"There is something ahead, and the road is closed now."
— Pokémon Black and White explaining why a player cannot advance.
"A player is never late, Dave. Nor is he early. He arrives precisely when the plot dictates he should."
— Shamus Young
"When the players really, seriously, just won't get on with the adventure as planned it can be sorely tempting to very gently prod them tentatively in the vague direction of one possible path towards getting on the right track to accomplishing some of the things that might help them in their eventual quest to achieve the adventure goals. Only the most perversely twisted players appreciate this behaviour from the GM."
DM: After many hard days of travel you reach Weathertop.
Aragorn: You know what guys? I'm thinking... screw that.
Frodo: Forget it. No way I'm climbing that thing.
DM: You are too weary to go on tonight. You must rest, and there's nowhere else around to make camp.
Frodo: We'll just sleep at the bottom of the hill then.
DM: You're so tired that the ground around here is not restful enough. You need to rest in the more comfortable area on top of the hill.
Frodo: Then we probably don't have the energy to climb the hill anyway.
DM: No, you have just enough energy to climb this hill, but not enough energy to go on or look for somewhere else to camp.
Frodo: That is a very specific level of tired.
DM: Maybe. Anyway, it's also dark now.
Aragorn: Hey guys, I have an idea. Let's camp on this huge hill tonight.
DM: Good idea.
Sam: Stupid DM.
Aragorn: You know what guys? I'm thinking... screw that.
Frodo: Forget it. No way I'm climbing that thing.
DM: You are too weary to go on tonight. You must rest, and there's nowhere else around to make camp.
Frodo: We'll just sleep at the bottom of the hill then.
DM: You're so tired that the ground around here is not restful enough. You need to rest in the more comfortable area on top of the hill.
Frodo: Then we probably don't have the energy to climb the hill anyway.
DM: No, you have just enough energy to climb this hill, but not enough energy to go on or look for somewhere else to camp.
Frodo: That is a very specific level of tired.
DM: Maybe. Anyway, it's also dark now.
Aragorn: Hey guys, I have an idea. Let's camp on this huge hill tonight.
DM: Good idea.
Sam: Stupid DM.
Legolas: Oh no. It's like we've entered a non-interactive cutscene.
Aragorn: Entered? We've been in one since Rivendell.
Aragorn: Entered? We've been in one since Rivendell.
"And so begins The Hallway. The endless, 40 hour Hallway. You have not known pain until you have seen the Hallway, for there is no escape. No free will; the only way is the way forward. The dread of inevitability; the shackles of fate. Our choices preordained by programmers. Our existence meaningless without choices of our own. The only way is forward, the path laid out for us, the choice is already made! The monsters you encounter are invariant. They are planned to the last detail. There is no randomness or chance, you fight them because you are meant to. You fight them so you are at the level the game requires you to fight the bosses. No more, no less. Oh, you may find that the hallway branches off at times and you think you escaped! But these paths lead about only fifty yards to a dead-end and some minor treasure. With no way to continue, you must turn back and return to the hallway. Sometimes you may enter into a larger room, some wider area, but there is still only one way in, one way out and the hallway continues."
"Why do I feel like I've just been railroaded?"
—Player Character: Star Trek Online, Mission "Boldly They Rode"
DM: You find a small set of tracks.
Legolas: Tracks?
Aragorn: Railroad tracks, I'm sure.
Legolas: Tracks?
Aragorn: Railroad tracks, I'm sure.
Sorry, but you're in my story now.
—The Narrator, The Stanley Parable, when attempting to go Off the Rails when accessing the Pawn Ending
Samus, return to the correct route immediately.
—Adam, Metroid Fusion
Chuck: Hawke is stuck in Kirkwall. But it's not just because the game is set in Kirkwall — I mean, that's a valid reason after all. But it's also because Hawke has no motivations whatsoever. The game is on rails, you have no choice in what you do! This is, laughably, the exact opposite of Varric's point in the game, as he discusses those stories that he creates.
Varric: I just started that serial. It's got ten chapters to go.
Aveline: Yes, but you know how it ends! Just tell me.
Varric: I've got an idea, but the story... the story will go where it wants to go. The characters drive it, not me.
Chuck: I know they were probably trying for a wink at the audience. "He's talking about you guys! You make the story!" Yeah. Like putting a hamster on the top of a model railroad suddenly makes him an engineer. [...] DA II isn't terribly popular with the fans, and a significant reason are the points I've previously covered. You have no control, you're not important — no matter what people might tell you, you have little-to-no motivation for your actions, and the game confuses "everyone's an asshole" for being "edgy". Varric's description is something Dragon Age II completely and utterly fails to live up to. The story is their story. You just get to participate in it.
Varric: I just started that serial. It's got ten chapters to go.
Aveline: Yes, but you know how it ends! Just tell me.
Varric: I've got an idea, but the story... the story will go where it wants to go. The characters drive it, not me.
Chuck: I know they were probably trying for a wink at the audience. "He's talking about you guys! You make the story!" Yeah. Like putting a hamster on the top of a model railroad suddenly makes him an engineer. [...] DA II isn't terribly popular with the fans, and a significant reason are the points I've previously covered. You have no control, you're not important — no matter what people might tell you, you have little-to-no motivation for your actions, and the game confuses "everyone's an asshole" for being "edgy". Varric's description is something Dragon Age II completely and utterly fails to live up to. The story is their story. You just get to participate in it.
— SF Debris on Dragon Age II
As you go to say no, you say yes instead.
I'm sorry, was I assuming too much? Of course, you have a choice. You can refuse Victoria's offer, go home, watch some television with Flaming Torture still ringing in your ears, and get an early night.
Interested? I thought not.
You see, sometimes you're on rails. There's no junction. You run on smoothly. You can go off the rails, of course, but there must be something really wrong with you if that's your choice. And, despite what you're learning about yourself, there's nothing wrong with you. Your default setting is ordinary, typical, usual. Which is not to say that there are spaces in your life labyrinth that aren't deeply shadowed or brightly lit.
Come on. Get into Victoria's Mini van. What happens next is interesting. Believe me.
I read some D&D and other roleplaying game discussion groups on reddit, and it's astonishing how often I see questions like:
My players did this clever, creative thing to get out of a tricky situation and avoid danger. How do I stop them doing that and get them to just fight the boss monster like I wanted?
The answer to these sorts of questions is: Stop squashing your players' creativity and fun!
Players come up with clever solutions to tricky problems because they're being clever and enjoying the fact that this makes them feel clever. That's how they want to play the game. Don't tell them they're playing wrong. Sure, sometimes a "creative" solution realistically won't and shouldn't work, but if it has a chance of working, let them have that chance.
Even if it derails your adventure plans. In fact, your adventure shouldn't really have those sorts of rails in the first place. Throw your players into tricky situations and see what they do to get out of them. Don't have a preconceived idea that they should do X to get out of it. Because odds are they're going to try Y and Z and Alpha through Omega first before even thinking of X. And at least one of Y or Z or Alpha should work.
