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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Velderan" data-source="post: 9469968" data-attributes="member: 7038056">I feel like often people are misusing the term railroad to describe anything that isn't a complete and total "let's make it up as we go along" style of play.For me, the AD&D Dragonlance modules feature some of the worst offenses of railroading. If a key NPC dies, no worries! Invoke the mysterious death option and that NPC will be back because of some flimsy reason like the body was never recovered and they somehow survived off-screen. Or if the PCs are at point A and are being directed to go to point B, but they REALLY want to check out point C first, send a patrol of enemies at them once per hour until they either get back on the track to point B or die. It's the main reason as much as I like the stories they told, when I ran them I used them as a loose guideline for where things happen and let the PCs figure it out from there. They skipped the point where they meet a key NPC or pick up a key item because they skipped point B and went to C? Guess they'll have 1 less ally later on! Did they manage to kill a key NPC that would be in an encounter later? Who is next in the Dragonarmy org chart? The modules would have been better if they provided advice on how to handle those situations instead of just forcing it at all costs.Most of the recent Adventure Paths I've played or read have a structure and if the players want to be spoon fed the story that's a valid way to approach it. But there's plenty of flexibility in most of them, at least the ones I've played. Curse of Strahd and Descent into Avernus had plenty of room for the PCs to decide how to approach the land they find themselves in and I'm sure if you pay close attention there's a straightforward way to run them, but there's also a lot of space to just wander and investigate what sounds interesting. The current PF2e AP I'm running (Abomination Vaults) is a dungeon crawl, so that requires a certain level of willingness to want to engage with what's in the dungeon if your group agrees to play it. There's some flexibility in how they approach the dungeon, with multiple paths through it and a town with a bunch of NPCs with their own motives to interact with. But as with your BiTD example if that isn't interesting and the PCs decide this dungeon sucks and want to take the road out of town and see where that goes, that is fine. But then I'd question what about the AP do they not enjoy because we're no longer playing the AP.</blockquote>

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