Post/Author/DateTime	Post
JackRipper 07-24-04, 06:43 AM	Hi everyone, ok, I assume you'll now, after reading the subject of this thread, think that this question was answered over and over again on many many different threads. But the problem is, there isn't really one thread that I could find here that specificly focuses itself on the problem called railroading. I do have read on many threads that many DM's have problems avoiding it or that many players complain about it, and so I thought one thread like this might be a good place for collective advice on how to get rid of those tendencies and how to create campaigns in which you do not drag those PC's from place to place 'cause otherwise the story won't advance'. I recognise that I do have this tendency alot, and more often then not my players point it out to me, and then I have to admit it, but still I don't know how to keep the pace moving without railroading. So, please give me and alot of other desperate DM's some clues on how to first recognise, and then to prevent this problem. Thanks all of you in advance, I hope this thread will become a great source of help for many dm's.
Jenny With The Lantern 07-24-04, 07:38 AM	First rule on railroading: NEVER force your PCs to do something they don't want to do. One way to prevent railroading in towns is pretty easy: make sure you have several plot hooks that are obvious and have some smaller adventures prepared when the party is not taking any of those. Don't be disappointed if they don't take the bait and make sure others (outside the party) do; so when the baron asks adventurers to find his daughter and the party does not want to, next time they're in town they see the adventurers who did find her being honoured etc. Same thing on outdoor-adventures: let them find out there's a cave entrance with strange footprints leading up to it (spot checks) but don't force your players to go in there.
Tusz 07-24-04, 09:59 AM	My policy is that the players will move along at a pace comfortable for them. If they're in a town, give a bunch of plot hooks, let them leave at any point, and have things ready for them when they do. They'll leave the town when they're good and ready. Another way to prevent railroading is to not plan your story line out too much. Have an idea of what happens if they do what you're expecting, but be ready to adapt if they don't. Make sure to adapt in a way that isn't always harmful to the PCs, or else the players will view it as you punishing them.
Lxarth 07-24-04, 10:39 AM	If you are the DM you have to speak up...i played in a game where the DM was so quiet that i just started talking to my friend cause i didnt know the DM was talking. Thats the same DM that lead us around by the nose. Plot hooks are great, and some BBEG is a great way to motivate your players...give them something or someone to truely hate. The BBEG of my game is vicious and cruel and just plain mean. The players want him dead, very, very dead. Or at least on their side.
bpramone 07-24-04, 11:35 AM	Railroading is a hard issue to deal with, I think. One of the ways to combat it is to have a non-linear plot line. Right now I have 4 things going on in the capmaign and the players do not know how or if they are related (a huge army amassing in the north, a mage who wants a bunch of pieces to an ancient family artifact, a re-occuring opponent who shows up at seemingly random times, and two empires fighting over trade rights with an island nation). This leaves the choice of what to do totally up to the players and no matter where they go, there is something for them to do. When the player wants to do something, I usually try to let them. If I find myself not letting them do something then I ask myself, "Why?". If the answer is, "Because it will screw up my plot, " then I let the player do it anyway. I guess I just see the DM as someone who generates conflicts or challenges for the players to deal with, and also the final word on physics and magic in the world. I don't know if that helps at all. bpramone
Caltsar 07-24-04, 12:21 PM	I've also had players that play just to delibratly screw up my game. They take all the wrong plot hooks (or don't take them at all), turn against players, kill the good guys, etc. Needless to say, these people don't stay long. If your group doesn't do this, I find that a good way is to tell them before the game starts what your long tem plan is (usually one that's directly involving the players). You don't need to give lots of detail, just the escentials. In my campaign the wizard is on a quest to get to the Tower of High Sorcery. So before one of the sessions I say: "The wizard is heading to the tower of high sorcery, and since there is no rush on his part you may take as long as you want, but you may want to get there eventually. I have an adventure planned for all of you when you arrive." This usually gets the group excited enough to get there in a hurry. (Oh my god, he actually planned an adventure! These are fun!) There are also times when I don't do this, but I always plan my plot hooks toward the end of a session so I have time to prepare the adventure, and so I'm not railroading.
