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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rounser" data-source="post: 172215" data-attributes="member: 1106">What follows is a theoretical framework I've been thinking about and planning for, but have yet to implement, so take it with a grain of salt and accept that a lot of it may be more academic than practical.  Note that this sort of thing will require a lot more work to prepare than a single path railroad campaign, which seems to be the standard.  Rather absurdly, the best models I've found for semi-non linear D&D come from computer games(!) and "On-the-fly" DMing - most published P&P modules and prepare-in-advance DMs I've met make little effort in pushing even a semi-non-linear campaign theme, probably because of the amount of page count or work involved.  Those modules and DMs who are an exception to this seem to be a rare and elite breed (and have been known to post in the Story Hours section of these boards from what I gather).    In order to keep the amount of work down you may want to restrict your campaign to a limited area.  With that in mind...One very simple device for making player choice meaningful is littering wilderness and urban areas with areas to explore.  Lairs and dungeons in your wilderness just waiting to be discovered or found through rumours can give your players choices to make in exploring your setting.  You can do the same with urban encounters and adventuring sites, with adventure hooks triggering based on entering certain areas.  Of course, if the players explore more, you'll probably need to prepare more setting detail in advance.  Adapted material from Volo's Guides might come in handy to save some work.  The nice thing about this approach is that the PCs can go where they want, when they want, and perhaps take a break from the "scripted" side of the campaign to explore the city, looking for trouble - or go bash a dungeon they've heard about or stumbled across.  There's a special kind of magic to actually discovering an adventuring site rather than having it dropped at one's feet through a hook.Problems and issues I can see with this structure...The tricky part could be in matching character level to the ELs of the static sites, because theoretically the PCs may be able to visit a static site at any time unless you put up barriers to doing so.  Presumably you should be able to update unexplored lower EL grounds between sessions as the PCs gain power, "advertise" that a site is out of their league one way or another, or bring a site to their attention when they're the right level for it.  "Thar's trolls in them thar hills."To go up a notch, you could go for a hybrid railroad/non-linear approach, with an overall story arc supported by core plot adventures which provides the campaign direction.  I suggest that the story arc adventures should be railroaded in order to give the campaign structure, a theme, a vehicle for the primary villain and a climax.  But...they can be coupled with a bunch of "optional" adventures that are either unrelated to the main story arc or only somewhat related.  You can present two or three "optional" adventure hooks to have as options at any one time that the PCs can pursue or ignore - they effectively choose what to do next, but the overall direction of the campaign is still under DM control because the PCs have a railroad obligation to complete the main story arc adventures sooner or later.  I highly recommend Dungeon magazine for supplying "optional" adventures; it should save a boatload of work.Problems and issues that I can see with this structure...Balancing completion of the main story arc adventures against completion of the side adventures is something you'll probably have to consider.  Players may attempt to delay doing the main plotline adventures for as long as possible in order to gain XP from the side treks and static adventuring sites - or ignore the side adventures and sites and go straight for the main plotline, because they have compelling in-character reasons to do so.  I suggest putting up barriers to completion of the main plotline at certain points to slow down completion of the core story arc if the PCs are completing it to quickly without trying the "optional" adventures, or introduce a very obvious and urgent time limit to completion of the central plotline if the PCs are spending too much time on the side adventures and static sites in order to rack up the XP and gold.Whatever approach you take, I suggest telling the players about the campaign structure well in advance and emphasising it so they don't forget.  As has been pointed out earlier on this thread, players operate on assumptions about how the game is going to play.  The default assumption among D&D players is usually that you're going to railroad them if you're not making it up on the fly, so make sure that they know that there are random locations to explore in the wilderness (if you have them), and that there is a realistic possibility that the rumours they hear or hooks they see will in fact lead to other adventures that are either unrelated or only cursorily related to the main plotline that's (usually) being dumped in front of them.Note also that I suspect that some of the implications of these suggestions are in direct violation of Dungeoncraft Rule #1 (Don't prepare more than you have to).  Probably best to repeat this as a mantra if preparing such a campaign, and keep obsolescence to a minimum (or update and re-use the material later in the campaign if it gets "skipped").</blockquote>

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