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Judgement calls vs "railroading"
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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7052613" data-attributes="member: 29398"><p>And if I read rightly the NPC villains are only reactive, not proactive, once play begins? And, just one storyline or plot arc - kind of like an adventure path?</p><p></p><p>And even in your ideal game noted above there's still specific events and NPCs and stuff the party has to (or is certainly expected to) deal with, the only apparent caveat being that they are put in place before play begins rather than after. But the characters still have to go to places a then b then c and do things p then q then r to prevent events y and z from occurring...which on the face of it sounds more railroady than baiting hooks at the right moment.</p><p></p><p>How's this: in my current campaign I ran what amounted to an adventure path embedded within it. It was 5 adventures long...</p><p></p><p>[sblock]The first took various somewhat-disparate threads of backstory: the party had involved themselves in a foreign war by acting on behalf of both sides, they then picked one side who sent them into the adventure proper which was the 4e module Marauders of the Dune Sea. During this two of the PCs got captured and stuck into slavery, which provided me the perfect hook to get them into the next (homebrew, this time) adventure which involved busting up an archaeological dig (think Indiana Jones) as that's where the PCs had been taken. So they bust this up, meanwhile learning that a third PC - without anyone else realizing it - had picked up an artifact during Dune Sea for and quietly stowed it away, and she'd been completely dominated by it and acting on its orders for an adventure-and-a-half...never mind this was in fact what the archaelogical dig had been set up to look for, 80 miles away from where it was found.</p><p></p><p>By now they realize there's more to this, and between one thing and another they conclude they should probably take out the original owner of this artifact; long thought dead but apparently not as dead as he should be. This lets me run another published module. Party take this guy out, meanwhile realizing he's just the head cleric and in fact their real goal should probably be to try and take out what's left of his deity. (the ongoing war ties in to this: one side is fighting to bring the dormant deity back and the other side wants it destroyed). So they learn where this deity might be and go there...wrong place, but it represents a homebrew desert-wilderness adventure I can run. Then they try another place - this one has the deity in it and so I get to run 1e's Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun with some modifications. Deity destroyed, everyone's (mostly) happy. </p><p></p><p>So, that's three published adventures and two homebrews that I was able to reasonably well tie together into a coherent organic sequence that, once begun, almost ran itself.[/sblock]</p><p>Another thing to keep in mind is that not all railroading is done by the DM. Sometimes the players railroad themselves in that on finishing one adventure they have already decided what the next one will be whether it's what the DM had in mind or not. As DM I love it when they do this! <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p><p></p><p>Lanefan</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 7052613, member: 29398"] And if I read rightly the NPC villains are only reactive, not proactive, once play begins? And, just one storyline or plot arc - kind of like an adventure path? And even in your ideal game noted above there's still specific events and NPCs and stuff the party has to (or is certainly expected to) deal with, the only apparent caveat being that they are put in place before play begins rather than after. But the characters still have to go to places a then b then c and do things p then q then r to prevent events y and z from occurring...which on the face of it sounds more railroady than baiting hooks at the right moment. How's this: in my current campaign I ran what amounted to an adventure path embedded within it. It was 5 adventures long... [sblock]The first took various somewhat-disparate threads of backstory: the party had involved themselves in a foreign war by acting on behalf of both sides, they then picked one side who sent them into the adventure proper which was the 4e module Marauders of the Dune Sea. During this two of the PCs got captured and stuck into slavery, which provided me the perfect hook to get them into the next (homebrew, this time) adventure which involved busting up an archaeological dig (think Indiana Jones) as that's where the PCs had been taken. So they bust this up, meanwhile learning that a third PC - without anyone else realizing it - had picked up an artifact during Dune Sea for and quietly stowed it away, and she'd been completely dominated by it and acting on its orders for an adventure-and-a-half...never mind this was in fact what the archaelogical dig had been set up to look for, 80 miles away from where it was found. By now they realize there's more to this, and between one thing and another they conclude they should probably take out the original owner of this artifact; long thought dead but apparently not as dead as he should be. This lets me run another published module. Party take this guy out, meanwhile realizing he's just the head cleric and in fact their real goal should probably be to try and take out what's left of his deity. (the ongoing war ties in to this: one side is fighting to bring the dormant deity back and the other side wants it destroyed). So they learn where this deity might be and go there...wrong place, but it represents a homebrew desert-wilderness adventure I can run. Then they try another place - this one has the deity in it and so I get to run 1e's Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun with some modifications. Deity destroyed, everyone's (mostly) happy. So, that's three published adventures and two homebrews that I was able to reasonably well tie together into a coherent organic sequence that, once begun, almost ran itself.[/sblock] Another thing to keep in mind is that not all railroading is done by the DM. Sometimes the players railroad themselves in that on finishing one adventure they have already decided what the next one will be whether it's what the DM had in mind or not. As DM I love it when they do this! :) Lanefan [/QUOTE]
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