By: Joe Gaylord (LabLazarus)
Intro
Railroading is one of those topics that obsesses the TTRPG community. GMs work to avoid it, and players complain about it. The entire hobby seems to have shifted away from strong narrative lines in response to concerns about railroading and advocacy for player agency and collaborative and emergent storytelling.
Yet, a lot of GMs, myself included, still want to tell specific stories. The desire to weave a cohesive narrative is a powerful draw to sit behind the screen. I see one way to scratch the itch of strong narratives while avoiding railroading in funnels. I think of funnels as story structures that offer or appear to offer a wide range of choices, which ultimately all lead in a given direction. Players are not limited in their agency, but the whole game has a gravity pulling in the direction of the story the GM wants to tell.
The Railroad Problem
Since I am proposing funnels as a solution to railroading, let’s begin by discussing railroading itself. A specific definition can be hard to pin down, and online debates rage over whether specific examples qualify as railroading or not. However, in brief, railroading is when a GM insists that players have to make certain choices in order to follow a predefined story, and more importantly, predefined beats in a story. This can mean insisting that PCs feel or react in a certain way, limiting their options, placing insurmountable barriers in the way of the “wrong choices”, or having NPCs that order or force the party to act in a particular way.
Railroading is considered by many to be a cardinal TTRPG sin. Players complain about it, feeling that they’ve been cheated out of a game. TTRPG horror story compilations often feature the worst kinds of railroading. A certain kind of GM obsesses over whether or not their efforts to keep a story on track represent railroading that will ruin their game. And a certain kind of extremely handsome and talented writer creates thinkpieces about how to fix railroading.
Railroading is complex and tempting in part because it occupies the space where the interests of players and GMs diverge at the TTRPG table. Players at the table represent their PCs and make decisions for and as their characters. They generally want maximum agency and are invested in their characters’ attitudes and behaviors. On the other hand, GMs are at the table to organize those decisions into a compelling narrative. Often, especially in more traditional games, the GM begins the game with a clear story that they want to tell. The tension is even worse when a specific event has to happen, or a choice needs to be made to move the story forward, creating a kind of narrative choke point.
Because of these concerns, many games have stepped away from strong central narratives. Many recent games focus on emergent or collaborative storytelling. Those that do have a clear story tend to embrace an open world or sandbox structure, where there are events taking place, but the party can interact with them in any way they wish.
However, I would propose funnels as a way that GMs can square the circle of telling the story they want, while leaving the players free (or apparently free, more on that in the next section) to do what they want.
The Funnel Philosophy
Funnels can allow a GM to build a narrative without seeming hamfisted. In a funnel structure, the GM provides the players with a number of options that all lead to the same outcome, but make sure that all of them lead to a single result. Alternatively, the story beats can be written with certain details left open, then fill in the blanks to fit the choices made. I call this latter a “reverse funnel”.
A GM might employ a funnel structure by having a series of hooks that all lead the party to the same quest, or a connected series of quests. Almost any action the party takes will result in an offer of a job, which guides them in the direction the GM wants. Likewise, if the GM has planned a battle with a band of goblins at a particular point, they might have the party see the goblins raiding a caravan. If the party decides to mind their business and walk by, the goblins might turn and follow the party, given that they’re already attacking travellers on the road. So, the specific entry point shifts, while the specific outcome remains roughly the same.
The reverse funnel is the opposite. The party is going to leave town, and the GM wants to introduce a dark, mysterious castle as a potential hook. The GM can place it within eyeshot of wherever the party happens to go, rather than placing it in a specific spot on the map beforehand. Likewise, the party might be looking for a traitor within the king’s court. The GM can provide enough evidence to accuse several of the courtiers and change who the traitor was so that the PCs always catch them and look brilliant. The difference is that where a funnel offers multiple entry points to arrive at the desired outcome, the reverse funnel places the outcome wherever they happen to go.
The concept of funnels works the same way as the concept of the illusion of choice or a “force” in stage magic. There are many specific techniques for a force, but all of them have the same outcome. A volunteer is asked to select something, usually a card from a deck. The magician uses sleight of hand to ensure that they select the card they want, either by presenting the deck in a specific fashion or by switching the cards at a key moment. Critically, this needs to be done in a way that is invisible to the volunteer. Even if they are being compelled to select a specific card, it needs to look like the volunteer has a free choice of which card to select.
A funnel needs to work in the same way. The choice and the response needs to feel organic, making the funnel invisible to the players. If the funnel is obvious, the trick falls apart, and the party will immediately become aware that they are being manipulated. This could result in anything from comedy to frustration, depending on the vibe at the table, but in any case, it will take something away from the adventure and make it less satisfying.
In the example of the goblins on the road, the funnel doesn’t work if the party avoids the road and moves along in hiding. The goblins wouldn’t see them and wouldn’t chase the party and attack. However, the party might stumble on the goblin’s camp while moving through the woods, presenting the same fight that would have happened on the road, with a slightly different context. In that case, the result is the same, but the context feels organic.
In the example of the traitor in court, not every accusation the party makes should be correct. If they make a totally ungrounded guess, they can be wrong. In fact, the first guess might always be wrong in order to add a try-fail cycle to the game’s narrative. The key is in providing enough evidence to accuse several courtiers, allowing multiple correct answers where the party expects there to be only one. This is the sleight of hand, making it look like the party guessed right, when there was no real way to guess wrong.
Critically, remember that a magician never reveals their secrets. A GM telling the table that they were tricked will often lead to mistrust and other problems.
Conclusion
A lot of commentators would argue that funnels are just railroading disguised as something else. That can be true, especially if done badly. However, given that a lot of GMs join the game in order to tell specific stories, it feels imperative to provide them with tools that let them build specific narratives and that offer enough agency to players that they don’t feel cheated. For me, funnels fit neatly in that category, coaxing the players subtly toward the chosen story without letting them feel the constraints the GM is placing on them. Hopefully, they will work for you as well as they have worked for me.
About the Author
Joseph Gaylord has been playing TTRPGs and TCGs for 25 years, with almost 50 titles to his name on DMsGuild as an author, co-author, or contributor. He is on most social media as LabLazarus.
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