Reference The Game Group

Actually very true.

One would end up with hell of a lot disclaimers otherwise.

 

Not that I did not see those before . . .

 

Disclaimers are where GMs make their living.

Like seriously why SHOULDNT I be able to god mod if my character is a god.

 

I actually played God once and believe me I god-modded like crazy!

 

That’s how it should be done!

 

Oh yes, you did. Was great fun!

 

So a question: What is everybody’s take on railroading? What is the boards history with it? Is it considered an acceptable tool nowadays? Is it a sign of bad GMing?

 

Way more common and accepted around here than in other places around the web. Players actually seem to appreciate it. Might be a specialty of the more Star Wars focused crowd, also the RPF players have little to no exposure to other RPing communities. They often do not share the same value when it comes to RPing. Think of this as a tropical island state. Personally I try to avoid it as player and GM. Does not always work.

 

When the GM has a plot or plan in their head and no matter what the player does, the GM does not change.

Like with Ka'rta in Resurrection, she turned down Tavion's offer to join the new Sith Empire, but you then you had Moor get in touch and offer a lot of money to save him, and then take him to the rally point thus getting Ka'rta involved in the Sith Empire anyway. That isn't railroading persay, more blatant railroading would be if Ka'rta told Moor to go frack himself, but then you as GM said "Moor had a way past the Republic blockade, the only way past the blockade and Ka'rta would be shot out of the sky otherwise." That would be blatant railroading. You want Ka'rta in the Sith Empire, and you put me the player in a situation where I have no choice but to join the Sith Empire or lose my character, or stop playing.

 

Listen and learn. My advise.

 

No, to everybody. But that included you of course. As everybody usually does include everyone. The reason why I personally join so few games around here is that this is a little too common here. I know I am not alone with that impression. So I think Lawbreaker brought up a discussion that is very worthy of having.

 

Seriously this turned a little more controversial than I expected. Never gonna post again in here . . .

Just kidding, gonna do this every day now!

 

What you so casually threw in here is probably one of the most controversial topics of all of RPing, tabletops, online and post-by-post alike. I think the definition of galactic-vagabond422 is kinda alright. Railroading means you leave players no choice or make their choices meaningless, as the plot progresses as planned anyway. Therefore in a post-by-post forum you sooner or later make the player ask themselves, why he put the effort into the game to think about it and plan etc. That is the problem commonly referred to as railroading.

Now some GMs are gonna say: Yeah, but everyone says plotting is good, but how can I plot if I do not push players into a certain direction.

Then some players are gonna say: Smart potting comes naturally and does not require railroading.

Then GMs will gonna say: No you just did not feel you were railroaded.

Players: Then it is not railroading!

So I wanna cut this short, because I had this discussion so often already. Yes, railroading is actually GM control being taken too far and what is to far? Too far is what players feel is too far! It is purely subjective. The line between masterful GMing and Railroading is a thin one. BUT!

Truth is EVERY GM RAILROADS. All the time. We make thousands of decisions that influence players and especially we keep thousands of things from players so certain things do not happen. So I wanna outright say, anybody saying A GM SHALL NOT RAILROAD PLAYERS has no idea how GMing works. We have to make plots progress, so yeah . . . And yes, the best GMing experiences I had in games where the railroading is completely obfuscated. It was there, anyway. I have GMed enough to know how this worlds.

What to do therefore?

Now the GM must probably simply restrain himself and stay within reason. If your control over the game world suffocates any decision the players make, you are not having a good story. You tell your story, which is not the one your players wanted and therefore at some point became a bad story. Their characters are diminished and I guarantee you their interest diminishes the exact same amount. Quite simple. Do not expect people to be terribly interested in what they did NOT wanted to do and how it plays out.

 

Puh, we now go into evergreens?

So I think you summarized up the current "state-of-discussion" pretty well. Perfectly actually.

I remember learning about the term in the late eighties when a GM did not let me go to a certain temple where I would actually have been save from the impending doom of ... I do not remember what it was ... Dark Sun had some spooky bestiary.

I remember having a fun discussion around here with Saintheart about the topic. No way I will find it, but I liked it a lot. Was about ten years ago.

This is less a topic of other boards in my experience, but really raged through the roleplaying community since the very first days. Most "bought adventures" of D&D required a lot of railroading, as players walking of the chosen path did not work. Chaosium really was the gamechanger here. Question is how deep we really wanna dig into it?

To answer your question Lawbreaker: We know each other a lot better around here, being a small community and all. That does not make railroading great GMing, but also the trust helps people getting over it when it happens. That is why I believe it is not such a big topic.

 

I’m actually terrified of my players feeling like I’m railroading them. So I just have a plot lined out, and if their characters make choices that deviate from what I had in mind, I’ll just adapt and make changes where I need to. Like most things, if you don’t overthink it, it’s pretty simple.

 

All of this. I’ve been in a lot of games here in my time on the board and the experience of railroading has happened probably in less than 25% here. Or at least I can’t recall it happening a lot.

This seems like something pretty easily avoidable and I’d say the “best” GMs do it as well, you just don’t notice it and don’t mind it. If Grey has EVER railroaded me, I haven’t noticed. I recall back in 128 ABY my main character, Timberus Canistia (*tears up*) was following a plot line and ... I don’t know if I talked to Sinre or maybe he just picked it up that i wasn’t liking where it was going and I was worried about messing up the story. I think I asked him something like “I don’t think my character would do this.” And he told me something like “well dont do it then. That wouldn’t make sense.” I think it was something like... my character was a dark Jedi and it seemed like he was on the path to join Krayt’s Sith and I didn’t think it fit my character’s personality to be under somebody else, so instead I had a crazy battle with Stryfe and ended up trying to form some dark side cult. Lmaooo

I can’t speak to @RachelTyrell or anyone else’s experience on the board, but I don’t see it happen too often. I’m currently in games from Grey, Reynar, LordT, Elu, G_V, and others and of all the games, only 1 *maybe 2 feel like railroading has occurred. Maybe... diversify the GMs you’re under and compare the experiences? *shrugs*

On a side note, there are certain games and situations where railroading may be necessary. I’m running a treasure hunting plot in 10 ABY right now. If a player who is on that storyline(so far all have been volunteers) Randomly said “and then character X got up from the table, walked to their ship, and left the planet to go get a cheesesteak.” I’d allow it but then I’d wonder why they joined the treasure hunt at all in the first place.

And why cheesesteaks aren’t a common enough delicacy that one would have to leave a planet to go get one?

Honestly didn’t mean to write this much when I started this post. I really do think it’s as simple as pming the GM or just adapting like Reynar said.

 

To be perfectly honest, I take the opposite approach. I make my due diligence on games before joining nowadays and pick those by GMs who I do know are not doing it. I got an allergy to railroading! It kills my motivation badly. None of my current GMs ever railroaded me or . . . yeah, Fin got a point, maybe they are just very, very good at it. But I see it regularly around here and I think it is partly because Star Wars (like fantasy) makes it easy to do so.

 

Agreed. The closer you get to a finale the harder it gets though. At some point you have to move your characters onto a trajectory that leads to their final test. Also I feel players totally forgive for that.

 

It’s interesting that this apparently is such a prevalent issue, but sandbox RPGs are frowned upon by some here. Railroading is clearly something that would be more prevalent in storyline games. I remember in an earlier discussion we had here that sandbox games were criticized for not having a set long term plot.

I’m going to count this as a win for the sandbox, boys!!

 

Wasn‘t aware there is a competition.