Railroading: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Being the [[Game Master]] of a [[Tabletop RPG]] campaign is a difficult business: Regardless of whatever exciting [[Story Arc]]s you've planned and worked out in advance, there's no guarantee that your human cohorts will proceed according to plan. After all, if they don't know what's going to be in store for them, how will they know to get their characters to the right place at the right time instead of, say, getting [[Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer]]?

 

 

* Planning out connecting geographic areas in a linear fashion, to ensure that there is only ''one'' given path from town A to town E (there will simply be no sidepaths or other locations to explore);

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Knights of the Dinner Table]]'': B.A., the put-upon DM, engages in some blatant railroading in one strip. His players catch on after hours of failed exploration, when they sneak a peek at the map of the countryside that B.A. drew, and realize that the road to the dungeon is a ''straight line'' with impassable forests and mountains on either side.

 

 

* In ''[[Stranger Than Fiction]]'', Harold, having discovered himself to be a fictional character, tries to stay at home watching TV all day so that the plot cannot progress, [[The Call Knows Where You Live|only for a bulldozer to knock down the wall of his house]].

** Which is actually a plot point, as it is when they discover the novel is about things happening to him, not what he does.

* In ''[[The Cabin in the Woods]]'', Hadley and Sitterson {{spoiler|use mind-influencing gases and remote-control doors to separate the five teens or lure them outside as the ritual demands}}.

 

* The ''[[Doctor Who]]'' ''Choose Your Own Adventure'' [[Choose Your Own Adventure|books]]. In one of them, about half your "choices" led to paragraphs basically saying "No, that's not the right decision. Go back and pick the other one."

** In the modern ones, they let you stumble around, not really having much effect on anything, while the doctor saves the day. You can't even die, the plot won't let you!

* The two ''[[Animorphs]]'' Choose Your Own Adventure books infamously have only one path to get to the happy ending; every single other choice results in instant death.

 

* The ''[[Mekton]]'' adventure ''Operation Rimfire'' which read more like a script then an adventure. While it featured ten pre-generated player characters, five of them were pretty much useless. To make matters worse, two of the other characters (and one of the useless ones!) were indispensable to the plot, however, if the players didn't choose to play both of those characters, then important developments and revelations would be skipped or confined to NPC-only dialogue (And there is nothing less fun then watching the GM talk to themselves).

:The story leaves no room for deviation, basically forcing the players to do exactly what the script tells them, otherwise the plot simply will not advance. And finally, the worst straw is the villain's death: no matter what the players do, which pretty much amounts to ten people whaling on him at once with guns, rapiers and laser swords, he lives long enough to deliver his ''twenty seven line'' dying speech and then execute his master plan anyway.

 

* There's a magnificent lampshade of this in ''[[Portal 2]]'', in the game's intro, when Wheatley gets free of his management rail: "No rail to tell us where to go! This is brilliant. We can go wherever we want! Just hold on, where are we going, seriously. Hang on let me just get my bearings. Umm, just follow the rail, actually." Many Valve games are designed in a very linear fashion, although the environments are well-designed enough to make it feel cinematic and interesting.

** This is a plot point in the ''[[Half-Life (series)|Half Life]]'' series. Gordon Freeman is constantly being railroaded by the G-Man.

* In ''[[Banjo-Kazooie|Banjo-Tooie]]'', it is possible to locate Terry's eggs and learn the "Hatch" move before [[Defeat Means Friendship|befriending]] Terry. If Kazooie tries to hatch an egg first, Terry will prevent this by objecting loudly despite being nowhere in the vicinity.

 

* ''[[Darths and Droids]]'': After the players' (somewhat off-base) version of ''[[Star Wars]] Episode I'' is finished, [http://darthsanddroids.net/episodes/0206.html the GM's original plot] is shown. So during an [[Archive Binge]], you get to see how the GM accommodated his original plot points after ''severe'' derailing by the players. This actually shows that the Darths and Droids game master may not be perfect, but is a really good GM, changing his planned plot around the flow of the game and the choices of his players rather than the other way around. As of Episode III it is becoming increasingly obvious that he is becoming tired of the players taking their own paths, and he vigorously attempts to steer them back onto the rails. When R2's player GMs, however, the railroading stick hits ''hard''.

{{quote|Players tend to stay on the rails better when you place obvious landmines on either side of the tracks.}}

** In one comic, the group attempts to interrupt Gandalf's conversation with Theoden...only for the DM to start over from the beginning, causing them to compare it to a video game cutscene. In another, they ask why he even bothers running an RPG if he already knows the exact story he wants to tell; his response is, because they chip in for pizza.

*** However there are two instances where this [[Subverted Trope|trope is subverted]], they kill Gollum before he appears, and they kill [[Dragon with an Agenda|Saruman]] from below his tower.

** Interestingly enough, in the forums the author published a [http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=291639#post291639 pretty detailed account of the battle], proving that he actually thought the whole thing through rather than [[Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies|just saying the]] PCs lost.

* ''[[Problem Sleuth]]'': Though readers' suggestions were still used from time to time, much of the latter part the work was based on commands the author decided to use regardless of whether they were suggested. Similarly, ''[[Homestuck]]'''s plot is already planned out, though reader suggestions still appeared. Finally the suggestion box was shut down, and, apart from giving names to a couple of new characters, remained locked and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

:However, Andrew has been known for taking suggestions or rumors from the forums and putting them into the story, meaning the readers don't completely lack influence.

* ''[[Things Mr. Welch Is No Longer Allowed to Do In An RPG]]'' [http://theglen.livejournal.com/89715.html 501-1000], [http://theglen.livejournal.com/131998.html 1001-1500]:

{{quote|638. The DM is not impressed by me spoiling his well planned ambush by just casting Glassee on the door.

1436. In case of premature termination, the dungeon boss has an identical twin brother on standby.

1449. Any plan that would quickly, logically and safely defeat the module early is doomed to failure. }}

 

** Also in "Woodland Critter Christmas", Stan refuses to go along with the plot, but the [[Interactive Narrator]] (played by [[Jerkass|Cartman]]) doesn't stop harassing him until he does.