DMs: Are you a "plot-nazi"?

[Uller]

I've seen a few references here and there about DMs who come to the table with a story in mind and attempt to manipulate the game to allow his plot to unfold.

A few "veteran" sources have recently spoken out against this sort of thing. EGG said in an on-line interview that D&D is not a story. The story is what you tell afterwards. Ray Winninger said in Dragon #293 in his Dungeoncraft article that he creates "situations" not stories. He essentially places interesting things around the PCs and lets things play out in reaction to the actions (or lack thereof) of the PCs.

I profoundly agree with both these. When I DM, I want the players to tell me a story. I just give them the elements of it (characters, plot devices, etc). When I play, I want to be the master of my own fate. Not a puppet.

When I create an adventure, I rarely have any sort of plot in mind. I place monsters and NPCs and bits of information around and allow the PCs to explore and act however they want. The NPCs have plans of their own, but those plans can certainly change in reaction to what the PCs do or don't do. Sometimes the NPCs may plan to capture or kill one or more of the NPCs...but I don't know if that will happen or not.

However, I do sometimes tell a "story" to the players. Usually, though this story is not about the PCs (although they can often affect it's outcome).

For instance, one of the adventure's I'm currently running involves the murder of a merchant and his familly in their home. The PCs were hired by the merchant's brother to clear the home of any evil that lurks there and (failing that) retrieve a familly hierloom. There are all sorts of clues about who murdered the family and why scattered about the home. The "story" I'm telling the PCs is about the murder, the events leading up to it and those that participated in it.

Events are still unfolding though, so if the PCs figure out who "dunnit", future adventures could take place. They could try to bring he murderer(s) to justice and foil their future plans. They could investigate more about what the various NPCs were doing to find out more about their motivations etc. They make some useful friends or some powerful enemies along the way. I have no idea how it will all turn out and won't do anything to manipulate events. I will have the various NPCs react in logical and (more importantly) interesting ways. But that's about it.

So...are you a plot-nazi? Do you decide in advance that in order for your adventure to be successful, PC X must get poisoned by NPC Y and the PCs must decide to go off in a certain direction? There will always be a certain amount of railroading and metagaming for the PCs to get to the adventure in order to keep the PCs from going off on a tangent, but at some point you have to allow the PCs a certain amount of freedom to determine their own path...

I do my own railroading, but only after the players have decided a course of action. At the beginning of a campaign, I railroad them into one (short) adventure. This allows everyone to create a character and jump right into the excitement. During this adventure (and all subsequent ones), I pepper them with hooks for future adventures. As it comes to a close, I ask them to decide what they are going to do next. Then I prepare the next adventure accordingly. If at some point, they get off track, that's okay by me. They can return to the adventure where they left off, but time will have advanced and events will have happened.

So...that's my $3.50.

 

[Dr Midnight]

I had a famous situation where I cringed and let players go ahead with a campaign-destroying idea. It did indeed destroy the campaign. I'm kinda glad I didn't plot-nazi, but I do worry about the story a lot. I'm always looking out for how something will read in the story hour- motivations, drama, etc... it all has to be there. I don't tell the players they CAN'T do something that disrupts the story flow, but I might tell them why they shouldn't, or just throw some obstacles in their way.

 

[Crothian]

I have a story, but it's up to the players to participate. They might be there for chapter one. Go somewhere else and do other things, and they find themsleves going through chapter five. Events do unfold with out the PCs help, so I allow them to do what they want knowing that things are happening around them.

 

[SableWyvern]

When I DM, the players can generally do whatever they want. I frequently run sessions with little or no prep, and equally little idea as to what is going to happen. Thus I simply cannot railroad.

However, I am also quite happy to place PCs in situations where they have little or no choice as to where they go. Sometimes that happens IRL; there's no reason it shouldn't happen in-game. If, when presented with such a situation, the PCs still chose to go a different way, then the consequences are on their heads. I don't see that as railroading (or nazi-DMing) though.

When I do railroad (which is rare, but does sometimes happen) I consider it my responsibility to keep the railroading hidden from the players. ICE has written some great stuff on this technique, calling it "maintaining the illusion of free-will", IIRC.

It is a great feeling as a DM, when the players say, after the session:

"Wow. If we hadn't chosen to stop in at this house, and PC X hadn't spurned that Warlock, and we hadn't then chosen to head in this direction, and we hadn't chosen to visit this church and agree to pay that price, we never would have found this particular tower."

And you know that whatever they did, they were going to reach the tower.

When railroading is frequent, and even more importantly, when it is obvious, there is a problem. IMO, a good DM knows how to combine various skills, including subtle railroading, in order to create a plot that the players enjoy, and which at all times maintains that illusion of free will.

 

[takyris]

Yup.

Plot Nazi. Guilty as charged. Working on it, trying to make it less obvious, but that is so totally very completely what I am. I tend to be overt but not metagamish about it. They get geased after getting caught in a trap, or someone is trying to kill them and they have to stop him -- I don't just tell the PCs, "You go here now." But still, I am guilty of railroading.

