Quote from: S'mon;828293That's not what I would call a linear-plot game, then. Linear plot is "Rise of the Runelords", or (98% of) other Paizo Adventure Paths - the PCs have to try to stop the Rise of the Runelords, that is the campaign premise, if they don't then there is no campaign. The players have to accept the campaign premise.

Railroading is when the GM enforces certain outcomes - NPC X must die, or must survive, no matter what the PCs do. I'm currently running 'Curse of the Crimson Throne' and is quite good at avoiding this kind of hard railroading, at any rate it gives good reasons - eg the Queen can't die in Book 3 because at that point in time she is literally unkillable, and changing that state is the premise of books 4-6. But if the PCs decide at end of book 3 that they don't care about the Queen, they're going to go off and do something else, the campaign pretty much ends.

(edit) It only works with a lot of player buy-in, and a willingness to engage in meta-game discussion if necessary.  I remember being terribly disappointed playing 'Rise of the Runelords' when the GM told me that no, we couldn't investigate any of those other Goblin tribes the friendly NPC had just described, we could only go after the one tribe detailed in the adventure. When I ran it myself I made sure that the PCs could go after any tribe they wanted, and we had some fun mini-sandboxing before the TPK.

I think the key here is how the GM responds to the PC's disengaging or straying from the prepared scenario material.

In a linear-plot game, there is a reasonable assumption that the PC's will engage with the linear-scenario -- maybe because

1) It's a direct threat to them or their world (Lord of The Rings)
2) It's their job (spy games, superhero games, some Call of Cthulhu scenarios etc.)
3) There's an OOC agreement they will ("Make a character who would go for this...")
4) There's no other game in town, so if they ignore the adventure, things will be pretty dull

I'm not familiar with Rise of the Runelords, but the GM saying you couldn't investigate other Goblin tribes (which clearly exist in the game-world) seems more like railroading.

He explicitly and for non-in-game-reasons disallowed your desired course of action. To me, that's a railroad.

It's also (I suspect) not a required part of the adventure -- when you ran it, you allowed the characters to go and look at the other tribes.

Again: I look at the adventure type more in terms of

a) What the assumptions about PC engagement are (linear plot assumes -- reasonably -- that the PCs will engage with the prepared situation) and
b) What material is prepared by the GM (a linear plot provides a situation that is likely to play out in a certain way, and therefore includes material that will help the GM run that likely sequence of encounters)

rather than how the GM responds to the PC's doing something not prepared for.

I think it's fine for an adventure (especially a published adventure which cannot detail everything in the game world) to focus on describing what's likely to happen and in what sequence it's likely to happen (i.e. a linear plot).

I also think it's fine for an adventure to be constructed in such a way as to make a certain sequence of things likely.

But I think that using GM fiat to prevent the PC's from straying outside of what's prepared is problematic and often results in the disappointment you described -- i.e. a sense of feeling "railroaded."

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Arminius;828292I have little time for semantics these days, but I think this discussion could profit by distinguishing two types of scenarios:

1. Those where the players have a predefined, or strongly forced goal, one that may even dictate a broad plan of action.

2. Those where the scenario writer and GM enforce a particular, pre-planned sequence of events and outcomes up to and including the final result of the scenario.

In the grand scheme of things I suppose I would prefer a campaign where the PCs can define their own goals, but I wouldn't have a problem with (1). Can't stand (2).

Completely agreed. If the GM is forcing an outcome, I think it's a railroad.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;828310Yoinking this out for commentary.

If I were going to [strike]rip-off[/strike] make an homage to the LOTR trilogy, one example to point out is the decision to either go through Moria or the pass of Cahradras. In the books, Cahradras was too difficult, but in a TTRPG, they should have just as much chance of that decision working as the Moria one. Now, in the book, they got snowed out, which wasn't as dramatic as facing a Balrog. So I'd put a little more prep work into the pass. Perhaps put some ice giants up there, and maybe an abandoned dwarven lookout tower with some cool secret to discover that could help them out if they are clever enough to find it. Not too much prep, because this is a hard branch, and any prep that goes into one path won't get used if they take the other path.

Take any decision point in the trilogy, and prep for the contingency that the party will take the other decision, and that they have a chance at suceeding in that path as well as the one taken in the books.

This is a great point.

The GM should be prepared (to one degree or another) for unlikely courses of action -- and in the event the PCs do something really unexpected, the GM should be ready to come up with a reasonable response.

And I think that's true whether it's a linear adventure or a sandbox.

The LoTR rip-off is clearly structured so that the PC's will probably have to go a certain way... it's possible to take alternative routes, but they're all much less likely to be successful.

