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Worst examples of nonsensical railroading.

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,463
Location
Frostfell
Remember Khrorinis in Gothic 2? There are 7 ways to get into the city. During the trial of fire, there are also N ways to do the quests in G2, but some games insist in doing the opposite and forcing the player into a corridor. Some examples. NWN2 OC

During the OC(original campaign), you must defend your innocence in chapter 2 as you are being blamed for a tragedy. You can use lots of skills, but the game does not care about your PC class. For example, a Paladin could argue that if he was guilty, he would have lost his power, an evil necromancer specialized wizard would have a much harder time proving his innocence and after the trail, the end result is the same. combat, there are also the typical "Resurrection magic doesn`t work in people who died in cutscenes" BS in the game and taking care of your keep or not makes little to no difference.

Other example of nonsensical railroad is in mmos, in WoW -> WotLK(which many considers the peak of WoW quality), playing in hellfire peninsula, an NPC asked me to kill an "elite" boss. Elite mobs are meant to be taken in a group, not alone, however, as an Affliction Warlock with a powerful voidwalker servant, I can using powerful shadow damage DoTs and my demoniac servants, kill elite mobs. And I killed him without using the item given to weaken him and the game din`t counted it as "enemy killed" cuz I had to use this item first. I din`t even tough about using the item cuz I already have soloed many elite quests. Screenshot bellow :

Yf0eIMB.jpg


Thanks to it, I had to wait till he respawns again to kill him, this time weakning him. In NWN1 OC, there are a terrifying dragon which the game allows you to weaken but you can face him at his full power and using high level scrolls, he isn't hard.

So, any more examples of being railroaded in RPGs?
 

lukaszek

the determinator
Patron
Joined
Jan 15, 2015
Messages
12,618
in kcd i sneaked into monastery and stole a bunch of quest items. When game finally took me there, my possessions were stripped, including those items in question.

Also game does not acknowledge you being sneak archer. You can pew pew through enemy stronghold fine, then finally find the bad guy. Cutscene, time for combat. Except now you are carrying a sword. Played whole game without it, didnt even know the swings etc. Had to quickly change back to my bow, while backpedaling, draw the bow to the fullest and hit bulls human eye - as enemy was wearing full helmet. All in tight space. Had to reload few times as it did require perfect execution. I think there were 2-3 such fights in whole game
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
Archolos.
Quite a few scripted deaths and quests where your character is holding the idiot ball.

Game is very good otherwise but the times it happens makes it hurt a lot more.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,149
During the OC(original campaign), you must defend your innocence in chapter 2 as you are being blamed for a tragedy. You can use lots of skills, but the game does not care about your PC class. For example, a Paladin could argue that if he was guilty, he would have lost his power, an evil necromancer specialized wizard would have a much harder time proving his innocence and after the trail, the end result is the same. combat, there are also the typical "Resurrection magic doesn`t work in people who died in cutscenes" BS in the game and taking care of your keep or not makes little to no difference.

I don't think you can blame NWN for this. D&D itself doesn't handle this well. There's no reason for evil people to be able to exist in any city where they could assign a level 1 cleric with the Know Alignment spell to guard duty to check everyone coming in or going out.
 

Zdzisiu

Arcane
Joined
Dec 3, 2009
Messages
3,489
During the OC(original campaign), you must defend your innocence in chapter 2 as you are being blamed for a tragedy. You can use lots of skills, but the game does not care about your PC class. For example, a Paladin could argue that if he was guilty, he would have lost his power, an evil necromancer specialized wizard would have a much harder time proving his innocence and after the trail, the end result is the same. combat, there are also the typical "Resurrection magic doesn`t work in people who died in cutscenes" BS in the game and taking care of your keep or not makes little to no difference.

I don't think you can blame NWN for this. D&D itself doesn't handle this well. There's no reason for evil people to be able to exist in any city where they could assign a level 1 cleric with the Know Alignment spell to guard duty to check everyone coming in or going out.
The evil people should just build their own cities, with blackjack and hookers!
 

Cryomancer

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Jul 11, 2019
Messages
14,463
Location
Frostfell

Disagreed. In Gothic 2, yes, the religious zealots with magic, the religious zealots with swords and the mercs. But in G1, swamp camp, old camp and new camp is quite interesting.

The evil people should just build their own cities, with blackjack and hookers!

Agreed.

a level 1 cleric with the Know Alignment spell to guard duty to check everyone coming in or going out.

Divination magic aren't considered in 99% of RPGs.
 

