TSR How Did I Survive AD&D? Fudging and Railroads, Apparently

[Bedrockgames]

Response to the OP:

No, didn't use any hard railroads*, and whilst there was some cherry picking as to which rules to actually use (e.g. we ignored weapon speeds and the weapon type vs armour tables as slowing the game down too much) I don't recall fudging. Players cheating when rolling ability scores was a big problem though.

What we did do is mostly play modules, and single adventures from White Dwarf. And when I did run a campaign we started at level 10. I don't recall ever taking 1st level characters through more than a single adventure.

Definitely something I think people might not realize is how these modules were hacked, adapted, and used for parts for peoples campaigns. So when people praise a given module from that era, they may not always be talking about things like the adventure structure, but about its individual elements

*Well, there is the start of Hidden Shrine, which I ran a couple of times, but that was a tournament module, and justified by the narrative. When I ran it in 5e, I set it up so that the party didn't need to fall down the hole, but they fell down it anyway.

I do get the impression that this level of hard railroading was very common in 90s 2nd edition Ravenloft modules, but I had stopped playing D&D by then.

I played through the 90s and was a Ravenloft GM. I also had a lot of Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance material from TSR. And I was playing quite a wide variety of games. I think there was definitely a heavier tendency towards GM as storyteller and railroads, but this existed alongside other styles. in terms of TSR modules, those could vary a lot. Ravenloft is probably not the best indicator of the 2E line, because it was trying to do something very specific and very different form a lot of the other settings. It was also used differently at most tables. For example it was typically run more as a weekend in hell for special occasions like Halloween. It prioritized atmosphere and capturing a classic horror and gothic mood as well as many of the literary tropes. So a GM might run Ravenloft very different from their campaign set in Faerun. Another thing, maybe the most important thing, that drove Ravenloft was a goal of achieving fear and horror, and to do that, it was baked into the setting that the rules of the universe operated differently than they did other campaigns. Player agency was not the focus because it wasn't about exploring dungeons as much as it was about realizing your 10th level character, who on paper should be able to stand to to toe with the Vampire tracking the party, can't because setting emphasized customizing monsters in order to thwart expectations and reduce metagaming. And this was done often with a spirit of bending to rules to achieve that.

That said, even the Ravenloft line wasn't purely about Railroads. But they often happened in modules (they even happened in some of the better modules). And there was a lot in the line that worked towards a more open structure of play (the living adventure concept in Feast of Goblyns for example and the way the Van Richter books gave you tools to run monster hunts). But it was done in a time when story was more important than rules

To give an example, at the start of From the Shadows, the players are pretty much set up against an impossible foe so they can be decapitated and awaken with their heads separated from their bodies in Azalin's lab in Darkon. It actually does say not to fudge, but that is only because the combat is already so heavily weighted against the players:

It has been a very long time since I ran this (and I have been considering running it again, as written, this month if I have time). I remember the castle exploration portion of the adventure actually being quite good. When I ran it in the 90s, I also remember my players not minding the heavy handed hook, but I think today most players would object to it unless you informed them ahead of time you were running a 90s adventure without changes just to play it on its own terms and that might include some railroads (this is what I have been doing when I run 90s Ravenloft adventures without alterations)

The other thing is the main reason to get this module, at least in my opinion, was the map and description of Castle Avernus (the Ravenloft maps were often exceptionally good)

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think folks get lost in the idea of total agency. I'd expect a set piece battle in a module, particularly one with a memorable foe. Its in that set up and encounter execution that will determine if its a success or not.

......

So, im all aboard the Hickman revolution. I think modern adventure writers have, generally, learned really good lessons from the above. How to write an adventure that has set piece battles, and narrative components, that dont force the players down a single path. Fully embrace those lessons and learn to execute at the highest level you can.

OSR products are meat grinders. The purpose is less grand and the narrative is thin. The point of an OSR game is to engage the game portion and survive through skill play. It would, rightly, be cheating to fudge dice results for such an experience.

I think its not a good idea to think of things in "proper" one way terms. I think the proper answer is what you like and prefer. The good news is, there is a plethora of both modern and old school systems, products, and modules out there.

