to get players invested. Losing a valuable item instantly gives them a reason to move, interact, and make choices. That simplicity keeps the table flowing, minimizes decision paralysis, and makes the game feel fun and immediate. In settings where the goal is social enjoyment and lighthearted adventure, find and retrieve hook shines because it works without over complicating the story or slowing the pace.

Other popular quest hooks include escort/protect missions, kill or neutralize a threat, investigation/mystery, defend a location, heists or infiltration, deliveries or timed transport, exploration/survival challenges. These basic plot hooks endure because they reliably create tension, meaningful decisions, and player engagement.

While character driven, open ended, sandbox style games are a thing, not every group is suited for them. They rely on players who are self motivated, collaborative and comfortable making decisions without constant direction. On the other hand, some players prefer clear goals, immediate stakes or structured challenges, which is why classic quest hooks like find and retrieve or escort missions remain valuable and viable. They provide engagement and momentum without requiring the group to generate their own narrative entirely.

It’s a tangent and not related to the OP but I can’t agree with you here. There is a huge difference between the - as you say - popular fetch quest and the loathed recover-my-own-hard-earned-stuff quest. They are not the same thing. Not even a subset. They’re fundamentally different.

All the other quests you mentioned come with their own rewards. Whereas the recovery quest generated its reward by giving the players back what they already had. It is deeply unsatisfying to have to go to more effort to regain something you have already put effort into securing. It is far less fun and even less so satisfying but it’s arbitrary and feels like make-work. It feels like a con. A swindle. A bait and switch. Particularly when orchestrated through deus ex machina.

It’s why imprisonment quests always have a convenient box somewhere nearby with all the PCs stuff
in it. Rather than the more sensible approach of divvying up those items amongst the various lieutenants and leaderships. Nobody actually liked that kind of adventure - no matter how clever it sounds.

I don’t include in this adventures where a McGuffin is fought over back and forth because it has some special significance in the world. The Stone of Grolor for instance. Which has some plot significance but not necessarily a useful piece of kit for the PCs. Neither do I include PC possessions being a reason for foes to attack them. That’s just par for the course of an adventurer that folks will want to kill them.

It is almost always better not to give the PCs something at all rather than give it only to take it away again. Something that should usually be reserved for serious balancing issues where you’ve been overly generous and it’s causing long term campaign issues. Even then, you generally want that thing gone for good. Not recoverable.

As case in point, I’m struggling to think of a single item in any published campaign that the PCs have previously earned that gets taken from the players and which requires significant effort to get back. Maybe the boards can assist but I suspect it’s the exception not the norm.

I say it’s a tangent because I don’t think Reynard has taken away a precious hard earned item, it’s a relatively inexpensive component at the kind of level you can plane shift at. I just let the idea go by that recover-your-stolen-stuff quests are intrinsically fun and satisfying. They are fighting a very uphill battle.

 

[Neonchameleon]

So, to answer posts about "find and retrieve quests" being bad or outdated design.

The thing is that you're moving the goalposts from "stolen from the PCs, especially in an invasive way with no respect for precautions taken or expected to be taken by the PCs" to the more general case of "find and retrieve quests".

Find and retrieve quests are still around. But the specific disrespectful trigger of "You got robbed out of nowhere of something on your person (or indeed of your person themselves) despite having taken reasonable or even assumed precautions because I the DM say so and I have the power to do that in my world" are almost invariably bad design.

I mean last month I stole the entire species of one of the PCs other than the PC themselves. This was, admittedly, six ribbets (Daggerheart frog people) on an island in the middle of the sea as a consequence to the PC boasting of the legions of ribbets to some demons. Who did some scrying to find this legion, saw the frogspawn, and thought "we can use that for shocktroops given how fast they breed even if currently so few reach adulthood".

But this wasn't a display of blatant disrespect of either the characters or the actions of the players. I didn't just do a "You wake up in jail", stealing their bodies nor did I utterly ignore their competence or their precautions to steal all items of a certain type no matter where on their body they had hidden them. Instead I stole something that was where the PCs weren't and that they weren't trying to protect. (And now they've from a species that hovered between 6 and 8 rescued a couple of hundred incubated ribbets they are wondering about ecological disaster - but that's an issue for future PCs; there were reasons I'd been calling the ribbet PC "The Harbinger" for several sessions before they even knew the ribbets were missing).

You don't have the PCs "wake up and find something missing"; you steal what they weren't protecting because they were doing other things. Especially things the PCs themselves pointed to when talking to bad guys.

Some people don't like them, call them punitive or as removing player agency, but this is more due to poor execution rather than an inherent flaw in the structure. When the loss is contextualized, telegraphed, or meaningfully tied to player choices or in setting reason, the quest functions not as punishment but as a clear catalyst for play, channeling agency toward action. At the start of adventure, it functions as framing device and kick starts adventure into motion.

This. Which is not what happened in this thread - and is why "you steal off the bodies of the PCs so they wake up to find their property missing" or even "You steal the PCs themselves so they wake up enslaved" has more or less been consigned to the dustbin of history and deservedly so but the more general case of find and retrieve quests are here to stay.