chris7476 07-24-04, 12:32 PM	All the suggestions have been good so far although I don't think I would tell the players any of my long-term plans. What I tend to do is make an outline/timeline of all the quests/storylines that I plan to create but I only actually flesh out what the players are going to do next. That way, if things change, no big deal. It doesn't mess up everything I've created because I haven't created it yet. This does require a bit of help from your players. If some kind of quest has just been completed, I will ask the players at the end of the session what they intend to do next. At the same time though, my players usually pick on seeds that I toss out. I'm not running a completely open-ended campaign here. I'm working hard to make cool things for the players to do so I don't want it to be a free-for-all. I've played in campaigns where we, as players, had NO idea what we were supposed to do. It was incredibly frustrating.
gleep 07-24-04, 05:28 PM	Make your world as detailed as you can... But don't make detailed plans. When you make detailed plans, you tend to want the PCs to go through the steps and that leads to railroading. By having a detailed world, whenver your players surprise you with something you'll have an idea of what kind of effects that will have, and how the world around them will respond. If you ever find yourself using any of the 'plot' tricks found in computer/video games, chances are you've gone to far. (example: Doors that are absolutely impassible except with a key, which probably isn't even magical.) Stay loose, stay flexible, stay prepared. :D --gleep
J. Grenemyer 07-24-04, 06:23 PM	Hello, One method I’ve found that works to avoid railroading is to focus (as a DM) primarily on the campaign world, such that you show/describe it as alive and active around the characters, and thus quite willing to go about its business with or without the characters. By pre-planning the motives and goals of several NPCs in whichever locale your players find themselves in, and more or less tying these all in some way to your whatever adventure you’ve created, you as DM will (easily) be able to Roleplay these NPCs around the characters and draw them in to the plot. To do this, the characters don’t (and in fact shouldn’t) have to be the subject of an NPCs attention. The players can instead overhear an NPC noble busily berating one of his guards or servants on the street about his or her lack of service in regard to some task as yet uncompleted, the subject of which is related to your adventure plot. Later that evening, the characters might glimpse that same servant or guard at the Inn the characters are staying in, with his face hidden under a heavy cloak that also serves to hide the noble house insignia on his uniform, while he talks to some out-of-place individual who happens to look coldly over his shoulder at the characters before returning to his conversation with the noble’s man… If the players’ interest isn’t piqued at this point, continue roleplaying the night through. After the players have gone to bed, announce that instead of the next day dawning much like the previous day before it, the players awake in the dead of night to the sounds of booted feet banging on the roof above their room while the sounds of men (or worse) grunt and shout; then a scream and a crash as someone tumbles off the roof to the ground, with one of the characters having glimpsed the face of the noble’s man as he fell to his doom(?) below. I’ve found weaving two or (at most) three such plots around the players is enough to get them thoroughly focused on the business of so and so NPC, and their minds off of the sort of Metagame, “Do we want to take the bait on this obvious adventure hook or make our DM sweat it a little more ?” thinking that makes life so hard for well-meaning and hard working DMs (such as all of us on these boards). So, if you can get the player’s minds focused on a game world that’s alive and breathing around them, getting them to take the next step (and thus, the bait) is a piece of cake. Anyway, good luck to you all and I hope this was of some help! :D
A R Dragon 07-24-04, 06:31 PM	Well, as mentioned before, don't try to force them to do anything. If your plot hooks are storng and clear(or mysterious) enough to interest the players and no one is out to ruin the game or playing a "CN" (read "insane") character, they will probably follow the storyline that you have planned fairly well anyway. That being said, one way to avoid any kind of railroading is to just wing it, and I mean the entire game. You need to know the area around the characters well, work up a bunch of character stats (that can be applied to any given person) ahead of time, and prepair many sample maps of buildings and dungeons. Then, they players can do whatever they want to try and you are ready. They go into the bar and try to find some job to do? Well, the barman can tell them about the strange sounds coming from the sewers. They get/go mad and attack the barman? Well, your city guard stats for a 2nd level warrior look good if you take off the scale mail. Yes, it is hard to actually get a nice, cohesive plot going if you just wing everything but it is possible. I am doing just that in my curent campaign - started at 1st lvl, now is at 7th and the plot is moving along nicely (although it gets kind of random and sidetracked at times).
