Is it railroading if the players can not prevent the fall of the empire?

It's railroading if the players' goals and choices are subsumed by the story that you, as the DM, want to tell. It's not if their goals and choices matter and you give them the freedom to pursue those and explore the stores that they create. I'd say it's important to not make any particular outcome impossible, or to make any particular outcome certain.

It's not too late. If the players stopped fucking around they would win automatically

It's railroading if they can't at least delay it's fall to the end of their lifetimes. Afterwards its more out of their

The problems that cause Empires to fall are usually not the kinds that can be solved by hitting things really hard. Even Rome fell more due to administrative failures than barbarians.

It would make much less sense if a single person could prevent it's collapse in the first place as Empires usually collapse due to a multitude of social and economic issues rather than a single event.

>If you outright tell them 'The Empire is going to fall, but your choices will determine what might rise in the aftermath', then that's a pretty cool idea.
So, Foundation?

That's a very good comparison, actually.

>If you outright tell them 'The Empire is going to fall, but your choices will determine what might rise in the aftermath', then that's a pretty cool idea
No, that's faggotty, because it basically ensures they won't try to save the Empire for metagame reasons.

>If you tell the players the campaign is about trying to save the empire, and doing so is impossible
Also faggotty. What the shit is with Veeky Forums players and needing to have their objectives literally spelled out for them?

The Empire is just a place. A backdrop. If the players want to save it, let them try. If they don't, let them leave. If they try and fail in the face of insurmountable odds, oh fucking well. Try again, or rebuild, or up stakes and move on to the next Empire.

There's nothing wrong with starting a campaign with a specific premise in mind.

As long as there are no illusions.
PCs can, but you don't want your PLAYERS invested in achieving the impossible.

On the other hand, if they're aware of the theme, playing a game to delay the fall or hold off the Long Night is a pretty cool concept.

I mean, they might not be able to save the whole empire, but they could preserve parts of it, like how the Byzantine empire survived Rome, up until it was finally conquered by the Ottomans in the 15th century

This is a good question. I don't think so. But it also sort of depends on your player's expectations. A good GM tries to build a story with the players and this includes what they can and cannot do and what kind of influence they can lead.

If the players care about this empire and want to try to save it, I say give them an opportunity to. But make it difficult, make it possible to fail.

And if they fail, give them a chance to bring a new world from the ashes.

That being said, sometimes the fall is a good background setting. If the kingdom falls, it's best not to directly involve the players. Instead, let it play out as a cinematic and let the players respond to the repercussions (the chaos, the fighting, the burning). If you give players a false chance that they easily see through, you lose their trust.

Kill them of disentery.

If you've decided something in the world is going to happen regardless of your player's input, then yes, you're a railroading GM.

Build it into the story. Make it seem like the fall wasn't straight DM fait the entire time. Like the players choices actually mattered but just wasn't enough.
Give them something to do post fall. Something that flows directly on from before and not like you literally just picked up new notes after shredding your old ones.

Do not pull a Bioware and just halt the narrative , asking your players to pick a colour before saying 'Rocks falls, the end.'

t. Bethesda

>ensures they won't try to save the Empire for metagame reasons

It's almost like your players don't build interesting characters who want to do more than fulfill their blood and guts fantasies

Why do you kids these days blame everything on 'railroading'?

I mean, if they're low level local yokels, then no. But if you establish them as major political movers and shakers, then maybe.

No. Why should some high level mercs/adventures be able to stop a process thats probably going on for at least 200-300 years?

Because Tumblr and Critical Role has convinced them their special snowflake characters are all that matter. If the DM tries to tell their own story, it's "railroading".

So you want an adversarial relationship with your players? Because that's how you get an adversarial relationship with your players.

As soon as they're out to get you it's really only a mater of time before rock falls, everybody dies.

>If you've decided something in the world is going to happen regardless of your player's input, then yes, you're a railroading GM.

If you don't then you're basically their bitch and you're all playing grand theft stagecoach.

Anyone have the Heirs to Sisyphus screen cap?

It depends, was stopping the empire from falling with-in the scope of their abilities and/or stopping such from happening a central plot point for the campaign you laid out? If yes to the former then it is. If yes to the latter it may or may not be but you will have to handle it very carefully to not come off as a dick GM regardless.

