Avoiding Railroading - Forked Thread: Do you play more for the story or the combat?

[Darrin Drader]

Forked from: Do you play more for the story or the combat?

Neither.
I enjoy a good combat every now and again, but I really can't stand it when a DM is trying to have me follow their story.

We've all seen it. I would even venture that most of us have either done it ourselves or been forced to do it because we were running an adventure that required it.

The question is how do the really great DMs out there manage to keep intricate campaigns with great story elements without making the players feel like they've been railroaded?

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I like to do mystery pop-ups. So basically could be something in a newspaper, someone running down a alley, some talk they hear in a tavern, etc. Something to entice the players to pursue or not pursue.

I run lots of my games like mystery shows, there is something to be uncovered, and many ways and sources to do it. But it is up to the Players to figure it out, and along the way I'll try to predict and set up moments which make the adventure stand out.

Like in one recent adventure them trying to reach a sniper in a graveyard laced with zombies so their dodging and rolling bullets and shoving zombies infront of them. This wouldn't have happened if they hadn't gone down that avenue of investigation.

 

[Michael Silverbane]

There's a couple of ways that I go about avoiding railroads (or making them less onerous to the players).

The first thing that I do is to ask the players what sorts of things they want to do. If the players are getting the kind of play that they want out of a campaign, they will be more willing to step on those tracks for you. Then you can hit 'em with the train and they'll never complain once.

The second thing that I do is that I try to avoid 'storytelling'. Rather than a grand plot arc that has to progress in a certain way... I come up with NPCs and power groups that have their own agendas. Usually, the PCs will end up getting in the way of those power groups. This creates conflict, which is what drives the story.

The third thing that I do is to try to tailor my 'plot hooks' toward both my players and their characters. If my player Fred puts some fantastic story elements into his background, you can be dang sure that I'm going to mine that background for things to get that character interested in the adventures to come. Or if I know that Bob the player cannot resist rescuing a damsel in distress, regardless of the character type that he's playing, you can bet that I'm going to put some damsels in distress for him to rescue.

And finally, when I just can't avoid doing some railroading to get the characters into a position that I think will make for a cool scene, I use my words to ask the players if they will go along with it. "Guys," I'll say, "I know that everyone hates to be captured, but I've got this cool pirate thing that requires you to be... You know... captured. Can I do that?" And, often times, we'll skip the railroady bit and just go straight to the cool...

 

[RandomCitizenX]

In no way do I think that I am a really great DM, but what I usually do to avoid railroading is try and come up with three or four different threads that the players could possible use to become involved with whatever my story is. Usually once they are involved it becomes really difficult to become uninvolved. My current game, for example, features a multiverse traveling train large enough to contain several dungeons. There are several different factions and events that are intertwined on the train and I just let out about 5 or 6 different threads. The players eventually bit on one and are now have in their possession an artifact which a crazed cult will want back. If they hadn't messed with the cult, then the big plot would have advanced without them knowing until they either become involved or some other big plot thread caught their interest instead (such as the assassination of one of the Wind Dukes by an associate of the cultist). Once you have a clear reason for the bad guys to come after the heroes I find the plot moves forward naturally from their since heroes have a tendency to be very reactionary.

 

[Cadfan]

The question is how do the really great DMs out there manage to keep intricate campaigns with great story elements without making the players feel like they've been railroaded?

I use "opt in" gaming. To the extent that there will be railroading, it is disclosed before the game begins. If you don't like the plot line planned, don't play.

So essentially I railroad like a demon, but changing player expectations it stops railroading from being a problem.

 

[Crothian]

I let the PCs actions matter. Plans of the bad guys get changed, the PCs are free to i9vestigate what they want and do what they want. Of course this also means they can be wrong and fail to stop something along the way.

 

[LostSoul]

Before you actually start playing, you have to set things up right. This means that the setting has to have enough story potential. You need characters who want something, a situation that's unbalanced, and adversity for the characters to face.

The players need to make characters who are protagonists.

The DM needs to come up with the right sort of adversity for the PCs. The DM needs to make sure that the NPCs are antagonists.

Once the setup has been done, all anyone needs to do is play their character - the players the PCs, and the DM the NPCs.

edit: In a Wicked Age... has mechanics for doing this setup phase, and it really works to get a good situation.

 

[howandwhy99]

I "sandbox" things as the lingo goes. Areas like large cities are treated like wildernesses otherwise everything is mapped out like in an adventure module.

Meaning I have actual maps and NPC stats and monsters stats and pretty much stats for everything that is in that portion of the world. Mobile elements like items and NPCs are tracked either with a few quick notes during a session or with a full redesign outside of a session. Not that a full redesign is normally that big a deal. You're just tracking what happened that session.

For Named NPCs, NPCs with goals in their life that add up to more than, "Farm the land, sell stuff, craft goods, etc.", they follow their own plots. (Basically the Movers and Shakers of the world not lowly schmucks like you and me. (no offense to you Movers and Shakers out there ) These Named NPCs are really just a list of goals and the plans the character has. They also have a far greater characterization to act out and that allow me to make judgement calls on how they will react to situations and newly plan based upon current events. I also use the NPC traits from AD&D like morale, loyalty scores, attitude, and alignment to determine NPC behavior. Plus several more of my own as House Rules. I find these aren't too difficult and help to remove me from the game, so I am making as few judgment calls as possible when running NPCs.

I then pre-roll success and failure determining a basic outline of the future for the game world and redesign the world on the fly based upon the consequences of the PC's actions. This generally means taking notes and making a few rolls now and again when the PCs do something momentous, but I generally know the Players goals for the PCs so I can prep a few "what if's" beforehand with other dice rolls, notes, design, etc.

I suggest using OD&D and AD&D as they are pretty good systems for getting rid of railroading.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Why do I always see that? All the "story" in my games is a fusion between my players and I.

 

[pemerton]

Once the players have designed their PCs (including background) I set up situations (NPCs, conflicts etc) which open up opportunities for the PCs based on their inclinations/abilities/background. As those situations develop new situations, and new openings for PC activity, open up.

I tend to have the participants in a given conflict pretty well pre-determined before a session starts (and most of my session prep is working out the NPCs for that session) but it is up to the players who their PCs will ally with, who they will treat as enemies etc. Normally I find my players fairly predictable in this respect, but sometimes they are not. For example, in my Rolemaster campaign that recently came to an end the party (which inlcuded two Buddhist monks) ended up as enemies of the Lord of Karma and his servants, enemies of one of Demogorgon's heads but quasi-allies of the other, uneasy allies with another demon, allies of Charon and his Charonadaemons, and very close allies of a god who had been exiled ages before for disturbing the workings of karma. They also talked a guardian angel into allowing them to kill her, thereby ending her guard and giving them acces to the exiled god's prison.

I didn't anticipate that the players would do these things. (Certainly the modules I was using for some of this - Tales of the Infinite Staircase, Bastion of Broken Souls - don't. Most 2nd ed AD&D and 3E modules are extremely railroady in my experience.) Once they do, however, I'm happy to let them take the lead and then to set up the next situation in response to their choices and the way the encounter resolves.

This is not really sandbox play, because it is me as GM who is overwhelmingly responisble for determining what situations are encounterd, but neither is it railroading (in my view) because it is the players getting to decide who are their friends, who their enemies, and how each ingame situation should be resolved.