The Stray 07-24-04, 07:38 PM	It's been said before, but it's such good advice that it bears repeating: Running a good D&D Game is about creating a world, not a story Trust me. The more fleshed out your world is, the easier you'll find it to generate adventures, and a truely dramatic story is likely to flow out of the events you create anyway, and even better, the story will flow out more organically and realistically. i learned this lesson the hard way in my early attempts at DMing, and I've gotten much better since I learned this guideline.
JackRipper 07-24-04, 07:45 PM	Hey this is great help so far! I see a lot of things I can improve, and I notice that some things I use to do actually should be improved. That said, I want to especially point out J. Grenemyer's advice, as it made me aware of a huge error in my DM'ing. What I basicly do is make a plot and adventure, get an NPC to come to the players and ask them to help him, get another NPC and yet another to come to the players and give them hints were the problem comes from, and eventually a BBEG who fights the PC's. And now you point out to me that I should only concern myself with the NPC's themselves, and let the PC's come to them if they want to, and I even like that style of DM'ing and am enthousiast to try it too. I first thought it would take the fun away if things would not go steadily towards the plot, and meanwhile thinking I wasn't really railroading all that badly :P... And besides, it also removes some responsibility away from the dm and allows him to focus on describing the world and what the PC's are interacting with. And after stating this, I think I might add something, but I just wish to be sure if that doesn't bring me in danger of "straying from the path".... If I would use the advice of Grenemyer, wouldn't it be a good idea of weaving one event-based adventure and one site-based adventure around the PC's at a time (you said two or at most three), because this would reduce the effect of only one of the adventures being able to get played. You see, with two event-based adventures, it would sometimes be impossible for the pc's to attend to the royal masquerade they were invited to and were the murder will take place and at the same time be able to stop the kidnapped wife from being murdered by another the criminal. The site-based adventure could still be done when they do have the time... Is this a good addition or am I getting something wrong? :P
Elgonn 07-24-04, 07:56 PM	The method I like to use while creating a setting for players to end up adventuring in is seriously making a very detailed world. World detail is everything. I disagree with some of the above's don't make plans part. Just don't make plans based on the characters doing something specific. The more plans the better. One key to success is creating a timeline [Note actual time doesn't have to be a part as much as a sequence of events]. An exacting timeline indicating how the story would unfold if the characters didn't exist. Then just set the story in motion and let the interaction begin. As long as the story moves the characters will be a part of it and will actively take part. If there is any part of human character you can depend on it is simply that people like being in control. They will not sit back and just accept the world around them. Don't think of just the BBEG as the Antagonist in the story. The entire world should be their antagonist. Don't railroad them. Railroad the world.
J. Grenemyer 07-24-04, 08:12 PM	Hello JackRipper, Originally posted by JackRipper If I would use the advice of Grenemyer, wouldn't it be a good idea of weaving one event-based adventure and one site-based adventure around the PC's at a time (you said two or at most three), because this would reduce the effect of only one of the adventures being able to get played. What I meant was two or three “mini-plots” (such as the one I described above), each of which is tied in some way to the single adventure the DM intends to run. Think of these mini-plots as essentially one to four encounter adventure hooks, designed just as much to get the characters interested in the adventure as they are to highlight a small part of your campaign world. Originally posted by JackRipper You see, with two event-based adventures, it would sometimes be impossible for the pc's to attend to the royal masquerade they were invited to and were the murder will take place and at the same time be able to stop the kidnapped wife from being murdered by another the criminal. The site-based adventure could still be done when they do have the time... Is this a good addition or am I getting something wrong? :P No, you’re not getting anything wrong. In fact, you’re exactly right: Two event-based adventures is a bad idea, simply because in a vibrant campaign world the majordomo of the royal house in charge of setting the date for the royal masquerade won’t be checking with local criminals to see if the masquerade conflicts with their crime schedules. ;) I should mention a drawback to the style of DMing I use: It’s really easy to get caught up in all the countless details of the world you’re trying to detail and forget that it’s there to facilitate adventuring opportunities for your players. Good luck! :D
