D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Asisreo]

If this is true, then the professionals making official products need help, too. The DMG's lack of strong guidance is intentional -- it's so that the game is yours and not WotC's. This was a key design goal for 5e, alongside rulings not rules -- they undercooked the rules/advice so you can more easily drift it to your desires. Of course, this makes it a bit harder to learn, because you have to know what you want to do to do that, and why the hobby is still mostly taught via received wisdom (although a lot of that has moved online and out of the LGS).

I've recognized this, but 5e has drawn newer players. Maybe the DMG was a flub because they didn't expect a huge boom of newer players and DM's, maybe they were hoping to only bring back majority 3.5e or even AD&D fans.

That's fine...for the first 2-3 years. But there has been no improvement from them in guiding new players in adventure creation. From Xanathar's to Tasha's and everything in between. We could have had so much better guidance after WoTC knew first-time DMing rates were on the rise yet they decided to give player-facing options so that they can have fun creating a character that never realizes their roleplay goals because the DM required their character to have character development when they wanted it.

 

[iserith]

My group wanted to go on adventures and they were happy to go chasing the plot hooks I dangled in front of them. Does that mean I railroaded them? Probably, according to some here, but instead I think I provided the fun they wanted.

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.

 

[iserith]

I've recognized this, but 5e has drawn newer players. Maybe the DMG was a flub because they didn't expect a huge boom of newer players and DM's, maybe they were hoping to only bring back majority 3.5e or even AD&D fans.

That's fine...for the first 2-3 years. But there has been no improvement from them in guiding new players in adventure creation. From Xanathar's to Tasha's and everything in between. We could have had so much better guidance after WoTC knew first-time DMing rates were on the rise yet they decided to give player-facing options so that they can have fun creating a character that never realizes their roleplay goals because the DM required their character to have character development when they wanted it.

No worries, there are plenty of YouTube and Twitch examples of how to engage in shopping all session, interacting with quirky, cagey shopkeeps and hanging out in taverns until someone gets bored enough to steal from and murder the innkeeper and burn the place down. That's basically an adventure, right? All you have to do to smooth over the rough parts is have some great put-on accents.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I've recognized this, but 5e has drawn newer players. Maybe the DMG was a flub because they didn't expect a huge boom of newer players and DM's, maybe they were hoping to only bring back majority 3.5e or even AD&D fans.

That's fine...for the first 2-3 years. But there has been no improvement from them in guiding new players in adventure creation. From Xanathar's to Tasha's and everything in between. We could have had so much better guidance after WoTC knew first-time DMing rates were on the rise yet they decided to give player-facing options so that they can have fun creating a character that never realizes their roleplay goals because the DM required their character to have character development when they wanted it.

Why should there be, honestly? The AP model seems to work pretty well. Even the popular sources of social media producing popular content use the AP model. There's plenty you can do within an AP to tailor to specific characters with little changes, so long as the characters are aligned to the concept of the AP (which they should be, normally).

Don't take this as me saying that this is the only way to play, because I'm not that at all. I'm not a huge fan of APs. I also enjoy other games that operate completely differently from D&D and where it's impossible to railroad or even force an outcome without being glaringly obvious about it. So, yeah, my preferences are not linear, in general, although I can enjoy that mode of play (just less that other modes). I'm not here defending linear play or linear adventures because it describes my preferred way to play -- I'm trying to point out that it's still an extremely valid mode of play and that the difference between linear play and a railroad is one of degeneracy -- the railroad is just linear play gone wrong. The real root is the GM as the sole authority over almost all fiction creation in game -- players can only state what their characters attempt and think and believe. The GM has everything else (at a minimum veto authority, which is full authority, really). So, a railroad is just where the GM using their authority crosses someone's line into bad play. If you look at the specifics of play, it's a difference in degree, not kind.

 

[Campbell]

What I don’t understand is why people expect DMs to be stellar from session 1. DMing is a hard skill to learn and takes a lot of practice. Getting to a point where you feel comfortable enough to just roll with the players whims takes time.

