What's Wrong with the Railroad?

[Lacyon]

I love railroads. Old timey steam locomotives are one of my favorite inventions ever. If I were a retired emtpy nester, I'd probably convert my basement into one of those museum diorama quality model railroad worlds.

In gaming, the so-called "benevolent railroad" is fine, I suppose... but where do you draw the line? I mean, have you ever been in a campaign where half a dozen very reasonable (and clever) solutions to a given problem were shot down "just because" and the adventure wasn't written that way? I have.

Sadly, I've been that DM too often. I run a lot of modules, sometimes because I'm asked (my playgroup started because a couple of friends asked to be run through the Return to the Tomb of Horrors, converted to 3E), and other times just because my prep time is limited. The group understands and at least geographically tries to stick to the module just out of deference to reality. Every once in a while, they'll throw really wacky things at me though. The first couple of times I just had no idea how to handle it and had it either fail or do nothing productive without much feedback to the player, and I could tell it was frustrating for them (not so frustrating that they stopped playing, but still).

I've gotten a lot better since then (I think), at least in part because of the 4E DMG (I know, people are probably tired of hearing about how awesome skill challenges and p. 42 are, but the concepts there, along with experience, has really helped me think about how to structure and scale challenges on the fly, even in my 3E game). Sometimes the wacky idea just doesn't work, but usually it'll at least seem like it failed because the PCs aren't good enough (yet) or the enemy took precautions that stopped it, rather than just "umm, that doesn't help".

There's a fine line between the players' "responsibility" to buy into the game that the GM brings to the table, and the GM's need to let the PC's do things their own way. The two endpoints are railroads and sandboxes, and in my opinion, exist only in theory, not in reality. But head too much in the direction of a railroad leads to very frustrated players after a while. I'd submit that your example game isn't really a railroad at all; it's right at the ideal point where players and GM are on the same page about what the campaign is about and what everyone should be doing.

That's a pretty good sum-up.

 

[Dausuul]

Fundementally, it's about player choice, but a key thing to note is that sometimes other characters and the world in general are going to limit your choices. This is in itself IMO is not railroading.

True, but just because you can come up with an in-game excuse for your railroading doesn't make it less of a railroad. The limitations should be reasonable ones; the players should be able to figure them out ahead of time; and if the players come up with a clever way to circumvent those limitiations, they should be allowed some degree of success.

I'll present my argument for why each of my scenarios is a railroad:

1) This scenario has the best case for not being a railroad situation; it's entirely possible that the Wild Wood and the Caves contain no clues. The problem here is that the DM is dismissing each player idea out of hand, without even a pretense at giving it a fair shot. He doesn't ask what sort of clues they're looking for, or how they're going about looking for them. He just says, "You don't find anything."

It's especially unreasonable in the case of the Caves of Unspeakable Dread. It's quite possible there might not be any clues in the Wild Wood, but it's pretty hard to credit that all the unspeakably dreadful monsters just up and left the Caves. It smells strongly of DM-not-wanting-to-deal-with-this. If there really is a legitimate reason for it, then visiting the Caves should be an investigation in itself, and the PCs should be able to rule out a few possibilities if nothing else.

2) Sure, you can dream up a reason for the road to be protected from the dire weasels. That isn't the point. The problem is that the players are being rudely shoved back onto the road when they try to go off it.

Yes, fairy-tale logic is weird, and if you're running a campaign with a fairy-tale theme, you might create a "don't-go-off-the-path" scenario. I've done it. But in that case, the prohibition should be clearly established for the players ahead of time, not sprung on them the moment they try to deviate from the plan; and the consequences should be more interesting and engaging than just "monsters attack you until you go back on the path." (Remember that ninety percent of the time in fairy-tales, these prohibitions are broken. Often the broken prohibition is all that prevents the story from ending three paragraphs in.)

3) This case is the most egregious form of railroading, but not because it's not possible within the logic of the game world. Bahamut might be perfectly capable of taking control of the body of one of his paladins and using it to smite a dragon. It's still a railroad, because the DM is arbitrarily denying the player a choice that he should reasonably be able to make.

 

[The Ghost]

In my mind, the DM should set up a situation, not an outcome, whenever it is possible.

This.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

My question is - what's necessarily wrong with a railroad plot? Now, hear me out. I understand *how* a railroad can be bad in games. If the plot of a game feels completely artificial and the PCs are not allowed to do anything that deviates from the predetermined plot, sure. The game feels fake and you might as well show up for the DM's novel every week.

To work within the metaphore, a D&D adventure can be looked at as the players trying to travel from point A (the beginning of the adventure) to point Z (the end of the adventure). Now, as long as the railroad is going where everyone on the train (the players and the DM) want to go, there are not going to be any real problems with the journey its self in general terms.

