D&D General Why defend railroading?

[Maxperson]

Do you also use encounters as needed for places you didn't pre-plan one? (I assume by your previous statements that all encounters of every type aren't avoided simply by guessing spots you didn't pre-plan). So I could use one of the unused five or six encounter cards for the woods if it made sense?

If the players have gone outside of the pre-planned area, I'll roll for encounters. If one is determined randomly, I'll select it from the small list I've prepared.

 

[TheSword]

What the players know isn't the point. Most of the time they won't know. That doesn't make it okay to deceive them. It's like the example I gave upthread about a few friends of mine that are very sloppy with money, leaving bills all over their houses. It would be very easy to take one without them ever knowing. Theft is not right, even if he never found out.

I've also seen a few instances where this sort of railroading was discovered. It isn't easy and it doesn't happen often, but I've never seen the players happy about it. Players in my experience generally want their choices to matter, even if those choices are as minor as which path to go down. If I were ever in a game where I discovered that the DM was deceiving me and railroading my PC, that would be the last game I played with that DM.

Comparing theft of your friend’s cash to a DM using floating encounters to fill the PCs journey, suggests a lack of perspective.

 

[Charlaquin]

What the players know isn't the point. Most of the time they won't know. That doesn't make it okay to deceive them. It's like the example I gave upthread about a few friends of mine that are very sloppy with money, leaving bills all over their houses. It would be very easy to take one without them ever knowing. Theft is not right, even if he never found out.

This is disanalogous because he would be materially affected by the theft, even if he wasn’t aware of it, whereas the players are not materially affected by the Shrodinger’s Ogre if the presence or absence of ogres wasn’t a factor in their decision-making.

 

[Maxperson]

Comparing theft of your friend’s cash to a DM using floating encounters to fill the PCs journey, suggests a lack of perspective.

Wrong is wrong. I view both very minor theft and deceiving my players to be on par.

 

[Maxperson]

This is disanalogous because he would be materially affected by the theft, even if he wasn’t aware of it, whereas the players are not materially affected by the Shrodinger’s Ogre if the presence or absence of ogres wasn’t a factor in their decision-making.

You don't think a PC dying doesn't affect the player? You don't think loss of resources that you may need elsewhere doesn't affect things? There is an effect on the players.

 

[TheSword]

You don't think a PC dying doesn't affect the player? You don't think loss of resources that you may need elsewhere doesn't affect things? There is an effect on the players.

It’s an intended effect. The DM wants that effect to be the case. That’s why they selected the encounter.

 

[Charlaquin]

You don't think a PC dying doesn't affect the player? You don't think loss of resources that you may need elsewhere doesn't affect things? There is an effect on the players.

Combat with an ogre has a material affect on the PCs. But whether or not the ogre you run into was pre-planned to be on the path you chose doesn’t.

 

[Asisreo]

Sure, not every encounter needs to be a combat encounter. There is also mileage in PCs feeling boss by using overwhelming force on some bandits they could defeat easily. This would wear very thin for me after it happened once or twice though.

They don't need to fight them, just resolve the conflict which could literally be resolved within 10-15 minutes in real time just by intimidating the bandits. They still get exp for that.

I want to be heroic, not spend my time doing the rpg equivalent taking the bins out.

You are heroic. You are the village's heroes and you'll be treated as such.

The players having fun, is more important to me than whether the dragon cultists were encountered in Red Larch as I originally intended or Waterdeep.

Its still forcing the conflict. If they never go to Red Larch, they shouldn't encounter the Dragon Cultists. The made the choice not to go to Red Larch, that choice should be honored.

Waterdeep should have its own set of encounters, locations, and adventure hooks. They can be related to one another but if everything is always just forming around the players, they never get to explore a world.

 

[TheSword]

They don't need to fight them, just resolve the conflict which could literally be resolved within 10-15 minutes in real time just by intimidating the bandits. They still get exp for that.

Not a lot of XP one would hope for a 15th lvl party.

You are heroic. You are the village's heroes and you'll be treated as such.

I don’t get satisfaction from my character Hercules opening stiff jam jars for the local village. Tiers of play exist for a reason.

Its still forcing the conflict. If they never go to Red Larch, they shouldn't encounter the Dragon Cultists. The made the choice not to go to Red Larch, that choice should be honored.

Sorry, perhaps I wasn’t clear. If the party have the teleport spell, the cultists were always at Waterdeep. If they choose not to use it and walk the distance, then the trip via Red Larch gets hand waved and the party arrive at Waterdeep where the action happens.

Waterdeep should have its own set of encounters, locations, and adventure hooks. They can be related to one another but if everything is always just forming around the players, they never get to explore a world.

Yes they do explore, they just spend more time exploring Waterdeep than Red Larch. Independent encounters for every location the party might visit has very low reward v effort ratio as a DM. I’d rather put more effort into adding quality to a small number of encounters than try and be comprehensive. See the effort/detail/choice Iron Triangle.

 

[TheSword]

Combat with an ogre has a material affect on the PCs. But whether or not the ogre you run into was pre-planned to be on the path you chose doesn’t.

Whether that ogre was randomly generated or selected by the DM, definitely doesn’t have a material effect on them.