History Main / Railroading

## Planning out connecting geographic areas in a linear fashion, to ensure that there is only ''one'' given path from town A to town B. [[NoSidepathsNoExplorationNoFreedom There will simply be no side paths, optional areas, or other locations to explore]].
## Adding a BrokenBridge to prevent the players from reaching a destination before the plot demands it.
## Having random [=NPCs=] [[NPCRoadblock remind the party]] to ContinueYourMissionDammit (even if only BecauseDestinySaysSo) if the players haven't left an area quickly enough.
## Using [[StalkedByTheBell enemies]] or [[InnSecurity circumstances]] to keep the party from stalling, whether [[TheCallKnowsWhereYouLive they're relevant to the plot]] [[RandomEncounter or not]].
## Throwing in {{Hand Wave}}s to thwart attempts at SequenceBreaking.
## Locking the players in a ClosedCircle for a while to buy time for other events to happen while the party is busy.
## Giving the players choices, but [[ButThouMust having them all lead to the same outcome]].
## Simply ''telling'' the players "You can't do X, because it would ruin the story."

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGate3'':

** If you initiate the [[spoiler:Creche Y'llek questline (which your companion Lae'zel will strongly pressure you into, eventually threatening to leave unless you comply or clear a speech check) you ''will'' make an enemy of Vlaakith and the Githyanki inside no matter what happens. This is because Vlaakith tasks you with killing the occupant of the Githyanki prism MacGuffin protecting you from enthrallment, and always planned to dispose of you once [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness you outlived your usefulness]] no matter what you did. This, of course, shakes Lae'zel's faith in her supposed "queen" to the core and sets the stage for rebelling against Vlaakith, though you can still try and get back into Vlaakith's good graces.]]
** In the endgame, [[spoiler:you have to side with either the Emperor, who's a mindflayer who's been protecting you from enthrallment by leeching off the powers of Prince Orpheus, or Orpheus himself who's a key player in the rebellion against Vlaakith, but also sicced his honor guard on you because of your illithid infection. Siding with the Emperor results in him consuming Orpheus's brain and killing the Githyanki rebellion right then and there, but you need his illithid abilities to subdue the Netherbrain. Siding with Orpheus will result in the Emperor turning on you as he refuses to negotiate with Orpheus no matter what you say, and as a result, someone will ''have'' to become a mindflayer to stop the Netherbrain, with options including Orpheus himself, your PlayerCharacter, or Karlach.]]

** If you initiate the [[spoiler:Creche Y'llek questline (which your companion Lae'zel will strongly pressure you into, eventually threatening to leave unless you comply or clear a speech check) you ''will'' make an enemy of Vlaakith and the Githyanki inside no matter what happens. This is because Vlaakith tasks you with killing the occupant of the Githyanki prism MacGuffin protecting you from enthrallment, and always planned to dispose of you once [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness you outlived your usefulness]]. This, of course, shakes Lae'zel's faith in her supposed "queen" to the core and sets the stage for rebelling against Vlaakith, though you can still try and get back into Vlaakith's good graces.]]

* In ''VideoGame/BaldursGate3'', while you [[spoiler:can curry favor with the evil Cult of the Absolute in numerous ways such as helping the goblins in their employ slaughter a refugee camp, work with True Soul Nere to kill off the very Duergar he himself employed in the Grymforge, and ally with Enver Gortash against Orin after coming to the titular city, you will have to battle most of the Cult's forces anyway since they're after the MacGuffin you possess, and in the endgame, the Absolute itself turns on the "Chosen" who'd enslaved it (even personally killing off Gortash if you remained his ally), forcing you into battle.]]

** Railroading is one of the symptoms of Setsuna Syndrome. Named after [[Anime/SailorMoon Setsuna Meioh, aka Sailor Pluto]], Setsuna Syndrome is when a Looper tries to force each and every loop they go through to follow their baseline's events as closely as feasibly possible, usually in hopes of "stopping" and "fixing" the loops. If every loop were a baseline loop, this wouldn't be much of an issue -- however, baseline loops, while the most common type of loops, are not the only type of loop a Looper goes through. There are AlternateUniverse loops, ForWantOfANail loops, {{Crossover}} loops, etc., where following baseline is literally impossible. If not remedied, Setsuna Syndrome can drive a looper insane, making them more and more desperate to maintain the baseline timeline, thus causing them to take extreme measures -- [[spoiler:such as [[FanFic/TheWinxClubLoops Helia blowing up Tecna's subspace pocket]]]]. The only way to treat it is to convince the Looper that they don't have the power to stop the Loops so maintaining the baseline timeline is pointless in the face of the extended multiverse.

* Handled poorly in ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights2''. In Chapter 2, you are put on trial for a crime that you didn't commit, with your past actions and choices coming up as evidence that can help or harm you a la ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger''. However, no matter what happens in the trial, the end verdict is immediately overruled by one side or the other demanding "trial by combat", forcing the same outcome either way and making the whole arc pointless. The designers later apologized for this blatant railroading that was unnecessary.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}'' is about playing mercenaries who are little fish in a big mess of secret wars between [[MegaCorp Megacorps]], so naturally their missions are pretty scripted (and it's also perfectly normal for an irresistible force to point a very big gun at them to push them into an adventure). ''Harlequin'' then one-ups this by explicitly stating that the BigGood has PlotArmor, just in case the shadowrunners decide that they've had enough of his games and aggravation. Many printed adventures in early editions of the game had sections called "Picking Up The Pieces", which had specific advice to the game master on how to get things back on track when {{PC}}s went off the rails. Even more than that, the players are essentially hired for jobs offered by their fixer (contact). While in theory, the fixer should have a number of jobs available to offer to the players, in practice, the fixer usually has ''one''.

