TheRPGSite

I will attempt to prove that railroading (that is, when the GM more or less predetermines all of the scenarios that the players will face) is not necessarily unfun. This is not an attack on sandbox games.

I hypothesize that primary thing that people dislike about railroading is not the linearity of events, but the lack of challenge (that is, the feeling that they are simply "going through the motions"). Knowing that every encounter is either a perfectly balanced, winnable fight or an unwinnable "plot device" is, of course, boring.

An analogy: Does the linearity of Super Mario World (or a host of similar videogames) make them unfun? A level requires you to move in a single direction and has a single goal, and levels follow each other in a (mostly) unalterable sequence. Yet, the game is widely considered to be very enjoyable.

It would seem that the reason this is true is because the game is challenging. White Plume Mountain is a well regarded module, but is quite linear: There are three paths, but they aren't much related to each other; they are effectively three distinct dungeons.

Railroading is unfun when the party doesn't accept the limitations of the tracks.

If a player-group accepts dungeon crawling, they accept the railroad that is the physical environment of the dungeon.

Railroading itself isn't always a problem, no... unless it's outside the expectations of the players. When I am a player, it's usually outside mine.

Everything has it place and its time. But bear one thing in mind, the ability to make choices that matter is one of the fundamental aspect of the player experience. So whenever you railroad, whenever you take this freedom of choice from the player as a GM you better have a good reason.

Note also that in any combat scene players are called to make any number of meaningful choices. Do you cast you spells now or save them? Do you press on or retreat, do you concentrate on the wizard or take out the hencemen first? That is one of the things that make fights fun for players.

That is to say that for some players a linear dungeon full of combat can still be fun - but not because it is linear but because they get enough meaningful choices to make inside the combats.

Quote from: Hieronymous Rex;342028I hypothesize that primary thing that people dislike about railroading is not the linearity of events, but -

*BZZZT*

Wrong, sorry.

People play games to get to do the stuff they want to do. Take away the choices, and you take away the fun.

Or to rephrase the above posts a bit, the only flaw I can see in the reasoning of the original post is that based on your description, White Plume Mountain is more of a "rail shooter" than a railroad. The difference being that, although it doesn't sound like the players get to make many strategic decisions--they only get to follow one path once a path is chosen--each step along the path contains real choices that contribute to a win or a loss on that path. This is like many a video games, where you don't get to choose which level to go to next (and you can't skip levels) but you can certainly die within in a level, and how you do in a given level often affects your prospects in the next level due to gaining/losing lives and other resources.

I agree that this sort of game can be fun but it needs to be very clear that there's no way (or at least no reason) to deviate from the path, and the content of the "scenes" or "encounters" needs to be interesting and significant within the framework of the overall adventure. If optimal play is trivial, and the outcome of optimal play is fairly invariant (always lose 25% of resources ± 5%) then that's not very interesting IMO.

Quote from: Soylent Green;342039Everything has it place and its time. But bear one thing in mind, the ability to make choices that matter is one of the fundamental aspect of the player experience. So whenever you railroad, whenever you take this freedom of choice from the player as a GM you better have a good reason.

QFT.

However, I can see that railroading is a necessary evil in convention games because of the limitations of that venue (primarily time).

You can set up a linear adventure and not have it be a railroad. But you have to be willing and able to improvise and then not strong arm the PCs when they drift from the adventure as written.

Quote from: PaladinCA;342049You can set up a linear adventure and not have it be a railroad. But you have to be willing and able to improvise and then not strong arm the PCs when they drift from the adventure as written.

Remember that I defined "railroad" as "when the GM more or less predetermines all of the scenarios that the players will face". For the purpose of my post, "railroad" is the same as "linear adventure".

Quote from: Hieronymous Rex;342051Remember that I defined "railroad" as "when the GM more or less predetermines all of the scenarios that the players will face". For the purpose of my post, "railroad" is the same as "linear adventure".

Okay. I just disagree with your definition of "railroad" then.

