D&D Railroading is Good Actually

Railroading is one of those D&D topics that will never stop being discussed, and it's often because rail roading in DnD is plain bad. But is it? Are people calling railroading things that are just not railroading? Let's talk.

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[pointyhatstudios]

Plot twist this video is about the importance of public transportation 🚋

[quartzintherough]

"Players play their characters like water, they seek the path of least resistance. However, what the players really want is to go through a path that's anything but a straight. So your role as a DM is to set up hurdles so that the players can follow that path of least resistance, and at the end, the shape is as satisfying and pleasing as possible."
- Paraphrased from Brennan Lee Mulligan, on linear storytelling as a DM

[milesmatheson]

The DM has the authority to make the next session a heist.

The players have the agency to decide if the theme music for the heist is Mission Impossible, or Benny Hill.

[williammays]

I’ve been stressing about whether or not I’m railroading my players with my story, and I thought I was just covering up my restrictions by giving the illusion of choice. This video has helped me realize the difference between railroading and what I’m actually doing; telling a linear story. It’s a huge relief. Thank you, Mr. Demico. Thank you.

[SoulfullyUnaware]

The most fascinating linear story for me was definitely Brennan's calamity. I want to play DnD like THAT. But I don't even have a normal group so...

[pedromendes]

As a first time DM, I learned this the hard way. I was planning my first campaign (two years ago) and grew obsessed with avoiding railroading at all costs. What happened was that I created a sandbox type campaign and it couldn't be shittier both for me and my group. In time, I evolved it to be a multi-branch linear campaign and things started flowing so much better.

[BrendanKOD]

The core agreement between Player and DM is basically "We will create a story together."
Railroading is the DM going back on the deal while screaming "MY STORY MINE!!!" while Linear storytelling is the DM going "Ok for this story to unfold, this is the first plot point that the story must pass through. What's you're approach?"

[Turabbo]

This was like therapy for me and my wife, who's currently DMing for us lol. She's always worried about "railroading" us, and it's completely unfounded. She's such a great storyteller, and we all love following her plothooks. This was exactly what we needed to watch!!!! 🙂 Thank you!!

[friendlytalbot]

I have this strange dilemma where I always run linear storytelling, and get told by my players they don't like it because it's too sandbox.

[davialmeida]

I don't know if it was on propose, but I love that the railroading example's DM is so stupid that he goes out of its way inventing insane excuses to impede the players when they weren't even necessary because all of the villagers are already unable to escape because of the forcefield. Talk about tunnel visioning

[angelboi]

Something that Brennan Lee Mulligan talked about in the Game Masters of Exandria video, is that in a game with plot objectives you need to have rails, but it sucks for those rails to come from the GM, so what he talked about was doing in depth character creations because what your players give you is what the rails become, therefore granting this full degree of player agency while still having those rails in place. In that same video, Abria talked about how there were moments where Brennan guided her along a certain scene, but it didn't feel like a railroad, rather he gave her prompts to do what her character would do, so when he says something she didn't go "Oh, I guess this is where the plot is going" she went "Yeah, you're right, I don't hear that prophecy, FUCK THIS TREE!"

[jomes]

I’m happy that you brought up how stories can be linear, non linear, and sandbox at different times. It’s a tactic that I use a lot. In one campaign, the party started off on a pretty linear path, and once they got to the shadow king, he told them to go get stronger and come back for their next job once they have more skill and magic items. So now the players have to go around and find out where magic items are and the campaign turned into non-linear as they scoured the land for any ancient tombs or desecrated temples. I had stuff pre prepared, but they could get the items in any order they chose. In the next campaign I am running, the party is going to be plopped into a new strange world after a very brief (like 2 encounters) linear section. They will go on sandboxing for a level or two, and then will be noticed by the local factions, at which point it will turn into linear or non-linear (idk I don’t plan that far in advance) as they are introduced to the politics of the world and hints of the BBEG acting in the background (they will originally not appear important, as the factions they interact with do not know of the BBEG’s significance yet and are too busy politicking to notice a cult worshiping a dead witch king grow within their lands)

[quietwulf]

Seriously who are you man. The amount of good will, free stuff and love you put out into the community is next level. Thanks so much for all your work. :-)

[thnkng]

As someone who has recently started branching out into different systems (GOD I love you Blades in the Dark), D&D really *does* require a lot more railroading compared to certain other rules-light systems, mostly because of DM preparation.

