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General Tabletop Discussion
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Chekhov's Gun and the Hickman Revolution- What Type of Campaign Do You Run?
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<blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 8851715" data-attributes="member: 86653"><p>Getting to decide which ogre to attack isn't a meaningful choice. How many times you get herded back to the referee's pre-planned story isn't a meaningful choice.</p><p></p><p>There's no real other options. Unless the players can opt out of the pre-planned story and still play the game, then they don't really have much choice. Engage with what the referee prepped or go home. That's not a choice.</p><p></p><p>I've been doing this about 40 years and I've never met a player who wanted to be railroaded. I've met a lot of referees who think that's the best way to run games, but never met a player who wanted to be railroaded. It honestly sounds exhausting. All that effort and energy spent keeping the players on the rails. Put that energy into designing an interesting sandbox instead and you'd have less resentful players.</p><p></p><p>Or...you know...never have bumpers to begin with. Because you can have multiple hooks and characters engaging with multiple quests at once. After a few of these being juggled simultaneously it begins to look an awful lot like a sandbox.</p><p></p><p>None of those things require bumpers or railroading. If you signpost that the adventure is to the north and the players decide to go south, that should be all you need to hear to understand they don't want to do that and would rather do something else. Forcing them to go north is robbing the players of agency.</p><p></p><p>Maybe your specific group, but that's not a blanket statement that applies to even most gamers in my experience.</p><p></p><p>Good thing RPGs are not novels, movies, or choose your own adventure books. They are games. Whatever story comes out of gameplay is emergent, not forced.</p><p></p><p>Just all those frustrated novelists force-feeding players their "epic" stories instead of running an honest game. <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/47577/roleplaying-games/the-railroading-manifesto-addendum-i-want-to-be-railroaded" target="_blank">I am grateful for all the players I get that hate being railroaded</a>, though I am a bit tired of <a href="https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/44282/roleplaying-games/abused-gamer-syndrome" target="_blank">cleaning up the mess</a>.</p><p></p><p>Then you're blind to a huge part of RPGs. I've never railroaded. It's my job to run the world, not the PCs. That's up to the players. It's not my job to force feed the players plot or story. They go where they want and do what they want and I react to that through the world. I've never had a player complain about that style.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="overgeeked, post: 8851715, member: 86653"] Getting to decide which ogre to attack isn't a meaningful choice. How many times you get herded back to the referee's pre-planned story isn't a meaningful choice. There's no real other options. Unless the players can opt out of the pre-planned story and still play the game, then they don't really have much choice. Engage with what the referee prepped or go home. That's not a choice. I've been doing this about 40 years and I've never met a player who wanted to be railroaded. I've met a lot of referees who think that's the best way to run games, but never met a player who wanted to be railroaded. It honestly sounds exhausting. All that effort and energy spent keeping the players on the rails. Put that energy into designing an interesting sandbox instead and you'd have less resentful players. Or...you know...never have bumpers to begin with. Because you can have multiple hooks and characters engaging with multiple quests at once. After a few of these being juggled simultaneously it begins to look an awful lot like a sandbox. None of those things require bumpers or railroading. If you signpost that the adventure is to the north and the players decide to go south, that should be all you need to hear to understand they don't want to do that and would rather do something else. Forcing them to go north is robbing the players of agency. Maybe your specific group, but that's not a blanket statement that applies to even most gamers in my experience. Good thing RPGs are not novels, movies, or choose your own adventure books. They are games. Whatever story comes out of gameplay is emergent, not forced. Just all those frustrated novelists force-feeding players their "epic" stories instead of running an honest game. [URL='https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/47577/roleplaying-games/the-railroading-manifesto-addendum-i-want-to-be-railroaded']I am grateful for all the players I get that hate being railroaded[/URL], though I am a bit tired of [URL='https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/44282/roleplaying-games/abused-gamer-syndrome']cleaning up the mess[/URL]. Then you're blind to a huge part of RPGs. I've never railroaded. It's my job to run the world, not the PCs. That's up to the players. It's not my job to force feed the players plot or story. They go where they want and do what they want and I react to that through the world. I've never had a player complain about that style. [/QUOTE]
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