Burning out on best campaign I ever played in
- Thread starter Erithtotl
- Start date
Desdichado
Hero
It's the DMs job to throw out hooks for the players to react to. Players may or may not react to all the hooks the DM throws out, so he needs to be prepared to be a little loose on his feet. If, ultimately, the DMs hooks all lead to the same place, sorta, that's still not a railroad. A railroad is where the DM literally does not allow you to make any other choice than what he wants you to make.billd91 said:
The difference between a railroad and not can sometimes be sutble, but most players know when they've been railroaded, and don't know when they've been skillfully manipulated.
And that's the difference, it's not fun to be railroaded, it's fun to react to the hooks you want to react to.
Chimera
First Post
After reading all of this and having been through it many times, I have to relate the following tale of woe, told through years-mellowed laughter.
A bunch of us were playing with a long time friend as DM. We were getting railroaded all over the place. He was even deciding who we were fighting in melee, arguing with us about it when we insisted that we were elsewhere in the room.
Finally, we had had enough, and plotted a prison break. Not actual prison, but from the plot-prison he held us in. In the major port town of a desert nation, we attempted to hire a ship to take us elsewhere. Despite almost having achieved 'national hero' status there and having scads of money, *no one* would provide passage. We tried to BUY a ship. No one would sell.
So we tried to steal a ship.
In the early morning hours, the entire crew was awake and fighting in the first round. Multiple longboats filled with soldiers were making it across the bay and boarding "our" ship in a single round. We were still winning, sort of. He was deliberately fudging dice not to kill us and we were taking advantage of that to continue fighting even at 1 hit point.
So he set the ship on fire. Still fighting, the entire ship *somehow* burned to the water line with us on it, without ever hurting us.
"The ship has burned to the water line and is sinking. What do you do?"
Chorus: "We drown!!!" followed by wadded up character sheets being thrown at the DM's head.
What followed was 3 or 4 extremely p!ssed off players telling the guy in no uncertain terms that we were sick to death of him telling us what our characters were doing and making us follow a plot we didn't want to be a part of.
He got the hint. Somewhat.
He never completely stopped trying to railroad us or making our characters do improbable things against our will. We only played another six or eight months, tops.
Years later, after my own campaign had ended and it was time to start up another game, he was confused as to why none of us was really interested in having him GM another game.
The preceding Cautionary Tale has been brought to you by...
A bunch of us were playing with a long time friend as DM. We were getting railroaded all over the place. He was even deciding who we were fighting in melee, arguing with us about it when we insisted that we were elsewhere in the room.
Finally, we had had enough, and plotted a prison break. Not actual prison, but from the plot-prison he held us in. In the major port town of a desert nation, we attempted to hire a ship to take us elsewhere. Despite almost having achieved 'national hero' status there and having scads of money, *no one* would provide passage. We tried to BUY a ship. No one would sell.
So we tried to steal a ship.
In the early morning hours, the entire crew was awake and fighting in the first round. Multiple longboats filled with soldiers were making it across the bay and boarding "our" ship in a single round. We were still winning, sort of. He was deliberately fudging dice not to kill us and we were taking advantage of that to continue fighting even at 1 hit point.
So he set the ship on fire. Still fighting, the entire ship *somehow* burned to the water line with us on it, without ever hurting us.
"The ship has burned to the water line and is sinking. What do you do?"
Chorus: "We drown!!!" followed by wadded up character sheets being thrown at the DM's head.
What followed was 3 or 4 extremely p!ssed off players telling the guy in no uncertain terms that we were sick to death of him telling us what our characters were doing and making us follow a plot we didn't want to be a part of.
He got the hint. Somewhat.
He never completely stopped trying to railroad us or making our characters do improbable things against our will. We only played another six or eight months, tops.
Years later, after my own campaign had ended and it was time to start up another game, he was confused as to why none of us was really interested in having him GM another game.
The preceding Cautionary Tale has been brought to you by...
Farland
Explorer
Detailed DMing
As a detail-oriented DM, I can say that railroading is very bad, but obviously most DMs work better with time to plan in advance. Of course some of the most fun times are those times when things are winged completely, but I think on average a little planning increases the fun of the adventure immensely. So a good DM finds way to steer the characters without letting them know they are being railroaded. Of course if the players refuse to be steered the DM must roll with it and wing it, but it sounds to me like your DM's main problem is letting you know that you are being led. Plus huge dungeoncrawls are boring. If he is your friend, just level with him and it may all come out ok. Or better yet, show him this thread.
