Cohesion vs Railroading

[DongShenYin]

How does one structure an individual adventure? I mean, left on
their own, players tend to go off on tangents, get interested in
irrelevant things, have goals that just throw the GM's story off...

To me, this is a logical plot progression:

Intro
Conflict
Interaction
Conflict
Resolution

But of course, if I try to enforce the plot structure, I'd be accused
of railroading... Or is it a mentality thing? Crafting stories vs
playing a game?

What do you guys think?

--Dora

 

[Tonguez]

Not sure what you mean you have a basic plot progression but without detail nothing can be said about it

Railroading would be there is an Orc with a pie in Room 3. The PCs need the pie to reach resolution and have to get it by killing the orc.

However what if the PCs decide to negotiate with the orc? or wait til the orcs asleep and steal the pie? (conflict resolved imho)

what if the PCs avoid room 3 and instead visit room 5 -9, - can I simply move the pie to room 7 and have it in the possession of an elf mime?

Any my plot resolution goes

1 Intro
2 Obstacle
3 Goal/Outcome

Obstacles might be Conflicts, Interactions, Puzzles or anything else the PCs want to do. Responding and managing these Obstacles to reaching the Outcome

 

[Someone]

In my experience, players go on a tangent when they don´t have a clear goal, or the means to archieve that goal aren´t clear. For example, say you have prepared a campaing of political intrigue, and expect the players to make their own way into the city´s inner workings. In that situation, the average player or group will just go to the tavern or spend three hours roleplaying a visit to a shop.

Same thing if you set a broad goal, like "You decided/have to organize a revolution and topple King A". The player´s probably won´t know how to start, and we´re back at the tavern, spending the session in a drinking contest.

By my experience, the best way to handle that is to reveal some bits of information (for example, there´s a bastard child that could claim the throne, and Count B is a secret enemy of the King) and ask the players to think on the sitution over the week, or dedicate the last hour of the session to brainstorm out of character (this part is important, or we´ll be back at the tavern) what to do. They may ignore your clues and go another way -say, one of them is a cleric powerful enough and they decide to start theocracy-

When they have decided what to do, then you write the module. The key in this part is detail the environment, the NPCs, and at least think on what would they do in response to various things. Do not plan the PC´s actions. Avoid any situation that could halt the adventure if the PC´s don´t do it, or do it, like "the PCs have to speak with Hermit C to learn where the Important Magic item is, they arrive there but the BBEG steals the item in front of their faces." If the party kills the hermit, or are smart enough get the item despite the BBEG´s efforts, you´ll have to railroad. Instead, make speaking with the hermit important, but not vital (there´s other ways to learn where the item is) and have the item be stolen long before, leaving a trap or ambush where it was. As Tonguez said, the module structure shouldn´t have the conflict/interaction part built in; the payers are the ones who have to make that. And be sure they know how to start.

 

[Chimera]

In my experience, players go on a tangent when they don´t have a clear goal, or the means to archieve that goal aren´t clear.

Or when they are completely uninterested in the goal.

Do not plan the PC´s actions. Avoid any situation that could halt the adventure if the PC´s don´t do it

As Tonguez said, the module structure shouldn´t have the conflict/interaction part built in; the payers are the ones who have to make that. And be sure they know how to start.

Exactly. No "X must happen exactly as I've written it, or the entire adventure falls apart" scenarios. This is the very core of railroading and a sure way to frustrate players. Nothing I hate worse than coming up with a better solution only to have the GM balk because he planned on having us do exactly what he thought should happen.

"But if you don't go there at such-and-such time and capture the evil guy's Lieutenant, you'll never find out about his secret dingus!"

Hmmm... So what happens if we go, but fail to win the battle, or kill the guy instead? Will you "let" us win by fudging dice? Will you have the guy surrender and suddenly NPCs are showing up to stop us from killing him? If so, then why am I playing your game? Go write a book and leave me out of it!

