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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8343501" data-attributes="member: 85555">Most published adventures have to engage in some amount of railroading by their nature (at least most mainstream adventures). That is a tricky topic on its own. I think with published material because they are basically making it for every table, they have to give it that kind of structure. Some though. At the same time, even if it is a linear adventure, I don't think it is a railroad if the players can make meaningful choices and they can choose to disengage. With a published module, whether it is railroad will often come down to how the GM implements it. I think there is a big difference between dropping a scenario on a party that naturally makes sense for what is going on and what choices they have made, even if it is say a canned scenario, and dropping a scenario on a party despite it being clearly not in line with the choices and decisions they have made. A canned and improvised scenario can still both be railroads, and they can both be non-railroads. A lot of it is about execution. Generally I do think sessions that are structured around events, or structured around encounters will face more potential railroad pitfalls (this is one reason I stopped enjoying and stopped running adventure path type adventures) but I don't think they have to be. You can still have meaningful choice within that, and you can honor choices the party makes (for example if they go off the path, allowing them to miss one of those encounters because of that decision, and maybe coming up with a new on suited to the choice on the fly). I think fundamentally railroading is about how married the GM is to the material the GM has prepared for the session. Most GMs prepare. I prepare. Having prepared material isn't the problem. The problem is forcing the prepared material when clearly that isn't the direction the players are going anymore (figuratively or literally). The issue here is presenting the players with a choice and moving the house or the door encounter so it happens no matter which choice they make. There is a lot of gray obviously. If the players are effectively going off map, to venturing into an area the GM has no prep for, and the GM decides to put a haunted house down. After that point, if the decide not to go in, and the GM keeps putting pressure on them to return to the house, definitely it has become a railroad at that point. I think that is totally fair though to decide to put down a haunted house on the fly. That is different to me, than having the house on the map and then moving it in front of the path for  the players so they encounter it. As a player I understand the GM has to invent things sometimes, and has to throw interesting situations at me sometimes. But I also expect if I am given a choice between two doors, or four cardinal directions, they don't all lead to the same thing the GM has planned.</blockquote>

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