As a detail-oriented DM, I can say that railroading is very bad, but obviously most DMs work better with time to plan in advance. Of course some of the most fun times are those times when things are winged completely, but I think on average a little planning increases the fun of the adventure immensely. So a good DM finds way to steer the characters without letting them know they are being railroaded. Of course if the players refuse to be steered the DM must roll with it and wing it, but it sounds to me like your DM's main problem is letting you know that you are being led. Plus huge dungeoncrawls are boring. If he is your friend, just level with him and it may all come out ok. Or better yet, show him this thread.
Well, as a DM who plans and occasionally had talks with my players about railroading, consider some of this from his point of view. Since he ain't here, I'll be him:
You guys go home every week and do nothing. You level at the end of a session, and when you come back next week, you haven't even bothered to make your new-level character, so we all have to wait for you. In short, your commitment to the game is so weak that you don't do any work out of game, while I have to slave away making monsters and calculating skill points and stuff. If I make a certain character or monster, you can be darn sure I'm using him.
You guys also don't really roleplay. You SAY you want to roleplay and that I never give you enough time, but you don't really roleplay whenever I give you the opportunity. What you really mean by "roleplay" is either "brood" or "joke about how tricked out I am in a specific skill or combat style". I offer you moral ambiguity, and you complain about being screwed no matter what you do. I offer you intrigue, and you whine about it being too hard. I make things more obvious, and you complain about being railroaded. Your characters have no personalities, so they have no goals, so if I didn't make plot hooks happen to you each week, you'd just sit there blankly like a Baldur's Gate character whose player has gone off to the kitchen and forgotten he was playing a game.
And when you do complain, there's a bunch of accusatory whining. More than half the time, the whine is a power-boost request disguised as a complaint. The ranger complains that he hasn't gotten to fight in the wilderness enough lately, and that I need to bring in more of his favored enemies, which he's never actually displayed any sign of hating when I did bring them in. The rogue whines that the sorcerer is too powerful, and that his abilities are always nerfed in combat. The sorcerer complains that he doesn't have enough skills to be an interesting character. The cleric complains that he's stuck being heals-on-wheels. In short, you're all playing your characters ineffectually not just as roleplayers but as powergamers, and then asking me to artificially make you more powerful to make up for it.
Why exactly should I throw away the story I've got? In the chances I've given you, you've shown NO SIGN EVER of being able to proactively do anything on your own.
Note: I don't know if any of that is true. I've got no clue whatsoever. But I do know that I'm only hearing one side of this complaint, and all the people attacking the DM have never seen the game in question. I've heard players call out "railroading" because they didn't like the in-game consequences of their potential actions -- but railroading should only apply to out-of-game dynamics between DM and Players, not between NPCs and PCs. A DM who has an evil wizard kidnap your PC's sister and demand that you go destroy some dungeon is not railroading you, unless he also arbitrarily says that you have NO CHANCE of using Scrying, Gather Information, Bribery, or some other method to try and rescue her instead of going into the dungeon.
You guys go home every week and do nothing. You level at the end of a session, and when you come back next week, you haven't even bothered to make your new-level character, so we all have to wait for you. In short, your commitment to the game is so weak that you don't do any work out of game, while I have to slave away making monsters and calculating skill points and stuff. If I make a certain character or monster, you can be darn sure I'm using him.
You guys also don't really roleplay. You SAY you want to roleplay and that I never give you enough time, but you don't really roleplay whenever I give you the opportunity. What you really mean by "roleplay" is either "brood" or "joke about how tricked out I am in a specific skill or combat style". I offer you moral ambiguity, and you complain about being screwed no matter what you do. I offer you intrigue, and you whine about it being too hard. I make things more obvious, and you complain about being railroaded. Your characters have no personalities, so they have no goals, so if I didn't make plot hooks happen to you each week, you'd just sit there blankly like a Baldur's Gate character whose player has gone off to the kitchen and forgotten he was playing a game.
