What makes a railroad?

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monkey prime
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What makes a railroad?

Post by monkey prime » Sun Mar 23, 2014 2:51 pm

I try and write my own scenarios as often as possible, I enjoy telling a good story. My problem is that too often I worry that I'm railroading my investigators. They're all very new to RPGing so I think they haven't felt railroaded as the structure helped guide them on.

My question is: what makes a story a railroad? What leads investigators along a clue path and what forces them along it? How do you give your investigators choice but not let them get lost in a story so open ended?

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Re: What makes a railroad?

Post by hastur » Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:33 pm

some people get really touchy about railroading, and think anything but a completely open sandbox is wrong. other people accept that scenarios presented to the players necessarily have a path to follow, whether defined by the published scenario or what the GM has had time to prepare, and that's fine. perhaps even moreso in call of cthulhu, which comes with the concept of fatality baked-in.

mmm.... baked fatality....

sorry, i got distracted. i personally fall into the latter camp. if a scenario is presented, i'm happy to follow the rails and see where they lead. occassionally, something off to the side might pique my interest and demand further investigation, or i might see a better way to approach an encounter. as long as the GM doesn't actively say no and prevent me from trying something, i'm good. the something off to the side might turn out to lead nowhere, and that's fine. it might lead to a planned encounter which would've happened later anyway, and that's fine. a better way to approach an encounter might backfire because of something i didn't know, and that's fine. "the cultists refuse to respond to your parley, except with snarls and drawn daggers" is fine. but "no, you can't try parley" without reason is bothersome. others might find offense at some or all of the preceding.
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Re: What makes a railroad?

Post by SamS » Sun Mar 23, 2014 6:04 pm

I don't write a lot but I have noticed and I think more of it as a web than a railroad. The adventures where my players seem to have more fun are the ones were they have more choices. When the investigators come to a fork in the road one of the routes will lead them back to the main line of investigation.
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Shannon Mac
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Re: What makes a railroad?

Post by Shannon Mac » Sun Mar 23, 2014 11:44 pm

Unless you have a completely open campaign all games are arguably railroady. A lot of it comes down to personal feelings.

That said, it's good to give players multiple clue trails to get a major clue and multiple solutions to a problem. It's also good not to directly force the PCs into something especially if you take their control away with mind powers and the like.

This could be a large discussion but these are some very basic points on the matter. :arrow:
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Re: What makes a railroad?

Post by BoscoBoy » Mon Mar 24, 2014 12:17 am

If you are constricted by time, it's a railroad. If not it's a web. The keeper needs to gauge the attitude of his players. What do they want? How far afield do they want to go? The group I'm with are pretty much a bunch of idiots (BOI), but we're having fun. isn't that the goal?

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Re: What makes a railroad?

Post by Shannon Mac » Mon Mar 24, 2014 12:22 am

I would add the question is it interesting to your players? If you have time and are thinking on it you could ask them.

One time I asked a "new group" of players that I had an idea but they would start it out as captured. This was back in the day when I played D&D (I don't play it anymore mostly) and the players were used to being heroes and by their rules heroes do not get captured.
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Re: What makes a railroad?

Post by Dr. Gerard » Wed Mar 26, 2014 8:49 pm

Here's the thing...sandbox and railroad are not opposites. The former certainly sounds more fun, and that's part of what sends this frequent debate off track. When a GM says they want to run a sandbox game, they are not saying they want to suspend any or all kinds of structure. They usually mean they want to offer more input from players. And that input could be expressed in all kinds of ways, from building a setting before the game, like we heard Aron mention during a recent show, to a web of character choices and interconnected evidence threads as mentioned above.

Railroad is a negative term. So let's embrace that. The term comes from use in other arenas like politics, where a legislator could be railroaded into a decision by their party or constituency. It's a narrowing of otherwise available choices. And in a role playing context, that means a GM has limited the options, to my mind anyway, in a way that feels inauthentic to the player.

But if your scenario offers some meaningful player choices, yet constrains the field of options with plausible in-game barriers, I feel that's something other than railroading.

So if your players stumble on a solution you hadn't thought of, but the outcome will be somewhat the same, there's no great reason to obstruct.

But if you constrain choices simply because you didn't anticipate those choices, or because you wouldn't have done it that way, your players might have cause to say they feel railroaded.

And honestly, even then sometimes you just have to cop to it. Sometimes you have to step out of the game and say, best with some humility, "hey guys, that's something I didn't prepare for. Sorry to railroad you, but let's get back on track."
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Re: What makes a railroad?

Post by flashbackjuice » Thu Mar 27, 2014 4:02 am

Dr. Gerard wrote:Here's the thing...sandbox and railroad are not opposites. The former certainly sounds more fun, and that's part of what sends this frequent debate off track. When a GM says they want to run a sandbox game, they are not saying they want to suspend any or all kinds of structure. They usually mean they want to offer more input from players. And that input could be expressed in all kinds of ways, from building a setting before the game, like we heard Aron mention during a recent show, to a web of character choices and interconnected evidence threads as mentioned above.

Railroad is a negative term. So let's embrace that. The term comes from use in other arenas like politics, where a legislator could be railroaded into a decision by their party or constituency. It's a narrowing of otherwise available choices. And in a role playing context, that means a GM has limited the options, to my mind anyway, in a way that feels inauthentic to the player.

But if your scenario offers some meaningful player choices, yet constrains the field of options with plausible in-game barriers, I feel that's something other than railroading.

So if your players stumble on a solution you hadn't thought of, but the outcome will be somewhat the same, there's no great reason to obstruct.

But if you constrain choices simply because you didn't anticipate those choices, or because you wouldn't have done it that way, your players might have cause to say they feel railroaded.

And honestly, even then sometimes you just have to cop to it. Sometimes you have to step out of the game and say, best with some humility, "hey guys, that's something I didn't prepare for. Sorry to railroad you, but let's get back on track."
Great advice. I'm beginning to see that these terms aren't so much approaches as they are considerations from the keeper's perspective.

One idea is to consider the power of "I" of the players, not only in allowing for meaningful player choices, but also in involving the PCs into the world as well, making the scenario appeal to them and the player. Players should come up with a long-term goal that their character wants to achieve. It could be career related, or a more personal goal. You can use these goals to lead them with hints to make them go where you set the adventure. For example, a PC's long lost father was seen near the creepy old house. He may not be there, but a clue that he was there can be discovered at the end of the scenario, and lead to somewhere else. If done enough (not every session, mind you), you can offer enough puzzle pieces to the PC's personal quest that once they see the bigger picture it can develop other scenario ideas for them to follow. They may even actively pursue it on their own volition (the father has been to so many dodgy places, perhaps he is a cultist/investigator himself?). It's a little carrot and sticky, but as long as the GM considers what the PCs's goals are, then the players will feel a sense of agency and the scenario/campaign becomes their adventure, not just a mystery to solve. And how much you nurture and threaten the "I" also plays into Lovecraftian horror: what will they do when their goals and desires are threatened by the mythos? What actions will they take then? If the scenario appeals to the "I" of the players and PCs it adds to the fun, and how the tracks or web are laid out won't matter.

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Re: What makes a railroad?

Post by Dr. Gerard » Thu Mar 27, 2014 11:59 am

Well said, flashbackjuice. Player agency isn't just about which door in the dungeon to open, or which lead to follow. It's about how that character's essence and goals play out against the challenges of the game world. I think many players only want to make sure they can see their own footprints in the sand.
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