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.

 

[Neonchameleon]

George Lucas wrote Star Wars. The characters have no choice but to go along the rails he already laid. Is Star Wars a railroad?

No. It is a film. It fails utterly to be an RPG because you are passive observers and the game element is entirely absent.

I don’t think so. I don’t think many do. Star Wars is a story and stories are not railroads. Most games try to tell stories about specific characters, places and events. They typically give players some limited choices and have them play through the story to progress. In that sense I don’t think you can view games trying to tell stories as railroads.

To me the railroad can bite in the first story/module if it is heavy handed, but it normally bites in the second story/module.

To use a Star Wars as RPG example assuming that Obi Wan was an NPC and Han, Luke, and Leia, and maybe Chewie and Artoo were PCs I can picture of fifty groups setting out wth those PCs thirty-ish ending up with their interpretations of the characters resembling the film (also in about thirty someone finds the tracking device; in about half of these they play nice and go to Yavin IV anyway to let the DM do their thing).

On the other hand if you start your fifty groups at the start of Star Wars with basic character notes expecting more than about five of them to be in place for Empire Strikes Back is ... optimistic

 

[Fenris-77]

It's only railroading if the puzzle becomes absolutely required to solve. In other words, if the door to the puzzle is surrounded by obdurium walls, and there is a planar lock on the area beyond, and nothing can dispel the magic, and the puzzle has to be solved right now because the PCs can't go anything else, or go research riddles and come back, or whatever.

Of course, the GM is probably well within his rights to make bypassing the riddle door very very difficult - afterall, whoever made the riddle door obviously wanted people not to bypass it (though this brings up why you'd protect a door with a relatively easy to solve riddle). But, if the GM just says "no" to a reasonable plan to bypass the door without solving the riddle because he's so invested in that, then that is "railroading" - justified or not.

This brings me back to my original contention - the railroading is about inappropriate use of GM force to prevent players from moving away from or circumventing the GMs prep (published or not). It's not about the puzzle, it's about saying no and preventing and/or vetoing alternative options.

The example in the first paragraph is pretty extreme (by design I suspect) but in that case I'd posit a GM who does quite a bit of railroading at his table and has just pre-built the scenario to suit that taste. Pre-railroaded if you like.

I have actually used magic-proof walls and doors in one of my published adventures, but they were only preventing some very low-hanging fruit in terms of bypassing the semi-hard gates. It's a high-level adventure and the PCs were bound to have a couple of those easy buttons. I still left lots of options and possibilities.

 

[Neonchameleon]

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

Player expectations and play style. My players know I do a lot in the moment - the world is collaboratively built and they have been known when I asked about religion in their home region because the PCs were visiting there to drop an actually present God on me and have me roll with it. This would be utter heresy in certain play styles aimed at exploration but is great for emotional engagement

 

[Retros_x]

George Lucas wrote Star Wars. The characters have no choice but to go along the rails he already laid. Is Star Wars a railroad? I don’t think so. I don’t think many do.

I was talking about games and decision points. A story can be linear without the game being a railroad (mass effect). Meanwhile a game like last of us is a railroad because the story plays out the same.

Railroad is a gaming term because its not about the story in isolation, its about story in interaction with gameplay.

 

[GrimCo]

Mass effect is kind of railroad. Once you start mission, you must finish it, no leaving and coming back. Translated into ttrpg, once you enter dungeon, you can't exit. You either finish it or die trying. It gives you choices about which order or if you wanna do any side missions, but main story mission, that's pretty straight forward, you have some choices about what to do which will make final part harder/easier, some companions will die or survive, but final stretch is ultimately the same.

Mass Effect is very much like a pre written TTRPG adventure path. The main plot and major story beats are fixed, and once you start a mission it plays out in a directed, set piece way. You have meaningful control over your character, relationships, and some outcomes (like who lives or dies), but you can’t radically change or derail the core narrative. It’s strong on character agency, limited on plot agency. In TTRPG space, that's where player buy in comes. Players agree to engage with a pre written story, accepting the world, premise, and main objectives. They willingly limit their choices, knowing the campaign has a defined narrative, key events and a final goal set by the DM or module. Within that framework, players exercise agency: deciding how to approach challenges, interact with NPCs, and develop their characters but they don't derail the main plot. The restrictions aren’t adversarial. They create a shared structure that allows for meaningful decision-making, suspense, and dramatic payoff, while keeping the story coherent and satisfying. In essence, it's self accepting railroad. The railroad exists, but it’s voluntary: the structure enables meaningful character decisions and dramatic moments within a story everyone has agreed to tell.