Grumble grumble...

[The Red King]

He's been DMing since D&D was three paperback books, and no, he wasn't running a published adventure.

He gets in this mode once in a while, when he's really excited about the story line he has in mind and kind of forgets that outcomes and events can/should be affected by PC actions.

I hate that kind of adventure. Why play if you are in effect just listening to a story?

 

[Walker N. Waistz]

There is a great chapter in one of the Gumshoe system books (I think it's Esoterrorists) where they really go into detail about how to have a predetermined trail of clues without it being a railroad. It's funny, because in that system the PCs automatically acquire certain central pieces of info that would allow them to move the adventure forward, and yet the emphasis is on putting that info in the PCs' path yet letting them decide what to do with it. I am pretty sure it is in Esoterrorists, by DMG2 author Robin Laws-- if you have the book, it might be good to have this guy read that part.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Well, we have a house rule to cover this. After a DM has finished his/her run the group can take a vote on whether that adventure really happened, or was it just a collective nightmare.

Do you retain XP and other acquired things from collective nightmares?

 

[Lwaxy]

Oh my... talk to him about it, seriously, this is not a game that is fun for anyone. Can't imagine it is fun for the GM either. At least I couldn't have fun without being surprised by the players.

 

[Greenfield]

Do you retain XP and other acquired things from collective nightmares?

Nope, it's a total reset. No loot, no Exp, no deaths, no nothing. It just plain never happened.

BTW: I spoke with the DM this morning. He reluctantly admitted that he'd been running a railroad. He hadn't seen how extreme it was, and he'll try to loosten things up.

 

[RUMBLETiGER]

Nope, it's a total reset. No loot, no Exp, no deaths, no nothing. It just plain never happened.

BTW: I spoke with the DM this morning. He reluctantly admitted that he'd been running a railroad. He hadn't seen how extreme it was, and he'll try to loosten things up.

Yay, happy ending!

 

[Greenfield]

As a sort of epilogue, I had a talk with the DM the night before the game, and we talked some more before the other players arrived.

He agrees that he was doing a railroad, but he said part of it was that the actions of one PC shocked him so much that he kind of froze up mentally. The PC committed a senseless murder and the city pretty much failed to react because the DM couldn't think of an appropriate reaction.

BTW: The DM is a softie in many ways, so simply having the PC arrested and hanged was simply not an option. His mindset went more with, "How do I avoid a punishment that drives the PC out of the game?"

In any case we were two players short (courtesy of the Flu season), so he pretty much had to change his plans. We ran a side adventure, a trip to Tor (Celtic land of the dead) to meet the Wild Hunt as they delivered the souls of the fallen. We really wanted to talk to those advisers and learn what they knew.

Not surprisingly, some of the "volunteers" who accompanied us turned out to be bad guys (I'd practically invited them, on purpose), and we had a nasty little battle right at Death's door.

The net/net is that a major baddie died, and is going to try and outrun the Wild Hunt next game session. Two PCs (mine being one of them) volunteered to run from the Hunt as well, to try and recover a PC who died something like a year ago, game time. My character has escaped the Hunt once before (barely), and the Huntsman really wanted a second shot at me.

Since my character has 24 hours to prepare this time, I plan to cheat like hell. (Horses stationed across the countryside, in relays, among other things.)

Anyway, the railroad has jumped the tracks, and the game is back on track.