So long as things remain possible and so long as the GM is transparent about how things are being structured, I think that's reasonable and acceptable -- if the GM invented a freak snow-storm to force me into Moria, that might feel like a railroad.

If the GM shows me a map with viable passes marked and gives me the choice of fighting through an Army of Dark Forces or going underground, I'd appreciate the tactical consideration and probably go underground.

Still linear (the GM could reasonably have expected that), but not a railroad.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Arminius;828312I'd like to add something. As an example, I'll use what -E wrote above but I'll apologize in advance for what might be an uncharitable reading.

To my mind, because of (d), this assumption puts the game close to my Type (2). Why? Because the GM is invested in shepherding the game toward the dramatic climax. That is, assuming we don't use an over-broad definition of climax to mean "anything that happens before the resolution". It's useful to retain a concept of "anticlimactic" and to note it's possible for GMs to act deliberately to prevent anticlimactic outcomes.

In practice, outside of theorycrafting, I think it's more stark, and many scenarios as published aren't just missions where the chips are supposed to be allowed to fall as they may, but story-outlines where the PCs are basically guaranteed to make it all the way to the climactic scene (and usually beyond that, to victory), provided they stick to the pre-planned sequence. If the PCs make tactical mistakes or suffer bad luck, the GM is urged to put their thumb on the scales to ensure that each scene leads smoothly to the next.

It's also extremely difficult to get across the distinction between this kind of "invisible railroading" and a more neutral form of GMing. To fans of this style, it isn't railroading at all since the GM isn't blocking the players at all, but facilitating their progress.

Schrödinger's Railroad?

Saying there's a "reasonable assumption" that things will go a certain way doesn't necessarily imply that the GM is going to force them to go that way.

But as you say, it's a risk. If the GM is invested in a certain outcome -- say a climactic struggle over the lava pits of Mt. Doom -- and tweaks things so that Frodo and Gollum will be alone there to have it out...

That's getting closer to the railroad. The GM's (presumably subtle?) intervention is moving things more toward a Type 2 game.

But it doesn't have to be that way. I can look at the LoTR situation and conclude that it's likely the PCs will play through the steps I described without any investment in that particular outcome.

While I don't think it's impossible for the GM to be completely disinterested (everyone has preferences), it's possible to be a neutral-enough referee to allow things to deviate radically from the linear-plot, if that's how it goes.

I'll also say this: as someone who appreciates a game with a satisfying climax I find I appreciate that even more when there's a serious possibility of anti-climax -- if I know the GM is going to force things to come together for a final showdown, it's a lot less interesting when it actually happens.

Not exactly the same thing but:

I ran a game a few years back, where the PCs were US Marshals fighting drug lords in Mexico and there had been allusions and foreshadowing to the story of Jericho in the Book of Joshua.

I thought it would be really cool if the PC's met a Mexican Federal Police unit and played out some of the biblical dialog before blowing up the walls around the Zeta's fortress city-state -- but, of course, I couldn't put words in the PC's mouths or it would be pointless.

I set things up so that things were likely to happen -- the PCs had been advised not to fully identify themselves (their Chain of Command was not supporting the mission) and they were meeting at a roadside chapel (e.g. "Holy Ground"), etc.

To make a long story short it worked brilliantly so that after an exchange that  followed the Biblical verse the PCs had studied from few sessions ago, they had no idea it had even gone that way, until I pointed it out (via one of the PC's making a Memory stat roll).

The effect was powerful and dramatic, and exactly what I had hoped for  -- a subtle, chilling supernatural allusion to what was happening.

If things hadn't gone that way, so be it. I couldn't have forced it to happen (and, frankly, I knew it was a long-shot). But I don't think I railroaded anything. I just set up a likely outcome and let things go how they did.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.;828333So long as things remain possible and so long as the GM is transparent about how things are being structured, I think that's reasonable and acceptable -- if the GM invented a freak snow-storm to force me into Moria, that might feel like a railroad.

Exactly.

Now, if I were to do that LOTR style campaign, I'd likely create a map of the possible routes and seed it with various encounter sites. Just some loose notes and flesh them out as the party gets near each area. So it would be linear in that the goal of getting the widget to the place where it can be destroyed is assumed, but how the PCs get there, and the adventures they have along the way, could be very sandbox-y.

Quote from: estar;828299Actually they don't, it just becomes the campaign where the Runelords rises while the PCs ignore them.

But.. but he bought all those books!

Well yeah and Paizo does do a good job of making paths the most obvious things a rational person would do in response to the unfolding events.