When I'm DMing D&D, I need to have a *lot* of stuff prepared. I usually need battlemaps, if I want the party to fight certain enemies I'm gonna need a stat block for that enemy, I need to have a general idea of what they can *do* in this town, because all the scene-setting work in D&D is on you, the DM. If my players just decide "nah, we don't wanna help the goblins of the ancient forest this session, we're gonna head to that town south of the forest" and I didn't think to have at least *something* for that, I'm SoL and I need to either prep interesting things *real* quick or prepare for a very flat and uninteresting session.

With Blades, I do not need to do this. Blades is *meant* to be more sandboxy, which means that everything is set up so that I basically have to do no prep. There are no stat blocks (player rolls solve both the enemy and their actions, and they change depending on a bunch of factors), there is no over-arching plot you need to stick to, there's just a system of factions and a way for the players to find jobs to do *in the system*. You really don't need to plan these jobs at all, because Blades forgoes planning *even in game* and has characters retroactively plan their job through flashbacks when necessary.

When comparing Blades and D&D, it becomes *abundantly* clear just how much of D&D's session-to-session play is reliant on the GM at least 'trailroading' the players, showing them the path to follow and hoping to god they aren't just gonna be contrarian jerks and do something else. Blades, as a system, uses none of this, and requires the players to find their own fun in the world - that's not objectively *better*, mind you, but it's an example of how there *are* systems for non-linear, sandbox storytelling, and D&D just isn't it.

[ethanwinchester]

"We can't be friends because I'm not friends with people who are wrong." I'm using this from here on.

[danxerz]

I'm glad you pointed out the choice paralysis aspect. I as a DM can easily get too excited coming up with stuff like that and I regularly get disappointed once it's actually in front of the players because by overloading them with choices and information I didn't actually communicate clearly what the consequences of those choices are, or the players spend way to long deciding amongst themselves what to do because they feel like I've given them a test with a multiple choice question and only one correct choice.

[TimeKitt]

I think railroading works better when you don't ask your players open ended "What do you want to do?" and ask more guiding questions like "You stand outside the necromancer tower, how did you prepare for this?". Talking while even scheduling a game "I'm excited about this dungeon crawl I made".

I've found myself with anxiety players, so providing them a syllabus with what we're doing and what I need from them helps a lot to get them confident in the game. And even without anxiety players, I'll ask at the end of the previous session "What mission would you like next?" or "what landmark on the hexmap would you like to head towards next session" and then have a week to craft a heist or pre roll some random travel tables or maybe even grab a couple props from the dollar store to hand out.

The main thing being to communicate with the players where their choices lay, which can be less about where they go and more about how they approach.

[richardsmith]

Yeah, I remember Brennan Lee Mulligan talking about this in his round table with Matt and Aabria. He likened it to irrigating a field, when the water wants to go in a straight line while the farmers want an appealing vista. The ‘story’ or ‘plot’ wants the path of least resistance, whereas the players want complex paths that the story would have to fight in its current form, meaning you as the architect must design a path to please both.
“You made the shape of a story, while trying to make it anything but.

[Yessiree]

I played all of the Dragon Age games + the DLCs for the first time this year and blew my mind how much agency the player has. Even decisions from past games effect the newer ones.

[ArchibaldVonSkip]

Hat; don't burnout from all the content.
Take your time. We'll be here to enjoy it and support you!