** Many adventures in early editions had various levels of this, but the original ''TabletopGame/{{Dragonlance}}'' modules ([=DL1=]-[=DL15=]) were by far the most blatant example. Most of the time the {{PC}}s could only do one thing due to the situation, and several times the Dungeon Master was specifically told by the module to take action to force the {{PC}}s along a pre-determined path. There were also dire results for the whole game world if the players did manage to avoid doing exactly what they were supposed to. For instance, there was a specific action in the first module which, if nobody did it, resulted in there ''never being any priests''.

** A number of adventures for the ''TabletopGame/{{Ravenloft}}'' setting start with the Mists of Ravenloft suddenly appearing around a group of {{PC}}s and carrying them off to that demiplane without any chance to avoid it. In the adventure [=RQ3=] ''From the Shadows'', the {{PC}}s are approached by a man who asks them to find and defeat a Headless Horseman. If they agree, when they confront the Headless Horseman the Mists appear and take them to Ravenloft. If they refuse, the man casts a Vistani curse on them and the next time they're on a road alone the Mists appear and carry them off. Once they're in Ravenloft the DM (Dungeon Master) is ordered to kill each of the {{PC}}s, either by having the Headless Horseman cut off their heads or having them be slaughtered by subsequent waves of monsters, including three beholders (!). The DM is told to cheat on die rolls if necessary to kill off the {{PC}}s. A short time later the {{PC}}s are brought back to life (sort of) by the lich Azalin and are forced to perform missions for him (if they don't they're permanently killed). If they agree to a mission they'll probably end up being all killed ''again'' (but not for real). The {{PC}}s are very unlikely to gain any ExperiencePoints from performing these missions and can possibly lose tens of thousands of ExperiencePoints while doing so through no fault of their own.

** In chapter 4 "Time Out" the {{PC}}s are at a charity basketball game when the supervillain Arcade performs a KnockoutAmbush by flooding the gymnasium with KnockOutGas in order to capture them. The module explicitly states that the {{PC}}s have no chance to avoid being rendered unconscious.
** Chapter 5 "Nightmare in New Guinea". The {{PC}}s are at an audience with the Mandrill when he decides to capture them. He and his soldiers open fire on them with [[TheParalyzer neurostunner pistols]] that cause unconsciousness. The game master is specifically told that if the {{PC}}s appear to be winning they should add more regular soldiers or even soldiers wearing PoweredArmor -- whatever is necessary to capture the {{PC}}s.
** At the end of chapter 8 "Terror in the Amazon" the building holding the gymnasium from Chapter 4 appears in the sky and begins pumping out the same KnockOutGas that took out the {{PC}}s earlier. Again, the module says that the {{PC}}s can't avoid the effect of the gas.

** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIIRemake'': [[spoiler:The concept is explored in an extremely meta sense by introducing the Whispers, ghost-like beings referred to as "arbiters of fate" who seem to be the Planet's attempt to enforce Destiny -- as defined as the plotline of the original 1997 version of the game. They interfere whenever things diverge too much from the original timeline, sometimes to the protagonists' benefit (stopping Hojo from telling the group that Cloud wasn't really a SOLDIER, preventing him from having a FreakOut that ultimately rendered him catatonic for a large part of the game and reviving Barret when Sephiroth suddenly stabs him without warning) and other times to their detriment (seemingly trying to make sure that Biggs, Wedge and Jessie die with Wedge being able to hang on the longest beyond the point where he originally died, as well as making it so that Jessie sprains her ankle right before an important AVALANCE mission, forcing Cloud to take her place).]] [[spoiler:Sephiroth manipulates the heroes into destroying their leader by showing them contextless visions of what will happen if they "fail to stop them", freeing up destiny to be changed... [[MakeWrongWhatOnceWentRight as he intended]]. This turns the remake into a CosmicRetcon where NothingIsTheSameAnymore, several events happen differently and even some characters who died in the original story (most notably Zack Fair) are still alive when the credits roll.]]

* ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'': at the end of chapter 6, it doesn't matter if you kill the Iron Throne leaders or not, it doesn't matter if you accept Koveras' ring or not, nor if you report him to Rieltar, and if you meet Koveras it is not even needed to actually meet the Iron Throne leaders: you end up framed anyway.

** You are still blamed [[spoiler:for murdering Skie with the Soultaker dagger]], even if your character couldn't use the item (for example, because you are playing a cleric).

** To say that PlotLock is a common trope is an understatement. It's a very convenient coincidence that so many places are fully protected against your sneaky thief until the very moment it is required that your party gets there...

** As for the PlotLock part mentioned above, here you even get manholes that "the mechanism that operates this door does not have a conventional lock and may be warded against simple spells" (there must be really important sewers to require such protection in-universe). In fact, your main quest can't proceed until you travel through them, and you must travel through them when the plot dictates so.

** Several buildings and areas have doors that can't be unlocked until the plot or a side quest dictates so. You can recognize them because if you try to lockpick them, the game will give the feedback "the mechanism that operates this door does not have a conventional lock and may be warded against simple spells". It's a very convenient coincidence that so many places are fully protected against your sneaky thief until the very moment it is required that your party gets there... But what is speechless is that usually, when you are tasked to go somewhere, you are given a special key, or granted permission by a guard, but sometimes nothing of this will be necessary: the door will be now fully accessible without a reason.

** As for the locked doors already mentioned for ''Shadows of Amn''... here you even have sewer manholes that don't have conventional locks and are sealed against simple spells, until you get the appropriate special keys to go down. Considering how rushed was the expansion, it is a cheap method to prevent going OffTheRails with limited areas available and scripted encounters.