But if was me, I would not advertise the fact that I was running the Rise of the Runelords. I would just use them as a source of events, locations, and NPCs and let the players do whatever. Keeping in mind, that once they stumble onto Paizo's plot threads chances are good that they will follow them.

If they do great, less work for me, if they don't great as well.

Again, I would call that a 'sandbox with Sauron-level threat', not a 'linear campaign'.

Quote from: -E.;828331But I think that using GM fiat to prevent the PC's from straying outside of what's prepared is problematic and often results in the disappointment you described -- i.e. a sense of feeling "railroaded."

Yes, I agree.
I felt railroaded in my example because I was being prevented from doing something that was still aligned towards the 'point' of the linear campaign - I was not attempting to disengage from the campaign, go off and do something entirely different. If I had said "Let's take the next ship out of Sandpoint, go off and become pirates" I would not have been surprised or disappointed if the GM said "no more game, then" - that's how linear premise-based campaigns work. (There needs to be buy-in even in a sandbox BTW - I've had sandbox players who refused to go adventuring  and instead opened a small arts & crafts shop in town...).

Railroading is when the pirate ship sinks and you get washed ashore back at Sandpoint just in time for the next pre-written scene.

Edit: My GM in RotRL was running a linear campaign. In practice it felt like a railroad, but this was more to do with GMing technique. I think the main issue was that it felt like he would not add, subtract, or deviate from exactly what was on the printed page. Eg at the end of Book 1 we found the BBEG where the book says, got our butts kicked, and ran away. When we came back later the BBEG was still sitting in the exact same dungeon room, so having done some planning it was now pretty easy to defeat her - and pretty unsatisfying.

A more dynamic BBEG who at least took a toilet break would have been nice...

Quote from: -E.;828252I'm not sure what you mean by Railroading.

Arminius' #2 is a pretty good functional definition of a railroad, as I understand the term.

The ur-railroad against which I compare all others is my brief attempt, many, many years ago, at playing through the Dragonlance modules.  These modules were very literally written as "you can play out the Dragonlance novels", in the sense that the modules were basically a scene-by-scene clone of the novels with little or no accommodation for players to deviate from the novel, right down to "character X will appear in scene Y, even if he was previously killed, burned, and his ashes were disintegrated in scene Z", purely because the books had that character present in the scene.  (I say "brief attempt" because my friends and I quickly said "this is bullshit" and went off to play in (what would now be called) a sandbox instead.)

Quote from: -E.;828252Whey you say LoTR looks like sandbox play to you, that surprises me.

It surprises me, too, since that's not quite what I meant to say.  

In my initial response to you, you had mentioned having "some over-arching plot that provides satisfying things like reoccurring antagonists, rising action, and complex, deep plot structures" and I stepped in to say that you can have all those things - reoccurring antagonists, rising action, and complex, deep plot structures - in a pure sandbox, without requiring "some over-arching plot" to provide them.  I believe that, given a sufficiently-skilled GM, it is impossible to determine whether a campaign was a railroad, a sandbox, or something in between based solely on a record of the in-game events.

If LotR were an RPG campaign, it could have been a sandbox, or it could have been a railroad.  The complex, deep plot structures we see when reading it may have been emergent (sandbox), or they may have been preplanned and strictly enforced by the GM (railroad).  Or it could have fallen anywhere on the broad spectrum in between.

Quote from: -E.;828252If I create a situation where

If you tell me this is a sandbox, then I submit that you've defined just about every functional game in the world as a sandbox.

I would not call that a sandbox because of the GM-provided plotline (Sauron's rising power) which would ultimately dominate the game regardless of PC action or inaction, to the extent that the PCs will be forced to deal with it at some point.

I would also not call it a railroad unless the GM forces the PCs to interact directly with his plotline and to do so in a specific way.  (e.g., "You must go through Moria!" - but note that the snowstorm driving the Fellowship into Moria is not a priori proof of railroading.  The weather could have been a random event, been the organic action of an antagonistic force within the game world, etc. instead of necessarily being a deus ex machina to push them back onto the rails.)

Then again...  I changed my mind.  It at least could be a sandbox, depending on if and to what extent the GM pushes the PCs towards the Sauron plotline.  If he's perfectly happy to let them ignore it and become guerrilla resistance fighters against the overwhelming tide of evil, then that sounds sandboxy to me.  Or even if resistance is futile and, when the orcs march, it's an automatic "game over" - I mean, Raggi's Better Than Any Man generally seems to be considered a sandbox, even though an unstoppable Swedish army will arrive in 11 days and say "game over".