Zed Duke of Banville

Dungeon Master
Patron
Joined
Oct 3, 2015
Messages
11,756
in kcd i sneaked into monastery and stole a bunch of quest items. When game finally took me there, my possessions were stripped, including those items in question.
On my playthrough of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, after initiating the monastery quest, I snuck into the Abbot's quarters and found a document revealing which of the novices was the former bandit, but the game wouldn't allow Henry to utilize this information, as the designers evidently intended to force the player into pursuing a series of small quests to obtain the needed information, along with being compelled to obey the monastery's regulations in order to maintain Henry's disguise. After repeatedly encountering bugs while attempting to complete this quest as intended, I finally obtained a dagger, killed Henry's target, picked up the required item from his corpse, and strolled out of the monastery to the next section of the main quest.
 

behold_a_man

Educated
Joined
Nov 26, 2022
Messages
121
On my playthrough of Kingdom Come: Deliverance, after initiating the monastery quest, I snuck into the Abbot's quarters and found a document revealing which of the novices was the former bandit, but the game wouldn't allow Henry to utilize this information, as the designers evidently intended to force the player into pursuing a series of small quests to obtain the needed information, along with being compelled to obey the monastery's regulations in order to maintain Henry's disguise. After repeatedly encountering bugs while attempting to complete this quest as intended, I finally obtained a dagger, killed Henry's target, picked up the required item from his corpse, and strolled out of the monastery to the next section of the main quest.
As for now, you can solve this quest by entering the monastery before its questline, kill any novice, and then just tell bandits, that pious is dead, and give them the proof - either money, or a dice, if you whacked the correct novice. If anything, KCD's approach up to mission "The die is cast" is the antithesis of railroading - you can circumvent many parts of the main quests in some way, for better or worse.

in kcd i sneaked into monastery and stole a bunch of quest items. When game finally took me there, my possessions were stripped, including those items in question.
This was corrected, now they're categorized as quest items, effectively impossible to strip. I know, as I did the exact same thing.
 

deuxhero

Arcane
Joined
Jul 30, 2007
Messages
11,324
Location
Flowery Land
During the OC(original campaign), you must defend your innocence in chapter 2 as you are being blamed for a tragedy. You can use lots of skills, but the game does not care about your PC class. For example, a Paladin could argue that if he was guilty, he would have lost his power, an evil necromancer specialized wizard would have a much harder time proving his innocence and after the trail, the end result is the same. combat, there are also the typical "Resurrection magic doesn`t work in people who died in cutscenes" BS in the game and taking care of your keep or not makes little to no difference.

I don't think you can blame NWN for this. D&D itself doesn't handle this well. There's no reason for evil people to be able to exist in any city where they could assign a level 1 cleric with the Know Alignment spell to guard duty to check everyone coming in or going out.
Eberron doesn't have this problem: Anyone able to cast a first level divine spell is (rightfully) considered a worker of miracles and is rare enough you don't assign them as a mere gate guard. It also acknowledges the threshold for Evil alignment is a lot lower (higher?) than eating babies (The tavern keeper who waters down his wine, cheats on his wife, and hid some loot that would have been split across the unit during the war so he could take sole ownership of it later pings as evil. Is he going to be stabbed on sight?), and anything that would set off the "supernaturally evil" part of the spell and be in disguise is going to be able to defeat the spell anyways.
 

Humbaba

Arcane
Joined
Aug 12, 2021
Messages
2,939
Location
SADAT HQ
In Kingmaker you get the option to sentence this doomsayer hobo to death who is also secretly the final boss but later he shows up again alive and well. You get a dialogue option that goes "wtf didn't I have you killed" and I forgot what the exact reply to that was but it wasn't anything satisfying, I can say that much. Very blatant example of a choice not mattering for no good reason.
 

jac8awol

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 2, 2018
Messages
408
Dragon Age where you either side with the templars and all the mages become evil, or you side with the mages and all the templars become evil. Top tier retard shit.
 

Daemongar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Messages
4,706
Location
Wisconsin
Codex Year of the Donut
During the OC(original campaign), you must defend your innocence in chapter 2 as you are being blamed for a tragedy. You can use lots of skills, but the game does not care about your PC class. For example, a Paladin could argue that if he was guilty, he would have lost his power, an evil necromancer specialized wizard would have a much harder time proving his innocence and after the trail, the end result is the same. combat, there are also the typical "Resurrection magic doesn`t work in people who died in cutscenes" BS in the game and taking care of your keep or not makes little to no difference.

I don't think you can blame NWN for this. D&D itself doesn't handle this well. There's no reason for evil people to be able to exist in any city where they could assign a level 1 cleric with the Know Alignment spell to guard duty to check everyone coming in or going out.
Actually, D&D handles this fine - I think this is referenced - not everyone "evil" is a criminal, and not everyone "good" is a law abiding citizen. Think Gygax wrote something about this - I'll see if I can find the article.
 