To me, a railroad is when the scenarios happen in order and the players can't change what they do or when they do it. The decisions of the players have no impact on the game on the strategic level. The GM pushes them through the chain of events no matter what. The GM may even force certain decisions upon the PCs by not allowing other "options."

I think White Plume Mountain is a classic but I wouldn't define it as a railroad. The players have options and they can come and go as they wish, provided they aren't dead or trapped of course.

And while most railroads are linear, not all linear games are railroads. But we seem to disagree so carry on.

Quote from: Hieronymous Rex;342051Remember that I defined "railroad" as "when the GM more or less predetermines all of the scenarios that the players will face". For the purpose of my post, "railroad" is the same as "linear adventure".

I don't know how constructive this is. There's broad agreement as to what constitutes railroading. Some (most ?) gamers don't like this type of play. What you are saying is that some GMs think ahead about what their players might do. Most GMs do this IMO, the difference between this and railroading is that players (or the GM for that matter) are not restricted to the choices that the GM came up with. Thinking about possible choices/outcomes (as in your defintion) is not railroading. Confining play to those choices is.

Regards,
David R

People dislike it when you put outcomes in front of them and make their choices seem irrelevant in changing that outcome. This is the sort of railroading people hate.

(Some) People also dislike it when they have no concrete direction to go or apparent path to success. "Good" railroading avoids this problem.

Design your game so you avoid both these problems, you are golden. It still may be a railroad (or not, depending on your definition), but it meets the fundamental problems you must navigate WRT railroads.

Think of railroading not in terms of one rail, from A to B, but rather a whole network of rails that meander all over the place - but still only go from A to B. That's more how I approach my games. Figure out where they start, and where they need to end up, then be flexible enough to get them there despite them wandering around like drunken cockroaches on ice.

for me, no. For you, whatever.

-clash

Linear computer games can be a whole lot of fun, however for me linear RPG-playing really doesn't play to the strong suits of having a human GM and it often plays like a really slow computer game with really bad graphics. For me to bother showing up to an RPG game there has to be something there that CRPGs and MMORPGs don't provide and a linear plot with a bunch of potted encounters doesn't really cut it for me...

This is how I think of the original post. Unfortunately I haven't played or read White Plume Mountain but I have played Metagaming's Death Test and Death Test II. These are both semi-linear in that you basically run through a series of rooms from an entrance to an exit; there are a few different paths you can take, and the paths overlap, but essentially each time you go to a new room, you're one "step" closer to the end. I don't recall if you can backtrack--maybe you can in one or the other, but that's not really important.

Each "room" is completely self-contained. Nothing is going to chase you out of one room into the next. Nothing happens in the corridors connecting the rooms. Most of the rooms are a straight-up combat encounter, although some may offer other challenges/temptations such as a treasure chest that might be trapped (or a puzzle of sorts, not sure).

What makes these modules fun?

• It probably helps that they have an internal logic. The idea is that they're sort of "obstacle courses" for mercenary recruits.
• The TFT (Melee/Wizard) magic/combat system is damn fun.
• If the whole party dies, you can make up new characters in a jiffy, and there's nothing wrong with using your hard-won knowledge to try to come up with a mix of abilities that's optimized for the adventure, or with trying to find the "best" path.
• If a PC dies in a multi-player game, the spirit of the game/scenario makes it easy to give that person control of the NPCs/monsters, with the expectation that they'll really try to kill the remaining PCs.

I've also played the Marathon series of 1st-person shooters (and a couple related games) as well as the 3rd-person shooter/fighter Oni and the realtime tactics game Myth. These have straight-line sequences from scenario to scenario. They offer varying continuity from level/scenario to the next, in terms of retaining health levels and equipment. Again: lots of fun. Why?

• The graphics were nifty (at least for their time).
• Gameplay within each level was damn fun.
• Save points mean you have "do overs". It's frustrating to hit a level that you fail at again and again, but at least you don't have to repeat the whole game each time this happens.

In fact this paradigm is followed by the majority of shooters that I've seen, with minor modifications for flight sims and mecha games. Only a few of those have anything like a "sandbox". (I've heard that Falcon 4.0's campaign game is pretty sandboxy, but it was so slow and buggy on my computer that I never got into it.)

