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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zelda Themelin" data-source="post: 1871400" data-attributes="member: 167">Yes, things should happen. This is not railroading, it's good having game with dm. Otherewise it's "nothing happens", which equals no-game in near future.However, things that should be happening should not always be bad things.It becomes depressive, it becomes game of big evil npc:s who are always on the head of things with uterior motives. Oh, combine this with pc:s inability to discover those true motives, and make those npc:s killable (one day or with help of another npc/group), but at the same time make pc:s always inable to truly affect them, and you are in darkest land of railroading. Because these plots threat pc:s as victims of fate.And repeat, next adventure will be just like this. Different evil guy or neutral ***hole, but same story. And pc:s can't avoid getting in the way of somebody's plans, because they are never informed enough, and things just happen.I had dm like this for years. Really great dm in many ways. Really good storyteller, which of course made darker elements of game even more dark. It was all well and good, 'till the day, you finally get that plots always are about negative stuff happening and they always come to players. Such coincidences aren't truly form realm of coincidence.Instead of something pc-neutral (but perhaps very important) stuff happened pc:s heard about and decide to get involted. When they are legally involted somehow, they might be assaulted by somebody they didn't know about, of course.This is also more true if players get famious. It changes dynamics, of what's likely to happen.But again, it should not still be all about bad things happening, or anything directly happening to them. At times, yes, but not all the time. And it must not always be "important" stuff. Relaxing day in the tavern, can well be just that. Maybe players just get to know some interesting people and talk with them. Or there is a bar fight, or whatever.And everybody certainly shoudn't have uterior motive. Everybody should have motive, but everyone having hidden motives, come on.Another thing about stuff happening I don't like, was something my other long-standing dm was quilty of. Stuff happening ALL THE TIME. So, no downtime, whenever players wanted to just relax and plan stuff among themselves, we were jumped by next adventure. It was all about reacting to stuff that happened to us, or near us, and no time to come up with anything of our own. We had our own ways of solving stuff, but it's not the same.I actually prefer some railroading myself when I play, or perhaps I should call it dm story, but too much is too much. However, it wasn't all that bad, because I played those dm:s games for years, and it wasn't lack of choice. I just kept hoping they would ease a bit with certain methods they used. They never did, these kind of people tend to think they are great storytellers (they were), and that there is nothing wrong with their dm:ing style (there sure was).Only one solution, but you got to find it yourself from non-linear world dm:s games I walked out after one session. Those games are just plain boring. And even depressive games win boring ones.</blockquote>

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