Beginner DMs need simple linear adventures to get started. I remember the “deer in the headlights“ feeling when my players did something unexpected! Having a path is like DMing with a safety-net.

I don't expect anyone to be good at anything right away. The only way to get good at anything is to put your reps in. In my experience running a more linear game and running a more player directed game are phenomenally different skill sets. I do not think either really helps with the other one. I also don't think either is more suited to new GMs generally. More suited to particular GMs absolutely, but not new ones in particular.

My own experience is that less linear styles of GMing come a lot more naturally to me and that trying to run a more linear game just resulted in a lot of frustration on my end. I really did not learn how to run an effective game until Sorcerer (which I first ran during the 4e era) and Apocalypse World laid it out for me. Even after 20 years in the game trying to do more GM directed styles leads to a lot of personal frustration and ineffectual play. I just don't have it in me.

I enjoy playing in more linear games sometimes. I am just completely incapable of running them.

 

[Charlaquin]

Puctured: Railroading

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For my part, "railroading" means that, when the players want to do something that is (a) reasonable for their characters' abilities, (b) appropriate to the established fiction of the world and past behavior of those characters, and (c) something that an outside observer would consider a logical choice given the situation at hand, the players are (1) denied the ability to do so, (2) for ad-hoc reasons, (3) in order to have specific events occur.

Miss any of the aforementioned things, and you've diverged from "railroading" proper, regardless of whether the adventure is linear, nonlinear, or whatever else. If it's unreasonable for the characters' abilities, then they shouldn't be doing it to begin with, no matter how logical it might sound. If its wildly out of character or incongruous with the established world, then it isn't justified regardless. If it's only "reasonable" because the players are exploiting metagame knowledge or otherwise engaging in something hinky, that an outsider wouldn't know about, it's still totally fair for the DM to say no.

If the players aren't actually denied the ability to do reasonable things, even if that's because they didn't bother to ask, that's presumptively non-railroad. (I'm setting aside the "DM has trained the players never to bother" scenario; that's the product of having already railroaded so much the players have adjusted to it, so the railroading still happened.) If the reasoning isn't ad-hoc, but rather well-grounded even if it wasn't known in advance, that's presumptively non-railroad. I've had to say "no" to some of my players' schemes, not because I wasn't supportive--rather the opposite!--but because there was world-lore they hadn't discovered yet that would prevent it. Instead of just having nothing happen, though, I always try to turn this into a learning opportunity so they can understand more about the world. And then finally, if there's no specific goal in mind, the DM is just arbitrarily saying no for some other reason, it's not railroading, though it's still not a good thing.

Now, I know some folks see "railroading" as meaning "absolutely any time the DM has an intent ever," and thus find it hard to believe that any game can go long without some railroading. I, personally, think this definition is over-broad, because it lumps together one behavior that is pretty clearly a problem (dismissing valid, reasonable player choices/efforts unfairly) with another that is clearly not (helping a group maintain focus). The former is dismissive, by intent, while the latter is supportive, again by intent.

 

[Charlaquin]

Railroading is a social construct.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I would basically agree with this definition of railroading.

Railroading is the DM removing agency from the players by removing meaningful choices from the players that would otherwise effect how the game unfolds.

If the DM puts whatever adventure they planned in front of the players and doesn’t allow them to go left when the adventure is to the right, that’s railroading in the form of removing choice.

If the DM puts whatever adventure they planned in front of the players no matter which direction they go, that’s railroading in the form of the illusion of choice.

And this is why you fail.

Because absolutely no one does that.

It's possible to run a narrative campaign without interfering in player agency in any way.

 

[Yora]

Railroading is when the outcome of scenes is predetermined and player ideas or dice rolls are invalidated to keep everything on script.
The players are passengers going where the rails take the train, they have no way to steer.
I really don't understand how there can be any ambiguity about the term?

By these definitions every published adventure is a railroad, because it includes a plot.

Correct. Pretty much all of them are.