Quote from: -E.;828252Further? Those guys on RPG.net who say they like being railroaded because it's not aimless and has big set pieces? They'd probably love the sandbox scenario I just described, even if no railroading took place.

In other words: what they like is situation that is compelling and immediate -- and one that is likely to result in a literary structure. That's not liking being railroaded; that's liking a linear plot.

Perhaps.  All I know is that they said "we prefer railroads", using the specific word "railroad" to describe their preferences.  If that's what they say they like, then who am I to second-guess them?

Quote from: -E.;828252A lot of the rest of it comes down to the challenges in setting up a game situation that would generate a literary structure and being overly attached to that outcome:

I'd say this is where we actually disagree.  I believe that literary structures will just happen emergently when we look back on events and retell them without needing specific situations to be set up with the intention of producing them.

Quote from: -E.;828332Completely agreed. If the GM is forcing an outcome, I think it's a railroad.

Cheers,
-E.

I totally agree, and that's the differentiator in my eyes.  "I figure you'll probably do A, B, and C" is not a railroad.  "You *will* do A, B, and C, and I'll manipulate events to ensure it" is a railroad.

Sure, you might be able to modify a few inconsequential things, but to me that's like choosing the chair colors on the train you're on.

Now, I might be slightly different in that I don't necessarily think a railroad is a *bad* thing.  There are definitely advantages to being able to prep for specific things.  I'd just rather that a GM that plans on railroading is up-front and honest about it.

It's ironic, but the DL modules were the best thing that happened to my friend.  He thought running them as is using the book characters was the stupidest thing in the universe, so he was forced to make it his own, then when he was moving past the modules, he got fed up with how small Ansalon was, so made his first fantasy setting.  Hasn't run a canned setting in 25 years, the closest was a highly modified (with completely different nations and corps) Shadowrun.  The inanity of the DL modules started it all.

Quote from: robiswrong;828499Now, I might be slightly different in that I don't necessarily think a railroad is a *bad* thing.  There are definitely advantages to being able to prep for specific things.  I'd just rather that a GM that plans on railroading is up-front and honest about it.

Nothing wrong with something people enjoy.  It makes me think of all the different first-person shooter games.  Some are nearly open worlds, where you can go all over the place and just explore stuff.  Some of them have a few secrets, but mostly want you to do the mission.  Some of them don't let you choose where to go, but are basically a shooting gallery with zombies or terrorists instead of little tin ducks.

People enjoy them all for different reasons.  But I agree, I want to know that I'm going to be on rails before I commit to the ride.

Quote from: CRKrueger;828530It's ironic, but the DL modules were the best thing that happened to my friend.  He thought running them as is using the book characters was the stupidest thing in the universe, so he was forced to make it his own, then when he was moving past the modules, he got fed up with how small Ansalon was, so made his first fantasy setting.  Hasn't run a canned setting in 25 years, the closest was a highly modified (with completely different nations and corps) Shadowrun.  The inanity of the DL modules started it all.

Nice to know that some good came out of them, then!  

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;827692Which kind do you run?

For one-shot games, such as at a convention, then I run a liner game.

For campaigns, then I run a sandbox.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;827692Which kind is better?

Sandboxes are great for long-running campaigns, but awful for one-shot, one-session games.

Linear games are great for single sessions, for single scenarios within a campaign, but you couldn't make a campaign out of a single linear game, unless it was really long.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;827692I feel like a linear game kind of defeats the point. Or at least make it a sandbox with multiple linear adventures as options.

Linear games are good for learning a new system. You could have a number of linked linear games to make a campaign.

Anyway, I wouldn't get hung up on definitions. My sandboxes have linear elements and many of my linked linear games have sandboxy elements.

Sandbox, with a living world and a moving timeline.

Quote from: nDervish;828365Arminius' #2 is a pretty good functional definition of a railroad, as I understand the term.

The ur-railroad against which I compare all others is my brief attempt, many, many years ago, at playing through the Dragonlance modules.  These modules were very literally written as "you can play out the Dragonlance novels", in the sense that the modules were basically a scene-by-scene clone of the novels with little or no accommodation for players to deviate from the novel, right down to "character X will appear in scene Y, even if he was previously killed, burned, and his ashes were disintegrated in scene Z", purely because the books had that character present in the scene.  (I say "brief attempt" because my friends and I quickly said "this is bullshit" and went off to play in (what would now be called) a sandbox instead.)

It surprises me, too, since that's not quite what I meant to say.  

