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<blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 8693395" data-attributes="member: 50987">I've used all of these, particularly the &quot;Ten Room Dungeon&quot; example.&nbsp; I find it's the most efficient use of my writing time.&nbsp; I'm also a fan of &quot;Before You Leave the Village&quot; and the &quot;What Path Do You Take&quot; options as well...they're more seamless.&nbsp; I try to avoid the &quot;Three Doors&quot; device, though.However, I've learned that it is very important to not use ANY railroad devices during the first 3-5 gaming sessions with my players, though.&nbsp; I know that during these first few gaming sessions, the players are going to be testing me.&nbsp; They will deliberately try to break whatever I put in front of them, to test the limits of my game world and find out how good I am at improv and adaptation.I show them three doors?&nbsp; They will spend an hour searching for a hidden fourth door, then hack all three doors apart with axes, then use familiars to scout through each doorway.&nbsp; Once they are satisfied that each door leads to a different location, they will start digging up the floor just to see what they find.&nbsp; If I don't give them something interesting to find, they will decide to leave the dungeon and go home.&nbsp; Eventually they will they concede that they need to pick a doorway to move forward...so they will divide the party into three groups and explore them all three separately and simultaneously.Why on earth are they doing this?! you might ask yourself.&nbsp; Well, their previous DM was a railroad engineer, and the players were made to feel like their choices won't matter.&nbsp; The players really do want their choices to matter, so they are going to do everything they can to discover whether or not I'm using a railroad plot device, and then escape it by any means necessary.&nbsp; It takes a handful of gaming sessions for this attitude to wear off...and once it does, I can gently start adding these tactics back in.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="CleverNickName, post: 8693395, member: 50987"] I've used all of these, particularly the "Ten Room Dungeon" example. I find it's the most efficient use of my writing time. I'm also a fan of "Before You Leave the Village" and the "What Path Do You Take" options as well...they're more seamless. I try to avoid the "Three Doors" device, though. However, I've learned that it is very important to not use ANY railroad devices during the first 3-5 gaming sessions with my players, though. I know that during these first few gaming sessions, the players are going to be testing me. They will deliberately try to break whatever I put in front of them, to test the limits of my game world and find out how good I am at improv and adaptation. I show them three doors? They will spend an hour searching for a hidden fourth door, then hack all three doors apart with axes, then use familiars to scout through each doorway. Once they are satisfied that each door leads to a different location, they will start digging up the floor just to see what they find. If I don't give them something interesting to find, they will decide to leave the dungeon and go home. Eventually they will they concede that they need to pick a doorway to move forward...so they will divide the party into three groups and explore them all three separately and simultaneously. [I]Why on earth are they doing this?! [/I]you might ask yourself. Well, their previous DM was a railroad engineer, and the players were made to feel like their choices won't matter. The players really do want their choices to matter, so they are going to do everything they can to discover whether or not I'm using a railroad plot device, and then escape it by any means necessary. It takes a handful of gaming sessions for this attitude to wear off...and once it does, I can gently start adding these tactics back in. [/QUOTE]

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