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<blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6686990" data-attributes="member: 5834"><p>When engaged in battles, you don't get to choose to avoid them unless you want a bunch of people to die or to fail your goals. Sometimes you get ambushed by equally powerful people. Sometimes villains don't sit by and give you the chance to avoid them, they come after you and they come with deadly intent. Why is that a railroad but putting a ship of beholders in front that are fractious and disorganized isn't? </p><p></p><p>Even if you're not railroading someone, don't they make enemies? Are villains or evil NPCs always passive waiting for the PCs to decide how to deal with them? The PCs can choose to cower and surrender, right? Isn't that a possible decision when constructing real life scenarios? Avoid the BBEG when he shows up to tyrannize the town or conquer the world? Cower before him? Serve him? These are all available options. My players usually choose the heroic option to fight him. When they do, he fights them back. He doesn't wait for them to break into his house and kill them. </p><p></p><p>I don't understand why that is viewed as a railroad. Even monsters and NPCs have motivations that the PCs are at odds with. Those individuals will go out of their way to kill them. Such as a dragon tracking the PCs at a range they can't attack him at. Watching them from Mountain tops or high in the sky waiting to attack them when they are engaged with other enemies. </p><p></p><p>Sometimes you can't avoid fights if you choose to make someone your enemy. That is not railroading. That is the PCs making a choice to oppose someone or something that is powerful enough to kill them. Some people vainly think that a sandbox somehow mirrors a true fantasy world better. I don't think that is the case. Even in the real world people are constantly seeking to control territory, people, make money, and they are doing so often in opposition to others. D&D takes that to another level by including monsters and other planes and dimensions. But evil beings are trying to conquer things and take things and hurt loved ones. The PCs happen to be the people that can oppose them because they have the power to do so. Yet you consider this rail-roading.</p><p></p><p>Even when I've constructed a narrative, the players always have the option to leave the scenario or handle it in any way they see fit. To me a railroad is when the PCs exert no control over the narrative. Not when they make a choice to enter a place and do battle making enemies and the NPCs don't let them leave at a convenient time and don't leave them alone once they leave. Don't you ever have enemies pursue your players to the death because they are threat to their plans? You must have had occasions when this occurred? I can't imagine you run a game where your NPCs survive the fight with the PCs and decide to go after them. Or the PCs invade a fortress of the enemy and he doesn't wait for them to come back, he tracks them down to kill them. If you've never run such encounters, then I guess you wouldn't understand the things I do within the narrative.</p><p></p><p>Everything is very natural. If you were playing with in my game, you wouldn't feel for a second like you were being forced into things. Instead you would feel like a person in a situation where you were dealing with a serious evil that you could choose to oppose or you could choose another option such as fleeing or working for the evil. I don't see how that is different from choosing a direction.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celtavian, post: 6686990, member: 5834"] When engaged in battles, you don't get to choose to avoid them unless you want a bunch of people to die or to fail your goals. Sometimes you get ambushed by equally powerful people. Sometimes villains don't sit by and give you the chance to avoid them, they come after you and they come with deadly intent. Why is that a railroad but putting a ship of beholders in front that are fractious and disorganized isn't? Even if you're not railroading someone, don't they make enemies? Are villains or evil NPCs always passive waiting for the PCs to decide how to deal with them? The PCs can choose to cower and surrender, right? Isn't that a possible decision when constructing real life scenarios? Avoid the BBEG when he shows up to tyrannize the town or conquer the world? Cower before him? Serve him? These are all available options. My players usually choose the heroic option to fight him. When they do, he fights them back. He doesn't wait for them to break into his house and kill them. I don't understand why that is viewed as a railroad. Even monsters and NPCs have motivations that the PCs are at odds with. Those individuals will go out of their way to kill them. Such as a dragon tracking the PCs at a range they can't attack him at. Watching them from Mountain tops or high in the sky waiting to attack them when they are engaged with other enemies. Sometimes you can't avoid fights if you choose to make someone your enemy. That is not railroading. That is the PCs making a choice to oppose someone or something that is powerful enough to kill them. Some people vainly think that a sandbox somehow mirrors a true fantasy world better. I don't think that is the case. Even in the real world people are constantly seeking to control territory, people, make money, and they are doing so often in opposition to others. D&D takes that to another level by including monsters and other planes and dimensions. But evil beings are trying to conquer things and take things and hurt loved ones. The PCs happen to be the people that can oppose them because they have the power to do so. Yet you consider this rail-roading. Even when I've constructed a narrative, the players always have the option to leave the scenario or handle it in any way they see fit. To me a railroad is when the PCs exert no control over the narrative. Not when they make a choice to enter a place and do battle making enemies and the NPCs don't let them leave at a convenient time and don't leave them alone once they leave. Don't you ever have enemies pursue your players to the death because they are threat to their plans? You must have had occasions when this occurred? I can't imagine you run a game where your NPCs survive the fight with the PCs and decide to go after them. Or the PCs invade a fortress of the enemy and he doesn't wait for them to come back, he tracks them down to kill them. If you've never run such encounters, then I guess you wouldn't understand the things I do within the narrative. Everything is very natural. If you were playing with in my game, you wouldn't feel for a second like you were being forced into things. Instead you would feel like a person in a situation where you were dealing with a serious evil that you could choose to oppose or you could choose another option such as fleeing or working for the evil. I don't see how that is different from choosing a direction. [/QUOTE]
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