Sildatorak 07-24-04, 08:36 PM	If you are looking to keep long-range goals for your PC's rather than having something completely open-ended (but still want to avoid railroading), you might want to think of potential plotlines. Let's say that you want to do some adventures where the PC's deal with the orc problem facing a small town near the mountains. From your detailed knowledge of the world, you know that the meat of the situation is that their are three main orc groups, two from one clan, and one from the other. The clans don't get on particularly well with each other, but recently they've been more concerned with raiding the human settlement. You know that the PC's are in a city that isn't too far from the mountain village. What you should do is have at least two plot hooks in the city that will get the players to the mountain town. Mix them in with others for mini-adventures like J. Grenmeyer said, though, so that the PC's will only choose them when they feel ready for it. Once the PC's are in the small town, finding out about the orc problem shouldn't be too tough. It is best if it ties in somehow with the hook that brought them to the town in the first place. They were supposed to deliver a message to the mayor of the town? Maybe he's been kidnapped. They were supposed to comission a sword from the masterful weaponsmith that lives in the town? Maybe there's a standing order that no arms can be sold to outsiders because they are all needed to arm the militia against the orc raiders. This may seem like railroading, but it isn't as long as you remember one thing: Give your PC's the option of returning and telling their employer the situation. The PC's expect you to give them plot twists and throw unexpected complications in front of them, so don't be afraid to as long as you never force them to do anything. Anyway, so they're now faced with a situation that puts them up against the orcs. Let them gather information on the situation and make a plan. Listen to their ideas. If you're good you will probably have anticipated most of them in a general sort of way. Say they now need to get back the kidnapped mayor. You think "they may try to sneak their way in and sneak him out," so know how well he is guarded, if they have a system to sound an intruder alarm, and that sort of thing. You think "They may try to fight an entire encampment of orcs," so you need to know the numbers of the tribes. Don't be afraid of putting more than the PC's can handle. Put the number that is right for the tribe, not right for making sure the PC's win if they choose to do something boneheaded. Just let their info gathering tell them that their are enough orcs that they shouldn't try something like this if their are too many. You think "They may try to get him freed through diplomacy," so you need to know why the orcs captured him in the first place and what they will demand for his release (and how flexible they are about the terms). Be prepared to deal with surprises, though. You may have only thought of these, but be prepared for a crafty player to hear the situation and think, "I bet we can turn one of the tribes against the other and get the mayor back that way." You already have the numbers of the orcs and their motivation for kidnapping the mayor/raiding the towns, so now you get to do the fun part and think on your toes. I've rambled quite a bit, but my main point is: let your players make the plans to overcome the challenges you face them with. Anticipate what they will do, but don't force them down a single road.
Enslaved DM 07-24-04, 09:46 PM	I agree that it is easy to come up with stories on a well designed world. Plot hooks and curiousity will generally solve that problem. However, you may have to do it. I had three sessions in a row where I dropped plot hooks, the PC's considered it, and then went somewhere else. After having three adventures vaporized (along with all the work making them) by their indecisiveness and aimless wandering, I railroaded them something fierce at the beginning of the next session. They took it from there.
Nephet 07-24-04, 11:07 PM	You can create a story-driven campaign without railroading. It takes cooperative players and a GM good at improvising. My group wants to create a story, they want their PCs to be part of something more important than just clearing out the local rat-infested sewers. We play D&D because we like that the rules put everything on even ground and define a clear path to success or failure. My players know that things happen in the campaign for a reason and they better heed the signs and omens or risk losing the favor of the gods, or worse gaining their anger. There are consequences for every choice and that makes small victories as sweet as great ones. It's just as dangerous to ride the rapids as it is to cross the river. At some point the PCs can go too far and get censured. Finding your place and staking your claim within such an environment creates a worthy challenge for the PCs and therefore also the players. It's not a kind of game for everyone I'll admit.
