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

[Scott Christian]

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.

Reynard,
It is clear you don't think it is railroading, and that you don't really want to hear other perspectives. But from this thread, this much is true:
1. For some, what you did was not railroading.
2. For some, what you did walked the fenceline of railroading.
3. For some, what you did was railroading.

You can come back and make all the justifications that you want. You can say you didn't mean to use the words you used when describing the scenario. You can add later fiction. None of it has changed the minds of some of these posters. The only thing for you to do is either accept their definition and learn from it, or refuse to acknowledge their definition and insist they are wrong.

 

[Reynard]

less disrespectful

For goodness sake...

 

[FrogReaver]

Pretty much. The one time I have felt railroaded in a CRPG was Mass Effect 3 - and that's because the Mass Effect franchise's previous installments had lead me to expect much more freedom. CRPGs can't create NPCs on the fly the way TTRPGs can; they are different genres. And we don't say Sandbox but Open World.

That’s interesting to me. Being railroaded doesn’t typically apply to crpgs save your one example and that determination revolved around your expectations.

That’s part of why I brought up crpgs, to understand why the term applies to tyrpgs and not to crpgs. So far the best explanation has been different expectations.

Could that not be the real underlying complaint of railroading in ttrpgs? The DM actions aren’t meeting expectations?

 

[Celebrim]

Could that not be the real underlying complaint of railroading in ttrpgs? The DM actions aren’t meeting expectations?

I think it would be fair to say that the answer to the question, "What is railroading to you as a player?" is "When I'm a player and I think, "I could do this better."".

 

[SkidAce]

That and how you did it. A wide area dimensional lock would have been less invasive and less disrespectful of their character's agency and competence than stealing small objects off their persons.

I think your point is valid.

But also, sometimes characters lose agency. Circumstances (known or unknown) can cause things to happen they cant prevent.

I guess, it all depends on the campaign and the story and how cheesy or illogical the event is. And how often it happens.

 

[Maxperson]

That’s interesting to me. Being railroaded doesn’t typically apply to crpgs save your one example and that determination revolved around your expectations.

That’s part of why I brought up crpgs, to understand why the term applies to tyrpgs and not to crpgs. So far the best explanation has been different expectations.

Could that not be the real underlying complaint of railroading in ttrpgs? The DM actions aren’t meeting expectations?

My contention is that the differences between linear and railroad are that with linear there is 1) player buy-in, and 2) in a table top RPG you can get off the line. You can't have either of those with a railroad.

Computers don't qualify as a railroad, because there's automatic buy-in when you sit down and choose to play it.

 

[Maxperson]

I think it would be fair to say that the answer to the question, "What is railroading to you as a player?" is "When I'm a player and I think, "I could do this better."".

That doesn't make sense to me. I'm constantly in games thinking about how I could do something better, but that doesn't mean that I was forced into that situation by the DM. There are lots of ways to improve upon non-railroading situations.

Is there more to your, "I could do this better" that would clarify what you mean?