So I conclude, YMMV, but if you play with a fixed sequence of self-contained "scenes/encounters" you can have an entertaining game provided each scene has inherently interesting play and has real consequences overall. Also, there should be some way of keeping the scenario interesting on replay, preferably without doing too much violence to the sense of continuity. E.g. with Deathtest, it's a given that the king is always looking for new recruits, and has an ample supply of beasties to replace the ones that get killed in each foray. PCs are also pretty easy to recreate, so there's little pressure to retcon the replays. (I mean that when somebody dies, they stay can stay dead; you don't need to treat a replay as a "restore from save".)

Given the responses, it seems like rail-roading becomes a problem when there is a difference of expectation between the GM and the players about where the meaningful choices lie. As someone has said, White Plume Mountain places the meaningful choices in the dungeon. I imagine that a lot of tension arises when the White Plume Mountains are placed in a context of an longer campaign in a larger world, that they link together to form a larger story that is larger directed by a GM. Players may have a great deal of freedom to interact with the fictional dungeon only to find, ironically, their freedom is strictly curtailed in the supposedly more open fictional world.

Dudes, its about Emulation.

No one cares that there's a dungeon passage that only lets you go in a straight line, because that's a REAL setting element, a real straight line, so its ok.

Its when the efforts of a GM to force the game to go in a certain direction for the sake of "The Story" get to such a point that they start making the SETTING feel like it makes no sense, when things start to happen that they stretch the boundaries of the emulated world and make players feel disconnected to the immersive experience and the sense of free will that must go with that, then they have a problem with it.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;342109Its when the efforts of a GM to force the game to go in a certain direction for the sake of "The Story"...

Railroading isn't necessarily about story, however. Sometimes the GM just wants something to happen because that's what he or she wants.

For example, I'm playing with a new GM who recently wanted us to get captured in a dungeon. The bad guys got past our defenses and our PC on watch fell asleep, so we woke up surrounded. He didn't do it for any story reasons - he just wanted to skip a few encounters in the dungeon and bring us straight to the boss.

Which brings me to my thoughts about railroading: sometimes it's okay. I was okay with the railroading in the above example. If it started happening all the time, that'd be a different story. But I thin occasionally some light pushing doesn't hurt anyone, if it's for a good purpose.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;342132For example, I'm playing with a new GM who recently wanted us to get captured in a dungeon. The bad guys got past our defenses and our PC on watch fell asleep, so we woke up surrounded. He didn't do it for any story reasons - he just wanted to skip a few encounters in the dungeon and bring us straight to the boss.

I have a question here. Had the players already decided that they were going to face off with the boss and were on their way to fight, trick, or persuade their way in? If that is so, then this sounds like a valid cut to where the interesting and meaningful choices lay. (But I suppose the GM could also have just said, "Okay you fight/trick/charm your way in. You're there. Whattaya doin'?")

Quote from: Seanchai;342132Railroading isn't necessarily about story, however. Sometimes the GM just wants something to happen because that's what he or she wants.

For example, I'm playing with a new GM who recently wanted us to get captured in a dungeon. The bad guys got past our defenses and our PC on watch fell asleep, so we woke up surrounded. He didn't do it for any story reasons - he just wanted to skip a few encounters in the dungeon and bring us straight to the boss.

Which brings me to my thoughts about railroading: sometimes it's okay. I was okay with the railroading in the above example. If it started happening all the time, that'd be a different story. But I thin occasionally some light pushing doesn't hurt anyone, if it's for a good purpose.

Seanchai

Well, in a way isn't that just "story" too? Its the crappy story that the GM wants for whatever reason; he wants them to get captured because he sees some kind of development of story which requires that this MUST happen.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;342170Well, in a way isn't that just "story" too?

I'm not one of the folks who thinks random events make a story. I'm surprised you do, given the Swine-ish implications.

