D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Thomas Shey]

I don't think that's railroading according to anyone's definition here. If you dangle plot hooks and your players chase them, that seems definitionally not railroading.

Probably not here, but I've seen people who argue even thinking in terms of "plot hooks" per se is bad. It still directs people toward a limited number of options.

If they don't chase and you force them onto the hook, that's railroading.

I think railroading fundamentally breaks RPGs. If the GM describes the world and I tell the GM what my character is doing, we're playing an RPG. If I can't meaningfully decide what my character is doing, we're not.

Eh. Again, there are people who are more interested in how they execute the plot at hand than diverting from it at all. Whether that's different from what you are describing can be argued, but its absolutely a more narrow and focused game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I define Railroading as a linear path, where player decisions have no impact on the direction of the campaign/adventure. Most APs are this way, since it assumes you will go through each chapter in order to reach the conclusion. This annoys a lot of players, as it makes their long term decisions pointless, and is IME what people usually mean by "railroading," The only defense of this type of DMing I can think of is a newish DM running an AP, since they don't have the experience to nudge the players back on track if they derail.

Well, you can also have the case of players who just don't seem to be there to actually engage with the game intended, but are trying to play a different campaign than the one the GM is actually offering. Like a good 90% of gaming problems, this can be written down to communication and expectation problems, but as a GM you can just find yourself having to deal with it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

No, it's not railroading. You gave them plot hooks to choose from. They chose one or more of them of their own free will.

Now, if you presented your game as one in which they could ignore all of your plot hooks and do whatever they wanted, and instead you subverted their choice of pursuing none of them in favor of doing one you prepared, then yeah, you were railroading them.

But if you tell your players, "I'm going to present certain plot hooks and that's all the content we'll be doing this adventure/campaign - do you agree to stick to those plot hooks?" - you're not railroading if they agree. Nobody is being forced to do something they didn't choose in this situation.

It's just that simple.

A lot of people disagree. Just agreeing to do that is signing on to be railroaded to them.

 

[overgeeked]

To whoever originally posted this Alexandrian link on railroading, thank you. That’s some great stuff. Following that rabbit hole leads to a lot of interesting discoveries and insights.

I’d say it’s fairly clear that despite disagreeing on the minutia of definitions we’re mostly broadly in agreement on what railroading is. It’s also clear that linear storylines don’t have to be railroads, but they can be. The Alexandrian defines railroading thus: railroads happen when the GM negates a player’s choice in order to enforce a preconceived outcome. I don’t think anyone could reasonably disagree with that. Even fans of linear adventures.

A few key quotes from the Alexandrian link above and a few of the related articles.

“In fact, choices having consequences is the exact opposite of a railroad. Railroading makes a choice meaningless. Consequences make a choice meaningful.”

I couldn’t agree more. Meaningful, consequential choices also happen to make the world more engaging and entertaining and feel real. Removing choice and consequences makes the world feel dead and lifeless. It’s important to remember consequences are not always negative.

The section on railroading excuses is enlightening. Especially in light of some responses here.

“I suspect that GMs who habitually railroad have difficulty seeing this warping of the decision-making process because it’s the only thing they’re used to. But it becomes glaringly obvious whenever I get the players they’ve screwed up: Nothing is more incoherent than a player trying to figure out where the railroad is when there’s no railroad to be found.”

Oh, holy nine hells yes. Do everyone in the hobby a favor and stop railroading your players. Note the definition he uses above and the distinction between a railroad and a linear adventure.

A related article I think is worth reading is Abused Gamer Syndrome.

And a last quote with links because it’s just easier.

“If all you’ve ever run or know how to run is a railroad, it can be hard to figure out how to do things differently. Check out Don’t Prep Plots, Node-Based Scenario Design, and Game Structures for some good places to start.”

 

[Ovinomancer]

To whoever originally posted this Alexandrian link on railroading, thank you. That’s some great stuff. Following that rabbit hole leads to a lot of interesting discoveries and insights.

I’d say it’s fairly clear that despite disagreeing on the minutia of definitions we’re mostly broadly in agreement on what railroading is. It’s also clear that linear storylines don’t have to be railroads, but they can be. The Alexandrian defines railroading thus: railroads happen when the GM negates a player’s choice in order to enforce a preconceived outcome. I don’t think anyone could reasonably disagree with that. Even fans of linear adventures.

A few key quotes from the Alexandrian link above and a few of the related articles.

“In fact, choices having consequences is the exact opposite of a railroad. Railroading makes a choice meaningless. Consequences make a choice meaningful.”

I couldn’t agree more. Meaningful, consequential choices also happen to make the world more engaging and entertaining and feel real. Removing choice and consequences makes the world feel dead and lifeless. It’s important to remember consequences are not always negative.

The section on railroading excuses is enlightening. Especially in light of some responses here.

“I suspect that GMs who habitually railroad have difficulty seeing this warping of the decision-making process because it’s the only thing they’re used to. But it becomes glaringly obvious whenever I get the players they’ve screwed up: Nothing is more incoherent than a player trying to figure out where the railroad is when there’s no railroad to be found.”

Oh, holy nine hells yes. Do everyone in the hobby a favor and stop railroading your players. Note the definition he uses above and the distinction between a railroad and a linear adventure.

A related article I think is worth reading is Abused Gamer Syndrome.