And when you do complain, there's a bunch of accusatory whining. More than half the time, the whine is a power-boost request disguised as a complaint. The ranger complains that he hasn't gotten to fight in the wilderness enough lately, and that I need to bring in more of his favored enemies, which he's never actually displayed any sign of hating when I did bring them in. The rogue whines that the sorcerer is too powerful, and that his abilities are always nerfed in combat. The sorcerer complains that he doesn't have enough skills to be an interesting character. The cleric complains that he's stuck being heals-on-wheels. In short, you're all playing your characters ineffectually not just as roleplayers but as powergamers, and then asking me to artificially make you more powerful to make up for it.
Why exactly should I throw away the story I've got? In the chances I've given you, you've shown NO SIGN EVER of being able to proactively do anything on your own.
Note: I don't know if any of that is true. I've got no clue whatsoever. But I do know that I'm only hearing one side of this complaint, and all the people attacking the DM have never seen the game in question. I've heard players call out "railroading" because they didn't like the in-game consequences of their potential actions -- but railroading should only apply to out-of-game dynamics between DM and Players, not between NPCs and PCs. A DM who has an evil wizard kidnap your PC's sister and demand that you go destroy some dungeon is not railroading you, unless he also arbitrarily says that you have NO CHANCE of using Scrying, Gather Information, Bribery, or some other method to try and rescue her instead of going into the dungeon.
This is a topic which is near and dear to my heart. On an abstract level, I think all campaigns should be player-focused, because those are the ones that have the best chance of being 'more than the sum of our parts'. In the end, its less fun to be a DM who railroads because there is little surprise and burnout might predate the actual conclusion to the campaign. Story creation should be a group excercise..
On the other hand, in my own Play-by-Post, I have taken to the detail oriented approach. I fear becoming the railroader. This is a public statement to my 'Feint Whispers' players. If you ever feel constrained, contact me and give me a proverbial slap in the head.
On the other hand, in my own Play-by-Post, I have taken to the detail oriented approach. I fear becoming the railroader. This is a public statement to my 'Feint Whispers' players. If you ever feel constrained, contact me and give me a proverbial slap in the head.
Desdichado
Hero
Good advice, takyris. However, that's a bit of a jump to assume that any of that is happening. We can only respond to the situation as presented to us. If I were in the situation as it has been presented to me I'd ditch the game quick, and offer to run my own. That's of course, conditional on the situation actually being what it's described as, but I think that's a given.
Mirth
Explorer
jasamcarl said:This is a topic which is near and dear to my heart. On an abstract level, I think all campaigns should be player-focused, because those are the ones that have the best chance of being 'more than the sum of our parts'. In the end, its less fun to be a DM who railroads because there is little surprise and burnout might predate the actual conclusion to the campaign. Story creation should be a group excercise..
On the other hand, in my own Play-by-Post, I have taken to the detail oriented approach. I fear becoming the railroader. This is a public statement to my 'Feint Whispers' players. If you ever feel constrained, contact me and give me a proverbial slap in the head.
If I did that, wouldn't I be out of the intiative order, Carl?
Takyris makes some good points, I have sat through the lone player leveling their character during play-time many a time. But what is the purpose of the game? To have fun. It sounds like Erithtotl isn't having any, regardless of if he's a downtrodden gamer playing under the bootheel of an oppresive DM or a slacker who isn't giving as good as he gets.
Erithtotl, if you think you aren't getting what you're looking for out of this gaming group, it's time to move on. If you have one other like-minded person who'll join you, you've got the beginnings of a new group. Hopefully leaving this game won't end your friendship with the rest of the group. Personally I think the idea of having two different gaming groups in acircle of friends is a great idea: you can share war stories, get advice, maybe team up every now and then for a one-shot cross-over game.
If you decide to go, keep it positive, try not to burn bridges. But don't let yourself get stuck in a dysfunctional group.
Erithtotl, if you think you aren't getting what you're looking for out of this gaming group, it's time to move on. If you have one other like-minded person who'll join you, you've got the beginnings of a new group. Hopefully leaving this game won't end your friendship with the rest of the group. Personally I think the idea of having two different gaming groups in acircle of friends is a great idea: you can share war stories, get advice, maybe team up every now and then for a one-shot cross-over game.
If you decide to go, keep it positive, try not to burn bridges. But don't let yourself get stuck in a dysfunctional group.
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