railroading obstructive DM and rpg videogames

[Telok]

My general answer to this is "plot grenades". Some impending doom that's significant enough that the players can't ignore it, but not something that has a specific plan to resolve, especially one laid out in advance.

The options are not "linear game" and "world where the characters do whatever".

Like "Well you threw away the <foo> when you ran off so now the demons can open the gate again. I guess demon attacks in the area will ramp up for a few months untill the gate is fully open and then we'll have a full on demon invasion"? Yeah, done that too. I did say 'usually'.

[kyoryu]

Like "Well you threw away the <foo> when you ran off so now the demons can open the gate again. I guess demon attacks in the area will ramp up for a few months untill the gate is fully open and then we'll have a full on demon invasion"? Yeah, done that too. I did say 'usually'.

Well, maybe wthout the "you screwed up" bit, unless it's actually relevant. But yeah. I find that a good way to retain a bunch of open-ness in the game, while still preventing it from beign "well, what do you want to do?"

[Telok]

Well, maybe wthout the "you screwed up" bit, unless it's actually relevant. But yeah. I find that a good way to retain a bunch of open-ness in the game, while still preventing it from beign "well, what do you want to do?"

Twice.

The second time was supposed to happen by the planned plot, but by then I was sure enough of the players that I had the high mage council just give them the instructions to bypass all the defenses of the secure area. Sure enough, the plan of "go in, don't trigger the guardians, cut the iron flask containing the demon lord free of the altar, return without opening it" was just way too complicated for them.

[Scripten]

More Darth Ultron now that I think about it

I've had my suspicions ever since he showed up. Between this thread and looking at his games, it seems pretty likely. He uses a lot of the same terms and runs games with similar tropes. And now we're getting back into orthogonal definitions of railroading (to justify vanilla railroading).

[Quertus]

I've had my suspicions ever since he showed up. Between this thread and looking at his games, it seems pretty likely. He uses a lot of the same terms and runs games with similar tropes. And now we're getting back into orthogonal definitions of railroading (to justify vanilla railroading).

Would it be verboten to move beyond concurring and into actual "well, obviously" territory?

I mean, I've had paranoid suspicions that there could exist two such individuals, so alike in mannerisms and mindset, so similar in style and substance; these suspicions were allayed by a display of the same gems of wisdom - unique among Playgrounders in their particular qualities, as they can seemingly only be forged within that rarest of perspectives - that I always looked forward to in our conversations.

[Knaight]

More Darth Ultron now that I think about it

Hold on, I think I had a line for this. Right, that's what it was:

I'd completely forgotten about that guy. Why couldn't you leave me that luxury?

[Dimers]

People talk all the time about taking inspiration from a favorite story -- novel, manga, movie, TV series, whatever. Everything is scripted in those and they're very entertaining. So it follows (if you don't examine too closely) that highly scripted TTRPG scenes should be a good thing. I think that's just as strong a factor in the problem as any other type of game is.