D&D 5E Where's the Villain? and other musings. Why some published campaigns are great and some aren't (Spoiler alerts)

[mamba]

That's down to Amazon, which is absolutely riddled with inaccurate product descriptions.

that text is identical to what is printed on the back of RotFM, so I would not blame Amazon for how inaccurate it is…

Pretty sure the front image was also WotC’s choice, so not the same situation as your writer

 

[Paul Farquhar]

that text is identical to what is printed on the back of RotFM, so I would not blame Amazon for how inaccurate it is…

Pretty sure the front image was also WotC’s choice, so not the same situation as your writer

Even at WotC the person writing the adventure isn't the same as the person designing the cover.

 

[mamba]

That sort of thing can often make a campaign feel railroady. For example, "you are captured by slavers and have to escape and survive the Underdark" gives the players plenty of motive for adventuring, but it doesn't give them much choice.

presumably the choice came beforehand when deciding on what campaign to play

 

[mamba]

Even at WotC the person writing the adventure isn't the same as the person designing the cover.

that still makes WotC responsible for its (lack of) accuracy and means WotC mislead us here, not just the individual

 

[TheSword]

That sort of thing can often make a campaign feel railroady. For example, "you are captured by slavers and have to escape and survive the Underdark" gives the players plenty of motive for adventuring, but it doesn't give them much choice.

I don’t think there is any issue with starting something in medias res. How the party is allowed to proceed will determine the railroady-ness.

A great published campaign shouldn’t feel like a railroad because the party should want to achieve the goal. A great goal can reduce the players interaction with the rails as they tend to be needed when players go off piste hobby-chasing and need to be guided back in. If players are motivated by the campaign this should be less necessary.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don’t think there is any issue with starting something in medias res. How the party is allowed to proceed will determine the railroady-ness.

A great published campaign shouldn’t feel like a railroad because the party should want to achieve the goal. A great goal can reduce the players interaction with the rails as they tend to be needed when players go off piste hobby-chasing and need to be guided back in. If players are motivated by the campaign this should be less necessary.

The players should choose their own goals (which may well be individual), not have a goal thrust upon them. Otherwise they may as well be reading a novel. RPGs are all about offering players choices. If the players go off-piste it's because they find the off-piste stuff more interesting, so the DM should go with that. A DM-imposed goal IS the rails of a railroad.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

that still makes WotC responsible for its (lack of) accuracy and means WotC mislead us here, not just the individual

It wouldn't be the first publisher to get a writer's work wrong. And when RotFM came out Chirs Perkins did a load of interviews talking about how it was inspired by The Thing and At the Mountains of Madness, with little mention of Auril. It's almost as if the (primary) writer was trying to set the record straight (while still keeping his job).

 

[TheSword]

The players should choose their own goals (which may well be individual), not have a goal thrust upon them. Otherwise they may as well be reading a novel. RPGs are all about offering players choices. If the players go off-piste it's because they find the off-piste stuff more interesting, so the DM should go with that. A DM-imposed goal IS the rails of a railroad.

I don’t really want this thread to descend into the inevitable rail-road debate.

What I will say, in a published campaign - which this thread is about - it’s not unreasonable to expect PCs to pick goals that fit with the main thrust of the campaign. My point is that it is easier to expect this where the campaign has significant and important events that would encourage a players to want to do this.

If I’m running Night Below it’s not unreasonable to expect the PCs to have ‘end the kidnapping threat and the domination curse’ as a goal. One of the reasons Matt Coleville’s Night Below campaign failed was that the driving goal wasn’t strong enough and it made more sense for the party to spend their time building their kingdoms on the surface. Epic fail as far as the Night Below campaign went.

 

[billd91]

The players should choose their own goals (which may well be individual), not have a goal thrust upon them. Otherwise they may as well be reading a novel. RPGs are all about offering players choices. If the players go off-piste it's because they find the off-piste stuff more interesting, so the DM should go with that. A DM-imposed goal IS the rails of a railroad.

If the players are agreeing to play in an adventure path in the first place, it's incumbent on them to choose compatible goals rather than work at cross purposes - at least at the beginning. Developments in the campaign may shift things, but a well designed AP will incorporate ways help keep the motivation going or even intensify it.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don’t really want this thread to descend into the inevitable rail-road debate.

Sure, it's unavoidable when discussing adventure paths. But perfectly avoidable if the DM is willing to let the adventure run off the rails, rather than force players to conform to the pre-written story. Adventure paths are intended as a starting point, not holy scripture.

If the players are agreeing to play in an adventure path in the first place

In my experience, players "agree to an adventure path" because it's the only campaign on offer, not because they want to play that adventure in particular.

it's incumbent on them to choose compatible goals rather than work at cross purposes

RotFM is designed with the intention that PCs be working at cross purposes, because that is a feature of the genre it is trying to emulate. Not every D&D campaign is The Fellowship of the Ring.