Geethree 07-24-04, 11:16 PM	There are a few general tips that make the PCs feel in control and reduce railroading. 1) NEVER force quests on them. The PCs should always feel like they could say no whenever they want, and they should be able to. Sometimes you have to take initiative and have an NPC approach them and offer a quest, but it should be nothing more than an offer. 99 times out of 100, the PCs will take it just because they want to move the story along just as much as you do. 2) It's not railroading if the PCs don't know about it. You can have the most linear story in the world but as long as the PCs think they have complete control, they won't suspect a thing. This means that you have to be able to adapt your plot to whatever the PCs are doing. If you want the PCs to meet Dwarf X at a certain point, then you should be able to put Dwarf X in their path no matter where they are, but it has to appear reasonable. The PCs should never stop to think, "That shouldn't be." Which brings me to point 3. 3) The world should be believable and rational. The PCs should think that the DM follows the rules set forth by the world. This lets the PCs make actions according to a universal set of rules. They are confident that X will be a direct result of Y. The more control you give the PCs, the less control you have, and the less the PCs will think you are railroading. 4) Learn to improvise! It is impossible to railroad when you yourself don't have a clue where the story is going. To me, half the fun of DMing is being able to improvise a bunch of NPCs and to lead my PCs into locations that I myself am only just thinking up. This can lead to trouble, though. You always have to be a step ahead of the PCs or you'll wind up wasting time. 5) Be a good storyteller. Describe NPCs, locations, ships, castles, everything. Start almost ever scene off with, "What do you do?" The PCs should be able to form ideas and plans based on information they already have. Contrary to popular belief, railroading is not necessarily bad. Sometimes the PCs need a little kick in the rear to get going.
Enslaved DM 07-25-04, 01:36 AM	It is rare, but sometimes you need to railroad them. I do it less often than one session per year, but sometimes you have to do it to get the campaign moving. The needs of the game come first. If the really dislike it (they never have), they can resist. The level of trust in my group is pretty strong and I encourage a lot of individual choice. Once every now and then they need some DM direction and I act. Railroads are almost completely unnecessary and once I use it to get the ball rolling, they do have the option to jump off. This may be a minor difference caused by different definitions of railroading. I will occassionaly force an event or series of events, but they still have the power to choose.
JackRipper 07-25-04, 07:21 AM	again, the help has been great. But I've been thinking further back in my own work, and noticed that railroading and a certain type of adventure (hook) are exactly the same. Let me clarify it by an example from my own DM'ing history. This was my first campaign I ever did. (sorry for the long story) The beginning of the entire campaign started out by having the pc's get kidnapped. Immediately at the beginning of the game, they found themselves imprisoned and this was also the way the group was brought together. Well, a few hours after they woke up from enconciousness, they were brought by the guards to Irnûl, the grand visier of the king of the country, a mean "behind-the-scenes-ruler" if ever there was one. He had, with enchantments often, forced the king to sign contracts etc that served his own needs, and he was able to do so because he was so trusted by the king (he had cha 19) he could meet him in private if he wanted to. Irnûl spoke to them, and said he needed someone killed, and that someone was in fact the king of a rival country. That king was a good king too, however, and he was more in war with the schemes of Irnûl then with the kingdom itself, but no-one knew it wasn't the king but Irnûl who practically ruled the country. Now the PC's were told that Irnûl had many spies and such to watch them, and if he would ever find out the group did not cooperate, he would seek them out and kill them. If they did cooperate and succeed, a great reward was to be theirs. With this hook I thought the PC's would soon find out what their freedom was; they had the opportunity to choose to try and flee, they had the opportunity to try to serve and they were able to seek out that other king and speak to him, and that king would help them with protecting them and he would ask them (not forcing as Irnûl tried) to assassinate Irnûl in return. He even gave them his own unique sceptre to make Irnûl believe them when they would say they had succeeded. I though, having developed such enormous hatred for that Irnûl guy, they would go for it, and I used the forcing to achieve this. After they would go back, during their journey they would learn that situations were worsening rapidly, and now even open war had broken out, forcing them to travel through the battle fields etc., and they would learn the true king now had declared Irnûl as new ruler, and he ruled his country through censoring his true intends. Even later, they would learn that things would go even worse and they would learn that Irnûl was gathering the dead (the reason why he wanted to provoke wars) and had a secret base of necromancers and undead in the mountain halls of the dwarves (the dwarves who were driven out still under the rule of the previous enchanted king, to serve Irnûl's motives once again). So basicly Irnûl was just using the kingdom as a temporary jacket until he had enough power and undead to go for it himself. By the time they would arrive at Irnûl's palace, they would learn this and have to travel towards the secret base and meet him for a final encounter. Well, what happened... The players agreed with Irnûl, only because he was to powerful to resist, and the hatred for him build up fast. Then, the two elves in the party broke up in secret with the other half of the party to return to their elven homelands. (mistake to allow them, I think afterwards, as the other party members did not like the split up at all) However, both groups went their own way and the elves arrived in elven lands were they finally worked their way up to leading a small army against the drow and thus becoming hero's of sort in the elven lands. Well, if something would reach the ears of a spy network was the tale of hero's, I thought, and so Irnûl had them kidnapped again and teleported to the place were the other party members where in the meantime. They said, the kidnapping was again obvious railroading. The other group members liked it better this way though. the journey continued and many side adventures, which were optional, presented themselves and finally they arrived at the other king's castle and agreed to help him. The adventure continued as I had planned (I know now, not a good thing to plan like this perhaps), and as a result the entire adventure they felt railroaded, but I thought it wasn't that bad. I said it were the people IN the game that forced them to do certain things and not me. Well, I know now that was not a good reason. BUT, this all brings me to my point: it is impossible to make a plot hook in where the PC's get captured, intimidated to do something and forced to do certain things by overwhelming odds. This, however, is in my opinion, still a nice plot hook, even when I now realise the railroading is obvious. Are there ways to still have this kind of plot hook and not make the players feel as if railroaded? Is this by any means an acceptable manner of a plot hook?
