Railroading: D&D 5 vs. GTA 5

Railroading.

I've been hearing a lot of criticisms of the D&D 5th Edition modules for railroading players into situations, to force them to make choices, and to put them in situations they had to go into or the module would dead end. To be fair, I've seen this in Pathfinder adventure paths as well, along with dead-ends where even the referee is sitting there wondering how to move the group to the next area without making it look obvious.

To the wargamer, or even the casual 4th Edition player, railroading isn't as much of a problem, I mean, just get us to the next battle and let's have at it. I've seen 4th Edition modules just list combat encounter after combat encouter with as little as possible holding them together and you know, so what? They were fun fights, and the addiction of the chess-piece battles more than made up for the click-clack of the rails underneath the party's feet.

It's not an excuse, no, but D&D 4 is so different on narrative style it is a special case. It is battle chess, and while freedom is appreciated in choice of direction, there better be a fun series of tabletop battles when we get where we are going.

But D&D 5 is more of a story game, and Pathfinder also dips into the story-solving motivation. When you play a game more driven by narrative, you are going to get railroading eventually. Even in the strongest sandbox computer games, like Grand Theft Auto 5, you are going to get scripted story missions every once and a while that are fun, memorable, and more importantly - welcomed by the sandbox player.

What makes the railroad parts of GTA 5 fun then? It's not because they are railroads, those scripted missions are very specific on what it takes to win, where you should go, and deviated from the path and it's "mission failed" real quick. They are just as railroad as their pen-and-paper counterparts.

There's a difference here, and I think it's important. GTA 5 offers and supports a huge and very involved sandbox experience, and the railroad parts are a welcome diversion from all the freedom, like a special challenge mode the player gets to solve every once and a while. The game is a sandbox first and foremost, and has scripted missions you take at your own pace that advance the plot.

With pen-and-paper games, the sandbox or 'open experience' is a secondary concern, it's the module writer's story that comes first, and that means the missions need to be built and scripted. Sandboxes in RPG modules feel like secondary concerns, thrown in as a map if there is enough page count, and the referee is told to "fill it out" on his own. Leaving it up to the referee is not sandboxing, it is lazy adventure design.

Referees can make up anything, anywhere, even in the dusty corner of your scripted room encounter the referee could throw in a rabbit hole to Alice in Wonderland. It's a given and a fact of being the referee running the game. A sandbox needs support for factions, encounters, things that happen if the players cause trouble, a populace, traffic patterns, special areas, and all sorts of other details the referee can use to make the setting come alive. A good sandbox takes a lot of work, which is why you don't see many good ones in modules.

You occasionally get the "you choose the next path" branching structure in a part of an adventure, and that is a step in the right direction. You could rescue the princess, or go retrieve the magic staff, you choose what you do next. Still, this isn't sandboxing if the map your branching scenarios are placed on is dead and doesn't have anything to it.

Also, tutorials by their nature are railroads, because you never want to throw new players into a situation where they have no direction. Module writers often make the mistake of writing a tutorial scripted part to kick the adventure off, and require the party to play through it as a prologue. Right off, most players will smell what's cooking and say "railroad" without giving the rest of the adventure a chance. Tutorial sections should be labeled as such, and players who don't want to play these parts shouldn't have to - tutorials should be optional. The party should have the chance of starting on the sandbox after an intro is read to them, and let them decide how to chase down the next part.

The princess has been captured by the Black Knight, and the royal staff thrown into the Evil Gorge? Some players may want to go straight to the Dark Castle and knock on the door, while others may want to go to the princess' castle. Some may go straight for the gorge, while others may want to watch as the situation develops, and then the Black Knight sends his army to the town to capture it. Things are happening, there is a timeline and a schedule for major events, and players can choose where to go next. There's room for all sorts of scripted parts to this adventure, but there is enough open-world content to keep the adventurers happy and busy.

There was a tutorial battle in the beginning of the module we could have played, but we skipped it to get to the action. It looked fun, but we just wanted to cut to the action. We decided to go to the gorge, and we got involved in this fun river raft ride where goblins kept running alongside and attacking us. Sure, that part was a little railroad-y, but we made the choice to go there, and we will make the choice of where to go next, so it wasn't as bad as the whole adventure being on rails. Plus, it was fun.

Great modules give you that balance of freedom and scripted action, and they give you the illusion of complete freedom while still having action-movie set-piece battles and situations.