Seanchai

Quote from: two_fishes;342135I have a question here. Had the players already decided that they were going to face off with the boss and were on their way to fight, trick, or persuade their way in?

I'm sure we would have fought the boss at some point. At that time, however, we didn't know who he was or where he was. We were in the middle of dungeon crawl. We had finished a series of rooms and camped out in one of them that had only one means of egress.

Seanchai

Even White-Wolf's nWoD corebook discourages railroading, so...yeah.  I think that says quite a bit.  What it does suggest is being reactionary to your players rather than defending a set plot or chain of events (not like this hasn't been said in plenty of RPGs before WW even existed).  

At the end of the day, it's not your job to dictate what the players do, what their motivations are, or how they go about moving through the world.  It is, however, your job to make sure the players have interesting things within the world to interact with, whether this is a location like a dungeon, or interesting NPCs.  Feel free to inject some plot-hooks, but don't drag them along the line unless they're really lost and begging for it.  Ultimately it is up to the players to decide how they're going to mess with the fiddly bits you toss into the setting.  Your job is merely to make sure they remain challenged and that the pieces you've injected fit together in a whole that makes sense.

QuoteI'm not one of the folks who thinks random events make a story. I'm surprised you do, given the Swine-ish implications.

That depends on how you define a story.  Technically people are telling eachother stories all the time.  Stories of how their day went, work-stories, love-stories, war-stories...these are all just "random" events from people's lives, but we still call them stories, even if they lack the delicate orchestration that a novel has.  There's a bit of a difference between a story and literature.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;342063This is how I think of the original post. Unfortunately I haven't played or read White Plume Mountain but I have played Metagaming's Death Test and Death Test II...So I conclude, YMMV, but if you play with a fixed sequence of self-contained "scenes/encounters" you can have an entertaining game provided each scene has inherently interesting play and has real consequences overall...

Elliot's post is what I was talking about.

Quote from: Peregrin;342242Technically people are telling each other stories all the time.  

I'm a veteran of the story wars. Believe what you will, but you won't convince me that the act of playing an RPG automatically creates some kind of story.

Seanchai

Quote from: RPGPundit;342109Dudes, its about Emulation.

No one cares that there's a dungeon passage that only lets you go in a straight line, because that's a REAL setting element, a real straight line, so its ok.

Its when the efforts of a GM to force the game to go in a certain direction for the sake of "The Story" get to such a point that they start making the SETTING feel like it makes no sense, when things start to happen that they stretch the boundaries of the emulated world and make players feel disconnected to the immersive experience and the sense of free will that must go with that, then they have a problem with it.

RPGPundit

Exactly what I was thinking. The best (well, worst) case of railroading I experienced as a player was with a newish GM who developed a scenario as follows (paraphrasing from memory):

The Plot: Players begin as prisoners of war. They are tortured, imprisoned, then dragged before the magistrate and mocked. Then they are dragged off again, and eventually a sympathetic prince rescues them from prison and takes him to his estate, where they are allowed to stay for a day before he tells them to go work at a castle at his remote estate.

Now, the game as played ran exactly like the summary above. This means that, when we were being taken to prison, and tried to break free of our captors, the GM told us all attempts failed. When we got tortured, we couldn't get free to fight the torturer. All efforts in prison to escape failed. Attempts to forcibly get ourselves killed before the magistrate by trying to run at him in chains and beat him with out bodies were not allowed. We were unable to escape until the GM decreed it with her NPC prince rescuer. And when we then decided to bail from his castle as flee in to the woods, we were rounded up and shipped off to the remote garrison. After five hours of this, we never came back to that game again. It was horrible.

Now THAT's railroading!

NOTE: If the story had started at the garrison, with a brief summary of how we got there encapsulating the gruelling five hours of "I'll read a story to you and you all get to pretend like you have free will" session we had instead, then we might have had a better time. But I suspect that was only the beginning, unfortunately.