gleep 07-25-04, 09:59 AM	Originally posted by Enslaved DM I had three sessions in a row where I dropped plot hooks, the PC's considered it, and then went somewhere else. After having three adventures vaporized (along with all the work making them) by their indecisiveness and aimless wandering. . . Which brings to mind my #1 rule of DMing: For every hour you spend working on something specific, the Players will come up with 5 ways to cause that time to be wasted. Each. In Enslaved's case, they were apathetic and wandered away from his plot hooks. Not all that imaginative on the part of the players, but it still fits in the rule. ;) A campaign world should be much the same as the real world. There are some places more dangerous than others. There will be things happening in some places, nothing much happening in others. But for all those places, there will be reasons for those events. If you concentrate on reasons your campaign world will have depth. And a campaign world with depth is something players find amazing. Every time they go somewhere, there will be events that unfold naturally. The only problem with this, though, is that every now and then the players will become convinced that you actually are railroading them. From their point of view, if everything makes sense even when what their PCs are doing doesn't, then you must be controlling them. So sometimes, a situation like Enslaved's can actually be a benefit: The players saw that they were messing with his plans, then got clubbed with a railroad tie. There is something very important to remember about railroads: They are an effective method of transportation. The same can occur with plots and campaign worlds. The trick is to use them effectively and entertainingly. By the way, there've been several recent threads on campaign world building you may find helpful. Do a search in this board for "tossed salad". :D --gleep
ssvegeta555 11-12-04, 10:24 PM	This thread is very helpful! Me and my friend (both DMs I'm a player in his campaign and he is a player for mine). After a discussion for feedback, we got into the railroading subject. It seems both of us was railraoding at some points, so we decided ways to fix that. We came up short handed however, but this thread is a life saver. I'm going to have to show this to my friend. Hopefully our games will be railroading free (or at least kept to a minimum). :clap: :bow: :ayyyy!: (this should be a sticky)
The Dusty Dustman 11-13-04, 11:51 PM	As so many others have said, this thread is a godsend! Alas, I have nothing to offer but my compliments and eternal gratitude. :D *tags*
Joe123 11-14-04, 08:02 AM	You will lose the players' interest if you force them into a certain path. If you give them the freedom of choosing their own course of action, they will enjoy the game more. Know the background material and combine this with player actions to develop the plotline. EXAMPLE: The characters are in the streets of the metropolis. You insert an NPC thief who tries robbing the party Wizard, (this is a spontaneous decision by the DM. It is not pre-planned). The Wizard and other PCs manage to prevent the theft and refuse to let the thief go. The ask, "why are you robbing us? Who do you work for?" Now, the DM knows the background material, right? Thus, he is aware of a certain independent band of robbers, sponsored by an evil church, who recently moved into the city. Hence, the DM combines this knowledge with what the PCs just asked the thief. The thief confesses his membership. The party decides to investigate. They ask around in the shady part of the city, for further information on these band of robbers, (simply out of curiosity). Any number of things could happen next. Perhaps locals forewarn the thieves that the PCs are investigating. Perhaps the thief who robbed the party goes back and tells them all about the PCs, etc. A good way is to try incorporating the background of the characters. For example, perhaps one of the PC's relatives was once held captive by a group of thieves. The above method is more spontaneous than using a carefully crafted story that follows a direct path, which the DM expects (or hopes) players will follow. Doing it spontaneously is like winging it. Undoubtedly winging adventures may prove difficult, but is the probably the best way to improve one's DM'ing skills. Once you know the background material really well, you'll find it easier to react to players when their characters do unexpected things.
