Why I Dislike the term Railroading

[Doug McCrae]

It also gets tricky if the players try to use Passwall or something similar to bypass the linearity. The more the GM piles on half-baked reasons why this doesn't work (see, eg, the D-series approach to teleport denial, which I think is on the verge of crossing the line) the more this starts once again to look like railroading by cheating - especially in a game that emphasises the importance of players using spells to achieve operational advantages, which D&D at least traditionally does.

I didn't know that about the D-series. It's surprising the number of times Gary bans certain spells in his high level modules. EX1 Dungeonland, EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror (both for levels 9-12), and WG6 The Isle of the Ape (18+) all have long lists of 'Magic that will not work in this module', a lot of it movement and informational such as teleport, dimension door and commune with nature. Not the spells that win fights, but those that give the players control over the flow of an adventure, of the structure (is this what is meant by scene-setting?) or let them 'skip to the end'.

In Tomb of Horrors, if the PCs try to go astral or ethereal they are attacked by a demon, which isn't quite as bad, but indicates the problems with high level magic when trying to run a traditional dungeon.

Gary has really no one to blame but himself here!

 

[Reynard]

Gary has really no one to blame but himself here!

But he also came up with a perfectly viable solution...

EDIT: To expound a bit, what i mean is that the teleport nerfing and the like isn't inherently bad. it's "kryptonite" -- sometimes you need a plot device to promote a certain kind of play experience. But, like krytonite, it can get old fast. It's the over use of anti-magic fields and dimensional anchors that makes them unpalatable, not their mere existence. Plus, it ultimately goes back to the Player-DM sparring issue. Teleport was put in the game to allow PCs to fast travel, not bypass the adventure. When players started using it to bypass the adventure (probably the second time it was cast) the DM, having done all that prepatory work, said, "No way, Jose" or some Gygaxian equivalent.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I have seen railroaded used in a non-pejorative sense fairly often also, just to add to the confusion over the term. So railroaded doesn't necessarily mean bad, though it usually does.

I'm going to suggest an alternative definition:
The GM in an rpg has a lot of power. But the GM's presence is normally invisible. He acts thru NPCs, the environment, the world. The players can suspend their disbelief and believe that they are living in a secondary world. Railroading occurs when the GM's normally invisible hand becomes visible. It becomes apparent that the GM has wants other than those of the NPCs in his world. Things begin behaving in unlikely ways, the game rules are bent or broken, the world seems to be acting with one mind, as if there were some grand conspiracy of everything, to push the PCs in a particular direction.

This is where the issue of implausibility comes in, which we've not been talking about so much, focusing instead on player freedom.

By this definition, railroading is not necessarily a bad thing. Okay, it's bad that the players can no longer suspend disbelief, but that might be the lesser of two evils. It can be beneficial for the players to know where the plot is, to know where the GM's prepared material is, to be directed toward the adventure. This is where the visible hand, pushing, is a good thing, because it becomes perfectly clear what the PCs should do.

Yes, the heart of the problem with defining a railroad is the automatic assumption that railroad=badwrong fun. If the players are enjoying what is happening in the game then there is no badwrongfun happening although it might indeed be quite an obvious railroad.

 

[Reynard]

Yes, the heart of the problem with defining a railroad is the automatic assumption that railroad=badwrong fun. If the players are enjoying what is happening in the game then there is no badwrongfun happening although it might indeed be quite an obvious railroad.

25 years of DMing experienc ehas taught me this: always be willing to "sandbox" but be prepared to "railroad" and you'll do fine.

That is to say -- players (IME) like having direction and that sometimes includes being "rairoaded", but when they want to go off and do their own thing, they don't want to be told "No". So the best thing the DM can do is have an adventure ready but not be married to any of the details.

 

[ExploderWizard]

25 years of DMing experienc ehas taught me this: always be willing to "sandbox" but be prepared to "railroad" and you'll do fine.

That is to say -- players (IME) like having direction and that sometimes includes being "rairoaded", but when they want to go off and do their own thing, they don't want to be told "No". So the best thing the DM can do is have an adventure ready but not be married to any of the details.

This is the kind of flexibility that makes for happy players. Every once in a while, even proactive players might want an obvious trail to follow.

 

[evileeyore]

It's happened, one of my pet peeve buttons has been pushed. Repeatedly.

It's not a railroad if the players like it!

Yes it is. It's just a railroad the players happen to like.




A railroad is when control and choice over the characters actions are removed from the player. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Scribble]

It's happened, one of my pet peeve buttons has been pushed. Repeatedly.Yes it is. It's just a railroad the players happen to like. A railroad is when control and choice over the characters actions are removed from the player. Nothing more, nothing less.

Since it's not really a definition that you'll find in a dictionary, I think the meaning is kind of open for debate...

 

[Doug McCrae]

Yes it is. It's just a railroad the players happen to like.

A railroad is when control and choice over the characters actions are removed from the player. Nothing more, nothing less.

Are you saying a railroad is not necessarily a bad thing then?

As Scribble says though, there's no authoritative definition for this, or many other rpging terms. From the evidence of this thread, there are clearly multiple definitions of railroad in common use.

Same with sandbox, grognard, campaign, powergamer, magic Walmart, videogame-y and anime. Even the terms roleplaying, roleplaying game and D&D are hotly disputed. Some say that d20 D&D isn't really D&D, for example.

 

[Hussar]

/snippage

An event is what is going on. The festival will be happening, whether the PCs are there or not.

A fire is an event. It is going on whether or not the PCs are there, unless of course they are the ones who set the fire, or the fire was set because the PCs are there. It will still be an event even if the PCs are the cause/reason for the fire. Things are going on.

San Fransisco did have a great quake - it would still have the quake, even if the PCs are in Boston, listening to the church bells ring. It is an event - things are happening. Fires did level much of the city in the aftermath of the great quake. The fires will still happen, even if the PCs are in Boston, sitting in the church, sending alms to help the people displaced by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. The fires are an event subsequent to the great quake. The gathering of alms is an event that is taking place con-temporally with the fire in San Fransisco, and would be taking place whether or not San Fransisco got flattened then burst into flames.

At the festival the PCs are attacked by a bunch of goons, sent by the bad guy. The attack is an encounter at the event. The GM has both the festival and the attack in an adventure - adventure is, for this usage, synonymous with scenario.

Snip
The Auld Grump

Heh, I should probably not disagree with your eloquent agreement.

I guess the issue I have is that, unless you happen to be playing in a "Real World" rpg, very, very few "events" occur in a game that aren't at least tangentially related to the PC's. Sure, you could mention that some city far away just had an earthquake, but, really, do people actually do this?

IME, events are almost always tied to the PC's. Anything else rarely comes up in game.

/snip

Actually I think this is extremely common in rpging. The GM typically prepares one adventure for the evening, so the players pretty much have to go on that adventure, otherwise there's no game. But what happens after that is up for grabs. That's mostly how I run my games, btw.

It's a compromise between player freedom and lack of freedom, but most players have really consented to go on whatever adventure the GM serves up, simply by turning up for the session.

I believe the term for this is narrow-wide-narrow or something to that effect. And, honestly, I think this is probably the most common style of play out there. Pc's get a job (quest, hook, what have you), PC's undertake to resolve the job in a number of ways that they come up with on their own, job gets resolved, and it narrows back down to the next job.

Yeah, there might be three or four jobs lined up (again, replace "job" with hook or whatever term floats your boat) but, essentially, you have another choke point so the DM can prep the next session at the very least.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Sure, you could mention that some city far away just had an earthquake, but, really, do people actually do this?

Yes.