RailRoad

Rail Roading

This is a style of roleplaying that is deem to be bad. It is the pratice of reducing the choices to the players to the point where there is a very narrow set of pradictable options. In a sense there is only one way to do something. This make the act of refereeing easy as you can deduce you work load and know each seen in high detail.

In fact you see this in alsorts of media, in most Computer RPG or FPS you only have one goal in each seen an you must finish it before you get to the next. In films, plays and books the actors and views do not get to choice which order to watch the sceenplay or to change the setup of the seen. The ability to have a level of fexability is in fact a primary advantage of roleplaying.

If the referee is intending to tell a story they in a sence my rail road the players to tell the story. The problem becomes when the players or character see no reason to follow the story. It is sometimes forgotten by referees that they are there in a sence to entertain the players as well as themselves. The story they are telling must allow the character and there players the feadom to choice to be part of the referees plot. If the character have no choice then the referee has rail roaded them and it is this which the players get iritated by. If the players feel that they most follow a plot then they will keep pulling in a different direction. The solution is to give the players lots of choices but to make the next stage in the plot the most interesting to them or solves a charcaters personal goals.