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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 8693089" data-attributes="member: 2629">In my experience, these approaches tend* to result in games that feel like slow paced video games rather than an RPG. Why?  The text works, but the subtext is often* nonexistent.  It usually* has that feel of randomly inserted challenges because the wayPlayers start to ask questions about why the dungeon is laid out in such a random manner.  They ask why the group has to go through the kitchen to reach the chief's bedroom.  The group asks why they always choose the right door.  They ask, and ask, and ask ... the same way we ask questions about video games, especially older ones, where the pieces only kinda fit together.D&D is an RPG.  A role playing game.  Characters play a role in a story.  In a good story, the world around thew characters makes sense.  It feels like the players are entering someplace that has existed long before they arrived, not something that was thrown together to give them a challenge.  A well prepared session is going to be a better experience for players most of the time. Usually*, it isn't hard for players to see through a collage approach of improvised railroads and note that it feels far less immersive than a dungeon setting where you built the dungeon with a plan and a thought about how it is laid out.  When you can smell the cinnamon a few rooms away from the kitchen, when the escape passage is laid out in a way that makes sense, when all the puzzle pieces fit ...* All that being said, there are times when this is the best path.  For example, when PCs reach higher levels, they get the capability to teleport across the world - or even between planes - in an instant.  My setting's primary world is roughly 23 times the size of the Earth.  My Astral Sea is literally infinite, as are my Elemental Planes - as is my version of Space surrounding the Prime Planet.  I can't plan everything.  I have a few 'in reserve' dungeons/cities/bnuildings/wilderness settings that I can pull out and populate on the fly, but there are times when none of them work for the strange place the PCs decide to go.  In those instances, I have to improvise the entire encounter/scenario and follow many of the rules recommended above to do so.  However, when I do so, I try to make sure I do the following:1.) Put a story first,  There has to be something there for the PCs to discover.  That story should unfold, and it is often best if it is not 'linear' so that the PCs are walked through the story as they find the elements.  It has to unfold as they go. 2.) There should be a greater story element wherever they go.  It may play into the current storylines that the PCs know, or it may drop seeds for a future storyline, but the adventure they are undertaking should have a purpose.  Sometimes that lore drop isn't even going to come to fruition during the current campaign ... but may result in seeds the players can plant that will impact the next campaign.  In the end, they can't just feel like this choice they made went nowhere.  You can get away with the occasional entirely self contained one shot ... but I really try not to have that be the case.3.) I try to drop a seed that will get them back to parts of the world that have prepared materials.  It won't be a direct connect, usually, as that feels out of place, but instead it will be something that reminds them of what they might be neglecting, or that would benefit them in doing what they are trying to do elsewhere.  A simple example would be finding a skeleton key that can open any lock once when they've been stymied by a lock that was not intended to be such a challenge, but they just couldn't get past and they left behind many sessions ago.</blockquote>

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