I mostly run sandboxes with a heavy emphasis on player character agency. But I am in agreement here. I think people sometimes lose sight of the fact that these different structures and approaches are essentially tools. There isn't one style that is going to work for everyone, and not even a single style that will work for the same person or group on every occasion. Some modules are meeting an expectation of there will be something to do, there will be certain beats along the way, and staying on the adventure is of utmost importance (not because they hate player agency, but because they want the players to get their evening of entertainment). There isn't anything wrong with it if people are enjoying themselves

 

[Argyle King]

Isn't it basically just the same as Legendary Resistance?

Is it the inability to make the item work on the first hit that bothers you, or the fact that the module instructs DMs to hide what they're doing?

This video shows how I imagine that playing out:

 

[jayoungr]

This video shows how I imagine that playing out:

In that video, it's blatantly obvious to everyone in the room, including the kid, that the people in charge are interfering. The advice in the module is supposed to make it look like a legit miss.

What I'm hearing from you is that it is the fact that the advice expects the DM to hide the truth from the players that bugs you, not the fact that the first attack is supposed to fail per se. If there was a rule for why the first attack failed (like Legendary Resistance), you'd be fine with that--correct?

I feel that fosters an atmosphere in which the DM cannot be trusted to be a fair arbiter of the rules in game situations where that DM role is necessarily to determine the outcome of an action.

Why would the players distrust the DM if they don't know what happened?

I'm not really defending the advice in the module. It's a clunky way of trying to raise tension, and its effectiveness depends on the players never getting their hands on the module text, which seems super-weak. However, I do think it's interesting that the creators were trying even back in 1993 to address issues of story pacing and drama, a process that continues to this day. This moment here may lead directly to the creation of such rules as Legendary Resistance.

 

[Stormonu]

Ugh. From the Shadows - that was the adventure that turned my players (and therefore me) off of running ANY Ravenloft published adventure and started taking a hard look at other adventures TSR put out. We did the opening encounter, the scene in the lab ... and then noped out of the rest of adventure.

I will say that the best Ravenloft adventure (Beyond I6 - Ravenloft itself) is Night of the Living Dead, though it too has some issues. But overall, TSR was truly horrid for the 2E railroad adventure in that era and there are exceedingly few I'd actually run from that time period. That era seems to have a lot of designer hate directed at the players - railroading encounters, encounters specifically designed to make the players mere observers, encounters designed specifically to punish players using their abilities and NPCs who specifically assume the players are naive good guys who turn on the party and screw them out of treasure at the end of the module.

Oddly enough, telling my most recent group about some of the Ravenloft adventures and they were surprisingly willing to try it - despite me warning them they were very railroady. I might try one out on them, but I don't suspect it will go well.

 

[Argyle King]

In that video, it's blatantly obvious to everyone in the room, including the kid, that the people in charge are interfering. The advice in the module is supposed to make it look like a legit miss.

What I'm hearing from you is that it is the fact that the advice expects the DM to hide the truth from the players that bugs you, not the fact that the first attack is supposed to fail per se. If there was a rule for why the first attack failed (like Legendary Resistance), you'd be fine with that--correct?

Not necessarily. I understand why D&D uses Legendary Resistance. However, I think there are better ways to solve the problem that is trying to be solved.

Why would the players distrust the DM if they don't know what happened?

I'm not really defending the advice in the module. It's a clunky way of trying to raise tension, and its effectiveness depends on the players never getting their hands on the module text, which seems super-weak. However, I do think it's interesting that the creators were trying even back in 1993 to address issues of story pacing and drama, a process that continues to this day. This moment here may lead directly to the creation of such rules as Legendary Resistance.

I'm not sure how the players wouldn't know what happened. If I attempt an action and it fails, but trying it a second time works (with the same dice rolls,) that is strange.

How is the player prompted to try again after getting the feedback that the first attempt fails?

To me, it runs counter to my thinking when the DM and the game say that the player should do take an action while simultaneously saying that doing that action leads to automatic failure.

If the story needs more than one attack for the pacing, why not construct the encounter to need more than one attack? Either say that two items are needed (as I mentioned previously,) or you need to use the item twice to fully defeat the target (perhaps the first attack induces a weakened state, and the second is the killing blow).

I believe drama and pacing can be achieved without sacrificing player agency from a situation.

 

[Retreater]

Is it all the players who did this or just your friend?

If it's just your friend, this becomes part of a "you had to be there" kind of situation and those other people may have a completely different take.

Which isn't to say don't run it, but get an email list for the rest of the players, let them know you're doing an adventure that was never finished "back in the day" as a surprise birthday present. Explain that it's from a "love/hate" setting that isn't always popular but hey, it's a present. Maybe ask about preferred classes so you can make sure there are some in the pregens.

