The Sin of Railroading

[Sascha]

I took it to mean the game is entirely on the 'story' side with no PC agency to impact events. That is, regardless of what the characters do, or how successful they are at it, Scene A always leads to Scene B, Scene B always leads to Scene C, and so forth; each of the scenes were written out before the game, and didn't take PC action into consideration. Like a choose-your-own-adventure book, only without the forking plot points.

And, it's been addressed that acceptance letting the GM steer the story, based on prewritten plot points, is a variable thing. What works for your group doesn't necessarily translate to another. Some players want total agency in creating the story; others will wait patiently for the GM to tell them where to go. And everything in between.

If an RPG is an amusement park, the railroad game is like a roller coaster. Another, more player-driven game could be the bumper cars. (The best analogy I can come up with for a full-on sandbox is the park, itself; I hesitate to use that, given that I've already likened the hobby as a whole to the park, and don't want to draw parallels to sandboxing as the ultimate expression of the hobby. Of course, this just means I need to visit more amusement parks. It's for Science~)

[Etarnon]

I run it like this:

I don't think of the campaign as "that cool story, how like a cool novel."

The campaign is in fact, DM choices for the world, and player choices for the characters.

Yyou might want the dire were ancient dragon of awesome purpleness slain so that they can get the +3 sword of halflingbane which is used after the epic flood scours the plains of demonic winds until the STOP.

Make the Dragon, make the sword. Don't force it. If they go for it, they do. Give them compelling reasons to do so, beyond "That's tonight's adventure, take it or screw off."

If you like, for gear, or even some encounters, you can use magician's force, meaning they find a magic sword, wow, it's the +3 halflingslayer. No matter where it is.

Write adventures like this:

As a PC, You know where you are going, you have a goal. It is worthy, and you are seeking it, you just do not know what will stop you along the way, be it combat or skill challenges, cliffs, pits, enemies, friends who betrayed you, whatever.

But do not pre-plan how that comes out. If they get halfwaythrough the dungeon, and quit the adenture only half done, and start walking out home, fine. Do not worry that they did not attempt the vile filth that is the sexy succubus queens lair of ardor.

Do not live for any of your encounters. Figure out who else would step in there like ants and carry everything off, now that the door has been busted down and half looted the place.

DO NOT have them rest up and go back for session # 2 without it being changed up some.

The world moves on. Chambers collapse or flood. The moon is out of phase and the portal closes for 500 years...a different band of mercenary adventurers cleans out that castle while the party rests up.

Now they can figure out who has what they wanted in the first place from bribes in town, or intimidating the locals. Then they can fight, bargain, kidnap, whatever to get it.. but yet more plot twists.. the guy leading the mercs is the Duke's brother in law. The duke has given charter to your father's land. let the players figure it out. Who do they want to make as enemies? Can they arrange to pay off the duke to look the other way?

Essentially you want CHALLENGES, and PLOT TWISTS, not LET'S RUSH TO THE COOL OUTCOME.

In this way, any PC in my games can die but the stories go on.

Develop lots of background. I do weather charts. Oh,a hurricane hits that town...food is triple or more cost, but there is work cleaning debris. Turns out while cleaning up wrecked hovels screaming is heard. Some undead washed out of a crypt are loose and snacking on passerby. Look who gets to be heroes. Now they have saved one of the Duke's mistresses who was trapped in the town. She needs what? A ride to the palace? What an oppportunity.

But figure out a way to make that more complicated. The Duchess is at court. Uh oh. But maybe the girl has secrets. Now it's a game of intrigue.

Then, check it out. A year into this read your campaign logs.. because you keep one, right? that's your cool story.

You are a director of a TV show, where the actors choose the plot week to week. Much else beyond, and you are playing with human trains.

Luck, welcome to the life.

[Simetradon]

For the past 20 years, I've been railroading every game I've run, and I've never had a complaint. It all depends upon the presentation.

[Malruhn]

It must be your group. I wouldn't last more than a single session. If I wanted to be railroaded, I'd read a book or watch a movie.

BUT - like they have said for years, different strokes for different folks.

[Simetradon]

It's been a number of groups over the years. Probably about 250 players in total.

[cplmac]

I usually run games/campaigns that have a starting point and a definate ending point. For the party to be completely successful, they need to get to the ending point. I do however have everything sketched out so that if they want to go on a side trek over the mountain instead of just following the path/road, they can and will have various things to "encounter" along their chosen route.

I have found that if you allow the party to decide what direction they wish to go, they tend to enjoy the game more and gives them a sense of having controll over their characters. If that means that they don't go in and investigate the cave over there and miss out on finding the +3 sword after fighting a hard battle with a horde of creatures, they can. Maybe they weren't in that good of shape from a previous battle and are trying to avoid more fighting until they have gotten to heal more. Better to let them choose to not have an encounter and have the game continue on as opposed to force them into the cave and have most if not all of the characters get killed because they were in shape for that large battle.

That said, there are some instances where you may have to "force" the party into a particular encounter. I have had this before when there was a need to have a new character introduced to the party. In this instance, I had to have the party go a certain way. I was still able to have the party "decide" to go in that direction by leaving a trail for them to follow. Since they were looking for signs of a group of Drow, I simply left a trail of blood lead into the woods from where there was obviously an ambush of a group of wagons that were travelling the road. Once they "took the bait" and started following the trail of blood, my railroading of the party was now finished.