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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Uller" data-source="post: 273323" data-attributes="member: 413">Like I said...some railroading is necessary in some games.  The players need to metagame to the extent that D&D is an _adventure_ game and if they avoid the planned adventure (for DMs like me who are at the top of their game when they prepare), then they are avoiding the fun and ruining everyone's day.If the players fail to follow the hooks to the planned adventure, then the DM needs to do things to "encourage" them to take the hooks or he needs to find out why they don't want to do so (maybe they don't like the adventure...maybe they feel it is too tough or too easy or not what their character would want to do...a good DM needs to address these problems).As I said..."bad" railroading is purposely fudging the rules or manipulating events in an illogical way in order to force the action within an adventure to proceed a certain way.  Forcing the players to follow the day's planned adventure isn't always a bad thing...(I spend about 10 hours preparing for a 4-6 hour session...I'll be damned if that is all going to go to waste).  My solution has always been to allow the players to choose their path as freely as they want, but once they decide to go on an adventure, I prepare it so I ask them OoG to stick to that chosen path (unless I throw something in their way that obviously prevents that).  So if at the end of one adventure, they say "We go after the slave traders."  Then I prepare an adventure around the slave traders.  Next session I expect them to follow that path.</blockquote>

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