I loathe Ravenloft and know other people with same opinion. I check out at every opportunity, assuming I don't just nope out of the game entirely. But with some warning to expect something dislikeable I'd try to be engaged "because it's Dave's birthday present".

I took this advice and messaged all the players (except the surprise birthday friend) to get their buy-in. Even with the surprise friend, we've been talking about the adventure and the old campaign, so I expect he'll be ready to go.

 

[Quickleaf]

I started playing with AD&D 2nd edition back in 1990. Like many, I got many rules wrong at first (and probably continued to do so for years), but by the mid-1990s I had become a player in a regular campaign and was developing great memories. I would look back to those memories of the cornerstone of my life in RPGs, even today, as nostalgia makes me think of lasting campaigns, great character arcs, memorable villains, and emotional payoffs.

I don’t think I realized how much of that experience was curated by DM fiat (aka fudging) and adventures designed to be complete railroads – both elements of gameplay that have been largely bemoaned in the past two decades. Granted, I didn’t spend a lot of time behind the screen until 3rd edition and later, so I didn’t really look “under the hood” much recently until this week.

I’ll bring you up to speed. I’ve been invited to run a game for my friend’s birthday party out of town in a few weeks. He and his group are old-school style players. I’ve decided to run the adventure module

Spoiler: name of the adventure

Web of Illusion

that we never completed from the mid-1990s in that first campaign, in which we were both players. Granted, it is a Ravenloft adventure, which is already probably more linear and “story-driven” than more site-based adventures like “The Gates of Firestorm Peak” or something.

Here are some elements that fly in the face of modern adventure design:

• No matter what the party does, they will have this planned encounter scene with this monster.
• The villain can see the party’s abilities within his lair and will send easy encounters at them to “play with them.”
• Keep throwing enemies at the party until they’re weak enough to be forced into joining forces with the NPC organization.
• Convince the party their characters have an incurable disease so they have no choice but to go on the quest for the NPC organization to get the cure.
• The party gets a MacGuffin that can kill the overpowered boss enemy with one hit. But whatever you do, the DM can’t let the first hit land, because that’s too easy. “Roll dice behind the screen and frown.”
• Here are Scenes 1-13. Make sure these play out basically in order.
• If the party tries to leave the adventure, magic fog keeps re-routing them to the right path.

So, yes, this is likely an extreme example of railroading from a product line that’s already known for taking away player agency. But (and here’s the big question) … should we do it? Should we go back to this style of game? Would our games feel more epic if we did? If they were better curated, more narrative, etc.? Would campaigns feel more satisfying?

Was this the “proper” way of playing back in the day? Is this why OSR products are considered meat grinders? Because we were all cheating (by today’s standards)?

I would discourage you against taking the example of a 1993 AD&D 2e Ravenloft adventure as a template of the broader ecosystem of OSR adventures.

2e adventures often did this sort of railroaded design, not all of them and yeah there were some railroads that came before, but by and large that was a 2e phenomenon. It’s one of the reasons why many OD&D, 1e, and BD&D fans really don’t like the 2e adventures.

IME while I can run most BD&D adventures and it’ll be ok enough, 2e adventures are much more hit or miss - I have to be sure to read the 2e adventure I want to run to make sure the writer hasn’t bought into the “railroad coolaid.”

 

[Retreater]

Just getting into the theoretical view of adventure design, I'd suggest that some of the most highly regarded adventures in the RPG hobby are highly scripted - perhaps "railroads" by some.
Every Call of Cthulhu adventure is basically a "paint by numbers" mystery - especially "Masks of Nyarlahotep."
WFRP's "The Enemy Within" - it's a railroad.
Those classic TSR adventures that are anything more than a "monster hotel" - they're basically railroads too.
Am I wrong?

 

[payn]

Just getting into the theoretical view of adventure design, I'd suggest that some of the most highly regarded adventures in the RPG hobby are highly scripted - perhaps "railroads" by some.
Every Call of Cthulhu adventure is basically a "paint by numbers" mystery - especially "Masks of Nyarlahotep."
WFRP's "The Enemy Within" - it's a railroad.
Those classic TSR adventures that are anything more than a "monster hotel" - they're basically railroads too.
Am I wrong?

I think, perhaps, skipping over a lot of the nuance of what makes a linear adventure a "railroad" for the sake of a wholesale argument.