 

[Fenris-77]

Whether DM force is good, bad or both, and to what degree, is neither trivially obvious, nor fact. We all have preference dials for how much DM force is good, bad, or okay, making it a subjective preference. If you're going to assert that low/no DM force is the best way to do things, you'll need to back it up by more than, "Look on advice boards, lots of DMs give advice saying low is best." Those, too, are just opinions and not fact.

So, I was talking about the existence of good GM advice on the internet. You're talking about GM force. Somewhere a mistake has been made.

 

[FrogReaver]

Something may have "only one solution" but the method that solution gets enacted can vary wildly. Perhaps for example the only course of action is to fight and defeat the villain. It's not railroading if the players are allowed to devise and execute a strategy they develop themselves. It is railroading if you hand them the strategy and allow no other ones to possibly work.

I agree here but I think in context of my reply to your post and your post I replied to that your shifting what ‘1 solution means’ when you answer me here.

Original Quote:

For me, railroading is not when there is a specific path for the story to go in but rather when only a single solution to a given challenge will work.

Rephrasing your current reply, ‘it’s now about whether there’s a specific path instead of a single solution.’

 

[Reynard]

I agree here but I think in context of my reply to your post and your post I replied to that your shifting what ‘1 solution means’ when you answer me here.

Original Quote:

Rephrasing your current reply, ‘it’s now about whether there’s a specific path instead of a single solution.’

This would make every puzzle ever a "railroad" which does not sound right.

 

[Maxperson]

So, I was talking about the existence of good GM advice on the internet. You're talking about GM force. Somewhere a mistake has been made.

Because force is where this best practices conversation stemmed from.

@Umbran said, "Are you going to claim "zero/minimal GM force" is a "best practice"?" and "Folks ought to show work that minimizing GM force is really an overall best practice, rather than just assert it." which of course was a part of the DM force conversation.

And then you went on about how much ink was spilled and how it was so obvious it didn't need to be proven. I think the mistake that was made is that you seem to have switched the conversation on us and didn't say anything.

 

[Celebrim]

Because force is where this best practices conversation stemmed from.

@Umbran said, "Are you going to claim "zero/minimal GM force" is a "best practice"?" and "Folks ought to show work that minimizing GM force is really an overall best practice, rather than just assert it." which of course was a part of the DM force conversation.

And then you went on about how much ink was spilled and how it was so obvious it didn't need to be proven. I think the mistake that was made is that you seem to have switched the conversation on us and didn't say anything.

Honestly, I'm still lost because in the middle of what was already discussion of the definition of one term of art suddenly we were talking about yet another term of art "GM force" and I'm not in the slightest clear what is meant by the term "GM force" except that like railroading the fact that "force" is included in the term suggests its connotationally negative. But also, its apparently not a synonym for fiat or a subset of fiat like prep, and I just assume not discuss "railroading" in terms of another vague term of art that doesn't seem to have an obvious agreed upon definition. Browing the internet it seems to be related to fudging and illusionism, so I'm thinking it's actually something like the collective term for what I call the techniques of railroading, but this would seem to make Umbran's original question about whether there was any GM force that wasn't railroading strange and rhetorical sense it would be definitionally true that all GM force is railroading. But I don't think he'd ask the question if he believed that, so I'm still left with only a vague idea what "GM force" even means. I'm not sure whether this is because I'm ignorant, or whether it's one of those terms in widespread use where no one really understands what it means but don't want to admit they don't so it ends up being used vaguely in a lot of different senses.

 

[Maxperson]

Honestly, I'm still lost because in the middle of what was already discussion of the definition of one term of art suddenly we were talking about yet another term of art "GM force" and I'm not in the slightest clear what is meant by the term "GM force" except that like railroading the fact that "force" is included in the term suggests its connotationally negative. But also, its apparently not a synonym for fiat or a subset of fiat like prep, and I just assume not discuss "railroading" in terms of another vague term of art that doesn't seem to have an obvious agreed upon definition. Browing the internet it seems to be related to fudging and illusionism, so I'm thinking it's actually something like the collective term for what I call the techniques of railroading, but this would seem to make Umbran's original question about whether there was any GM force that wasn't railroading strange and rhetorical sense it would be definitionally true that all GM force is railroading. But I don't think he'd ask the question if he believed that, so I'm still left with only a vague idea what "GM force" even means. I'm not sure whether this is because I'm ignorant, or whether it's one of those terms in widespread use where no one really understands what it means but don't want to admit they don't so it ends up being used vaguely in a lot of different senses.

To me DM force is when the DM makes something happen. For example, if the group were going through a mountain pass and I thought that an avalanche would be cool and just caused it to happen, that would be me using DM force to start that ball rolling. If it were instead just the result of a random encounter/event roll and then I rolled avalanche on the table, that would not be DM force.

In the context of this thread, @Reynard simply decided that the tuning forks would be stolen and as a reason for it, the fey courts were having some sort of crisis(I forget exactly what). That's DM force, but since it's only a single act AND the group had options for getting off the plane anyway, it's not enough to be railroading.

When you have a DM who engages multiple acts of DM force to move the party where he wants them to be, no matter what they want or do, that's railroading.