How Do You Get Your Players To Stay On An Adventure Path?

[Maxperson]

The key to what?

To not railroading. I thought that was pretty clear from what I said.

Given my desires as an RPGer, the key is to force the players to make choices, by framing their PCs into difficult situations. I don't know if you count that as "forcing a plot" or not (I'm not sure what you mean by "plot"). It's not forcing outcomes. But it is forcing situations.

Giving them a choice is fine. Throwing the same choice at them over and over again until they pick the one you want is not. If they are following the plot trail and decide to leave it to do something else and you force that plot on them anyway, you are railroading. You already gave them the choice and they chose to leave it behind.

 

[Schmoe]

I don't think that drive by straw men are really helpful to the discussion.

It's not a drive-by. While I may not have as much time to participate in this discussion as other people, I'm still here. And it's not a straw man, it's an observation. I've seen a scenario where a vengeful pirate tracks down the party described as a railroad. In fact, I've seen just about every scenario where actions come and find the PCs described as a railroad. Therefore, the only way to have a not-railroad is to not let anything effect the PCs except things under their direct sphere of influence, hence, the logical conclusion is that some sort of stasis warp prevents things outside that sphere from actually doing anything.

Nor do I think anyone has used sandbox in that manner. The idea that nothing exists except what the players choose to interact with is closer in concept to the idea of having "no myth" than it is to a sandbox, and is I think tangential to what a sandbox actually is. I can imagine however a sandbox that works like that, where new 'chunks' of the world are only loaded into the world as needed. In fact Minecraft works like this, and is clearly a sandbox, abliet a computer game rather than an RPG. But we could easily play in a sandbox style in a PnP game where the DM created new parts of the game world through some process only as needed.

Sure. But at the same time the DM could certainly create a PnP game with several ongoing plots that have real impacts on the PCs without it becoming a railroad. For a completely contrived and trite example, say Kingdom A and Kingdom B are close to war and provocateurs of Kingdom C are rabble-rousing in Kingdom A trying to get the war started. No matter where the players go in Kingdom A, they have the potential to see the effects of Kingdom C's agents. If they ignore it, the effects get worse, until eventually Kingdom A and B are at war and if the players have any interest in preventing war they will become embroiled in the "plot". Is that a railroad? It seems like a dynamic world to me, not a railroad, but from reading some of the replies here, I get the feeling people believe it is.

The only reason this even matters is because people seem to have some sort of aversion to railroading. Like it's a big deal that the DM might participate in the game by providing interesting options for the players. Here's a question... if the players aren't trying to avoid something, does it really matter if they don't avoid it? In one of the hypothetical scenarios here, if the players don't know if a tower is down the left or right path, does it really matter if the DM decides to place a tower in their way regardless of which path they choose?

I should say "plot" is thrown around as a very loose term to mean two different things. People will refer to "plot" is it relates to a story to mean: "the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence." In that sense, a sandbox does not have a preconceived "plot", but only acquires something that resembles a narrative through the transcription of play. But a sandbox can nonetheless contains "plots", if by plots you mean: "a plan made in secret by a group of people to do something". It's perfectly reasonable and realistic that a fantasy world will contain various groups that are making plans to carry out various activities whether related to or unrelated to the PC's, and that the PC's can - if they go to the right places at the right times - discover these "plots". But in a pure sandbox, discovery of these plots is triggered by the PC's going to the right places at the right times and if they don't discover the "plots", then that's ok too.

The only meaningful choice is an informed choice. Why does it matter if the PC's discover a plot by randomly happening upon it at the right time and right place, as opposed to having the DM place the discovery in their path? I don't think it does, and I think the distinction is pointless.

 

[howandwhy99]

Improvisation has been a part of the game since the very beginning. An irrefutable example is the notion of a random encounter, which in the case of 1e AD&D would have included a percentage chance of being in the lair, which means a DM was expected to be able to improvise a reasonable map of some sort (a ruined castle inhabited by a hitherto unknown orc tribe, a dank cave inhabited by some dragon or fell beast, a sealed tomb containing some ancient evil, etc.) on the spot. Indeed, a case could be made that their is an implied fully improvised campaign that can be run entirely out of the 1e AD&D monster manuals. Indeed, there is yet another improvised campaign implied by the random dungeon generator in the 1e AD&D DMG.

Randomized generation of a map is not improvisation. It is generation. It is repeating the pattern that is the game so players can game it. You should remember this terminology as you were around early on. All those DMs saying, "I'm not making it up!" DMs are never to make choices after the code of the game is selected prior to play. D&D is after all a (wildly enormous) variant of Mastermind.

