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Message: <blockquote data-quote="timASW" data-source="post: 6133667" data-attributes="member: 6698787">Actually its exactly what he said. His example was a wizards tower full of traps and puzzles that he worked hard on and the players wanting to use magic or some other method to blast the whole thing down from the outside instead of going inside and messing with all that. Which as a GM I can see being a bit disappointing. But the answer isnt to railroad the players in a way that they absolutely have to go into the tower or your throwing a fit and going home.  The answer is not to waste your time designing a ton of things in an adventure that players are just going to want to avoid and get annoyed by and instead spend that time building open ended places and encounters that the PC's can engage in lots of ways or not engage at all and your not emotionally invested in that particular encounter or location as the GM.  Sure they set up a villain and his plans. Doesnt make it a railroad at all. The AP's say that Villain X is doing nefarious thing Y at location Z and here's his timeline. If you follow all the clues exactly, focusing exclusively on chasing towards that villains plans here's the chain of events you will encounter. But they are also full of well written, interesting locations that the players can deviate from the pre-ordained path and explore and possibly find other adventures in anytime they want. Thats a sand box with a metaplot. Not a railroad.</blockquote>