In my defense:

I am WAY into PCs who want a hand in the plot. I bug the players to tell me where they want their person to go. If they want to work into a leadership position in town, if they want to start a business, if they are looking for a girlfriend, I will make that work into the overall plot.

I'm trying to give them more options. The problem is that when I leave things open-ended, the party tends to shrug and not do a whole lot. It's a vicious circle, I know, but unless I have someone doing drive-by fireballings, the party doesn't really do a whole lot. They act purely in self-defense.

All that said, I'm working on it, and I'd love to get it to the point where there's a bunch of plottiness happening, and the PCs can pick which plot they want to follow up on.

-Tacky

 

[Sigma]

I roll my dice in front of the players, don't fudge, and generally let them do whatever they want. I generally have an idea and a set of events that I plan to have occur, and I provide opportunities and hooks for the players to get involved, but I don't think I railroad them into doing stuff. I've gotten really good at planting clues and relying the characters goals to provide motivation for them to follow those clues.

For example: The game is a thieve's guild type campaign. The players didn't like the guy above them and wanted to take him out. But, they also had to keep other factions from muscling in on their turf. I sowed the adventures with opportunities for the characters to gain power and influence over other factions, and material to legitimize their attack on their superior. Finally, it all came together in a meeting where the lead PC told one of the superior's rivals something along the lines of 'we've got all the cards, you either fall in line behind us, or take a hike.' The NPC had no choice, she would've been in a worse situation not following the PC's than following them. It was a great game.

 

[the Jester]

I dangle plot hooks everwhere but I let the characters decide what to bite. Things happen around them so sometimes circumstances force them in one or another direction but I don't usually plot things out in advance too much.

 

[Uller]

When railroading is frequent, and even more importantly, when it is obvious, there is a problem. IMO, a good DM knows how to combine various skills, including subtle railroading, in order to create a plot that the players enjoy, and which at all times maintains that illusion of free will.

That's not necessarily railroading (okay...it is...but it isn't bad railroading). What I'm really talking about is when the DM fudges the rules or has NPCs to illogical things in order to achieve a specific result. For instance...the DM decides that as part of his plot, the evil NPC cleric instructs some of his ghouls to paralyze and capture one of the PCs. But when the fateful encounter occurs, the PCs do something unexpected and no one is paralyzed or captured...so the DM starts throwing more ghouls at them or increasing save DCs in order to insure that this critical event happens. That's what I mean by being a plot nazi.

Sure, I might have an evil NPC decide to caputer a PC. And I'll have him plan out his scheme based on whatever knowledge he has. But when the attack comes, if the PCs foil it, good for them.

I once played in a game where a wizard and his apprentice were serving as "guides" to the party of first level characters. The wizard kept stepping in and saving our skins are every turn and was really leading the party rather than guiding it. This was annoying so we players decided to go our own way, only to be geased into following them. The DM actually flipped through the PHB to find just the right spell. The DM had a story in mind and damnit we were going to follow it! Bah! I never went back for the second game...

 

[Teflon Billy]

A few "veteran" sources have recently spoken out against this sort of thing. EGG said in an on-line interview that D&D is not a story. The story is what you tell afterwards. Ray Winninger said in Dragon #293 in his Dungeoncraft article that he creates "situations" not stories. He essentially places interesting things around the PCs and lets things play out in reaction to the actions (or lack thereof) of the PCs.

I agree with Ray Winninger (and also create the "situations" he speaks of), but disagree with Gary (sorry Colonel), I think that D&D should be a story.

My games usually have some overarching plot that the PC's are free to take part in as much or as little as they wish (they usually wish to as the plots are pretty interesting).

But I never, ever plan out what next week's adventure is gong to be until this week's adventure is complete. I always need to see where the PC"s are going/what the PC's have done before I can effectively move everyting ahead.

The only advice I haev is to have a goood idea of the NPC personalities in your world. KNowing how they will react to new stimulus is what will keep a game fresh.

 

[spunky_mutters]

We had a saying that was supposed to have come from the DM of a friend of a friend, whenever he wanted to railroad his PCs.

It went like this:

DM:You see a dark and forbidding castle.

PC:We head back to town.

DM:You can't.

PC:Why not? We need supplies. We're not spending the night in some haunted castle.

DM: You can't go back to town.

PC:Why not?

DM:"An evil wind blows you in."

That became our saying whenever players thought they could see the rails.

There does have to be a certain level of compromise, though. When I tried to teach my players Runequest, they decided to be complete jerks. I gave them some sample characters and plopped them down on a road outside a town. Just to get them a feel for some of the play mechanics. They absolutely refused to enter the town. They had decided just to piss me off, they would rather starve in the wilderness than do this. I had no alternative. I put away my shiny new books, put my stuff in another room, and I attacked them. I was doing great until one of the downed players executed a prone attack on me from behind, getting me in the dice bag, so to speak.

You just have to know when to cut your losses. Sometimes players just aren't 'ON'.