A funny thing happened on the way to the Dungeon

[Dave Turner]

I'd call that railroading. The players can't make any meaningful choices. No matter what they do or where they go, they end up where the DM decides.

Eh, but if it works...

What qualifies as a meaningful player choice? I would suggest that they are making a meaningful choice. I'll go back to my Lich-King example. Fears about railroading are metagame fears, so we'll look at the example from a metagame point of view.

The chain of clues has been interpreted by the players so that they believe that the Lich-King is near Waterdeep. How does this look from the player's metagame point of view? The players believe that the DM has prearranged a storyline for them to follow. If they've been following the clues in the storyline, they've already agreed to some extent that they're going to subject themselves to the DM's railroading. The traditional role of a DM in an RPG is to prepare a storyline for the players to gradually uncover and interact with. In our example, the players have willingly participated in previous events in the storyline which are building to a climactic encounter with the Lich-King. The players, in the Lich-King example, want to find the Lich-King and so does the DM.

If both the players and the DM want to find the Lich-King, then is it really railroading to make sure that the players get to the Lich-King's dungeon? The players have made the only meaningful choice they can make. They have decided that the clue chain leads to Waterdeep rather than to Shadowdale.

What kind of meaningful choices do you think the players are missing out on? Should the DM narrate their trip to Waterdeep and their subsequent failure to find the Lich-King? How many sessions should the DM let the players waste fruitlessly searching for the Lich-King's lair which is on the other side of the world? What if the DM gives the PCs a hint that the Lich-King's lair is back in Shadowdale? That's railroading! That's the DM leading the players by the nose along the prearranged story track that he established at the start of the game.

If the DM and the players both want to go to the Lich-King's lair, why waste all those sessions in between, especially when moving the dungeon to Waterdeep would never be noticed by the players?

 

[godawful]

lead a horse to water...

How many of you have planned for hours a great (in your own humble opinion) adventure only to have the party book the first tangent out of the storyline and end up hundreds of miles from where you want them to be? Do you play along and save the dungeon for another time or campaign, or do you invoke some sort of inevitably gravitational story force that herds them to the dungeon?

if they stray from what i spent the last entire week working on, i make sure a lot of CR11+ random encounters start happening (the party being lvl 8 up). then the dungeon/plot hook becomes an inviting idea.

 

[LostSoul]

Ah, I was assmuing that the players didn't really care about finding the Lich-King. You know, like the DM buys "Lair of the Lich-King" and runs it, and the players don't really want to go find the Lich-King, but they can't get away from it.

So - I misunderstood, and apoligize for being too quick with the "railroad" gun.

What qualifies as a meaningful player choice?

Well, if the players were hanging around, and said "I want to go find the Lich-King. Who's with me?" "Word. Let's go." That would be player choice.

But if the DM, who has the module "Return to Railroad Mountain", decides that no matter where they go to find the Lich-King, they come across Railroad Mountain - you get my point.

(Which I see is just me misunderstanding you. You're talking about how to best get the players to where they want to go, rather than run "Return to Railroad Mountain".)

The players believe that the DM has prearranged a storyline for them to follow. If they've been following the clues in the storyline, they've already agreed to some extent that they're going to subject themselves to the DM's railroading.

Yeah, this is a problem. Or it is for me. As a player, I don't want to be railroaded, but usually it's "Ticket, please" when I show up for the first game. Either get on board or walk.

When I'm DM, I have no idea how to get the players to drive the plot. We all want some exciting scenes, but how do we get them? So we all end up sitting around, with me asking "What do you guys want to do?" and then I end up making a plot to get things moving.

The traditional role of a DM in an RPG is to prepare a storyline for the players to gradually uncover and interact with.

More's the pity.

 

[Dave Turner]

Well, if the players were hanging around, and said "I want to go find the Lich-King. Who's with me?" "Word. Let's go." That would be player choice.

Possibly, but remember that, barring any glaring metagame motivation by the players, they wouldn't even know that the Lich-King exists in the setting unless the DM agreed that it was there. In other words, the players only know what the DM tells them about the setting. There are gross examples in which players intentionally take actions that are intended to establish their "autonomy" within the game, but they're usually the worst sort of blatant metagaming covering up for metagame dissatisfaction with the game.

I'm probably quibbling with your point a bit, however, since I get the gist of what you're saying.

Yeah, this is a problem. Or it is for me. As a player, I don't want to be railroaded, but usually it's "Ticket, please" when I show up for the first game. Either get on board or walk.