I think railroading is a common mistake for many story-focused new GMs, who haven't thought much about the player impact that is required in an RPG on their developed tale. As soon as your story works regardless of input from the players, then you have commited the cardinal sin of railroading. Also, as soon as your story requires specific, unalterable decisions and plot points be made/executed, you have failed. Sure, there are "key points" in any story that need fulfilling, but a clever GM should think of several cool ways or options by which a group can reach the needed plot; doing so helps predict what might happen, and allows for the story to feel organic, something the players contribute to in terms of how they arrive at that plot point, even if the plot point itself is defined.

Quote from: Seanchai;342289I'm a veteran of the story wars. Believe what you will, but you won't convince me that the act of playing an RPG automatically creates some kind of story.

Seanchai

Sure it does. But since RPGs don't have editors lurking over every table, the really boring and lame stuff doesn't get cut!
;)

Quote from: Caesar Slaad;342057People dislike it when you put outcomes in front of them and make their choices seem irrelevant in changing that outcome. This is the sort of railroading people hate.

(Some) People also dislike it when they have no concrete direction to go or apparent path to success. "Good" railroading avoids this problem.

Design your game so you avoid both these problems, you are golden. It still may be a railroad (or not, depending on your definition), but it meets the fundamental problems you must navigate WRT railroads.

Very true words, and two problems of distinct nature. I've been in groups where I set up my sandbox environment and then suddenly realized, "Shit, these guys want me to tell them where to go and what to do." And I've been in games where I had a cool plotline laid out and everyone immediately steals a ship and sails off to parts unknown (and unplotted).

The bottom line is: know your players! Know what they like, and dish it out. Personally, I like the "we go where we want" types, as those player soften make the stories for you. The "please lead us by the hand types," are damnably boring, although the effort on the GM's part usually boils down to reading flavor text and telling them when to roll and where to move next.

Quote from: Seanchai;342222I'm not one of the folks who thinks random events make a story. I'm surprised you do, given the Swine-ish implications.

Seanchai

I don't think anything is "supposed" to make "story" in an RPG.

Meanwhile, my original point was that the GM is there to provide the setups, based on what's going down in the emulated world. If he has to FORCE the PCs into a setup in a way that doesn't go with the emulation, or breaks the sense of immersion, then he's trying to force an outcome, which is problematic.

RPGpundit

Quote from: Seanchai;342289I'm a veteran of the story wars. Believe what you will, but you won't convince me that the act of playing an RPG automatically creates some kind of story.

Seanchai

I mean story as in a series of events that can be related to another person via speech or writing. Like I said, it depends on how you define "story."

Still, I find it hard to divorce RPGs from people wanting to create a narrative, even if it's a loose one, since humans are built to assign meaning to the random events that happen around us everyday--we're hardwired to turn things into a narrative even if it's just a bunch of things that don't make any sense.

This isn't a new thing in games, though.  Hickman was (and is) a big proponent of story in games, sort of as a reaction to the LOLrandom dungeons of yore (Ravenloft was a direct response to this), and he goes back all the way to TSR.  However he also thinks things should make sense (part of the emulation of a world).  But part of making sense is having at least some structure built around the progress of play, balancing freedom of the players with a coherent events and logical NPC encounters.  When context is lost, sometimes people lose interest as well, and a consistent narrative helps keep the interest of players.  How tight or loose this narrative is, or if it exists at all, is mainly up to the preferences of the GM and his troupe.

About the only 2 bits of prep I do for most games is a handful of major NPCs and a flowchart. the flow chart will have scenes I plan out say a fight I plan at a bar but there will be an alternate line so if the players don't follwo the clue to the bar what happens instead. Now I will drag the pcs into the plot. A pc that doesn't get involved will become involved. This won't happen by forcing them into x or z location but I might hit them with an encounter related tot eh plot and try to feed themself to get on the right track. If they really find somethign else do do I will dump what I ahd but go on with what they want but the other plot will complete and in a CoC game that might mean New York gets destroyed by a monster or in a Cyberpunk game some replicant clone imposter gets to be President. This might have future repurcsions on the players.
The point is I do have a story its the backdrop to the game the players don't have to get invoilved in it but I rather they did and I will manipulate them ruthlessly to make sure they do.