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

[hawkeyefan]

I'm agnostic about the right way. I just note that in some parts of the hobby actually making mental stats matter seems to be seen as a terrible imposition for various reasons (watch the kerfluffle any time discussion of social or mental skills comes up).

It depends on how it’s implemented. I mean, taking D&D as an easy example, I’ve seen people who consider an Intelligence of 8 as being an utter imbecile instead of being a little below average. As if the character is just walking around like “Duuurh what’s dat ting dere?”

A little below average doesn’t mean a person can’t figure things out or have intelligent thoughts. We all know people we consider to he pretty dumb who, at times, seem anything but… and we also know people who are incredibly smart who will upon occasion do really stupid things.

I’d personally rather not leave something like that up for interpretation given how drastically it’s often interpreted. Instead, it’s a penalty on certain rolls… and other than that, it need not serve as an indicator of the character’s overall Intelligence (or Charisma or whatever other stat you want).

 

[Thomas Shey]

A lot of times people want choices, but only good ones.

Or at the least, their idea of acceptable things to get involved in and the GM's can be out of sync.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The problem here is "matter" does a lot of work. I personally don't think "matter" should be "other players have the right to police how I declare actions for my character".

Its not my preferred way either, but like I said, some people seem to think they should be able to to play an idiot as, well, not, too, and I can't say I'm a fan. At least in a game where you have control over the attributes you're working with, I find it more than a little disingenuous to take advantage of your own mental and social attributes to cover for the character having poor ones. I prefer that the system features of the game make that more of a nonstarter, but not all of them do.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It depends on how it’s implemented. I mean, taking D&D as an easy example, I’ve seen people who consider an Intelligence of 8 as being an utter imbecile instead of being a little below average. As if the character is just walking around like “Duuurh what’s dat ting dere?”

A little below average doesn’t mean a person can’t figure things out or have intelligent thoughts. We all know people we consider to he pretty dumb who, at times, seem anything but… and we also know people who are incredibly smart who will upon occasion do really stupid things.

I’d personally rather not leave something like that up for interpretation given how drastically it’s often interpreted. Instead, it’s a penalty on certain rolls… and other than that, it need not serve as an indicator of the character’s overall Intelligence (or Charisma or whatever other stat you want).

While I don't disagree with you in principal, I still think if you're going to be uncomfortable with avowed mental attributes telling you things about the overall tendency in that area, don't have attributes in that area. There are games without Intelligence attributes after all, whether they just break out more narrow elements of same or skip it altogether.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's the players who decide what, if anything, their PCs are going to do. If the players want to spend the whole session discussing what to do, that's up to them. I as GM don't feel the need to "spur the heroes to action" because I don't feel that it's my job to do so. At most I would insist that the discussion be had in character (ie, roleplayed) and if in a public place and overheard by NPCs, said NPCs might interject with suggestions. But I also absolutely love games with lots of political intrigue and interpersonal relationships so a whole session being dedicated to a single scene of deep conversation is something I enjoy, especially if it's the players roleplaying amongst themselves.

A more common issue in my games is the players feeling they're not being spurred on enough.

 

[Maxperson]

For sure.

I think at least some portion of GM railroading comes from insecurity: that is, being uncertain about being able to flow with out of the box player thinking. This can really only be mitigated by experience: the more you GM, the more confident you become improvising and following the players wherever they go.

I don't think railroading is limited to only new GMs, but I bet that it is more common among them.

I agree completely.

One of my players wanted to try his hand at DMing and since I was in need of a break, we agreed. He came to us and said, "I'm really new at this and I know that you(Maxperson) just roll with it and have no problem when we just pop to wherever we need to go in the world in the middle of an adventure. I just don't think I can do that while I'm learning how to DM. I'm going to run X(I can't remember which adventure path it was) and I'd appreciate if you guys didn't deviate away from it." We of course agreed to stay within the confines of that adventure path.

That's the difference right there between a railroad and linear. Had he not talked to us and instead just forced us to stay within those confines, it would have been a railroad adventure. However, because we had buy in and agreed to stay inside those confines, it was linear. Railroading requires force against the players wishes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Its unforunate, but there are clearly people who think that's true.

Sandbox is my One True Way, but there's other schools of thought.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The genuine problem you can run into in a few cases if you've over-emphasized the players choosing their own path is that their reaction may be "run away". This is often an indication somewhere along the way there's been a breakdown in expectations, but it still happens.

And I think running away should be fine. It is in my game. This is why I prep a large area, and why I run sandbox. I welcome "run away".

 

[TheWyrdOne]

1) Do you specifically think what I did here was "railroading"?

No. You provided your players with constraints; that's different from railroading because they still have agency within the constraints you provided (which, if we're being real, were pretty reasonable - all of the Faewild to explore!). This feels to me more like a "mirror principle" kind of thing; your player was trying to railroad everyone into the narrative they wanted to tell (e.g. "not Faewild") instead of sharing the narrative. And when they couldn't railroad you all, they blamed you for their failed attempt. (EDIT: I realized I don't know enough about the situation to really make any statement here.)

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

Tabletop games are exercises in collaborative storytelling. Players sign up to share the story being told with everyone, and that includes the GM. In a game like D&D that can require so much from the Game Master in terms of planning and setup, it behooves players to respect the GM's time and also respect the parts of the story the GM wants to tell. It's give and take, not just take, take, take.

To me, "railroading" is when someone (anyone) at the table attempts to take control of the story and force it to align only with their vision without allowing space for collaboration. It doesn't mean everyone gets what they want. It means everyone get a share of the resulting narrative, but also everyone commits to giving up a bit of their vision to align with everyone else. This is how collaboration works.

If a player wants to control everything in the narrative, there are options for that – solo play, creative writing, etc.

 

[hawkeyefan]

While I don't disagree with you in principal, I still think if you're going to be uncomfortable with avowed mental attributes telling you things about the overall tendency in that area, don't have attributes in that area. There are games without Intelligence attributes after all, whether they just break out more narrow elements of same or skip it altogether.

Sure, I would agree there may be better ways to mechanize this stuff for gameplay.

I just think that leaving it open to interpretation by the GM is one of the worst ways to go.