Joined
Jan 7, 2012
Messages
14,149
Actually, D&D handles this fine - I think this is referenced - not everyone "evil" is a criminal, and not everyone "good" is a law abiding citizen. Think Gygax wrote something about this - I'll see if I can find the article.
From the standpoint of the city guard or the ruler of a city I would say that shouldn't matter at all. If you get rid of all objectively evil people you remove most of the crime that causes serious problems. Maybe some good people are poor and still need to steal to survive or similar other issues, but just eliminating 95% of the violent crime/burglaries/etc from a city for the price of a few dozen clerics acting on guard duty would be a phenomenal improvement. It's not like D&D is $CURRENT_YEAR where we pretend everyone has an innate human right to travel and go wherever they please, if you can filter out people like this at the cost of a few false positives and negatives you'd do it.
 

Daemongar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Messages
4,706
Location
Wisconsin
Codex Year of the Donut
Actually, D&D handles this fine - I think this is referenced - not everyone "evil" is a criminal, and not everyone "good" is a law abiding citizen. Think Gygax wrote something about this - I'll see if I can find the article.
From the standpoint of the city guard or the ruler of a city I would say that shouldn't matter at all. If you get rid of all objectively evil people you remove most of the crime that causes serious problems. Maybe some good people are poor and still need to steal to survive or similar other issues, but just eliminating 95% of the violent crime/burglaries/etc from a city for the price of a few dozen clerics acting on guard duty would be a phenomenal improvement. It's not like D&D is $CURRENT_YEAR where we pretend everyone has an innate human right to travel and go wherever they please, if you can filter out people like this at the cost of a few false positives and negatives you'd do it.
No, that wouldn't work very well. Let's say you have a city of 10,000 people. For the sake of argument the city has two portcullises/gates. You have your 10 clerics at each gate. Ok, so, a group of farmers show up - there are 10. You cast know alignment on each one, and detect 5 to be neutral, 1 do be chaotic neutral, and 4 of various good alignments. You have no info on them other than their request to sell cabbages. "Sorry farmers, but the you 4 can come in. The other 6 must remain outside as I do not detect goodness in your hearts... etc. And now, the cleric attendants must rest. The other 100 people waiting outside, please wait until tomorrow..."

Even if you put a paladin as captain of the guard at each entrance, with perpetual detect evil on him, how does that help against CN chars, or a neutral character that feels they must keep the balance by offsetting the LG actions of your empire? Or a bunch of LE merchants arrive. Well, they never killed anyone, they may be chizzlers at heart, but I won't let them in as they may rip people off.

Or better "Help wanted! LG Executioner! Must only kill those who he feels in his heart that those are guilty, and go against the law and king when he feels justified to maintain his alignment!" "Help wanted! LG torturer! Uh..."
 
Joined
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Messages
14,149
No, that wouldn't work very well. Let's say you have a city of 10,000 people. For the sake of argument the city has two portcullises/gates. You have your 10 clerics at each gate. Ok, so, a group of farmers show up - there are 10. You cast know alignment on each one, and detect 5 to be neutral, 1 do be chaotic neutral, and 4 of various good alignments. You have no info on them other than their request to sell cabbages. "Sorry farmers, but the you 4 can come in. The other 6 must remain outside as I do not detect goodness in your hearts... etc. And now, the cleric attendants must rest. The other 100 people waiting outside, please wait until tomorrow..."

Even if you put a paladin as captain of the guard at each entrance, with perpetual detect evil on him, how does that help against CN chars, or a neutral character that feels they must keep the balance by offsetting the LG actions of your empire? Or a bunch of LE merchants arrive. Well, they never killed anyone, they may be chizzlers at heart, but I won't let them in as they may rip people off.

Let the neutrals in, they are fine (I think most average people are supposed to be neutral?). OK, some CNs get in, again, you're still reducing crime by like 95%. It's not perfect, but Perfect is the enemy of Good. The point is you're vastly better off without evil people in your kingdom. Maybe LE merchants or other people of importance are allowed in under guard, maybe they are still banned.

https://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/SRD:Detect_Evil

Lasts 10 Mins/level btw. Most level 1 clerics should be able to cover for about a half hour.

Or better "Help wanted! LG Executioner! Must only kill those who he feels in his heart that those are guilty, and go against the law and king when he feels justified to maintain his alignment!" "Help wanted! LG torturer! Uh..."

Yeah, there's other problems with detect alignment spells being easily accessible besides mine.
 

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