In my initial response to you, you had mentioned having "some over-arching plot that provides satisfying things like reoccurring antagonists, rising action, and complex, deep plot structures" and I stepped in to say that you can have all those things - reoccurring antagonists, rising action, and complex, deep plot structures - in a pure sandbox, without requiring "some over-arching plot" to provide them.  I believe that, given a sufficiently-skilled GM, it is impossible to determine whether a campaign was a railroad, a sandbox, or something in between based solely on a record of the in-game events.

If LotR were an RPG campaign, it could have been a sandbox, or it could have been a railroad.  The complex, deep plot structures we see when reading it may have been emergent (sandbox), or they may have been preplanned and strictly enforced by the GM (railroad).  Or it could have fallen anywhere on the broad spectrum in between.

I would not call that a sandbox because of the GM-provided plotline (Sauron's rising power) which would ultimately dominate the game regardless of PC action or inaction, to the extent that the PCs will be forced to deal with it at some point.

I would also not call it a railroad unless the GM forces the PCs to interact directly with his plotline and to do so in a specific way.  (e.g., "You must go through Moria!" - but note that the snowstorm driving the Fellowship into Moria is not a priori proof of railroading.  The weather could have been a random event, been the organic action of an antagonistic force within the game world, etc. instead of necessarily being a deus ex machina to push them back onto the rails.)

Then again...  I changed my mind.  It at least could be a sandbox, depending on if and to what extent the GM pushes the PCs towards the Sauron plotline.  If he's perfectly happy to let them ignore it and become guerrilla resistance fighters against the overwhelming tide of evil, then that sounds sandboxy to me.  Or even if resistance is futile and, when the orcs march, it's an automatic "game over" - I mean, Raggi's Better Than Any Man generally seems to be considered a sandbox, even though an unstoppable Swedish army will arrive in 11 days and say "game over".

Perhaps.  All I know is that they said "we prefer railroads", using the specific word "railroad" to describe their preferences.  If that's what they say they like, then who am I to second-guess them?

I'd say this is where we actually disagree.  I believe that literary structures will just happen emergently when we look back on events and retell them without needing specific situations to be set up with the intention of producing them.

Schrödinger's Sandbox
Above, you say

Quote from: nDervish;828365I believe that, given a sufficiently-skilled GM, it is impossible to determine whether a campaign was a railroad, a sandbox, or something in between based solely on a record of the in-game events.

If LotR were an RPG campaign, it could have been a sandbox, or it could have been a railroad.  

I agree with this, but I think it's fundamentally the least interesting way to look at this -- I find these ideas most useful as tools for GM scenario design.

Or to put it another way...
The GM knows if it was a sandbox, a linear plot, or something else. And from the player's perspective, if it feels like a railroad the game was probaly a failure at some level. Likewise, if the players aren't sure if their LoTR game was a sandbox or a linear-plot, but they had fun... who cares?

The GM Cares
The GM cares because preparing a linear plot game is somewhat different from preparing a sandbox game.

And being able to self-identify areas where the GM is invested in a game outcome is important to having the game not be a railroad (if I really don't want the PC's to destroy the Macguffin... then I'm at risk of arranging things to make that impossible... something I probably ought to avoid)

In other words, I think these ideas are best used for self-diagnosis. They can also be useful for articulating preferences, but articulating preferences in jargon can be risky (If I tell the GM I HATE sandbox games, and he thinks that means I want to have literally no input into what happens... that would be an issue. But that's a valid reading for some people's defintion of "sandbox")

Emergent Literary Structure
You seem to be reading me as saying that this doesn't happen. I don't believe that -- in my experience it happens, although perhahps less commonly or with less coherence than if the game is designed so that a literary outcome is more likely.

Further, and more importantly, there are a series of scenario/situation design desicions that will make a literary structure more or less likely.

As a GM, those decisions are what interests me. I recently ran a ghost-hunters game that was very sand-boxy: map with encounters marked and a general mission to go investigate them... but very little since, at least initially, of an overarching plot or goal and no prioritization. Also, if the PC's had decided to do something else entirely (investigate the AIG-like insurance company they worked for), that would not have been out of the question.

I wanted it to be a game largely about exploration, with the gradual emergence of a hidden world (Ghosts, Ghost Hunters, Magicians, etc.)

The sand-box design was intended to make that emergence feel organic -- a true act of discovery on the part of the PC's, rather than any sense of being led, or of a 'hidden world' that was so... forceful that its emergence would seem pre-ordaned.

A linear-plot game with the same subject matter and basic material would have felt very different, IMO, and the emergent structures would have been different in terms of subjective experience.

Cheers,
-E.