Boo! *Hiss* THAT'S RAILROADING!
No. Not rails. Breadcrumbs.
Rails and railroading are the crutches of inexperienced and 'bad' GMs. These are storytelling devices that make player choices irrelevant. Conversely, players plopped into a painfully crafted (or hastily improvised) open-world sandbox can suffer from decision paralysis. Breadcrumbs (a la the proverbial "trail of breadcrumbs") are the in-between option that suits my GM style best.
I attempt to leave a trail of breadcrumbs in a loose trail leading where I would like the players to go. I bait my plot hooks with what I think they will find most appetizing at that given moment. I like to think that my players are enjoying what I have prepared for any given session as a favor to me- and I always try to have the trail of breadcrumbs end in a satisfactory way.
I've played in games in the past where I have upheld my end of this social contract (from my perspective), but my expectations of what results from playing along with the GM and following the trail were subverted in a way that I did not think was ideal. I followed the breadcrumbs that I believe existed in the game and ended up feeling like I was either intentionally duped or very confused. I know that a well meaning dupe can shake things up for players when used sparingly, but here is an example where it seemed pointless and detrimental to the game.
Example #1:
I can't remember the exact circumstances that culminated in this scenario, but it happened during a D&D campaign I was playing in a few years ago. I think we were tapped by a local bigwig to rescue prisoners from a lizardfolk tribe in a swamp far to the south.
We found the lizardfolk camp and opened a dialogue with their chieftain. It turns out they wanted our help with defeating a black dragon that laired near by.
This was in a hybrid of 3.5 D&D and Pathfinder, so we all knew that dragons came in a variety of challenge ratings. For some reason, the lizardfolk (as portrayed by the DM) looked at our party of low-tier adventurers and thought "Ah, with the help of these three adventurers we can defeat the dragon." None of these scaly jerks thought to mention that (as we would come to find out) this was an ancient dragon of some status in the history of the region that we knew nothing about.
Nevertheless we loaded onto a bunch of longships with lizardfolk warriors (that should have probably know this was a suicide mission) and went face-to-face with this legend before realizing it was a parley or die situation and sailing back to lizard town with our tails between our legs.
The other players shrugged their shoulders and said "At least that's over with," but I had given my word to the dragon that I would help it out with regaining its lost wings and that sent the campaign down a weird series of monthly sessions that involved doing things way above our paygrade in a way that we were mostly at the mercy of powerful creatures and NPCs until the campaign fizzled out.
Why didn't the lizardfolk realize how deep in the guano we would all be if we went to face the dragon? We didn't claim to be gods or have any abilities that would humble an ancient black dragon. Why didn't the DM hint that this was a danger zone? Why didn't we see this as a plot hook we should not pursue? What were we supposed to do that wouldn't result in draconic servitude that our DM (seemingly) didn't expect?
You don't reward a dog for performing the trick you ask of it by whacking it on the nose with a newspaper. I would have much rather been railroaded into fighting the lizardfolk than follow a trail of breadcrumbs that led to such an unsatisfying end.
Don't get me wrong- if you want to pull the Kansas City shuffle on your players, then by all means do so. I would hope you do so sparingly and responsibly.
And if your group is way off base due to bad rolls and bad decisions, then that's a whole other kettle of kuo-toa.
But if you want to guide your players along a certain path in your campaign I would encourage you to think breadcrumbs and not railroads.
I'll have to write some more on this in the near future...
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