jaspercrey 11-14-04, 09:41 AM	Alright, I'll bite . . . Here's what happened when I tried to run a campaign that was 100% open-ended and character driven . . . Nothing. Yep. That's right. Nothing. I gave the players complete freedom of choice with absolutely no "steering' on my behalf. They were never forced to do anything they didn't want to do. I never forced my DM agenda on them once. Consequently, they never got anything done. They simply couldn't agree on what to do. There was no driving force to hold them together. Their motiviations were all ovet the map. When I brooke down and handed them 'freebie' hooks to jumpstart things - it only fueled the age-old "that's not what my character would do" debates. Even random encounters were stressing. The whole thing broke down in a matter of a few sessions. And half of my group has been playing for 20+ years. My point is, for me and my players a certain amount of railroading actually improves the game. I can only speak for myself and my players when I say that without some sense of direction, Dungeons & Dragons quickly falls apart into a series of unconnected and inconsequence events and encounters that really have no meaning other than who's having better luck with the dice.
tec-9-7 11-14-04, 11:01 AM	You know, I've actually had players ask to be railroaded! No kidding! I had begun a game w/ a series of goblin attacks on caravans (had a pretty detailed work up of exactly why they were happening, along with a number of clues), and the players really didn't get what they were supposed to do at all. Infact OOG, one of them called me and basically said "hey, when are you going to give us a mission?" I responded, well, I've thrown a number of things out for you all to investigate, but I don't really see it as my place to "assign" one to you. "No, no, no," he responded, "You need to give us one thing to investigate, to give us some direction!" Jeez, sometimes in railroading, you can't win for losing! :confused:
Ma'ElKoth 11-14-04, 11:10 AM	I want to add that the DM doesn't have to do all the work. Having characters with deep backgrounds and clear goals, along with players who don't simply wait for things to happen to them (I know I could have said "proactive" but I hate that word) solves a lot of the problem.
blooddemon 11-14-04, 12:01 PM	two things that I have learned in my few years of DMing is to make your story extremly flexable. Also learn to use the random tables in the DMG they are lifesavers and they aid you in making interesting npcs. rolling on the npc trait table you could get some random things. for example the bartender has a distinctive scar and a few missing teeth if one looks hard enough. now how did he get his teeth knocked out, was it bad hygene, was it the supposed underground fight club, or maybe the local organized crime syndicate that did this to him for not paying protection. then, with this you could deduce that the fight club is run by the same syndicate, so is the tender's pay fighting in the club. also make a bulleted list on your story with some incomplete thoughts. for example: - town wizard needs some ingredients from a few places - one ingredient is in an orc cave - another is in a hags swamp - players return and give the wizard the items - players learn that fiends are at nearby ruins - players get an illegible letter from the boss - take it to someone who can read it (wizard) - reader alerts the players that the fiends are planning to siege the capial city - players go to city - find that goblinoids have large cannons within these bullets a lot can happen, you can add some, take some away or have something completely random too. well, with that example i kinda railroaded my players, but now i am better and i get better each dm session.
Green 11-14-04, 12:01 PM	I want to add that the DM doesn't have to do all the work. Having characters with deep backgrounds and clear goals, along with players who don't simply wait for things to happen to them (I know I could have said "proactive" but I hate that word) solves a lot of the problem. This is precisely the approach I use. I simply cannot do adventures or modules in the D&D sense. I need to have an idea of who the characters are, what they want, and how they fit in the world (even as outcasts). It takes a lot of guesswork off my shoulders when I am familiar with the characters as (sorta) human beings, so I am free to make NPCs, events, and places that are evocative and meaningful for those character. And hopefully the players too.
