SO, here and on RPG.net, there are always talks of railroading this, steamrolling that, or not giving the characters enough movement room. Particularly when dealing with adventure modules created by a company.

Well, I've been doing a series of modules, and trying to leave plenty of room, but came to a realization:

By having hordes of zombies, and not providing the PC's unlimited ammunition or the ability to beat 10,000 zombies in hand to hand combat, by many people's definition, I'm railroading the players.

To me, that's an annoyance.

I'm currently doing one of my infamous (in the playtesting groups, none of them are slated for release until 2nd Quarter FY 07) "48 Hours of Hell" modules, where the characters go from the beginning of the Rising to 2, maybe three days in, where by the end of the 2nd day the entire building/complex they are in is covered with zombies outside. Where the roar of dead flesh nearly drowns out conversation inside.

By the definitions that have begun to spring up, the fact that they are low on ammunition, they are not allowed on the Chinook helicopters evac'ing people from the building, and they have to deal with internal strife as well as the zombies, I'm guilty of "location railroad" because they have zero chance of wading through 20,000 zombies.

When do the cries of railroading cease? If you look at life, we're all being fucking railroaded. I don't have the option of having sex with 20 supermodels on top of a stack of money, because I'm fucking poor and ugly.

But if there's an ugly and poor PC, anti-railroading activists expect a GM to provide for the player's fantasies of the PC having a Supermodel wife with a sister that owns a liquor store.

I'm beginning to suspect that the cries of railroading aren't so much about railroading, but more about wish fufillment. If the PC's don't get the player's wishes fufilled, why, the GM is railroading them.

When you sit at the gaming table, the majority of players I've worked with have understood that certian things will happen: I will provide a plot, foes, and complications. They will do their best, through dice rolls and intellectual thought, to solve my plot and come out the other side victorious.

BUT, if I say "No, your elf can't suddenly grow wings and shoot rainbows out his ass!" then I'm railroading and a bad GM.

That's horseshit.

Anyway, when I create a module, I have long since decided that "X happens at Y time" and yeah, the party can modify that, but good things may or may not happen.

In the module Hold At All Costs 2: The Sharp End, the railroad crowd would scream about the content.

The party is a group of US Army Rangers tasked with helping the Marines hold an embassy in the face of an insurgency and a biological weapon outbreak. They don't get to take the choppers out, they don't get to run away, they don't get to hide. They are expected to uphold the motto of the Rangers, they are expected to fight despite exhaustion, pain, and hunger.

There's railroad scenes. When an insurgent rams the gate with a carbomb. When a zombie suicide bomber blows himself up on a bus full of refugees. Where the mortar round hits the Chinook and the players are forced to take Seeker-Seven, which is a flying fucking wreck.

According to the anti-railroading crowd, I'm making it less fun for the players. It doesn't matter that it's tense, it's worrisome, and survival really gives the players a sweet taste of victory. It's railroading, and it's wrong.

To this, I say bullshit.

When does bullshit theories start lowering people's fun in the game?

Modules are somewhat of a railroad, there isn't enough paper in the world to cover every contingency, and if the PC's don't take the route in the module, they aren't playing the module.

There it is: If the players choose to go outside the module, they aren't playing it any more.

So, the poor players have to go along with what is going on in the module if they want to play it.

If they have any brains at all, they know that when they sit down at the table with the knowledge that they are playing a module. They are agreeing to the railroading within it.

And it doesn't mean you can't still have fun.

It's a little different with a military game.  By sitting down at the table, the players have implicitly agreed that their characters will follow their standing orders and the mission briefings, etc. or there will be consequences - up to and including being summarily executed for cowardice in the face of the enemy.

Is it any different to choosing to play a Paladin? "Ranger Honor" is even more restrictive than the Paladin's Code

Edit: typo

Is someone actually complaining about the premise for your game being railroading -- and by extension "bad"? :confused:

Quote from: T-WillardAccording to the anti-railroading crowd, I'm making it less fun for the players. It doesn't matter that it's tense, it's worrisome, and survival really gives the players a sweet taste of victory. It's railroading, and it's wrong.

To this, I say bullshit.

When does bullshit theories start lowering people's fun in the game?

Modules are somewhat of a railroad, there isn't enough paper in the world to cover every contingency, and if the PC's don't take the route in the module, they aren't playing the module.

Usage differs, but the hatred of railroading doesn't come out of nowhere.  There are a ton of modules with linear storylines, and lots of people have played them, and lots of people hated them.  

Here's my two cents of clue.  Modules are capable of having more than one route.  That doesn't mean that they have to have an infinite number of routes, just that they include multiple paths which are substantially different.  

Here's my question about your modules:  As a player, what choices do I have?  Is my "victory" just the result of a bunch of good to-hit rolls, or are there substantially different strategies which I can approach the situation with?

Quote from: jhkimHere's my question about your modules:  As a player, what choices do I have?  Is my "victory" just the result of a bunch of good to-hit rolls, or are there substantially different strategies which I can approach the situation with?

Multiple strategies, multiple tactics.

Quote from: T-WillardMultiple strategies, multiple tactics.

Great.  So assuming that these make substantial difference in the adventure, anti-railroaders won't have a problem with it.  

However, it wasn't clear at all from your original post that this was true.  At least, you made no mention in the slightest about the different ways that the adventure could go on the basis of these different strategies.

Quote from: jhkimGreat.  So assuming that these make substantial difference in the adventure, anti-railroaders won't have a problem with it.  

However, it wasn't clear at all from your original post that this was true.  At least, you made no mention in the slightest about the different ways that the adventure could go on the basis of these different strategies.

Well--let's be clear: some "anti-railroaders" won't have any problem with it. There are varying tolerances all over the place and this is one of the more finicky ones.

Some people consider a James Bond game mission a railroad (and if they don't like that, there'll be no satisfying them!). I don't have a lot of empathy for that position since I think that railroading connotates dysfunction and there's nothing dysfunctional about a spy game--but if you listen to *everyone* you can just about only make Keep on the Boarderlands ... and even that's questionable.

More productively, though: one of the module designs I've seen that I think is *highly* non-railroading is the "pure situation model." There's a StarCluster module I examined (La Familia ... something or other--it's on the home page) that gives a starting problem and then a bunch of personalities and places that are involved.

There are "clues" but, IIRC, the PCs mostly know everything they need to in order to get started. Who do they put pressure on? How far will they go to get what they want? Etc.

(Gosh, sounds almost indie).

But there are no set scenes. There's no structure, linear or otherwise.

That's one possible way to go with it.

-Marco