TSR How Did I Survive AD&D? Fudging and Railroads, Apparently

[Retreater]

But you had fun, right?

That would be the most important part for me. If everyone at my table is having a good time, I'm not going to worry about what people on the internet say about my dice rolling or storytelling methods. (shrug)

Yeah. And that's sort of the indirect point of my post: have I been beating myself up over idealized ways games should be played at the expense of what I actually enjoyed in my earlier days in the hobby?

 

[jayoungr]

But giving the players an item that they need to kill the villain while also making sure to fudge so that the players automatically fail at using the item?

Isn't it basically just the same as Legendary Resistance?

Is it the inability to make the item work on the first hit that bothers you, or the fact that the module instructs DMs to hide what they're doing?

 

[AnotherGuy]

But you had fun, right?

That would be the most important part for me. If everyone at my table is having a good time, I'm not going to worry about what people on the internet say about my dice rolling or storytelling methods. (shrug)

Exactly.

@Retreater this is a birthday gift for your mate and buddies.

Feel free to collage events together, use illusionism, rich framing, interesting die roll interpretations to have the best one-off adventure you can all reminisce about. Plan some interesting quick encounters, a puzzle or riddle (I'm not familiar with the adventure) and go full steam on the Ravenloft horror with a few logical safety nets to push forward the storyline and ensure everyone is participating. Just enjoy it and worry less about the theory for something like this.

Just do a Robbie Williams - Let Me Entertain You

 

[TiQuinn]

I started playing with AD&D 2nd edition back in 1990. Like many, I got many rules wrong at first (and probably continued to do so for years), but by the mid-1990s I had become a player in a regular campaign and was developing great memories. I would look back to those memories of the cornerstone of my life in RPGs, even today, as nostalgia makes me think of lasting campaigns, great character arcs, memorable villains, and emotional payoffs.

I don’t think I realized how much of that experience was curated by DM fiat (aka fudging) and adventures designed to be complete railroads – both elements of gameplay that have been largely bemoaned in the past two decades. Granted, I didn’t spend a lot of time behind the screen until 3rd edition and later, so I didn’t really look “under the hood” much recently until this week.

I’ll bring you up to speed. I’ve been invited to run a game for my friend’s birthday party out of town in a few weeks. He and his group are old-school style players. I’ve decided to run the adventure module

Spoiler: name of the adventure

Web of Illusion

that we never completed from the mid-1990s in that first campaign, in which we were both players. Granted, it is a Ravenloft adventure, which is already probably more linear and “story-driven” than more site-based adventures like “The Gates of Firestorm Peak” or something.

Here are some elements that fly in the face of modern adventure design:

• No matter what the party does, they will have this planned encounter scene with this monster.
• The villain can see the party’s abilities within his lair and will send easy encounters at them to “play with them.”
• Keep throwing enemies at the party until they’re weak enough to be forced into joining forces with the NPC organization.
• Convince the party their characters have an incurable disease so they have no choice but to go on the quest for the NPC organization to get the cure.
• The party gets a MacGuffin that can kill the overpowered boss enemy with one hit. But whatever you do, the DM can’t let the first hit land, because that’s too easy. “Roll dice behind the screen and frown.”
• Here are Scenes 1-13. Make sure these play out basically in order.
• If the party tries to leave the adventure, magic fog keeps re-routing them to the right path.

So, yes, this is likely an extreme example of railroading from a product line that’s already known for taking away player agency. But (and here’s the big question) … should we do it? Should we go back to this style of game? Would our games feel more epic if we did? If they were better curated, more narrative, etc.? Would campaigns feel more satisfying?

Was this the “proper” way of playing back in the day? Is this why OSR products are considered meat grinders? Because we were all cheating (by today’s standards)?

No, we shouldn’t go back to it. We should take what we like from these adventures, if anything, and improve them. 2e adventures and particularly Ravenloft 2e adventures were written in a very clumsy way that took railroads to a whole new level by eliminating player agency. You don’t have to remove the linear aspects entirely, particularly for a one-off game, but you can at least give agency back to the players.

