So, hrm...the title may lend itself to assumptions or inflammations already, though I'm hoping to avoid that. This is mostly just a bit of ramble I'm stringing together from reading the many varied Serpent's Skull reviews, and also from trying my hand at DMing (Skull & Shackles, Carrion Crown) for the first time in a long while.
It's understood that some folks favor the sandbox, while other folks take the train, and there are any number of inbetweenlands which we like to wander and map on occasion. Well and good. My curiosity is in regards to the AP format, specifically. I mean : Adventure Path. Isn't the concept already predisposed towards the railroad method?
Take Serpent's Skull - from a purely storytelling point of view, they could have allowed players to choose different factions, or follow different courses to the same locations...only then they'd have to write out the specifics of where and how each faction progresses, how to track them with regard to one another, how the major story points change within each faction's goals...it seems simple at first, but quickly spirals into so much content that it cannot remain feasible for Paizo to produce.
Taking Carrion Crown - parts three, four, and five could really be rearranged without much difficulty at all, allowing for the party to choose which leads they follow, in which order, and how they get there. Only then the books would all have to be restatted and releveled for any combination of events.
So what is it, exactly - and I don't mean this to be sarcastic - that folks are complaining about when they say the Path is railroading them? Isn't it designed to do so? I'm asking, because I'd like to account for these arguments in running my own campaigns. What sorts of options are you looking for? To use Carrion Crown again -
I've played in a few 'total' sandboxes, and I see the appeal, but isn't that what Campaign Settings are for? They offer so many unfinished little hooks that you know mostly what's where and can make it up no matter which direction the PCs go in. It's more work, though, and there's no way to map it except on the fly. You can't anticipate your NPCs, or your encounters, or anything really, because the PCs will bypass anything you set up. That's just what they do, usually without noticing.
So I'm asking - given the sort of inverted ratio of sandbox-to-detail available in the budget - what is the ideal level of sandbox in an AP?
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Paizo does some amazing sandboxes. Kingmaker and Skull & Shackles are already shaping up to be brilliant in this regard.
Personally I prefer kingmaker and skull & shackles method of sandboxes, where characters "activate" the next phase of the main plot by doing certain tasks. Otherwise they can build, or wander or react to the plot threads I throw in.
That said, the more railroady paths: Jade Regent, Curse of the Crimson Throne etc are really good in what they do too, they are merely more reactive for the PCs.
My ideal level of Sandbox is Kingmaker, my acceptable level is Curse of the Crimson Throne: PCs have plenty of leeway within a book to complete subquests and then advance the plot as needed, reacting as appropriate.
So what is it, exactly - and I don't mean this to be sarcastic - that folks are complaining about when they say the Path is railroading them? Isn't it designed to do so? I'm asking, because I'd like to account for these arguments in running my own campaigns. What sorts of options are you looking for?
I think part of the issue is that many people, despite being willing to ride the railroad, don't want to see the tracks.
By that I mean, they don't want to have to take very specific, possibly out of character actions to keep things running smoothly. While it is unreasonable to hope for an adventure path that can deal with all possible characters, motivations, and actions, it is a question of extent. I don't think people will complain about "railroading" when they are given a treasure map and the adventure assumes they will follow it. However, requiring you give that map to kidnappers (who are too strong to fight) to rescue someone (who you may not care about) for no reward (when the path doesn't assume good PCs) would be an issue. Not that the APs get to that extent, but it is the general idea. The best adventures consider probable character motivations and actions, and plan ahead to prevent them from causing things to go off the tracks.
Of course, this all gets confused because people also use "railroad" to mean "linear." I think this is more of a personal preference issue, like some people who don't like pirates or Asian adventures or whatever else. However, from the examples you gave, I think the first definition is the form of "railroading" people were complaining about in this instance. Serpent's Skull, for example, is only really "linear" in the second adventure, but suffers from a bit of "railroading" for the entire second half.
I think the term "Sandbox" is a bit of an illusion myself. Without statting up encounters for multiple different levels AP's can't ever really be Sandboxy.
Take Kingmaker, if you head off in one direction at the start, within 4/5 hexes you'll have a TPK. I assume that other DM's at least hinted the dangers of straying too far from home too quickly. I certainly did.
Sandbox usually results in possible encounters that are either way too easy, or way too hard. To do Sandbox properly the AP's would have to be twice the size.
I always tell my players that the AP's are, as you say, Paths. They expect you to follow the story, and if you can't do that you'd better find a different game.
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In discussions of this kind, I'm guided by a brilliantly snarky quote from Sandy Peterson, the guy who wrote the 1st Edition of Call of Cthulhu: "A railroad is what players call a game where something happens."
If you sit down to play a published AP, you have to know that what the GM has paid for is a series of books where things happen in a more-or-less predictable order. That's the baseline assumption, the buy-in point, and complaining about it is shouting, "I'm shocked -- shocked! -- to find there's a story in my sandbox!" It's somewhere along the spectrum of disingenuous to clueless.
Now, they can do APs with sandbox elements, defined as laying out the situation and the challenges that need to be solved and then letting the GM and the players tackle them how they wish. But it's still not really a sandbox. It still has all the elements of the railroadiest railroad that ever railroaded a railroad, it just lacks the structure. All the railroad stations are still there and you still have to pass through them, you just get to lay the tracks in any pretty pattern you want.
In other words, they're giving you the highest expression of the GM's art: the illusion of free will. In still other words, it doesn't matter if the tracks are there as long as the players think they're blazing their own trail (or finding their own path, in this case).
At this point the standard disclaimer: it's entirely possible to do a railroad badly, or even intolerably. Yeah Second Darkness, I'm looking at you. Oh don't give me those puppydrow eyes, you know you did it.
As the OP pointed out, Paizo has published a truly sandbox campaign, and it's called The Inner Sea World Guide. Drop the PCs anywhere on the big foldout map and see what they do. There's your sandbox. APs are, and must be, a different beast.