What is your definition of Railroading?

[molonel]

What if the DM moves encounters around, so that instead of happening on the road to city A, they happen on the road to city B? Or instead of fighting monster X in the abandoned temple, it's fought in dungeon Y? In other words, what if no matter where the PCs go or what they do, the DMs plot points will happen anyway? It seems to me that that is the only way for a DMs prep time to be worth it, but it effectively takes all meaning away from the PCs choices. Is the illusion of choice the only thing that is important to avoid railroading, or what?

No. Choice is not merely an illusion. There is efficiency of time and resources, and then there is railroading.

I move combat encounters around. I also place roleplaying encounters with an -ish on them. Okay, maybe he wasn't waiting for a tree at the entrance to the forest because the players went another way. Soooooo .... he's over there.

But I've dropped combat encounters that I prepared, and made up new material on the fly for players to account for their creativity and ideas. Yes, I spent a while designing that combat encounter. But the players thought it sucked, and upon further examination, I agreed with them. So, out it goes.

If you can't let go of your material, then you might want to ask yourself if you're railroading.

 

[Oryan77]

I hear people complain about railroading all of the time. Sometimes I even hear players complain about railroading when it's accepted railroading. That's just as bad as a DM that executes bad railroading. Those are the players that feel like their 4-8 hour gametime is precious & the DM needs to cater to their needs. If they want to explore area B rather than area A, then gosh darn it, the DM better be good enough to wing an entire session & forget about the 15 hours he spent preparing stuff for the last 2 weeks.

The thing that some people don't realize is that there's different versions of railroading. I'll give a few examples using this scenario: The objective of the plot is to stop the BBEG from feeding the King to the Red Dragon at the end of the adventure.


Example of accepted railroading:

A DM with little time on his hands only runs published adventures. The adventure hook is to get the PC's to travel through the haunted forest which will allow them to find the underground caverns that lead to the Red Dragon lair. Instead of following hooks to get PC's travelling through the forest, the PC's say they want to sneak into the castle and assassinate the king. The DM hasn't created floorplanes to the castle, hasn't created stats for NPC guards, & doesn't even have stats for the king. But he does have floorplans to a cave, stats to the BBEG, & a creative plotline that he paid $15 for on Ebay. So every attempt the PC's make to sneak into the castle is foiled & they keep hearing about ghosts in the haunted woods. So the players might say, "We're being railroaded into going into the woods".

By letting this guy DM, the players have agreed to a gentlemans agreement. For the sake of getting to play D&D, they agreed to play out whatever adventure this DM provides them since he can't free-style a session. If this is made clear before the game, players should attempt to follow obvious hooks so the DM can hopefully absorb them into a fun adventure. There's nothing wrong with this & no one should complain about this accepted railroading unless you're a "problem player".

Example of bad railroading:

This same DM just finished running an undead encounter in the forest & a woman they rescued points to a cave entrance & tells the PC's that the BBEG kidnapped the king and took him in there. The PC's want to go back to town to by +1 swords so they can kill the BBEG easier. The DM doesn't want them to do this so he tells the players they get lost in the woods...but they find the cave again. When the PC's attempt to go to town again, the DM says that a Red Dragon flies overhead but doesn't notice anyone yet (he hopes the PC's will hide in the cave). The PC's hide in the cave and the DM tells them that they trigger a trap and the cave entrance crashes down & bolders now block their way out. So the players might say, "We're being railroaded into going into the cave & not going to town".

Rather than letting the PC's better equip themselves, he blocks their attempt by throwing obstacles at them that keep thwarting their actions. The players feel like no matter what they do, something will happen to keep them from going back to town. The DM doesn't have any reason to railroad this other than the fact he just didn't want them to buy +1 swords, & he wants to hurry & get to the cave encounters.

Example of illusion railroading:

The adventure says that PC's need to find the Dwarf Miner in the cave so he can guide them through the correct tunnels or the PC's could get lost forever underground since they don't have a Ranger PC. If the PC's want to continue playing, they'll need a guide. When they meet the Dwarf, they dislike him & kill him before they find out he can guide them. As they continue on, the DM creates another Dwarf & comes up with the idea that he was actually searching for the 'now dead' Dwarf in order to hurt him for stealing his mining job. The PC's run into this 2nd Dwarf & lie to him that they saw the other dwarf die by a trap. They get along with this Dwarf & the new Dwarf tells the PC's he can guide them through the caves. They accept his offer & never realized that they were just railroaded into following an NPC guide through the caves.

The group was not equipped with a way for them to get through the caves & they ruined their only chance without knowing it. The DM needed to nudge them forward so the game doesn't come to a halt. He guided the PC's in the right direction without them knowing.

 

[painandgreed]

As an example question, do you consider World of Warcraft, or more specifically the world of World of Warcraft, a railroad?

NO, I'd say that WoW is a sandbox, the opposite of railroading. There are certain adventures there but what the adventurers do, in what order, and if they succeed is up to them. The PCs can do whatever they want, go where ever they want, and in their own timeframe. They ignore all quests and plot points and can sit in the woods killing boars for weeks if they want.

 

[Korgoth]

As an aside to the larger issue, which I'm too out of it to address coherently right now, I think that one could argue that linear dungeon design is an example of railroading. Ideally, the entire underworld need not be explored and there should be multiple branching paths from which to choose. Even more ideally, there should be enough varied content in the underworld that the PCs can even define their own goals and adventure in the site until those goals are met.

 

[xrpsuzi]

Players feel railroaded when it appears that their actions don't really affect where the plot is going or when they become bottlenecked into a situation and the plot (i.e. the game) cannot move forward without going through with the situation (the 1 path/answer/solution).

The best GMs I've played with could roll with the punches and react to the curve ball of PC "I didn't think about that option" action.

But then again, they were probably railroading me the whole time and I didn't notice/care because I was having fun as a player.

-Suzi

 

[IceFractal]

IMO, it's only railroading when the players are prevented from a course of action that they wanted to embark on by arbitrary obstacles.


So if the troll bandits were going to be on the eastern path, and the party, for unrelated reasons, takes the west path, and the DM moves the bandits to the west path, not railroading.

But if the party starts along the east path, sees the trolls ahead without being noticed, and decides to take the west path instead - and then the DM says there are trolls on that path too (as well as any others the party tries to take), then that's railroading.

Likewise, if the party takes shelter from a storm and happens to find themselves in the Cavern of Adventure, that isn't railroading. If they then decide to go elsewhere, but can't leave because a dragon is spontaneously lurking outside, that is railroading.


Of course, this isn't to say that the party can't be prevented from their course of action legitimately. If the party decides to go take the royal treasure, it's not railroading for the king to have guards, traps, and magic countermeasures there to prevent it. Now if they decide to take some random traveller's money bag, and suddenly a royal legion shows up out of nowhere, that might be railroading.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Of if they want to travel east, and are stopped by a wandering dragon army, then want to go west, and are stopped by a wandering dragon army ... that's railroading.

 

[ruleslawyer]

So, what do you consider railroading?

"A train leaves Waterdeep traveling at 30 miles per hour..."

 

[DaveyJones]

Dragonlance.

complete with an infinite army that prevents them from going in a direction not scripted.

and a Deus Ex Machina wizard who had GAWD written on his forehead.

 

[Maine-iac!]

To me railroading is when no matter what choice your PC makes the DM already has plans for what your pC is going to do.

Railroading is when the DM already knows what he wants the outcome to be and he does everything in his power to make that outcome happen.

didn't read the whole thread, but this seems about right to me.