Shard of Suzail 11-14-04, 12:27 PM	Good to see what Jaspercrey and Tec 9 7 have said. In my experience, i try and give my players a lot of freedom. A detailed world environment, lots of different places, people and powergroups. These days, however, i have found that players often welcome a degree of railroading in the game. All too often players do not agree on basic things and an interesting world environment means that they all find different directions they want to explore. Players also needlessly fill time. Some things that are relatively simple, which are effectively small periods of downtime, are commonly hijacked by players who want to turn them into a session all on their own. Players can, thusly, miss the important plot and waste time with things that do not require more than some token description. All too often this is due to a desire to make rolls and use abilities that are not necessary at the time. "speed time", where a GM summarises a few events, sometimes with some minimal player input (such as "can i brew some potions") is a useful tactic for glueing events together. Players effectively write good chunks of the plot for themselves and they have a lot of control over the game flow. However, they must still fit in with certain anchorpoints put in by the gm, otherwise the plot usually falls apart. I had a fine example with a one day event game i ran for our party. They were travelling across country and many characters were not present, including mine, so I explained this by having the party decide to split into two, with the non active players taking a new route in the hope of confusing assassins. The game effectively involved a powerful villain trying to track down the party and get their attention by burning villages with his army. He figured that the players, as famous heroes, would soon put a stop to his antics and that way he would know where they were. Once he found this out, he would assault them in person. I effectively made a "magnificent seven" scenario. So, i needed my players to defend a town. I needed them to run into the villain and i had written up a section that anticipated they would be captured. My players soon found a burned village and came to the conclusion that some mercenary types were on the rampage. They found the next village on the list and figured that, in a day, the village would be attacked. Not wanting to identify themselves, however, they chose not to intervene and left, with the village being destroyed a day afterwards. So, the players had avoided a chunk of my plot. I had forseen this as a possibility, though it surprised me that they left the villagers to die. My players, though extremely powerful, were not that confident and the idea of many armed men worried them. So, i decided that their destination was only accessible through a mountain pass, which itself had a walled gate town allowing traffic back and forth. My bad guy and his army were laying seige to it and the players came across the situation. They again considered options with regards to avoiding the situation entirely. Which, as the scenario i had been asked to run was "the journey to baldur's gate" would have ended the whole days event there and then. This would not do. The journey had been rough, supplies were low and the mountains treacherous. They also had a small girl with them, who they rescued from the town ruins. Their hand was effectively forced, though in a subtle way. So, the party eventually got caught up in the battle and there was some mass combat. A good time was had by all and the players comfortably killed thirty or so men, with their npc allies mopping up the same number. Then, the big bad guy, a fighter with double the level of any character waded in personally and challenged the players while proudly bearing some magical weapons that the players had seen in a cutscene. After a vicious battle, involving all the surviving npc's and the pc's, they managed to take him down. This guy was tough and was the first foe they had fought that had plate armour, high grade magic weapons and spell resistance. None the less, they too had grown very powerful and the npc's helped out a lot (though the npc's were all killed). So, the players saved the town and fought the villain. Interestingly, this meant that they were not captured and thus that part of my game was never used. I was happy with that and the game lasted the right amount of time. So, as you can see, some elements of my plot were very much under my control. The players would defend a town/village and they would fight the villain. Being captured, however, was avoidable. Similarly, they had a limited choice of which town or village they actually made a stand in. They could even have avoided that and taken the offensive, attacking the enemy camp. Nonetheless, the shape of the scenario was maintained and the end result was more or less as i expected. Without some subtle "railroading" by me, however, they could have effectively avoided doing any of my scenario at all, which wouldnt have been much fun for anyone (especially as i had been asked to run an event that concerned the journey and had been asked by the usualy GM not to do anything once the players reached Baldur's gate). *** Overall, giving the players too much freedom can really be a hinderance and experienced players can quite enjoy having decisions made for them as long as it is done in a sensible way. One of the most powerful GM techniques is the "in the thick of the action" technique (in media res?). By this, the players actually start mid way into a scenario, say, on the ground as peace negotiations break down. Thus, they hit the ground running and must take stock of what is going on, what has gone on before and what to do now. If you left that in the player's hands, there would be at least three hours of setting up defensive perimeters, scrying, going to the enemy camp etc etc. Railroading is not a bad thing, it is a powerful thing. That means it should be used, but carefully and with respect. Not bad, just a strong tool that can be used in a clumsy way if skill or practice is lacking. The latest Grand Theft Auto game, san andreas, is a great example of railroading that still allows much player freedom. A lot can be learned from that format.