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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cam Banks" data-source="post: 2492779" data-attributes="member: 3817">The original modules were actually very open-ended and incorporated many different alternate pathways to the ending. As one of the first attempts by TSR at bringing in an epic storyline and letting the player characters decide how it turns out, it was beset by a few problems, but it has influenced every adventure series since. It's perhaps because of this that people find it cliched; or perhaps folks these days don't notice that any adventure with a plot, a bad guy at the end, and some monsters in the middle is as railroading as the original modules were.I've heard some convincing arguments about heavy-handedness in the first module, DL1, which kicks the campaign off by sending the heroes off to Xak Tsaroth with the blue crystal staff in order to recover the Disks of Mishakal. After that point, however, the heavy-handedness starts to take a back seat. Each adventure has a goal, the heroes have a number of ways to achieve the goal, and in many of the modules the specifics of the goal (and the plot behind it) are up to the DM to decide based on a list of options. Indeed, the means of defeating the Dark Queen at the end of DL14 was not fixed, which means you could play through the adventures more than once and not have the storyline remain the same at all.The accusation of Dragonlance being a heavy-handed railroadfest is therefore, I believe, an exaggeration. I don't see any adventure path series on the market now that doesn't have these same elements, and in fact I don't see many which have the feature of multiple potential outcomes or plots. The celebrated Shackled City series which has recently been put together is one long plotline with a specific set of bad guys, plots, and an ending. If you deviate too far from that, the ending never happens either. So, why is it shocking to see it in a series of modules that are 21 years old?Cheers,Cam</blockquote>

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