T w e n t y S i d e d

Some people had great responses to my earlier post on railroading, although a lot of the controversy arose from different interpretations of my hypothetical situations. I think many people were not seeing the heart of the difficulty I was trying to present, perhaps because my examples was too poorly defined. So let’s try to tighten up the definition and see how that changes things.

There are only three outcomes I can see:

1. If I stick to the plan, they will kill the main bad guy and only after the fight would they discover who he was, and that the adventure was over. They accidently won, there was no climax, and all of my plot twists go to waste.
2. I can brute-force railroad them, by making my bad guy escape, overpower them, or otherwise prevail in a situation where he should have been outmatched. This is “cheating” to most people, and it will not result in happy players.
3. I can do as I said before: Create a new bad guy, and have this guy be a servant of that greater power. They get the satisfaction of defeating one of his lieutenants, gaining some loot, and moving the plot forward. Tension builds in the story, instead of the whole thing fizzling out.

For those who dislike my style of railroading: How would you approach the given situation? Would you let things fizzle or would you make changes to keep the game going? Is there another option I’m missing?

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.

In the past I’ve expressed my affinity for railroading a D&D game with the goal of creating an epic tale. My thinking has been that I want to create a thrilling story with the players as the central characters, and any subtle railroading that furthers that goal is highly desirable.

Great stories tend to have three acts, where we 1) introduce the challenge or threat 2) raise the stakes,and then 3) bring everything to a thrilling climax. Imagine a movie where the villain is defeated in the first half hour, and the hero spends the rest of the film goofing off. Or perhaps one where, in the middle of the film, the heroes forget about defeating the Big Bad and wander off because they can’t figure out how to beat him. Or maybe they join him, indulge in a bunch of senseless killing, and the story grinds to a halt when they run out of stupid ways to abuse the innocent. These are not interesting stories. This sort of gaming can appeal to some players, but it gets old quick. I think it is my duty as the DM to guide the story so that it remains as true to the three act ideal as possible, as long as my manipulations are subtle.

But let’s make clear what I mean by subtle railroading. Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Case for Railroading”

Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.