So what you are actually offended by isn't 'improvisation' per se. Fundamentally, stuff that is improvised in play by some means is no different that stuff that is improvised before the session by some means. In both cases, the DM has the full power to specify what you call the invisible board.

On this point you are completely wrong. You're selling games down the river.

Like every single game, D&D enables players to play a game by presenting them with a pattern design to decipher. Just like Tic-Tac-Toe, just like Chess, just like every wargame.

Heck, even every sport. Running isn't a sport. A race with a pre-defined track is, even if played solo.

And during a game, PC's will always attempt things or ask questions about the environment that aren't fully specified by the notes regarding the map. That's every bit as much 'going off the map' as actually trying to step into a part of the map not yet drawn.

When the players go off the map the DM must generate more, either on the fly during a session which can slow it down, or by stopping the session.

Arbitrarily making something up, that isn't part of the pattern of the game, means you are expressing babble. The only game left to the player is deciphering the language code you're using to communicate. Which might improve reading ability, but little else.

What you are offended by is the DM improvising in an antagonistic manner, either motivated by his desire to 'win' and keep the players from defeating the scenario, or motivated by some other desire to achieve a particular outcome.

This isn't about being offended. I'm not. Any DM not acting like a referee, but attempting to affect the game either favorably for the players or detrimentally is breaking their oath to be impartial. They are trying to be a player in a code breaking game they created. As the DM is only ever allowed to relate what is on the game board, a manifestation of the game, they are never allowed to improvise. They are only and ever a referee.

You associate this with 'improvisation' and 'story-telling', and therefore declare those things categorically bad. But you are confused. Improvisation can be done in a neutral, unbiased, manner as part of just "running the game".

I think your meaning of improvisation requires some explanation. Unless you're referring to unbiased, un-improvised refereeing, I don't see how what you say could be true.

And likewise 'story-telling' has been a part of the game since the beginning.

This is categorically false. Storytelling has never been part of games. Not until White Wolf published the "Storyteller system" to very disagreeing game public did anyone confuse games with stories. (Heck, storytelling as a culture didn't even exist all that long ago). To be clear, storytelling is not gaming. Code breaking is gaming. They are not even the same culture.

This was the "you are supposed to fight the bandits, not surrender your money or flee" example. The GM clearly expected the players to fight the bandits. Having the bandits take the wizard's money and leave, or shake their fists and curse the fleeing PC's cowardice, would be improvising. Having the bandits attack the wizard anyway, and suddenly have the means to catch the fellow on horseback, is not improvising - it is failing to improvise by forcing the battle to happen as planned.

That's my objection. The DM never has any expectations of the players. Let the dice fall where they may. A DM isn't playing the game, so they cannot ever "force" any action.

 

[cavesalamander]

Then why was the choice there at all?

The choice the players made was to make an uninformed choice. Investigating the desert and discovering that they could find a wizard's tower there locks that wizard tower into the desert. They should not find that wizard tower anywhere else. If you disallow this encounter because it wasn't placed there ahead of time, then you must disallow every randomly generated encounter ever.

I don't consider the mere act of encountering something railroading, since there are multiple means of generating said encounters- including random rolls. Railroading happens when the outcome of the encounter is predetermined, and nothing the players do can change that outcome.

 

[Maxperson]

It's not a drive-by. While I may not have as much time to participate in this discussion as other people, I'm still here. And it's not a straw man, it's an observation. I've seen a scenario where a vengeful pirate tracks down the party described as a railroad. In fact, I've seen just about every scenario where actions come and find the PCs described as a railroad. Therefore, the only way to have a not-railroad is to not let anything effect the PCs except things under their direct sphere of influence, hence, the logical conclusion is that some sort of stasis warp prevents things outside that sphere from actually doing anything.

This is just wrong. Just because you've encountered people who wouldn't know a railroad from a hole in the head, doesn't mean that what you just described is even remotely true.

 

[Maxperson]

Randomized generation of a map is not improvisation. It is generation. It is repeating the pattern that is the game so players can game it. You should remember this terminology as you were around early on. All those DMs saying, "I'm not making it up!" DMs are never to make choices after the code of the game is selected prior to play. D&D is after all a (wildly enormous) variant of Mastermind.

On this point you are completely wrong. You're selling games down the river.

Like every single game, D&D enables players to play a game by presenting them with a pattern design to decipher. Just like Tic-Tac-Toe, just like Chess, just like every wargame.

You do realize that A) every edition of the game says you are wrong in the very rules written by that edition, and B) every time the DM has an NPC respond to something you say, he's improvising since he didn't know what you were going to say, right? If you don't, you should get someone who knows how to play the game explain it to you, because every time you open your mouth here, you just demonstrate more and more how you know nothing about D&D.