And a last quote with links because it’s just easier.

“If all you’ve ever run or know how to run is a railroad, it can be hard to figure out how to do things differently. Check out Don’t Prep Plots, Node-Based Scenario Design, and Game Structures for some good places to start.”

Actually, the negating of a player choice to enforce a preconceived outcome is what GM Force is defined as, and it's a very common tool in a lot of RPGs. It's very common in D&D games that aren't anywhere close to a railroad. It shows up in a lot of situations where there's secret information or decisions by the GM on the fiction of a situation that the player is unaware of and acts to essentially negate their choice. It shows up with Quantum Ogres. It's not an uncommon tool in the box.

A railroad is more of a case of persistent and egregious use of GM Force. It helps, in my opinion, to have usefully differentiable terms to discuss what's happening in a moment of play (Force) vs what's happening over a longer period of game (railroading).

 

[ReshiIRE]

The Quantum Orge is an example of railroading though. Putting an orge always in front of the party no matter which route they take doesn't exactly respect player choice if there isn't a reason besides 'the GM wants to run this.;

Now, there are degrees to that. If you have a good story reason to bring the orge back as a chance encounter or for story reasons later, I think that's fine. Prepping content and it not being used does suck.

But being someone who eventually wants to DM and having discussed stuff with my GM, I think it's a good thing to potentially have missable content or to have things evolve in an unexpected way.

I do think the Alexandarian's post on prepping scenarios, not plots, was what convinced me of that particular point.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The Quantum Orge is an example of railroading though. Putting an orge always in front of the party no matter which route they take doesn't exactly respect player choice if there isn't a reason besides 'the GM wants to run this.;

Now, there are degrees to that. If you have a good story reason to bring the orge back as a chance encounter or for story reasons later, I think that's fine. Prepping content and it not being used does suck.

But being someone who eventually wants to DM and having discussed stuff with my GM, I think it's a good thing to potentially have missable content or to have things evolve in an unexpected way.

I do think the Alexandarian's post on prepping scenarios, not plots, was what convinced me of that particular point.

It's not an example of railroading at all. I mean, if you've ever reused prep, you've done this. If I have a set of travelling encounters, and the players travel, and I use them, then that's Quantum Ogres -- the ogres are wherever they need to be.

Now, if the players make a choice specifically to avoid ogres, and they quantum up in the way anyway, then you're heading in your direction for claiming there may be degenerate forms of play, here. But Quantum Ogres as a concept does not condition this as necessary.

 

[ReshiIRE]

That's not really the Quantum Orge though.

Depending on what you mean by travelling encounters, if you put in something that say, was on an optional path that players didn't pick last time, and put it in later as a potential random encounter, that's definitely not the Quantum Orge.

I wouldn't be so strict to say it's the Quantum Orge either if it's a guranteed encounter later if there's a good reason for that.

But it is the Quantum Orge if it's described like this (from here):

First - what in the hell are we talking about? Illusionism is defined as being presented with a choice that doesn't matter. Beedo's current example are three groves that the players can explore in any order. Beedo provides two examples, one in which SCRIPTO-DM assigns content before the players encounter it, and another in which IMPROV-DM creates encounters (such as a cool ogre encounter) and leaves them unassigned. Then, no matter which grove the players enter, they have his ogre encounter.

What's wrong with making the ogre encounter being the first one the PC's select?

Let's look at some of the comments, and why they do impact agency, and therefore fun.

"By deciding at game time that the MacGuffin is not in Wood C, and the Ogre is there instead, has he actually violated player agency? Player will or choice has not been thwarted. They wanted to go to the woods, and Lo! - they are in the woods. And yet objectively he has preordained a game result." - Beedo

Player choice has been thwarted, because the players were presented with a meaningless choice. Does it matter if they know the choice was meaningless or not? If the players have no hint of where the ogre is does it rob them of agency?

It matters for these reasons.

• If you always pre-ordain 'your precious encounter' then the players never have the experience of choosing correctly and skipping right to the end (which is fun for them).
• The flaw of the Quantum Ogre is that, if you have a party who plays smart, he won't be quantum long before you enter the woods, and then you've wasted time by not assigning him to a location already or you become the jerk DM where ESP doesn't work, the ground doesn't hold tracks, and if you try and teleport - suddenly anti-magic fields everywhere.

It all boils down to how much choice the players have and how much the players and GM agree to in a lot of these cases.

EDIT: I do want to make one thing clear before any follow on conversation: I hope I'm not telling people they're having bad wrong fun or such. I'm talking from a more more academic position and my personal opinions of what I find fun. All that matters at the table is that everyone is comfortable and having fun.

So how much one should care about Quantum Orges and railroading etc. really comes down to people's prefereferences.

 

[iserith]

A lot of people disagree. Just agreeing to do that is signing on to be railroaded to them.

If the player agrees to stay on the plot of the module or that the DM should engage in illusion of choice to certain ends, the player is by definition not being railroaded. To railroad someone means to force them into doing something. Once the DM has their agreement, they're not being forced and thus not being railroaded.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Honestly the premise of this thread was not in good faith to begin with. It immediately starts out with positive phrases for one form of gameplay and a hilariously negative phrase for any other kind of gameplay.

To view it charitably, I'd assume he's a person who views the other approaches in a very negative light and is trying to understand why others don't, but still has to ask the question through the framework he views it in.