But there are occasions where things can go wrong even if everyone on the train wants to go to the indicated destination.

- Railroads do not have shortcuts
If at any point during the trip, the players think they are close to the end point, they may want to jump ahead and go right to the end. Maybe the players forced a combat with the final villain before the story called for it. The typical railroad solution is for the villain to escape or survive, no matter what the players do. A less obvious approach is to have Villain mark 2 with identical stats show up and the villains plot marches onward as though the players did not do anything.

The tendency for rail road adventures to hit every plot point (station) between A and Z no matter what the players try is a potentially huge source for player frustration.

- Railroads invite train wrecks
If the DM decides to try to go ahead and let the players shortcut happen, it is quite possible that the rest of the adventure becomes a trainwreck. An encouter at point 'P' along the adventure track may call for a mercenary hired by the villain to attack the players. But if the villain was killed at point 'G', who hires the mercenaries? Ok, so I guess we skipped point G. but point G also let to points H through K, where the players find the magical sword that is the only weapon that can harm the villains pet Golem. The mercenaries who never ambush the players had the map. And your players are at point 'U' and getting TPK'ed by a golem before the DM realizes it.

Or perhaps at point 'N', there is a plot point where the villains start to react to the players, but because the villain never escaped that fight, the other bad guys should not have that info. So how do you justify it happening?

A badly managed railroad plot is not very resilient to player improvisation, and can result in story elements that make no sense.

- Railroads can have unwanted passengers
Some railroad plots will saddle the party with NPC's who are critical to the plot that the players want nothing to do with. It could be the NPC who is all too obviously a traitor. It could be a DMPC much stronger then the players who steals the spot light. In either case, they cannot be told to go away and the players cannot murder them.

Dropping the metaphor, Railroad adventures are typically disliked when they make what should be valid choices impossible for the sake of preserving the assumptions of the plot.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Wootz]

The traditional definition of "railroading" is distinct from "linear plot." Railroading means forcing the PCs to follow the plot whether they like it or not, usually in a heavy-handed manner.

The most common form of railroading is simple refusal to let any "non-approved" strategy succeed:

DM: "Okay, you don't follow the old man's tip to search the Mountains of Mysteriousness. You're in a farming village. There's nothing to do."
Player: "We go look for clues in the Wild Woods, where the Duke's body was found."
DM: "Okay. You wander around the Wild Woods for a while. You don't find anything."
Player: "We go in the Caverns of Unspeakable Dread, since that's where the evil wizard must have gotten the monsters to kill the Duke."
DM: "Okay. You explore the Caverns. All the unspeakably dreadful things have gone away. There's nothing here."
Player: "...I guess we head for the Mountains of Mysteriousness then."

More sadistic DMs punish PCs in arbitrary ways for not staying on the rails:

DM: "There's a road leading up to a high pass over the Mountains of Mysteriousness. At the crest of the pass is a cave mouth with wisps of smoke curling up from it."
Player: "That looks dangerous. I'll bet there's a dragon in there. We'll head south through the foothills for a while, see if we can find another way over the Mountains."
DM: "As you start off into the foothills, you get attacked by a pack of rabid dire weasels. Roll initiative."
<combat ensues, two PCs are eaten by the dire weasels, the rest barely survive>
DM: "Just as you finish off the last weasel, you see another pack coming toward you. You remember that there's an enchantment on the road that keeps the dire weasels at bay."
Player: "Uhh... I guess we'd better follow the road then." <sighs>

In the worst-case scenario, the DM won't even let the players try to leave the rails:

DM: "You stand over the fallen dragon and deliver the death blow..."
Player: "Wait a minute, I'm not killing it yet. Now that we've beaten it, I want to talk to it. I tell it that we'll spare its life if it agrees to fly us out of the Mountains."
DM: "It's an evil dragon. You're a paladin of Bahamut. You smite it and it dies."
Player: "No, I really want to talk to it. Hey, maybe I can even redeem it. That'd be awesome."
DM: "You feel the power of Bahamut flow through your body, taking control of you and forcing you to smite the dragon's head off."
Player: "...You know, I'm gonna go play video games. Here's my paladin's character sheet. You might as well keep it since you're playing him anyway."

Oh god I lol'd. I think in the cases me and the rest of my group suffered, we weren't even given this sort of grace. We had no options but to say okay, since there was always this omnipresent threat of death that would snap at us if we did anything our DM didn't plan for in his "story". The end result was insanely awful, any roleplaying we tried at all was smited severely (he told us what we did, what we said, and only let us make decisions when someone hired us for something (which was a say yes or his men kill you scenario EVERY TIME) and on the battlemat. That was IT) so we just stuck in metagame the whole way through.

 

[Eric Tolle]

Why are railroaded games bad and wrong?

Because of this account from usennet, the very DEFINITION of a railroaded game.

