Choo-Choo yes? Is railroading REALLY that bad?

[Cheesegear]

When I talk about railroading, I mean exactly that - the GM has a prepared adventure in mind, that is more or less a set of concrete scenes/encounters, and the players will go through them roughly in order, and they will have approximately the same content no matter what.

Well then, no. I don't do that. This entire conversation has a waste of time. My definition of railroading is not the same as yours. I was right.

You're trying to claim that any restriction of complete freedom is equivalent to railroading.

If players are making choices that they don't necessarily want to make, they are being railroaded. This takes many, many forms.

This is why Quantum Ogre matters. You are giving players the choice to make choices they want to make.

Railroad | Railroading
rush or coerce (someone) into doing something.

There are many, many, many ways that a DM can do this. Some of which are even allowed - and encouraged - by game design.
When someone says 'But what if your players aren't okay with that.'
That's kind of the point. You can't railroad (rush or coerce) someone into something they want to do.

Unless, of course, that's not your definition of railroading...And as I said, this entire conversation for the last several pages has largely been a waste of time because we're coming at railroading from different definitions.

When I say that I'm railroading someone, I say that I'm reducing and/or removing player agency. As per the definition of railroading, which basically forcing people to make decisions that they don't want to make. It's kind of implied that they're not okay with it.
(However, we all understand that [TTRPG] is a game, right? And making bad choices in a fictional setting doesn't make us bad people, yes?)

If you're saying that Railroading is a 'pre-planned adventure with a tight script and a finite amount of solutions'. Then no, I don't do that. I've provided several examples where that isn't the case. I've provided one example where that is the case: Usually at the very start of a campaign where characters (and sometimes the players themselves) are introducing themselves to each other, and if they don't gel more or less immediately, I have to engineer the situation to force them down a path to get together.

Or maybe they have really ****ty backstories with no clear character or personality in mind - just a species/class combo that they want to play.
Me: Why are you here?
Player: I don't know.
Me: What are your goals?
Player: I made this character 40 minutes ago, I don't know. To get to at least Level 12 without dying?
Me: Uhh...Fine. Who are you? What are you?
Player: I'm an Elf Fighter.
Me: That's not what I- ...Okay. I've got nothing. You're in a tavern. Next time you make a character, please make it more than 40 minutes before the first session you introduce it.
Player: So what...Like an hour?
Me: *headdesk*

And I've also stated that Quantum Ogre is acceptable (IMO), because it still gives players the feeling of making choices.

Players want choice and they want the illusion of choice.
There, I found a way to fix that phrase.

Railroading is typically understood as "loss of agency at the macro level to ensure that players player through linear prepared content in roughly way that it has been decided."

If that's how it's typically understood; Then see 'This has been a waste of time.'

It's the intent and the goal that matters.

It's the intent is it? I can't count the number of times where I've said;
'I think this will be fun.'
Forumites have read
'[Cheesegear] is an a*hole.'

Personally, I like "soft control" effects if you're gonna put them on PCs - "if you comply with orders, nothing happens or even something positive for you can happen. If you go against the control, something bad happens.

That's called coercion, maybe even extortion. That's railroading. Are you a railroader!?

So you plop them in a tavern with no direction and nothing interesting happening?

I go to a pub all the time and nothing interesting happens.

OR - maybe it's more like this...they are power gamers with a great deal of system mastery, right? Whenever they have any foreknowledge or hints about what they might encounter, they prepare for it with every bit of system knowledge they possess to defeat it as efficiently and quickly as possible. This is frustrating for the DM, because they will demolish anything he throws at them if they were able to guess in any way what was coming, and having his carefully planned encounters end in a few measly rounds is not fun for him (understandable). So, he has taken to misleading them or giving them zero information about what they will encounter as much as possible, so that he has a fighting chance to have fun with his monsters and NPCs. They don't like this, because they enjoy using strategy and preparation to "beat the game", and accuse him of railroading them by taking away their ability to prepare for anything.

You've hit the nail precisely on the head.

Yet, here we are... I keep getting asked to GM and I have no explanation. When I ask for feedback, they just tell me that it was fun and that they liked X or Y part, and thanked me for GMing.

My favourite is when I take a few weeks off to be a player. Like, I'm burned out, work was ****. My spouse is mad at me. I just want to sit here and have fun. Someone else DM.

Then a player pipes up during a scenario:

Player: That's not how [Cheesegear] does it. Do it how [Cheesegear] does it.
Me: Oh really?

[vasilidor]

So, my take on the issue (I have not read all the backlog as of yet, so these may be points already addressed)
1. RailRoading is a matter of degrees varying from "I put this quest together, please go along with it." to "your solution is not the one I wanted you to do so it fails."

2. Having a quest sometimes means having guide rails, or road signs with "the quest continues in that direction."

3. on the idea/problem of the quantum ogre, I often have no idea as to what monster a party will encounter as I often use random encounters. It is worth noting that how one uses random encounters makes a great difference. Is it just beat'em up scenarios or is there room for roll play as well? Not every random encounter is hostile on my chart and includes things like wandering merchants, annoying pixies, traveling soldiers that really want nothing more than to get where they are going as well as things that would try to eat the character.

[Tanarii]

Railroading isn't a matter of degree. It's a very specific action by the DM: Actively negating a player decision to ensure different specific things will happen.

Quantum Ogres are a very specific thing too. It's a specific scenario demonstrating how illusionism works, which is where railroading, or the active negation of player decisions to ensure different specific things will happen, is hidden from the players.

[vasilidor]

So like not being able to run from a monster when you try to run because reasons?
That is something I have experienced.
I once derailed an entire campaign by acting like a sane realistic human when faced with a giant Cthuloid type monster coming out of a portal.
He expected me, and had planned this, to have my character to charge the thing with a level one character.
When I tried to run he had a wizard auto charm, no save my character. I was done playing at that moment.

[KorvinStarmast]

I am not sure if this link was posted before, but there's an interesting thought here about The River (which is neither a sand box nor a railroad)

[kyoryu]

I am not sure if this link was posted before, but there's an interesting thought here about The River (which is neither a sand box nor a railroad)

I know I've seen that before, and I think it was here.

Regardless, it's still fundamentally a linear game. You're going down points, in order, wiht just some side quests and meandering allowed.

Most people that like "sandboxes" aren't going to enjoy that - it's not hitting the things they're looking for. And that's fine, but it's not some kind of brand new structure (Savage Worlds Plot Point campaigns are the same thing) that is going to make everybody happy.

For people that like fundamentally linear games? Probably a good way to look at things. Maybe a good way to describe typical linear games. But it's still not any kind of halfway point, and isn't really going to make people that like more emergent games satisfied. Which is okay. Not everything is for everybody.