One of the fun conceits of tabletop role-playing games such as D&D is the “wide open world” that is the players’ sandbox to explore and enjoy any way they wish. The novelty of this conceit is perhaps lessened these days with the advent of computer game worlds such as Grand Theft Auto, which offer similar freedoms. In some respects, the computer game model is superior when it’s a single-player game, because then the interplay of actions and consequences is bounded to a single person’s choices and interactions. Things can get messy and downright anti-social in a hurry when it becomes a competition between players, rather than a collaboration, for how a world setting gets interacted with.

Which means that there’s an implicit social contract among participants that trumps the absolute freedom the players might perceive as having. Somewhat hypocritically, these overrides work best when players are comfortable with them to the point of non-acknowledgment; simply put, if the group clicks, they’ll play well together for everyone’s benefit.

The DM has similar influences and obligations. Some DMs feel like they’ve matured from simply setting up the bad guys like so many bowling pins to be knocked down, to setting up a wide open world without restrictions. The problem is that the DM is responsible for an actual plot and storyline as well, which might seem hard to reconcile with a wide-open world. It’s either seen as too restrictive, or too much work to cover all the possibilities. Interactive fiction is the hardest game in town!

Consider for a moment, then, a different class of computer game, the rail shooter. A rail shooter is a game where the player is on a virtual “rail” progressing through a level or scenario, not unlike being on an amusement park ride, and has to maintain a level of expertise to “succeed” and keep the ride going. The classic light-gun shooter Area 51 is a good example; Pokemon Snap is a kinder, gentler one.

In its basic form, the rail shooter concept is the dead opposite of what most D&D players would want their adventures to be like. But it offers one valuable asset, something I see absent with some regularity from “open world” campaigns: a default path forward, and a mechanism to nudge things forward.

D&D players are by nature a suspicious and paranoid lot. They’re always on the lookout for being suckered by the DM. So nothing causes a game session to grind to a halt faster than the presentation of some sort of vague threat or danger coming into focus, followed by, “so, what do you want to do?” And yet this seems to happen all the time. Next thing you know, it’s taken the party three hours to get down to the corner store to buy groceries. By the time they find out that the girl behind the counter is a Medusa, they’re just about past caring!

So how can we take the concept of a rail shooter and make it work for us in RPG land? A “rail shooter” DM has a plot that’s unfolding, and it’s going to pull the players in one way or another. Also, there’s a default/main path so that if the party “goes with the flow” the result will be a pretty good and challenging adventure, and something halfway sensible and prepared.

The important difference is that the DM still needs to be prepared for the story to go “off the rails” if someone in the party comes up with a brilliant plan, clever hack, or horrible gaffe.

Think of it this way: most of the time (80–90%) there’s a best/normal/expected path forward, and the DM should try hard to nudge players in that direction, and players should generally go along with it. The other 10–20% of the time is where some dramatic idea or change in fortunes should be indulged, because it’ll be worth the payoff for everyone involved. My experience has been that if the world is presented as “too” open, that not only does the pacing slow to a crawl, but also that the players are so tired and distracted from menial and pointless decision-making that they end up too burned out to recognize and act on truly important moments, which are necessarily rare and unexpected.

The best way I’ve seen this done is with a DM who is just a little bit pushy, but also very smooth and accommodating. Basically, the DM always keeps the action moving forward down the rail in tiny little baby steps until a player speaks up and interjects. Usually this will be to ask a question or perform some minor little side errand. Like a good storyteller, the DM then returns to the “thread” of the story, and it all feels nice and interactive. This also means that the DM has “prepared the rail” to begin with, so he’s got the unexpected meeting with Baron McPoof all ready to go. To the players, the rail is not a straight or simple path – it’s like a good ride in a fun house, replete with twists and turns and false walls.

The critical part of the “smooth” DMing is in being able to rewind in time a little bit if a player comes up with a worthy rail-jumping idea a little bit behind the beat. The tradeoff is that in exchange for riding the party down a rail, the DM has to provide enough slack to get off it when it makes sense, to keep the conceit of the wide-open world as honest-looking as possible. If the rail is moving along in sufficiently small steps, this should work like a charm.

A Very Small Example: A stair leads into a storehouse basement, and down there is a little landing with four doors, all more or less the same, most likely leading to four small and separate rooms. The party is looking for something down there and is alert to danger – traps or undead or something like that. A rail-shooter DM will walk them through “you open the first door and here’s what happens” and can probably do it all without a map in 5 minutes, even while fielding a couple of interjects like “hold on, I wanna check that for traps” with “a cursory inspection assures you that these doors are very crude, plain, unlocked, and untrapped”. Compare to a DM who draws a map and leaves it up to the party to decide how to proceed, action by painstaking action. It’s just a tiny little basement, and yet the party can still waste a half hour down there if left to their own paranoia. You can always draw a map and roll out the full treatment if a player asks for it, but most of the time they’ll be more than happy to take the streamlined version, so long as you don’t do this over and over as a setup for some ghastly sucker punch.

I offer this perspective with the best interests of quality playing time in mind! Your mileage may vary, of course…