The Nature of Railroading

[Gallowglass]

Since we're talking about railroading, I'm curious as to how you would judge a key episode of my campaign, where I did railroad an outcome.

...yada yada yada...

So, if anyone had taken the time to read through this long story, I'd like to know how you would have reacted as a player.

Yeah, you railroaded. I don't see anyway to define that other than railroading. You knew how it was going to come out and you enacted that regardless of any agency the players had or anything they could do.

How would I react? That's a tough question. I've played in plenty of games with railroaded outcomes and enjoyed myself because the DM was good, the game was clever and interesting and the STORY was fun. I am a player that enjoys the story. And stories are sometimes better if you aren't making it up as you go along and have recurring bad guys.

I've also been in plenty of games with railroaded outcomes and resented and got pissy about it. Why? Because the DM was NOT good, the game was NOT clever or interesting and the STORY was lame. I am a player that enjoys the story. And stories sometimes suck when you refuse to make it up as you go along and have bad guys that you just can't ****ing kill.

As long as your players legitimately enjoyed themselves you don't have a problem. railroad away. Just make sure that the players ARE really enjoying themselves and you aren't lying to yourself about it.

Because every single DM who falls into that second category are NEVER aware of it. They ALWAYS think that "the players love my game, I'm doing great, I'm so clever, I'm so good, I'm so amazing at this!" And they are categorically incapable of any self-realization about the fallacy of their belief.

DM: "Hey guys, so I totally was going to make it end that way regardless of what you did. Are you guys having fun?"

Players: *Sideline glances at each other* *disconsolate plunking of dice* "I mean.... yeah.... I guess...."

That one player who wants to preserve everyone's feelings: "Oh yeah, it was great! So cool how you did that thing... with that thing..."

DM: "I knew it! I'm so awesome at this!"

And the other thing I would ask you to think is, what could it have been like if I HADN'T decided how that was going to end? If I legitimately gave the PCs agency and legitimately left the story in their hands? Based on your description it would've ended with a super-cool win for the PCs where -they- saved the world, rather than the world just happening to be okay despite them. Where THEY beat the bad guy and he stayed beat so you would have to bring in a NEW bad guy instead of using the old bad guy. Or it could've ended with the players LOSING, the world descending into Vecna's darkness and the PCs who survived having to go on a quest to undo the damage or save as many people as they could. Also cool. Also fun.

I think it could've been better and more fun. Because rather than telling a story to your friends and letting them throw some dice and limited interaction, you'd be telling a story WITH your friends and equals in the narrative outcome.

That's all the anti-railroaders want you to consider. what -if- I did it a different way? Would it be worse or would it be better?

also, reading between the lines of your post, between your "immune to anit-magic, able to cast quickened teleport, DC 36 banshee wail/disjunction" super villain (which makes it seem pretty disingenuous when following "a dem-ilich is too powerful for my campaign") I don't think I would've enjoyed your game. I hate villains who have a counter for everything and "can't be beaten no matter what". They are boring and wasting hours fighting them is pointless and futile and it feels like it. When every clever tactic I bring up ends up with "oh no, he totally has a counter for that. ha ha, he's so awesome" But that's just a gut reaction, I have never played with you so maybe it didn't feel like that to your players. *shrug*