Why I Dislike the term Railroading

[James Jacobs]

The term "railroading" is trouble because, I suspect, it's used mostly as a term to deride a style of game play that is actually really pretty popular. While our Adventure Paths DO try to account for a lot of player choice and, I think, are generally pretty good at providing the GM with enough options and information that, should his/her PCs go off those rails, there'll be enough info to keep the game going... to a certain extent, ALL published adventures could be called railroads.

A truly sandbox style "adventure," in my mind, isn't an adventure at all. It's a campaign setting.

In any event, if you're a GM who wants to run an Adventure Path or any other published adventure, you'll do yourself a huge favor by letting the players know before they make their characters what kind of campaign they're getting in to. A player who wants to see a story play out and started the campaign with a character concept that works well with that story will have a lot more fun than a player who doesn't know anything about the adventure before the character is created. For all our Adventure Paths, we release "Player's Guides" that do just this—provide advice on what kinds of characters are best suited for play and provide traits and other goodies that help to create characters that will be fun to play on that Adventure Path.

Kingmaker, the current Adventure Path, is our attempt to open up the rails quite a bit and provide something closer to what folks think of as a "sandbox" game... but even then it's a certain amount of railroad. We detail the HECK out of the region in which the campaign takes place, and although that region is about as big as the state of Maine, I can certainly see players wanting their characters to wander OUT of that area. In which case, they're heading "off the rails," even in a sandbox game.

 

[Dungeoneer]

It's my experience that the degree to which the players feel "railroaded" is directly proportional to how boring the story is.

Fact is that if the DM has a good juicy hook and the players are on board with what he's trying to do they won't care that the adventure is pre-planned. Within reason, of course.

I just don't think that people dislike having a plot and a specific framework for an adventure as much as they claim they do. I think many complaints of 'railroading' are actually symptoms of a DM who is bad in other ways.

A bored and unengaged player is also 10x more likely to want to make the train jump the tracks.

 

[Nifft]

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).

Clearly, it's because people who like Paizo's products prefer dysfunctional play.

Cheers, -- N

[sblock=PS]More seriously, I think it's because there are people who want tracks, and they want sturdy ones.

Also, by playing an AP, you are announcing to your group in advance: "Hey look, you're on tracks!" -- they can object early if they want. Unlike the (deservedly maligned) railroad campaign, there's no nasty surprise waiting for the players. Furthermore, they know the tracks are laid down by a disinterested 3rd party (rather than there being some chance that the DM is personally screwing over their specific choices), and there is some social pressure to enjoy the rail-ride because many other people have played and are playing those specific APs.[/sblock]

 

[Ariosto]

to a certain extent, ALL published adventures could be called railroads.

I think that certain extent is precisely the extent to which you just arbitrarily decide to call anything that's not a railroad not an adventure.

A truly sandbox style "adventure," in my mind, isn't an adventure at all. It's a campaign setting.

So, it really ends up being a moot objection. Calling the thing an 'adventure' does not make its nature any more palatable! What that does is insist on co-opting the word 'adventure' to exclude the meaning it originally had in the D&D context.

People either like adventures in the original sense or do not, and the same holds for 'adventures' in your sense. A lot of people who dislike the original sense rather reasonably also dislike pretty much everything else about the game. Hence, we get different games.

In other words, the old term is getting used in a new and very different cultural context. Trouble arises because of a conceit that it is 'really' the same old context.

All by itself, the term is about as appropriately descriptive as one might expect of jargon. There is nothing inherently negative about railroads! The negative connotations have everything to do with the historical negative response to the denotations.

That was based on tastes that the prevailing demographic -- selected in synergy with the flavor of commercial offerings, as some people still persist in perversely not buying what they do not want -- apparently does not share.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

Hmm, as I write this I think my problem is not so much with the term "railroading" as it is with the concept of "jumping the tracks". Granted even going to separate, switched tracks, can still only get you to limited destinations.

See, I think your discussion begins with an assumption that "railroading" begins on the train, i.e. in the game. "Railroading" to my mind is when the DM plans a storyline from beginning to end with no possible deviation by the players pursuing a logical (albeit sometimes loose) end that the DM did not plan for. To put it differently, it's bad when you must meet the villain at X point in time with Y items to have Z combat, especially if the entire game is like that because it destroys even the illusion of choice.

To put it differently, it's like starting a journey and not being allowed to choose the means of travel or where you stop. You do not even buy a ticket. Someone buys it for you and wheels you onto the train.

Example: You're in New York. You want to get to the top of a mountain in Alabama. It's not easy to take the train, but you could with a lot of stope. You'll have to hire a car at the station and walk a long ways to the peak. A car is probably the most direct way to get there, although you'll still have to walk a long ways once you get to the base of the mountain. A plane is the fastest overall, but may be subject to certain weather delays, you'll still hire a car at the airport and walk a long ways at the end.