And the sad thing is? I've seen worse.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

But there are occasions where things can go wrong even if everyone on the train wants to go to the indicated destination.

This is true. But most of it can be avoided by quick adaption and thinking in advance. One of the first tricks you learn when writing an adventure like this is not to place the PCs in the position to be able to derail everything. Do not let them within sight of a villain you want to survive or you don't have a foolproof method of bringing back to life. Do not rely on easy to foil plans. If you want something to happen make sure it happens "off screen" or you have some REALLY good reason it can't be stopped.

Dropping the metaphor, Railroad adventures are typically disliked when they make what should be valid choices impossible for the sake of preserving the assumptions of the plot.

This is true. But most players I gamed with are willing to believe that almost any choice could be valid or invalid based on circumstances they don't know. I have run into a couple of players with entitlement complexes who feel that THEY know what should and shouldn't work and any DM stopping them is railroading them unfairly. You could have written on a piece of paper "All the villagers know nothing about where the villain went as none of them have seen him" 2 years before the game ever started and they'll complain that you aren't letting their investigations around town get them any closer to finding the villain. Some people feel that ANY good idea they come up with must suddenly become the "right" answer. Sometimes there just is only one right answer.

As for the rest of what you said. Part of the reason you want to avoid the derailment is because it is normally the most fun for the players and the DM to follow the rails. I've had players say "Look, I've come up with a great way to kill the villain in the first session. You can't stop me." They've disliked the answer they got much more than if I had railroaded them into not killing the villain. The answer they got was "Congratulations, it's over. You want to run a game now?"

Of course, there is a severe difference between the type of railroading that relies entirely on DM fiat and the type that can be mostly explained. If you plan out the fact that the villain killed someone then teleported away and the only one who saw his face was the blacksmith who ran back to his house and hasn't told anyone...well, the players need to find the blacksmith and get the information out of him any way they can. Otherwise, they'll never get to the end. It can be fun to try to figure out the mystery. There may only be one way to go, but the PCs figure it out on their own based on hints you give them. They get to use their skills in a useful way.

On the other hand, the railoading that says, "The evil wizard casts a spell, you are all transformed into kobolds. No save. Then, you are all teleported into the dungeons, no save. You are all fitted with collars which let the villain kill you at will. You are then told to go get an item for him or you all die." You have no choice at all. You are barely playing the game.

 

[pawsplay]

My question is - what's necessarily wrong with a railroad plot?

What's wrong with a game of chess with a predetermined winner?

Now, let me just say this. The phrase railroad is overused. A game becomes a railroad when there are few or no meanginful choices. A game that simply has a clear, fairly linear story behind it is not a railroad just because the GM has planned what is going to happen next. It becomes a railroad the moment the GM takes away real choice.

"Destroy the Dark Lord of Somesuth" is not inherently a railroad. If the players decide Glandalf the Wizard is untrustworthy and ditches him, that's a choice. If the PCs confront Somesuth and have a genuine choice whether to side with the lord of evil or attempt to destroy him, that's a choice.

When all roads lead to a predetermined scenario, that's a railroad. Sometimes you can use the illusion you are not doing this, but it tends to come out in the end. My players were joking about "plot points" and glowing NPCs in my recent campaign, until I demonstrated how much rope I was willing to give them to hang themselves. Simply becaue a story is preserved, because certain tropes are present, because the GM has engineered a certain scenario, does not mean there are not options.

 

[Toben the Many]

Great responses.

I'm going to respond generally to the thread so far.

As to why I feel like the campaign we're in is a railroad, I suppose it's because there is always one very obvious choice as to what to do in each story arc thus far. Because it's a save-the-world-campaign, Choice A is almost always something that will help save the world, while all other choices will not help. Because we are playing a very large and intricate mystery, many times we're not even aware of what other choices there could be.

It sounds like this kind of campaign would have very few surprises. That is certainly not the case. Each session has large revelations and surprises.

I think also, because I DM a lot as well, I can tell there's a lot of dice fudging and whatnot. Surprisingly, I have not really minded that in this campaign, though it often irritates me in other campaigns.

 

[Dausuul]

As to why I feel like the campaign we're in is a railroad, I suppose it's because there is always one very obvious choice as to what to do in each story arc thus far. Because it's a save-the-world-campaign, Choice A is almost always something that will help save the world, while all other choices will not help.

Well, that's a sign of a DM who's heavy-handed with the direction; not in itself a bad thing. The test of whether it's a genuine railroad comes in when you try to take Choice B despite it not being the obviously helpful thing to do.

If you get a bumpy but manageable ride, then you're not on a railroad, just a highway without any exits. You can still go off-road if you really want to. It's only a railroad if your steering wheel refuses to turn and the car stereo suddenly switches on and announces, "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."