Quote from: GameDaddy;1143469Some of us never adopted those scenarios for D&D though, ...just 'sayin.

I hear ya'... It was those types of games that put me off D&D for years. WHFRP never really had those (in general). Except for the Doomstones campaign which most people hated anyway.

That's one reason why BtW is one of my favorite iterations of the OSR (that and The Heroes Journey 2e).

Problem is... more than a few people have some really fucked up ideas of what a "railroad" module is.

If anything I feel like I have many more non-railroad options than in the 90s or mid 2000s.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1143565If anything I feel like I have many more non-railroad options than in the 90s or mid 2000s.

Yeah, it's still fairly prevalent in published modules (arguably by necessity), but there's two whole design movements that have emerged as a reaction to the 90s/00s stuff - the storygame movement and OSR both seem pretty anti-railroad.

I do feel like organized play has taken a more central place in the overall landscape, and prepared/railroady stuff seems kind of inevitable there.

Also, I have to wonder if things like Critical Role tend towards railroady (to focus on the chatter rather than 'uh what do we do' for hours), and so have created that impression.

But regardless, I do think that there's more design movement away from railroads now than there has been since the early/mid 80s when DragonLance started the whole trend.

Quote from: robiswrong;1143571Yeah, it's still fairly prevalent in published modules (arguably by necessity), but there's two whole design movements that have emerged as a reaction to the 90s/00s stuff - the storygame movement and OSR both seem pretty anti-railroad.

Nice insight. There's a whole spectrum of new games that are "storygames" descendants in some way and reject railroading pretty firmly: PbtA, Blades in the Dark, Free League games, etc. and also adjacent stuff like The Spire and Cortex Plus/Prime.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;1143565If anything I feel like I have many more non-railroad options than in the 90s or mid 2000s.

I feel like this and I like a good railroad if the scenery is nice. There's currently a breadth of stuff from completely sandbox to this is what's happening in the background to strict plotting. It's a good time.

Quote from: robiswrong;1143571Yeah, it's still fairly prevalent in published modules (arguably by necessity), but there's two whole design movements that have emerged as a reaction to the 90s/00s stuff - the storygame movement and OSR both seem pretty anti-railroad.

I don't think that I'm familiar with the Storygame Movement.  Can you elaborate on it?  Or can you think of some well known examples?

Quote from: Maelish;1143816I don't think that I'm familiar with the Storygame Movement.  Can you elaborate on it?  Or can you think of some well known examples?

"Storygames" was how the games created by the Forge community in the 2000s were called. They called their style "Story Now!" and were mostly narrative and focused on genre emulation or moral dilemmas, while abhorring the railroading style seen in games from the 80s and 90s.

Their descendants are games by authors who got influenced by their ideas in some way or another. Examples include Apocalypse World and the whole "Powered by the Apocalypse" sthick (including Dungeon World), Free League games (like Mutant Year Zero or Alien RPG), Lady Blackbird, Blades in the Dark, etc. It's arguable if the likes of The Spire, Cortex Prime, Fate Core, Hillfolk, Beyond the Wall, Black Hack, etc. can also be considered descendants. I guess so, but to a lesser degree than the aforementioned ones.

Quote from: Maelish;1143399Looking back at 1E Ad&d game modules for seed ideas, I started a conversation among a few older gaming friends about how D&D has changed over the decades.  

We remember that D&D felt far more like a sandbox game, particularly in the oldest versions of the game system.  If you recall, most of the printed modules required you to think and make critical decisions.  To us, most if not all of the new official modules are railroaded games that can only move in a single direction.

Are printed game modules designed to be more of a railroad game now?  Or are we simply misremembering?  

If we're right, when did it start?  I think it began trending in 3E, am I right or wrong?

Railroad games are for lazy players.

modules not having contingencies for your players not exploring the temple on the isle of dread do not count to me at least as railroading; the dm is expected to be able to herd or handle that and they could not write for such possibilities w/o knowing more about your group or game i think.

Quote from: Slipshot762;1143896modules not having contingencies for your players not exploring the temple on the isle of dread do not count to me at least as railroading; the dm is expected to be able to herd or handle that

'Herding' could easily be Railroading and create a railroad game out of a putative sandbox. The non-railroad way to handle it is to let the PCs do other stuff. This is easy with something like Isle of Dread that has plenty of procedural content generation, reuseable cave maps, etc.

Sure, all publications are finite in length, but a player saying, "What? There's a temple on the Isle of Dread? That sounds creepy and like it would have treasure. Let's go there," doesn't really seem like an extremely unlikely event.

But if the designer/publisher skipped detailing the temple what's wrong with the group stopping play long enough for the GM to figure out what's in the temple and the players can go there?

Previous editions of the dark eye had some major railroad type adventures. To the point that it forced players on a path and a few where the players were spectators to the super magical npcs. The few adventures I have for the latest edition is much better.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;1143879Railroad games are for lazy players.

But sometimes a lazy journey with lovely scenery is fun. I have to admit to loving running games where I have to be on my toes and improvise depending on what the players decide to do but not all the time. Sometimes it's just nice to go with the flow.

Being lazy in your fun times is no sin.