In all the examples, you're headed for the mountain peak (final conflict/mystery resolution/campaign ending). The means where you get there is different.

What's missing from the "railroad" scenario as originally described? Two things: the ability to choose the means whereby you seek the end and the perception (or the ability) to stop heading for that mountaintop to explore along the way. Or to decide to head to a beach in Florida in case everyone gets really crazy. Player railroading is when everyone agrees "Yeah we want to head for the mountain", the DM starts planning for interesting things on whatever route is chosen, and then PCs deliberately keep changing the destination en route.

 

[Doug McCrae]

We detail the HECK out of the region in which the campaign takes place, and although that region is about as big as the state of Maine, I can certainly see players wanting their characters to wander OUT of that area. In which case, they're heading "off the rails," even in a sandbox game.

I think that's true of all sandboxes, after all the GM can only prepare a finite amount of material.

In the West Marches sandbox, one of the most commonly referenced examples online, there is a gentleman's agreement that the players will stay in the West Marches, cause that's all the GM has.

PCs get to explore anywhere they want, the only rule being that going back east is off-limits — there are no adventures in the civilized lands, just peaceful retirement.

 

[Ariosto]

the GM can only prepare a finite amount of material.

Along with that, the players can have only a finite rate of movement.

More to the point, they have only a finite rate of information processing, whether looking at the stars or at "the smalls". How long is a coastline? It depends on how much care you want to put into tracing its shape.

In which case, they're heading "off the rails," even in a sandbox game.

Nope. You're claiming that what defines one from the other does not distinguish them, so they are just the same thing. When all you have is rails, everything looks like a railroad?

One can go out of one's way to make it harder to run an old-style campaign. There's nothing like an unwavering devotion to unpreparedness to make it so! Making sure to spend a lot of time on material that's useful at most just once, and that only if the players jump through certain hoops, is a great way to avoid developing a case of flexibility.

One should be careful, then, not to avail oneself of tools that make campaigning easier.

There is a system for generating random wilderness terrain in the original Dungeon Masters Guide Appendix B (page 173). (That's in between Appendix A for random dungeons and Appendix C for random monster encounters.) There are similar procedures to be found elsewhere.

I used to have a Games Workshop product -- "Mighty Empires", I think it was -- that had individual hexagons of countryside as geomorphic cardboard tiles. Something like that could be a more variable analog of the old "Outdoor Survival" board for impromptu wilderness expeditions.

 

[Zhaleskra]

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

I think you're over analyzing my analysis.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Yep yep.

When a campaign is too brittle to survive player input regarding changes in direction, the players only have two choices: stay on the tracks, or crash the whole game.

Cheers, -- N

And if the game is that brittle, then let it crash. Let it burn. (Some of my least favorite gaming experiences involve railroading - a big chunk of why I run more often than I play.)

To me the term railroading likens the party to passengers on the train - in control of nothing, watching the scenery outside the windows....

The Auld Grump

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The term "railroading" is trouble because, I suspect, it's used mostly as a term to deride a style of game play that is actually really pretty popular. While our Adventure Paths DO try to account for a lot of player choice and, I think, are generally pretty good at providing the GM with enough options and information that, should his/her PCs go off those rails, there'll be enough info to keep the game going... to a certain extent, ALL published adventures could be called railroads.

A truly sandbox style "adventure," in my mind, isn't an adventure at all. It's a campaign setting.

In any event, if you're a GM who wants to run an Adventure Path or any other published adventure, you'll do yourself a huge favor by letting the players know before they make their characters what kind of campaign they're getting in to. A player who wants to see a story play out and started the campaign with a character concept that works well with that story will have a lot more fun than a player who doesn't know anything about the adventure before the character is created. For all our Adventure Paths, we release "Player's Guides" that do just this—provide advice on what kinds of characters are best suited for play and provide traits and other goodies that help to create characters that will be fun to play on that Adventure Path.

Kingmaker, the current Adventure Path, is our attempt to open up the rails quite a bit and provide something closer to what folks think of as a "sandbox" game... but even then it's a certain amount of railroad. We detail the HECK out of the region in which the campaign takes place, and although that region is about as big as the state of Maine, I can certainly see players wanting their characters to wander OUT of that area. In which case, they're heading "off the rails," even in a sandbox game.

Actually, your APs do a pretty decent job of allowing the PCs some free reign. A really bad example of railroading was White Wolf's Time of Judgment - the PCs were not even allowed to get off of the stupid plotline because of mind control.

I think that was the last thing I bought from White Wolf, aside from some D20 material. If I was a player in that scenario I would either quit the game or defenestrate the GM.

The Auld Grump