With the BBEG of that adventure, he’s a Rakshasa with powerful illusion spells at his disposal. Was the adventure really trying to tell me that he couldn’t have an illusion that would likely protect him from an insta-kill? Heck, throw the 2e version of Stoneskin on him if you really don’t want the crossbow to kill him on the first hit. Completely within the rules, no DM fiat needed.

 

[Zardnaar]

No, we shouldn’t go back to it. We should take what we like from these adventures, if anything, and improve them. 2e adventures and particularly Ravenloft 2e adventures were written in a very clumsy way that took railroads to a whole new level by eliminating player agency. You don’t have to remove the linear aspects entirely, particularly for a one-off game, but you can at least give agency back to the players.

With the BBEG of that adventure, he’s a Rakshasa with powerful illusion spells at his disposal. Was the adventure really trying to tell me that he couldn’t have an illusion that would likely protect him from an insta-kill? Heck, throw the 2e version of Stoneskin on him if you really don’t want the crossbow to kill him on the first hit. Completely within the rules, no DM fiat needed.

2E had some of the worst adventures of all time. Its up there with 4E. Key difference 2E also had some great ones and lots of them they're just obscure. 4E had maybe 1 or 2 good adventures.

Old school grogs who hate 2E are somewhat justified. 1E gygaxian dungeon crawls don't appeal but there's others so yeah 1E is better in that regard.

Spell hammer, and Darksun adventures were terrible and I've only seen 1 good plane scape or birthright adventure.
TSR died for a reason.

 

[Argyle King]

Isn't it basically just the same as Legendary Resistance?

Is it the inability to make the item work on the first hit that bothers you, or the fact that the module instructs DMs to hide what they're doing?

It's the entire set up.

As the DM, you are telling the players that they should take a particular action and -also as the DM- using fiat to declare that taking that action automatically fails.

I feel that fosters an atmosphere in which the DM cannot be trusted to be a fair arbiter of the rules in game situations where that DM role is necessarily to determine the outcome of an action.

 

[Voadam]

I ran a long term 2e Ravenoft campaign and used this module as the capstone, as part of the Conjunction series of modules, and as a final send off to turn the world from 2e to 3e over 20 years ago.

I heavily modified it for my campaign and do not remember a bunch of the stuff you mention but I do remember some cool different

Spoiler: evil factions

weretiger outsiders, Kali priestess secret police, and Arijani Dark Lord

with a neat backstory that came out in the game and I was able to tie stuff into a player plot involving

Spoiler: the god

Shiva

that had been building for years. The climax fight was huge and fun. I really enjoyed the specific domain setting's atmospherics.

I think the way I ran it and suggest running it is to use the railroad parts as planned plot points and general order of things but don't force it, particularly the mists. The adventure plot does not need to run on the specific one track planned railroad to work well. The one shot weapon is easily deflected with a simple monk deflect arrows trick, or as mentioned the stoneskin spell. I vaguely remember the super weapon having to be wielded in melee to pull off the killing blow after shooting it and it being deflected. I don't remember it being a one shot kill but that might have been something I changed for my campaign to instead be simply necessary to give a true killing blow after an epic back and forth beat down while the PCs knew he would be effectively immortal and return without the weapon to finish him.

In my opinion Ravenloft had both the best and worst modules in 2e, running from hugely cool atmospherics of great investigative pulpy atmospheric D&D to terrible no agency railroads that went against a bunch of the Ravenloft spirit that I enjoyed.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Response to the OP:

No, didn't use any hard railroads*, and whilst there was some cherry picking as to which rules to actually use (e.g. we ignored weapon speeds and the weapon type vs armour tables as slowing the game down too much) I don't recall fudging. Players cheating when rolling ability scores was a big problem though.

What we did do is mostly play modules, and single adventures from White Dwarf. And when I did run a campaign we started at level 10. I don't recall ever taking 1st level characters through more than a single adventure.

*Well, there is the start of Hidden Shrine, which I ran a couple of times, but that was a tournament module, and justified by the narrative. When I ran it in 5e, I set it up so that the party didn't need to fall down the hole, but they fell down it anyway.

