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

[hawkeyefan]

Anyway, two questions:
1) Do you specifically think what I did here was "railroading"?

So I’ve read most of the thread, including the follow up clarifications. It’s certainly possible I missed some details by commenting so far after the OP… but I wanted to comment.

Whether or not what you did was in some way objectively railroading isn’t something we’ll get consensus about, as the thread has shown. To me, it’s got enough shades of railroading to be of concern. And obviously, the player felt that way at the time… which is what caused the issue.

and 2) In general, how do you define "railroading" or being railroaded as a player ina game?

I’m one of those who tries not to frame railroading in a purely negative light. This is because what I consider a railroad is like the predominant mode of play in the hobby… the adventure path.

Railroading… a verb rather than an adjective… is more what I tend to dislike. This is where the GM uses Force to push things in a specific direction. It can be subtle or it can be overt, but it’s something that will sit wrong with me no matter how severe.

And I think the bit below kind of shows that this was present here.

This little jaunt is a side thing right before the climax of the campaign, meant to give them one last level bump as well as potentiually find allies in the Summer Court if they decide to break the Winter Court's hold.

To me, this reveals an agenda that you had for play, and which you therefore did not want to have the players simply avoid in some way. The sealing of the plane, the magic used to steal the components… all of that is in fiction justification to make the players deal with this situation. That you also have a planned next step in the climax of the campaign implies a pre-defined sequence of events.

Now, you may have allowed the players to deal with this scenario howver they liked… including the wish spell to get away. But I think from the perspective of a player, I would feel like I was clearly meant to deal with this winter fey coup in some way. And if planar travel’s been blocked, I’m likely not going to risk wasting a wish on something that the GM can likewise block.

I think there are likely ways in which this scenario could come about, but as a player I’d certainly want to feel like I was more involved in that, or had a chance to help shape the events in some way. Was there a chance to notice the yheft of the tuning forks, was there a chance to somehow “break the lock” on the planar gate? How involved was the winter court in play prior to this? What about the fey they overthrew? How did this coup come about? As a consequence of events of play? Or simply as part of scenario design?

I ask these questions because I know those would matter to me as a player. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer here… but I think given the response, it’s worth considering all these questions to try and avoid such a conflict between player and GM in the future. It’s not about “can we label this a railroad” so much as it is “this player felt he was being railroaded… how can that be corrected”.

 

[Reynard]

That you also have a planned next step in the climax of the campaign implies a pre-defined sequence of events.

No it doesn't. We have been playing this campaign for a year, and it has been arcing toward the climax. That is how campaigns work.

 

[hawkeyefan]

No it doesn't. We have been playing this campaign for a year, and it has been arcing toward the climax. That is how campaigns work.

That’s how some campaigns work. Not all. The idea that this was a “side jaunt” with the intention of bolstering them by level or by alliances made certainly implies a structure being in place. That this will happen, and then that will happen. And this isn’t a bad thing by any means.

But that structure is there and players will react to it, one way or the other.

 

[Celebrim]

I’m one of those who tries not to frame railroading in a purely negative light. This is because what I consider a railroad is like the predominant mode of play in the hobby… the adventure path.

Railroading… a verb rather than an adjective… is more what I tend to dislike. This is where the GM uses Force to push things in a specific direction. It can be subtle or it can be overt, but it’s something that will sit wrong with me no matter how severe.

This is why these discussions about terms of art never have any consensus. People here the term, they use the term, but they never really know what the term means and so they end up inevitably with either no definition or a private definition. Then we can do nothing but talk past each other because it's almost impossible to understand what the other person is trying to say, until they actually define their terms.

I see where you are coming from here, but I went the opposite way in analyzing the term.

To me the verb "to railroad" or "railroading" is not particularly obnoxious. Everyone does it a little, even if they are trying not to because it's not possible to run a perfect process simulation using something as limited as the human mind - even if a perfect simulation was desirable. Every GM uses at least a little bit of force some of the time to push things in a specific direction. The most common and most benevolent form of this is that whatever the players choose to do, they'll find something heroic and interesting to engage with. The game universe is filled with little coincidences to make the PCs important to the game universe.

GMs can have a perfectly reasonable observation or impulse when they see the game is starting to become boring to use force to pick the pace up or steer the PCs toward something interesting or useful for achieving whatever goal they have, or for giving them a new goal if they've accomplished their current goals or their remaining goals are too remote for the moment. Absolutely, push things in a direction and if the players don't resist, things are great. The pacing picks back up and they get engaged again and the story moves forward. "Hey guys, the content is over that way.", just done subtly and in character. The PC's find a previously unplanned map or a letter or see some villain they've been tracking coincidentally meeting with some other character in the marketplace. The meet a drunk guy in the bar which lets slip a rumor or some other clue they've hitherto missed. That's all GM force. And I can step up the examples with increasingly intrusive agency wrecking things you can do if the game is going "wrong" and people aren't enjoying it or you know they really won't enjoy what's going to happen and you need a way to make this encounter work.

But the noun "a railroad" on the other hand is something that annoys me as a player. It's when the adventure has too much "railroading" going on so that the whole adventure can be characterized by a lot of hard, clunky, and unnecessary GM force to get the poorly conceived adventure to work because the adventure was predicated on a series of choices the players aren't making and actions they don't cooperate with.

Even in cases where what the players choose is less fun, sometimes you have to let them do it. They burn down the haunted house rather than exploring it and finding the clues and treasure, and the bad guy escapes through the tunnel the basement unopposed because they weren't in combat with them. It's dumb on their part, but my bad for not making the house flameproof in the first place like a noob GM. They figure out ahead of time the corrupt cop is going to have them arrested and so they don't, turning an exciting adventure into something that happens off stage as lawyers from both sides hash it out. More boring than what would have happened, but they have to have agency. I'm not going to punish them for having foresight. They were losing but it felt to them like winning, so I let it happen.

Conflict tends to happen when the player realizes he's being railroaded, decides to get off the rails, and then you don't let them. Most players can't tell when they are being railroaded (unless you are a noob), might not even categorize what you are doing as railroading, and even if they did generally are OK with it if they think you are steering them toward something they want. As such, most players who aren't GMs I imagine define railroading as, "GM force when I don't like it." As a player who is also a GM, I define it differently because I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to GM and realize that at some level there is always GM fiat influencing the game.

 

[Reynard]

That’s how some campaigns work. Not all. The idea that this was a “side jaunt” with the intention of bolstering them by level or by alliances made certainly implies a structure being in place. That this will happen, and then that will happen. And this isn’t a bad thing by any means.

But that structure is there and players will react to it, one way or the other.

So when we started this campaign, I was very clear with the players that the goal was to fast level to "test out" D&D 2024 at all tiers, with the intended Final Battle against the BBEG occurring in tier 4. But the actual trajectory of the campaign was up to them: they had a goal from level 1 (revenge against the BBEG) but what they chose to do to gain levels, acquire gear and forge alliances was up to them.

In reality, they weren't the most self motivated group and I ended up having to do more putting options in front of them than I expected. Even so, we have had lots of fun and are coming in to the final approach.

This is when I decided to do they feywild side quest, to boost them and give them options (gear vs allies; those will be the reward options at the end) as well as a fun call back to previous campaigns (we have all been playing together off and on for up to 30 years and I have some beloved tropes).

And it should be noted that once I gave them back their tuning forks, all the players are all in, even the one initially upset about the "railroad."

My mistake was forcing the decision to remain in the feywild.