Why I Dislike the term Railroading

[Theo R Cwithin]

I agree that this...

... is bad. But at the same time, it's still vaguely interesting in that twisted rubber-necking way that all crashes interesting. Because, hey, look! It's a trainwreck, cool!

For me a better analogy than "railroading" would be those little suck-em-up vacuum chute thingys at bank drive-thrus. Put the players in the capsule, hit the button, and *whoosh* it ends up in front of the teller (and never the cute one you want to talk to, either). If the system breaks down, the capsule simply never arrives. No wrecks, no explosions, no warping of reality. It just gets stuck, and you move on to a new campaign.

To my mind those are the worst kinds of "railroads" because they're not interesting at all, even in their inevitable collapse.

Imho the best wrought railroads are there if the players really need the tracks to guide them, but they're not really necessary for the train to keep on going:

 

[francisca]

<Tatoo>

Boss! Da TRAIN! Da TRAIN!

</Tatoo>

 

[Beginning of the End]

Okay, so a train can only go where the tracks it is on go. This is where we get this term. But railroads also have switches, that allow/force one train to go somewhere else. I'm not going to get into why, because it's not important.

(1) Roleplaying games cannot be used to ship grain. Roleplaying games do not have large steam engines or locomotives. Roleplaying games are not national corporations. Roleplaying games do not offer commuter services.

I think you might be over-analyzing the correlative property of the metaphor.

(2) I'm still pretty comfortable applying the term railroad to a campaign that's been designed to the rigid specifications of a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. That design is a little bit more permissive and responsive to player-input, but still has the fundamental structural flaws which lead to "jumping the tracks" and failed/frustrating sessions.

From the DM's point of view, it's what happens when the players purposefully and maliciously try to maneuver themselves independent of the plot... The DM's plot gets derailed, jumps the tracks and crashes.

I'd argue that it doesn't need to be purposeful or malicious. IME, many railroaded scenarios feature invisible tracks. Even if players are trying to "do what the GM wants us to do", it's still pretty easy for them to make a mistake and do something that screws up the GM's well-hidden and inflexible plans.

You can't control a train, but it's a moot point because you wouldn't get on the train if you didn't want to go where it was going. Maybe that's the problem with the analogy.

Adventure hooks frequently don't tell you exactly where they're going. ("Something's mutilating cows. Figure out what.")

And even when the adventure hooks does tell you where you're going, it doesn't mean you're going to like all of the mandatory tourist stops the train is unexpectedly making along the way. (To stretch the analogy to its breaking point.)

And, of course, in a railroaded game you're often expected to take whatever plot hook the GM puts in front of you. So you don't even really have the choice of getting on the train. It's more like you've been drugged and then wake up to find yourself hurtling down the tracks.

 

[Pbartender]

But at the same time, it's still vaguely interesting in that twisted rubber-necking way that all crashes interesting. Because, hey, look! It's a trainwreck, cool!

...unless you happen to be the one riding the train.

 

[Obryn]

I, personally, dislike the term because it's been abducted by sandbox purists as a general catch-all term for "not a sandbox." It's at the point where it's getting expanded so much that actual distinctions between various types of non-sandbox games are simply being grouped under a derogative term for one particular kind of degenerate game.

-O

 

[Pbartender]

I'd argue that it doesn't need to be purposeful or malicious.

It doesn't need to be, but from the DM's point of view it almost always looks that way.

 

[unan oranis]

Well, according to the movies I've seen, the people on the train can control the switches, but it usually requires a great deal of effort and at least one of the following:

1. Highly accurate shooting or throwing.

2. Getting off the train and somehow moving faster than it in order to reach the switch before it does.

DM: uh-oh gang, someone or something has thrown the switch and your train is headed to craptown instead of awesomopolis!

Player: I shoot the switch lever from the train, WOW natural 20! I saved the day!

DM: um, yeah actually the signs were just switched. now your heading for craptown for real.

 

[catsclaw227]

Yes. That is what the term is all about. While trains are a great way to get from Berlin to Moscow, they are not a fully featured way to run an RPG and have a strong tendency to create dysfunctional play.

So, then explain the wild success of Adventure Paths, especially Paizo's which have a bit of a reputation for having some some pretty sturdy tracks. (Kingmaker, notwithstanding).

 

[Diamond Cross]

I've been working in the coal mine going down down...
Working in the coal mine woo! About to slip down...

 

[Ariosto]

I am not familiar enough with Paizo's Adventure Paths to say how much 'railroad' they involve. However, I know that many products from the early 1980s and on have been very successful while demanding a lot of keeping on track.

The simple fact is that different people want different things from a fantasy game. Some people seem even to want things that I am hard pressed to categorize as games at all. I have enjoyed some of those myself, but they are not what I want from D&D -- different games are by design different experiences.