Eh depends on if your story style is Tolkien-esque "good people can do incredible things in the face of insurmountable odds" or Martin-esque "shit happens".
And even with the "shit happens" style one powerfully charismatic person with the right message in the right time or place can alter the course of history, good or bad. And interesting example would be Hitler. German was on the verge of collapse when he started to rise to power but he was able to turn it into a military powerhouse that took the united efforts of several other countries to stop. Sure he was a nut job but he knew how to motivate people and get what he wanted done, he just sort of overstepped his limits and was not a very humane person.... fuck was Hitler a PC?

Pop history

Germany wasn't on the verge of collapsing and Hitler essentially tried fulfilling well established German strategical goals (controlling the east) in a bizzare Form.

Don't think so. Certain things should happen regardless of PC actions. PCs can't do everything, and even if they could they can't be everywhere at the same time. Not entirely the same situation, but look at Hannibal: his genius alone couldn't compensate for the incompetence of Carthage and he only delayed the inevitable. The fact that he was able to knock on Rome's door at all is surprising, given the fact that Carthage was getting its ass kicked on all other fronts (Hispania, Sicily, the sea and even North Africa itself).

>German was on the verge of collapse when he started to rise to power
Not really. Hyperinflation was a big problem in Germany, but it was also a big problem for the rest of the planet.

>but he was able to turn it into a military powerhouse that took the united efforts of several other countries to stop.
By looking at all the limitations in the Versailles treaty and saying "no". In fact, all in all Germany came out of WW1 less damaged than France: far more of Germany's industry survived, after Hitler's rearrangements the old guard of its military was effectively removed and ironically the downsizing of the German army helped Germany recover faster. It also lost far less men as a percentage of its total population (having double the population of France overall at the time, more or less). It's less Hitler brilliantly reforming Germany and more Germany barely being punished after WW1. There's a big reason why Foch called Versailles "an armistice for 20 years" (his prediction was off by about 70 days).

Now I wanna run a game set in the Roman Empire, while the western half is collapsing. Will the PCs' legion fight to uphold the law and protect the citizens of the western Empire? Or will they heed the call of the Eastern Emperor and fall back to the ERE?

It's railroading if and only if the players feel like their choices had no affect.

Depends on how the empire is collapsing, if theres multiple things causing the degradation of the imperial state just defeating the big bad wont be enough. Slaying dagar the orc warlord wont do shit if the imperial currency is collapsing because of a silver deficit.

A bit.
If they have enough power, influence and are smart about it they can solve a lot of problems that empire face.

>Germany barely beeing punished

Or France being weaker than Germany ?

They would have been slaughtered in WW1 without help ? They neither have the population nor the Economy.

And the "punishment" after WW1 was a MAJOR point in the rise of fascism. A decent peace would have stabilized Weimar.

The elites prior to WW1 were all guilty that the war broke out. Singulary blaming Germany is stupid.

>Or France being weaker than Germany ?
When did I ever imply the two were mutually exclusive?

>A decent peace would have stabilized Weimar.
Yeah, nah. Two things:
1. The German populace was being fed propaganda up the ass and suddenly surrendered before a single allied boot hit German territory. They felt betrayed because they never fully got what was going on, something Nazi opportunists gleefully exploited. This is why based Foch also insisted to refuse all demands for German surrender until Berlin was besieged and occupied, hammering home that Germany has been utterly vanquished.
2. What would a "decent peace" look like? Germany not being punished at all? Because the German punishment was ridiculously light given the circumstances. Especially given the fact that the Germans themselves were complete strangers to playing nice (see: Brest-Litovisk). To put it in Machiavellian terms, you either leave your enemies alone (which, given the shit the Germans pulled and the destruction they wrought, was unacceptable), or you make sure they can never strike you again. What the Entente (under mostly American pressure) did was the middle road that never works: making sure they can strike back, and making them pissed off enough to have a reason to do so.

>The elites prior to WW1 were all guilty that the war broke out.
Of course. During the July Crisis the Germans never claimed to want war sooner rather than later. The Germans never escalated things by offering their full support to whatever Austria did even though the treaties in place at the time never obliged the Germans to do so (the Triple Alliance was a defensive treaty, hence the Italians not being fucking idiots and pulling out once it became clear the Germans went full retard). And of course, the Germans never invaded neutral countries that wanted to remain out of the wary. Dey dindu nuffin, dey good boys.

>Singulary blaming Germany is stupid.

Found the Nazi apologist.

>German was on the verge of collapse when he started to rise to power but he was able to turn it into a military powerhouse that took the united efforts of several other countries to stop.
Lol. He got voted into power after a failed coup then hollowed out the country in order to fund a short-term burst in militarization.

Also made his book compulsory reading then freed himself from sales tax.