Railroading is when a GM puts an encounter or situation into the game which, no matter the course of action the players takes, cannot be changed or altered. As a player, it is one of my biggest pet peeves. I hate railroading. Because: a) most of the time, it's really transparent, b) it's kinda weak GMing and c) it makes me think: Why doesn't the GM just tell me what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.
I'm just as guilty of railroading players as other GM's. I make no such claim that I have not done it. But I don't think I've been awful with it.
There are degrees of Railroading. I've seen all types. In the bigger pespective, some railroading is very forgivable. So long as it's not over done. These are minor tweaks to the dice rolls, encounter level and so forth where the GM already knows the outcome of the fight. It gives the illusion that you are not, in fact, railroading the party. I played a D&D game where our 8th level party encountered a bunch of devils who hit us with tons of Strength drain. This is the most forgivable form of railroading. We were captured, a big part of the plot was displayed, we were saved by other enemies and allowed to go on our merry way. The important thing here is that there was a reward for being railroaded. We were stuck in a boring dungeon anyway, so getting out of there was a blessing in disguise. Thus, nobody minded.
I've been in other games where the railroading was painful. I don't want to name names here. Suffice to say, I've felt like handing the GM my character sheet and, as above, saying, just tell me what my character does because I don't know what you want here. Obviously, that is a very bad form of railroading.
This becomes a tricky situation for a GM. To recognize and understand when he has a situation that has one possible outcome and when you've not given the players any options.
I'll try to give a few examples.
Example 1:
I played a superhero game in which the GM had a mad scientist shoot a giant laser at me. I was told to roll to dodge. I succeeded. He explained that the laser hit me and I was transported to another dimension. The entire point of the game was that I was transported to another dimension. There was no session without being hit by the giant laser. Hence the roll was entirely irrelivant. I recall saying: "It really didn't matter what I rolled...did it?" To which my GM smiled and told me flat out: "No."
Okay, smile and forgive. I would have rather the GM just said, "and this happens" because it was obvious that his plot was the basis of projecting us into this alternate dimension. So for plot, we had to be railroaded.
Example 2:
In a supernatural game, I was trying to shoot a creature. I was told to roll. I rolled realy well and shot it. Without marking down any damage the GM informed me that the creature started healing. It was clear to me that my roll was pointless. I had wasted my time and effort on thinking that I could hurt this monster and that the roll I had made, no matter what the outcome, would result in the same thing. I later learned that the monster HAD to be destroyed in a particular fashion. (I suspose, to some degree I must grin and bear it. But I didn't like it.) As far as I could tell there were no stats on the monster. The monster did not have the power of regeneration until I shot it will a killing blow. Then 'suddenly' it gained that ability.
Example 3:
In a Heroes (Champions) game I played, I was a bard. I had a Fear spell. We encountered a group of jerky jerk for jerks on a road. They were getting difficult so I used my Fear spell. The leader fails his roll. So the GM explained that he ran away into forest, then returned after my spell finished. The Jerky jerks weren't attacking us but they were...I dunno...waiting around for their leader to return. We didn't want to fight them but they seemed like they didn't want us to leave. So instead of any normal reaction, we all just waited there for the leader to return. So my spell was pointless. It had worked and the GM largely ignored it's effects.
The scene continued and devolved further. One player did not want to play his character, a Lizard man, anymore. He wanted an excuse to play a new character. So this jerky jerk NPC leader did something to prove he was a better fighter than the Lizard man. The player surprised everybody by saying, "wonderful. I seek to train with you. I will abandon my group to travel with you." Perfect. No fuss, no muss. Except that the NPC wanted the lizard man to fight the other fighter in our party. Huh? So the lizardman took a couple of weak swings at the other fighter character and the scene just sorta...ended...cuz everybody thought it was dumb.
The GM in question is an excellent GM. He just seemed to have what would amount to a brain fart in this situation. This was accidently railroading, which is likely to be the most common form of it.
Example 4
My character's girlfriend was killed by my character's arch-enemy. The arch-enemy then fled the scene, with no possibility that I could get to him in time. I even had the power to heal people and I got to the girlfriend. Death itself appeared before me and told me that I couldn't save her. Wow...okay. Death itself, eh?
We were swaping GM's at the time, everybody took their turn at the head chair. This GM then had no intention of me fighting my arch-enemy. He just did this and then was handing things over to another. WTF?!
Moments like these can be very frustrating to a player.
It's sometimes hard for GM's to comprehend when they are railroading the players. Often times it is done with the best of intentions. The plan is to use the railroading to produce a very good scene. The problem is that the players can feel slighted. The degree of this irritation is what the GM has to consider. I've beaten the group in a Marvel game only to have them taken by Apocalypse. I gave them a very tough fight and was getting heavier handed because the fight took longer than I had hoped. But the plan was that they would be kidnapped. I really needed this to happen. I don't know how the players reacted to losing the fight. They escaped their plight later of course and got some nice revenge. But how unsatisfying was it for them to lose that fight?
And sometimes, railroading isn't always clear. What say, if I as a GM want to make a monster that cannot be killed except with a particular ritual. The characters don't know that. They encounter it and treat it like a standard monster and don't understand why it cannot die. Is that fair to them? Did I fail because I didn't make it clear before hand that this was a special monster? Did I fail because I ran combat as normal and didn't explain to them that they were doing no damage? I did not railroad the players. I presented them with a new challenge that requires something other than raw strength to beat, in the guise of something that could be beaten with raw strength. But I can see how, if my description of the scene and the monster was off, then it could appear as railroading.
Railroading, used correctly, is still not a great GM technique, IMO. But if it's done to set up a better scene, then it's forgivable.
Railroading, used poorly, will only hurt the trust between the GM and the players. When the situation has gone as far as the thought: "GM...just tell me what my character does." then you've crossed that border. That is often when players consider leaving the game and that's rarely a good thing.
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