 

[S'mon]

Would it have been better if the GM had just used the descriptions about Y to handle your investigation of X (taking a punt that you would never bother coming back to the "real" Y, or at least giving the GM time to come up with new details for Y)?

That wouldn't work in this case - the detailed Thistletop goblins have a very unique lair.

But certainly their stats could be used for improvising a different goblin lair. And really I would have been fine with us maybe not finding an alternate lair, unless we rolled great on tracking. Or we find it and it's a burrow with 3' high earth tunnels, great for goblins but very discouraging for humans - I think that's what I did when I ran Runelords and the same issue came up. The PCs decided not to go in the burrow and go explore Thistletop instead, and everyone was happy.

 

[S'mon]

It's not a drive-by. While I may not have as much time to participate in this discussion as other people, I'm still here. And it's not a straw man, it's an observation. I've seen a scenario where a vengeful pirate tracks down the party described as a railroad. In fact, I've seen just about every scenario where actions come and find the PCs described as a railroad. Therefore, the only way to have a not-railroad is to not let anything effect the PCs except things under their direct sphere of influence, hence, the logical conclusion is that some sort of stasis warp prevents things outside that sphere from actually doing anything.

Yes - I agree with you. Upthread we've had any in-world restriction on PC autonomy, such as the vengeful pirate chasing them, described as railroading if the players would rather he didn't. At that point you're no longer running a living world. It's like the Plane of Infinite Law in a Moorcock story, where nothing ever happens. Law is good, but all extremes are pathological.

 

[pemerton]

In fact, I've seen just about every scenario where actions come and find the PCs described as a railroad.

<snip>

For a completely contrived and trite example, say Kingdom A and Kingdom B are close to war and provocateurs of Kingdom C are rabble-rousing in Kingdom A trying to get the war started. No matter where the players go in Kingdom A, they have the potential to see the effects of Kingdom C's agents. If they ignore it, the effects get worse, until eventually Kingdom A and B are at war and if the players have any interest in preventing war they will become embroiled in the "plot". Is that a railroad? It seems like a dynamic world to me, not a railroad, but from reading some of the replies here, I get the feeling people believe it is.

Whether or not I would describe that as a railroad depends a bit on further details.

There are two things that matter to me. One is that the campaign world, as narrated by the GM, is responsive to player cues manifested via their build and action declaration choices for their PCs. In your example, if none of the players (via their PCs) has any sort of connection to Kingdom A, B or C, and yet the GM is trying to make this some sort of significant thing in the campaign, then I see that as being something like a railroad. ( [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], any thoughts of yours in response to this also welcome!)

The other thing that matters to me is the issue of "secret backstory". I am quite averse to the GM making decisions about what happens to the PCs, or decisions about action resolution, that are driven by backstory considerations that are secret from the players. Whether or not this is railroading in any strict sense, it's something I don't like.

Where exactly I draw the boundaries here is more a matter of intuition than science. For instance, if the information is informing a particular bit of resolution and the players could acquire it by appropriate action declaration but don't, then that's probably on my margins of acceptable - though I would typically try and make sure the secret backstory comes out as part of the denouement of the situation.

If they are following the plot trail and decide to leave it to do something else and you force that plot on them anyway, you are railroading.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the "plot trail" - but given my dislike of secret backstory, I don't think it's something that's part of my game.

 

[S'mon]

There are two things that matter to me. One is that the campaign world, as narrated by the GM, is responsive to player cues manifested via their build and action declaration choices for their PCs. In your example, if none of the players (via their PCs) has any sort of connection to Kingdom A, B or C, and yet the GM is trying to make this some sort of significant thing in the campaign, then I see that as being something like a railroad. ( [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION], any thoughts of yours in response to this also welcome!)

In a linear campaign like an AP there is just the one major plot thread (eg "lead A against B & C"), if the players are avoiding that then the campaign is non-viable and should be shelved.

In a sandbox campaign the war can be part of the backdrop, yet the player characters be free to ignore it to the best of their abilities. You could run a crime caper game set in WW2 London. The existence and impact of the war would not make it a railroad. My own Wilderlands sandbox has some large-scale conflicts - the rise of Neo-Nerath and the brigand warlord Yusan - which impact the campaign environment, but the PCs are free to ignore, fight, or assist these factions. Over time the campaign setting will change as a result of Neo-Nerath and Yusan's activities, and those of the forces opposing them, but there is no pre-plotted script to follow. So far the PCs have generally been more interested in dungeon-delving than in politics, but they have interacted with the political situation.

Edit: A no-myth 'build the world together' game will have different considerations from either
linear or sandbox play, of course. In that case the significance of the war to the world (not just to the campaign) really may be dependent on player preference.