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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nomad4life" data-source="post: 2341406" data-attributes="member: 28645">Also about railroading: Some of the worst adventures I’ve ever been on were so bad because they were TOO open-ended.  I’ll never forget how frustrating one session in particular was; We weren’t provided with a lot of direction or clues about what we were “supposed” to be doing to advance the plot.  After hours and hours of mindless blundering around, a few of the players found excuses to leave the game, and the rest of us just directly asked what it was we were supposed to be doing.  “Whatever your character wants to do!” came the enthusiastic response. Now, I’m all for not forcing things upon the players, but there must be some kind of fine line; I’ve only got so much free time to game with, and I want to take part in an interesting story/plot, and meet interesting NPCs- not just hear myself narrate what I do and feel, or talk with random NPCs like some kind of “alternate-world simulation.".” The GM finally told us that the “plot” of her adventure had already transpired- that we had wandered away from the main story, and those events had already resolved themselves!  We were now just “playing our characters.” In other words, we had been blundering around for hours for no real “reason.”  Stunned, we all found reasons to leave immediately as well.  Even years later, some of the players from that sessions still hold actual HATRED for that GM, and the “time she stole from our lives.”  I’ve had two other bad experiences like that one, where the game was just TOO open-ended, and TOO much “about the characters.”  There simply is a time and place to either lure or prod players in the “right” direction- A “good” GM can do these things subtly and creatively.</blockquote>

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