I do get the impression that this level of hard railroading was very common in 90s 2nd edition Ravenloft modules, but I had stopped playing D&D by then.

 

[kigmatzomat]

Yeah. I'm sure there are better ones. But I'm running this specific one because it was the "one" that we never finished back in the day. It's a way to complete the stories of these characters that have been sitting in limbo since the mid-1990s.

Is it all the players who did this or just your friend?

If it's just your friend, this becomes part of a "you had to be there" kind of situation and those other people may have a completely different take.

Which isn't to say don't run it, but get an email list for the rest of the players, let them know you're doing an adventure that was never finished "back in the day" as a surprise birthday present. Explain that it's from a "love/hate" setting that isn't always popular but hey, it's a present. Maybe ask about preferred classes so you can make sure there are some in the pregens.

I loathe Ravenloft and know other people with same opinion. I check out at every opportunity, assuming I don't just nope out of the game entirely. But with some warning to expect something dislikeable I'd try to be engaged "because it's Dave's birthday present".

 

[payn]

Here are some elements that fly in the face of modern adventure design:

• No matter what the party does, they will have this planned encounter scene with this monster.

I think folks get lost in the idea of total agency. I'd expect a set piece battle in a module, particularly one with a memorable foe. Its in that set up and encounter execution that will determine if its a success or not.

• The villain can see the party’s abilities within his lair and will send easy encounters at them to “play with them.”

Seems like stock villain stuff...

• Keep throwing enemies at the party until they’re weak enough to be forced into joining forces with the NPC organization.

Sounds like a good strategy.

• Convince the party their characters have an incurable disease so they have no choice but to go on the quest for the NPC organization to get the cure.

Seems like an extra layer of force, but a tried and true trope I suppose.

• The party gets a MacGuffin that can kill the overpowered boss enemy with one hit. But whatever you do, the DM can’t let the first hit land, because that’s too easy. “Roll dice behind the screen and frown.”

I've run a module by Paizo that had an element sort of like this. Instead of an item that needs to land a single die roll, you make it part of the encounter. A series of events need to pass in order to one shot kill the baddie. This turns the typical beat the HP to zero shuffle into an entirely new and interesting dance. Perfect for the end of a module, IMO.

• Here are Scenes 1-13. Make sure these play out basically in order.

Modern design definitely isnt point a to b to c with no variation. This typically should be avoided, but a lot of the determining factor is going to be in the writing and GM execution. Frankly, a lot of players dont mind a scripted railroad like this. Which is why you see it from time to time.

• If the party tries to leave the adventure, magic fog keeps re-routing them to the right path.

Yeah, this is where player's campaign guides come in and gives players a reason to care about the adventure in front of them. Some players and GMs prefer that wander around doing something entirely different and unconnected every session. Those types should probably avoid modules and use campaign setting books and rando tables instead.

So, yes, this is likely an extreme example of railroading from a product line that’s already known for taking away player agency. But (and here’s the big question) … should we do it? Should we go back to this style of game? Would our games feel more epic if we did? If they were better curated, more narrative, etc.? Would campaigns feel more satisfying?

Personally, I dig games more when they are built up. I don't care about a PC that has wings or laser eyes or lightning fingers. I want a grand setting with lots of moving parts and factions with agendas. I want to be able to be a mover and shaker on the grand scheme. Seeing my PC take action that makes a difference in the entire setting is what im after.

So, im all aboard the Hickman revolution. I think modern adventure writers have, generally, learned really good lessons from the above. How to write an adventure that has set piece battles, and narrative components, that dont force the players down a single path. Fully embrace those lessons and learn to execute at the highest level you can.

Was this the “proper” way of playing back in the day? Is this why OSR products are considered meat grinders? Because we were all cheating (by today’s standards)?

OSR products are meat grinders. The purpose is less grand and the narrative is thin. The point of an OSR game is to engage the game portion and survive through skill play. It would, rightly, be cheating to fudge dice results for such an experience.

I think its not a good idea to think of things in "proper" one way terms. I think the proper answer is what you like and prefer. The good news is, there is a plethora of both modern and old school systems, products, and modules out there.