Forked from "An Epiphany" thread: Is World Building "Necessary"?

[Ariosto]

The classic D&D campaign setup is pretty cunning.

Players start in an area with a dungeon and a nearby "home base" (whether a little village such as Blackmoor or a great city such as Greyhawk). The surrounding region is mostly wilderness, mysterious to the players until explored. Indeed, it can be detailed "on the fly" if need be -- the Outdoor Survival board being recommended in the original set as a makeshift map for such impromptu expeditions.

Many DMs make the danger of the monster-infested wilderness more manageable (and more realistic) by dividing it into areas more or less risky in analogy with dungeon levels. The further one gets from settlements, the greater the danger (bearing in mind the likelihood of the settlements having survived in the first place).

However, the rewards of wilderness expeditions tend not (at least for low-level characters) to be as attractive relative to risk as plundering the dungeon. Likewise, the peril of venturing too deep into the underworld means that only a bit need be worked up at first.

One can really "go to town" on going to town, because the places and people there are pretty certain to see a lot of reuse. Relationships made there can be springboards for countless adventures, including those that expand the focus to the wider world.

It is in my opinion a brilliant scheme, requiring little labor to set up and well suited to gradual elaboration.

 

[GnomeWorks]

All our games are exactly like you've listed. None of the players in our game would say we are being railroaded.

Really?

My group would mutiny the second I suggested that they were going to do something, and their only choice was to how to go about it.

I'm not knocking your style - if it works for you, keep with it - I'm just surprised that there are groups out there that take that kind of thing in stride.

Of COURSE we are going to rescue the princess, that's what the game is about. There's never really a thought given to other options.

That's what your game is about, perhaps.

I've seen way too many comments on these boards that insinuate that anyone who doesn't play a sandbox game is doing it wrong.

...and the amount of simulationist-hate thrown about gets rather tiresome. It's a two-way street.

 

[Ariosto]

Of COURSE we are going to rescue the princess, that's what the game is about. There's never really a thought given to other options.

I've seen way too many comments on these boards that insinuate that anyone who doesn't play a sandbox game is doing it wrong.

Majoru, that simply happens to be what "railroad" means in this context. "Wrong" doesn't figure into it except that it's not how D&D has traditionally been played. "Of COURSE White always wins, that's what Chess is about" would be similarly so. The "of COURSE" bit puts the complaint in the category of hypocrisy.

 

[sinecure]

I do not want to claim the OP's quoted texter is railroading without warrant, but it sounds kind of like that is what he wants. How on earth does one "focus on your campaign and not building your world" work without forcing a plot on the players? Roleplaying is just living in that world anyways. Not some preconceived plot ride. But maybe I'm getting it wrong.

 

[Scribble]

...and the amount of simulationist-hate thrown about gets rather tiresome. It's a two-way street.

I don't think anyone should hate on anyone else's style of play. But... I'm confused by this statement. I wouldn't equate sandbox with simulationist. One can choose to play a "simulationist" game in a sandbox style... But one can also play a "gamist" game in a sandbox style.

(Then again I'm not particularuily fond of the whole gamist/simulationish/narrativist thing...)

 

[Stormtalon]

That is an extremely narrow view of what D&D is then. All our games are exactly like you've listed. None of the players in our game would say we are being railroaded.

If we can decide to save the princess by sneaking in the back door or the front door and it is possible to sneak past the dragon while he's sleeping or wait until he leaves his lair and rescue the princess then we aren't being railroaded. Of COURSE we are going to rescue the princess, that's what the game is about. There's never really a thought given to other options.

I've seen way too many comments on these boards that insinuate that anyone who doesn't play a sandbox game is doing it wrong.

Now, I'd wager that it's not done as a "thou shalt do this," by your DM, of course. I view my primary job as DM to be the providing of interesting antagonists that the PCs will really, really want to thwart. So, the PCs end up doing as I somewhat envision them to do, but it's because they want to, and that's because they absolutely hate the guy behind it all.

There's no decree from me that they MUST DO THIS -- they just really really like the taste of plot-flavored breadcrumbs.

 

[Scribble]

Majoru, that simply happens to be what "railroad" means in this context. "Wrong" doesn't figure into it except that it's not how D&D has traditionally been played. "Of COURSE White always wins, that's what Chess is about" would be similarly so. The "of COURSE" bit puts it in the category of hypocrisy.

I think what he means is, it's not a railroad because the DM isn't forcing them to save the princess when the players have decided they don't want to save the princess.

The option to save the princess is presented, and OF COURSE they save the princess, because to them the game is about being heros and heros save the princess. It's also not a railroad because they're free to choose any method of saving the princess they want. But not saving the princess (by choice) is not an option they're going to take.

 

[Ourph]

Keeping track of goings on in an area where the PCs have a vested interest and that they're extremely likely to return to is simple campaign maintenance. The idea is that areas/groups/etc that the party hasn't visited or interacted with don't exist until contact is initiated

But again, this is a purely artificial and theoretical construct that has nothing to do with the way people actually prepare for games. Probably 90% of any given adventure the PCs go on is composed of things they haven't interacted with until that specific game session, does that mean the details of that adventure shouldn't be created before the game session? Is that the way you prepare for a game session? Do you think that's the way Hussar prepares for a game session, based on the stuff he's described to us about his game in this thread? I don't.

As I said before, you seem to want to talk about qualitative absolutes when what occurs in the real world is not so absolute. Most DMs prioritize what they prepare based on what the PCs are likely to interact with. The real world distinctions between the people in this thread are more about 1) how likely an interaction has to be before they do the work to prepare something; and 2) how far in advance they prepare for those likelihoods.

Some of the terms being thrown around here ("setting wankery", "lazy DMing") describe pretty extreme styles of DMing. I'm just not seeing that there's such a huge difference between a DM who prepares some details about a Thieves Guild before the campaign starts because there's a 30% chance the PCs will interact with it later in the game and a DM who prepares a Thieves Guild one session in advance because there is a 100% chance that the PCs will interact with it in the next session. In neither case would I apply the pejorative terms being thrown around in this thread. I think people are coming up with extreme examples of campaign prep attached to those terms which have absolutely nothing to do with the way people in this thread actually prepare for their games.

 

[Ourph]

Majoru, that simply happens to be what "railroad" means in this context.

That is NOT what railroad means in this context. If there are multiple paths to reach the same conclusion it's in no way a "railroad". A railroad runs on rails that go in a straight line from point A to point B to point C to point D. A train cannot jump the tracks, take a detour to point M, skip point C completely and end up at point D. The fact that the PCs have a goal provided by the DM in no way makes the game a railroad.

 

[S'mon]

That is NOT what railroad means in this context. If there are multiple paths to reach the same conclusion it's in no way a "railroad". A railroad runs on rails that go in a straight line from point A to point B to point C to point D. A train cannot jump the tracks, take a detour to point M, skip point C completely and end up at point D. The fact that the PCs have a goal provided by the DM in no way makes the game a railroad.

Yeah, I kinda get the impression that those who toss the R-word around so cavalierly have never encountered a true Railroad adventure or GM, where the poor PCs are shuttled along from scene to scene, as helpless as livestock on the rock island line from New Orleans.

Railroading - the pig iron of RPGs.