D&D 5E An adventure start for new PCs isn't railroading...

[IchneumonWasp]

Like others having stated before, this isn't railroading, it's starting things in medias res, which is often a great way to get the the players immediately active and involved in the game. Sure, it's a bit cliche, but not more so than starting your game in a tavern.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I'm going to say the same thing I did the last time the topic of Railroading came up. Railroading isn't bad. It's just a technique. It can be used for good or for ill. Different people find it more or less annoying.

I've seen many discussions about Railroading over the years and I can tell you that some people absolutely will see it as Railroading. Others, as you've seen, do not.

The basic description of Railroading I've seen tossed around is "Any time the DM forces me to do something I don't want to do". I know some people will view "be captured" as something they didn't want their character to do.

 

[Sunseeker]

Every game has to start somewhere. Having a "party" that's not a party just wandering around town doing what they normally do with no connection to each other in even the slightest manner really isn't the most auspicious way to start off a game. The party doesn't have to be best friends, but they've all got a general reason for being in the same place at the same time.

Take the Tavern Start:
Bob the Paladin walks in because of reports of a rowdy drunk.
Joe the rogue is attempting to scam some drunk noble (posssibly said rowdy drunk).
Susie the wizard is getting drunk off her ass because wizard school is out of session.
June the druid is trying not to look too uncomfortable around all this metal, a druid's reasons for being in town are mysterious.

Now you have all the people in the tavern. SUDDENLY SOMETHING EXPLODES!

So you got railroaded for 5 minutes to get the party together. I think if a player has issues with that, they've got bigger issues with the assumed tropes of the genre.

 

[wedgeski]

I've seen many discussions about Railroading over the years and I can tell you that some people absolutely will see it as Railroading. Others, as you've seen, do not.

Yup. It has, over the years, lost all meaning.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

As others have probably said, it's not a "railroad" if it's the very start of the campaign. Now, if everyones been playing their characters up to level 4 or 5, then a session starts and the DM says: Ok, you were all at the inn relaxing a week ago. Now, you wake up, shackled and naked in a prison wagon slowly moving through a high mountain pass.... Now that would count as "railroading"; the PC's were somewhere else before, of the players own choosing, and without any say or choice in the matter the DM just up and pulls a MAJOR change like this. That pisses of players.

But starting a new campaign, with no "backstory play" for characters, and saying You are all prisoners...here's the situation ..., isn't a problem. Hell, if any of you have ever played the original 2e Darksun adventures, many (most?) of them had the PC's starting off as slaves...

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Leif]

"Any time the DM forces me to do something I don't want to do". I know some people will view "be captured" as something they didn't want their character to do.

But this [the idea of any railroading of PCs being a bad thing] seems silly to me, beacause it unresonably limits a DM's options. Extending the logic of "not doing anything to the characters that they don't wish to happen" can lead to an entire campaign of nothing but monsters troooping into the town to seek out the adventurers and lay their treasure at the PCs feet just before throwing themselves on the PCs swords. That hardly qualifies as a game.

I'm not implying that you agree with this, Majoru Oakheart, just using your definition as a starting point.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

I see it as a good thing. It starts the game running, without the usual session of farting around with character intros and getting the inevitable one PC who drags his feet to go along with the hook so we can just friggin START already! At this stage in my life, I dont have time for a throwaway session of gear shopping and barmaid flirting before we get to the real plot.

 

[Remathilis]

Anyone remember good old N4 Treasure Hunt? The default start to that adventure was shipwrecked PCs with no gear. Even worse, they weren't even adventurers yet! The party had to survive the adventure in order to get any class abilities. That was a fun adventure.

Never played that one, but to me its completely the type of game I would absolutely despise playing. In general, I dislike "0-level" adventures; 1st level PCs are fragile enough and I really don't get the "enter as a pig farmer, leave as a paladin" model of character creation. Double-as-much if I find myself 0 level, with nothing but sticks or daggers to defend myself, and the notion that hundreds/thousands of XP later, you'll be a REAL PC. Skip the bumbling-commoner stage and let me play a novice squire, an apprentice mage, or a young cutpurse instead.