On the OP, are you "enforcing" that your encounters and the players actions must follow a script you've prepared? Is that what you mean by enforcing the plot? If so, you're railroading. Stop trying to script your players actions and responses. Let them play the game.

 

[shilsen]

How does one structure an individual adventure? I mean, left on their own, players tend to go off on tangents, get interested in irrelevant things, have goals that just throw the GM's story off...

Why would the things they are interested in be irrelevant? If they enjoy doing or pursuing whatever they do, that's a good thing, IMO, since the aim of the game is to have fun. As for throwing the GM's story off, the way I figure it, the GM's story is supposed to be about the PCs, so whatever they are doing is not irrelevant, nor a tangent.

At the start of my current Eberron session, I explained to my players that they should not waste time trying to stick to my story or follow the plot - since there won't be any predetermined one. They get to choose what they will pursue and what aims they will have, and that's what the game will focus on. There will be lots of options and various paths that they can follow (and I'm sure they will create more than a few paths of their own), and any and all of them will be interesting, because I will make it so. They decide to go off to Xen'drik? Cool. They decide to form a mercenary company? Cool. They decide to hang out in the tavern all day? Also cool (bar-fight!). Obviously, since I want them to have the sense of a living, breathing world around them, others will interact with them, and the party can choose to follow up on some of these interactions, but the choice will ultimately be theirs, not mine.

I will admit that DMing this way is harder than if I had a specific plot all set up beforehand for them to follow. But in its own way it's incredibly fun and satisfying for me as well, and allows me to have a piece of the "sensawunda" (technical term ) that players get, since even I don't know exactly where the game is going. For example, tomorrow I'll be going to the game with a dozen different mission options (the PCs were talking to a contact about job options at the end of last session), and I have no clue which one the PCs will choose, or if they'll even ignore all of them and go do something else. Whichever it is, I'll handle it and we'll have fun.

On the OP, are you "enforcing" that your encounters and the players actions must follow a script you've prepared? Is that what you mean by enforcing the plot? If so, you're railroading. Stop trying to script your players actions and responses. Let them play the game.

Bingo!

 

[Ranes]

How does one structure an individual adventure? I mean, left on
their own, players tend to go off on tangents, get interested in
irrelevant things, have goals that just throw the GM's story off...

DM ideas are good. DM stories are bad. The best story, the one the players are going to love and the one they are going to massage your ego by reminding you about in years to come, is the story they write by playing your game. Instead of worrying about your story, help them write theirs.

To me, this is a logical plot progression:

Intro
Conflict
Interaction
Conflict
Resolution

In journalism particularly, cynical sub editors sometimes make the observation that even the best writers have been known to spend the first paragraph waffling. Most stories, they find, benefit from a broad stroke of the red pen right through that first paragraph. On that basis, your structure might look like this:

Conflict
Interaction
Conflict
Resolution

The first conflict is now your intro. A bit more dramatic and dynamic?

But of course, if I try to enforce the plot structure, I'd be accused of railroading... Or is it a mentality thing? Crafting stories vs
playing a game?

That's it. When you're world building and adventure building it's natural to want to use storytelling techniques. The pitfall is in thinking that it's your job to write the story. That's what you've got players for.

I spend a few hours a week trying to second-guess my players. Based on the outcome of the last session, I try to guess what they're going to try to do next session. I have a few alternative story outlines prepared. I have planted encounters and information in the players' path that I hope are going to encourage them to pursue one or two courses of action in particular. These are prepared in detail.

I have some standby encounters prepared that are designed to be dropped behind enemy lines at a moment's notice, in case the players go off at a tangent. I spend a lot of time working on these, because my players frequently go off at a tangent. These encounters aren't designed to railroad the players back into my previously prepared adventure. They are designed to entertain the players and buy me time to prepare for what I now know they want to do.

I don't consider any unused work wasted. If they didn't pursue a certain thread or have a certain encounter, that stuff can be used later (even if it needs tweaking in order for it to be transplanted to another place or another level of PC ability).