When I'm DM, I have no idea how to get the players to drive the plot. We all want some exciting scenes, but how do we get them? So we all end up sitting around, with me asking "What do you guys want to do?" and then I end up making a plot to get things moving.

There's nothing wrong with this. The DM should provide the plot and motivations for characters if players are unable or unwilling to do so themselves. If the DM starts to make choices that the players don't like, the DM can hopefully divine the source of the players dislike and change. Eventually, the DM will hit upon the right recipe that will engage the players and they'll be off to the races. Naturally, the difficulty of doing this depends on the players in question.

When the players agree to turn themselves over to the storytelling of the DM, then the idea of "moving the dungeon" is even more justifed.

 

[LostSoul]

Possibly, but remember that, barring any glaring metagame motivation by the players, they wouldn't even know that the Lich-King exists in the setting unless the DM agreed that it was there.

Unless in some PC's background, he says "The evil orcs took my bride on our wedding night and stole her away to their hidden lair." Now he wants to find the hidden lair of the orcs and get back his wife.

That's not the metagaming you're talking about, though, is it?

There's nothing wrong with this.

Only one problem: I'm not very satisfied with it. Which is really the only problem you can have with a game. So I've got to figure out how to get back into the groove. I think I see how to do it; now I just have to try it out.

 

[Baron Opal]

I try to give my players three choices, plot hooks, whatever for them to choose from. When they choose, we run that plot, and then they get another choice of three options. Or, they can just wander through the countryside. When I actually have a long term plot worked up, I try to have the three adventures address different means of solving the problem (urban political- wreck the funding, dungeon delving the lair, etc).

 

[Terraism]

My problem is sorta the opposite -- the players focus on the theoretical stated goal of the adventure so much, that they ignore everything else.

[Awesome story clipped for brevity.]

I actually had something very similar to that last night. I'd let the players know beforehand that it was going to be a downtime session - they've just worked their way through the first story arc of the campaign, and it's also time to level up. They're likely to be staying in the town they're in for some time now, so I gave them last night - their time. Do whatever it was they wanted to do. For one of them, it was find a trainer so he could start working towards the Blade Saint substitution levels for unfettered (we're using AE rules,) for another it was finding friendly giants to help him through the Shu-Rin ceremony.

Just in case they didn't have anything in mind, though, I had a handful of different short plots worked out ahead of time, little things they could accomplish in an hour or two, tops, so that the session wasn't a lot of twiddling of thumbs. Plus, by accomplishing any of them, they'd get to know people in town better, and goodwill from the local folk is never a bad thing. One of the players - the unfettered, actually - went visiting the local blacksmith in order to requisition a masterwork rapier. The blacksmith, as it turns out, is a bit melancholy at the present time, and refusing work. My player's reaction? "Bah! Sidequest, and it's non-elite! I want my phat loot!" In any event, I was amused. And he's not getting a masterwork rapier for a while. (He did, however, get his first substitution level, so he's rather happy, regardless.)

 

[shilsen]

I've almost completely given up on having preplanned adventures or even a direction for the campaign and am instead developing it organically off the PCs' actions and choices (which includes things they choose not to do). This tends to keep things more exciting for me too, since I'm never completely sure where the PCs will end up next, and it has made me better at on-the-fly DMing. So if there's something I have that the PCs decide not to encounter, I just put it away and move on. Perhaps they'll return to it later. Perhaps they won't and I'll just cannibalize parts of it for later use. No problem.

 

[HinterWelt]

How many of you have planned for hours a great (in your own humble opinion) adventure only to have the party book the first tangent out of the storyline and end up hundreds of miles from where you want them to be? Do you play along and save the dungeon for another time or campaign, or do you invoke some sort of inevitably gravitational story force that herds them to the dungeon?

I plan on it. Yes, I actually plan for diversions along the way. I think, and my players tend to agree, that it makes for a better advneture. The story runs longer and they are able to ease into the main plot. It helps if the tangent is related to the main story. I usually need to be able to think fast on my feet in order to keep things going somewhat in the right direction.


Bill

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

Okay, maybe I'm the only one who saw this thread title and thought of Zero Mostel singing...

"Everybody ought to have a Mage,
Everybody ought to have a spellcaster..."

Heh. I played Pseudolous in our High School production. And its on my DVR right now from last week's showing.

As for the topic at hand, I improv everything from plot seeds and stacks of NPCs. The players go and do, hear rumors, and pick their agenda. I provide the obstacles in their path.