Of course, that's me. If others like it, more power to them.

I did once play (as I've alluded to) an AD&D 2e game where we all woke up in a lich's dungeon. (Said lich was not home, but left skeleton and goblins to guard it; it was a 1st level adventure). We woke up with nothing but loin clothes. We did the whole "escape our cell" trick and made it about half-way through his dungeon. The mage had no spells (knocked out to start) and his spellbook was in the lich's tomb. The cleric lacked a holy symbol so all he could cast was cure light wounds and couldn't turn undead. The fighter (me) and ranger found leather armor and daggers (and later, a mace and shortbow) and the thief lacked lockpicks, so when he made it to the locked first door (which was trapped) he ended up just forcing the door and died from the poison needle. About three rooms later, we ended up TPK'd to a group of skeletons and woke up (less one thief, who I think rolled up a fighter for round 2) back in cell, without anything we had acquired (even our loinclothes!) I'm pretty sure the game fell apart soon after that.

Now, I realize its an anecdote and that was pretty much the DM being unreasonable in his expectations of a first level party without gear, buts it left a sour taste in my mouth for "naked in a dungeon" cold openers.

 

[Dausuul]

My general complaint with "you start in prison" adventures is that often times the gear you find is worse than the stuff you would get as normal gear. I'm not talking special materials or unique items, I mean you often don't get what your PC should get: decent armor for fighters, holy symbols, thieves' tools, spell focuses, etc. I don't know how OotA handles it, but most of the "get out of prison" adventures I've seen keenly forgets to give the PCs the tools they need to do their job (true story: one DM I saw refused to give the PC wizard his spell book!) using the excuse of making it more challenging.

True dat. I've come to hate "you start in prison" scenarios for exactly this reason. Many classes expect access to certain items; fighters have their favored weapon types and armor, wizards need their spellbooks, clerics need holy symbols, et cetera. When you build a character, you do so in the expectation that you'll be able to pick suitable starting gear. Then you find out your gear is all gone and half your abilities are useless till you get it back... if you get it back. Sometimes you have to go through several sessions with scavenged crap.

It's not as bad if you know it's coming and can plan for it. Even so, adventure designers need to be extra careful to provide for PCs' needs. Spellbooks in particular are an issue. A wizard's spellbook is a major part of the character and losing it is a big deal. 5E wizards can get by okay without it for a while, but permanent spellbook loss is a crippling blow even in 5E; inflicting such a loss with no way to avoid it is grossly unfair. If you take a wizard's spellbook as part of the setup to an adventure, you need to give the wizard a way to get it back within 1-2 sessions at most.

 

[Remathilis]

True dat. I've come to hate "you start in prison" scenarios for exactly this reason. Many classes expect access to certain items; fighters have their favored weapon types and armor, wizards need their spellbooks, clerics need holy symbols, et cetera. When you build a character, you do so in the expectation that you'll be able to pick suitable starting gear. Then you find out your gear is all gone and half your abilities are useless till you get it back... if you get it back. Sometimes you have to go through several sessions with scavenged crap.

It's not as bad if you know it's coming and can plan for it. Even so, adventure designers need to be extra careful to provide for PCs' needs. Spellbooks in particular are an issue. A wizard's spellbook is a major part of the character and losing it is a big deal. 5E wizards can get by okay without it for a while, but permanent spellbook loss is a crippling blow even in 5E; inflicting such a loss with no way to avoid it is grossly unfair. If you take a wizard's spellbook as part of the setup to an adventure, you need to give the wizard a way to get it back.

I wager GR and WotC are smart enough to make sure that PCs can get the needed items (spellbooks, focuses, and tools) as well as some decent armor and weapons, but the trope has a lot of "bad" experiences because a lot of DMs think its a better "challenge" or "more realistic" to not be able to cast spells, use skills, or have an AC higher than 13 and do more than 1d6 damage per hit.

In the right hands, it can be an interesting change of pace. In the wrong hands, its sadomasochism. I've seen far more the latter in my years than the former...