And the really tricky part is making it seem like, whatever happens, the resolution makes sense in a way that the players feel they've been the protagonists in a coherent adventure. I don't always succeed but practice definitely helps.

 

[painandgreed]

While I have a plot and expected course of action by the PCs, I don't worry about it. I worry about what the NPCs and monsters are going to do so if the PCs do nothing I know how the world will resolve itself as well as how it will resolve if they do what I think they will. I let them do what they want and usually, they surprise me with something in between. Say I create an adventure where the thieves guilds are in a war with eachother in the city. PCs deciding they don't want to deal with it and picking up and leaving the city is a perfectly good response even though it skips all my work.

 

[Umbran]

Why would the things they are interested in be irrelevant? If they enjoy doing or pursuing whatever they do, that's a good thing, IMO, since the aim of the game is to have fun. As for throwing the GM's story off, the way I figure it, the GM's story is supposed to be about the PCs, so whatever they are doing is not irrelevant, nor a tangent.

Except here we run into practical matters - Not every GM is good at winging it such that everything the PCs do winds up dramatic or interesting. Many folks need prep time to make a game work, and if the PCs go off in pursuit of goals that haven't seen prep-time, the GM is stuck. Similarly, not every player is good at choosing interesting goals or pursuits.

Nor is a world driven and centered upon player action particularly believeable. Sometimes, things unrelated to your goals impinge upon your life, no?

IMHO, the game is best not when the PCs are always reacting, nor when the world is always reacting. A mixture of both makes the most rich story.

 

[Desdichado]

First of all, if you throw intrigueing enough plot hooks at the players, they are likely to want to follow them on their own. A little judicious help and guidance during character creation can help make sure you have a group of PCs that are likely to be interested in the adventure's you've planned, rather than doing whatever the heck you never thought of.

Second, if your "adventure" is a selection of loosely connected plot hooks that all come together at some point, the players are making the decisions, but you're still not "winging it;" you've got plans to cover what they may decide to do.

Third, it's not hard to give your players the illusion of control, while still having them encounter what you planned, if you're just a little bit creative on the fly. "OK, so instead of going to the abandoned temple out in the desert, you want to go to Lady Dinkus' party and look for spies? It turns out that the storage cellars under her mansion connect to a series of caves, and have ... many of the same encounters you would have faced had you gone to the temple!" Not a great example, but hopefully my point is clear.

Fourth, yeah, this is a game, and although it shares a number of things with stories, novels and whatnot, it isn't a collaborative novel writing exercise. You do have to be a bit fast and loose with narrative structure if you hope to not totally frustrate your players. My personal preference is to create an environment, with dynamic NPCs that have goals and plans, and then wind up that environment and let it run on its own. Throw the PCs into the mix and see how they impact the goals and plans of the NPCs, instead of trying to tailer the goals and plans of the NPCs particularly to interact with the PCs. I think its fascinating to let the PCs gradually come to realize that some of the things that are happening around them are the results of either things they did, or things they choose not to do. Didn't want to go rescue the princess from whatever? Guess what? Now the kingdom you live in is at war with the guys who kidnapped and killed her. And so the environment in which the PCs interact changes, and they can see why.

 

[fusangite]

I think it's a question of what type of free will you decide to prioritize in your campaign. I find that there is a limited amount of free will a GM can sustain and, inevitably, when one kind of free will is given, the other kind is taken away.

When a GM "wings it," what really happens is that the players are no longer determining what is happening; they are merely determining on what terms things happen.

On the other hand, when a GM nails down locations, monster/NPC stats and motivations and all those other things precisely, what the players lose in free will when it comes to where they are and what they are doing, they gain in controlling what actually takes place.

The more constrained a story is by detail, the less room a GM has to wriggle-out if the villain is killed three episodes before he should be. But the less detail there is constraining a GM, the more effectively he can control the major plot elements -- because the minor elements can be changed at will.