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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 4706376" data-attributes="member: 4937">Sure, a few adventures have a slightly more complex flowchart than A-&gt;B-&gt;C-&gt;D, but the point still stands.&nbsp; The open ended sandbox style module was experimented early in D&amp;D's history, and generally was not as well received as scripted events - probably because people didn't like spending money for just a loose framework of ideas which left most of the work up to the DM.&nbsp; Modern adventures tend to be highly linear.&nbsp; Many of the most famous modules are parts of 'adventure paths', where the completion of Module 'M1' invaribly leads to 'M2', and then 'M3', and so forth.&nbsp; There is no expectation that by the time M4 comes around that the events of M3 will have completely invalidated it, nor can you really get involved with locations and NPC's from M5, then skip back to M2, and then immediately go to M9, or so forth.Again, I'm not passing judgement on this.&nbsp; It can be alot of fun, and as I said, I would encourage new DMs to start a campaign with a fairly linear adventure and some exciting scripted events to get things jump started.'Railroading' got a bad name because there was a tendancy for novice DM's when confronted by an player action in M2 that would invalidate the entire M3 module, or faced with a player decision that took the party right out of the flow chart, to just say, &quot;No.&nbsp; You can't do that.&quot;, especially when the PC's had thought of a creative solution that would let them defeat the adventure far more easily than the DM had intended.&nbsp; &quot;No, you can't do that.&quot;, is a highly antogonistic stance for a DM and is generally unjustified and unfair, so naturally it got a bad name.&nbsp; But most of the time I think players are happy to be on the railroad.&nbsp; It only gets to be a problem when its starts to feel like its not really their choice to be there.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 4706376, member: 4937"] Sure, a few adventures have a slightly more complex flowchart than A->B->C->D, but the point still stands. The open ended sandbox style module was experimented early in D&D's history, and generally was not as well received as scripted events - probably because people didn't like spending money for just a loose framework of ideas which left most of the work up to the DM. Modern adventures tend to be highly linear. Many of the most famous modules are parts of 'adventure paths', where the completion of Module 'M1' invaribly leads to 'M2', and then 'M3', and so forth. There is no expectation that by the time M4 comes around that the events of M3 will have completely invalidated it, nor can you really get involved with locations and NPC's from M5, then skip back to M2, and then immediately go to M9, or so forth. Again, I'm not passing judgement on this. It can be alot of fun, and as I said, I would encourage new DMs to start a campaign with a fairly linear adventure and some exciting scripted events to get things jump started. 'Railroading' got a bad name because there was a tendancy for novice DM's when confronted by an player action in M2 that would invalidate the entire M3 module, or faced with a player decision that took the party right out of the flow chart, to just say, "No. You can't do that.", especially when the PC's had thought of a creative solution that would let them defeat the adventure far more easily than the DM had intended. "No, you can't do that.", is a highly antogonistic stance for a DM and is generally unjustified and unfair, so naturally it got a bad name. But most of the time I think players are happy to be on the railroad. It only gets to be a problem when its starts to feel like its not really their choice to be there. [/QUOTE]

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