How not to railroad

[Warrior Poet]

This is inspired by the railroad thread. I thought I would share my tips for having a world setup that should never strike the players that their characters are unimportant, too important or being railroaded.

Hey, thanks. That was very helpful! Cool, you put some things into concrete examples that are really useful.

See link in my sig on DM Advice.

Yep, got that one bookmarked, too.

Thanks for the help.

Warrior Poet

 

[The Shaman]

One of the most important rules for avoiding railroading is a fairly simple one: never hinge the development of your campaign on a particular outcome of a situation in which PCs are involved.

I'd like to see this stamped in gold-foil letters on the cover of the DMG.

I plan for what the bad guys are doing, and I give them contingencies if something goes wrong (like the adventurers upsetting their plans...) - that's the extent of the 'plot' in 90% of the games I run. The bad guys react to the adventurers - the adventurers don't encounter what I want to them to encounter so that I can 'tell a cool story'. My experience tells me that whatever the players do will be a cool enough story all by itself.

 

[Janx]

To me, the kobold who resists interrogation to his last breath is a good example of the bad kind of railroading. It puts a party in a bad spot if they feel a captive should have information: do they resort to torture? Just waste them when they act like that?

Good point. Many times, this happens, because the DM didn't expect to have the kobold do anything but fight and die. So when this didn't happen, the DM sticks with his game plan of invent no new information. Had the DM covered the "enemy gets captured" scenario with follow-up plans of what does the party do with prisoners:

Kill them
Interrogate them
Take them with
Tie them up and abandon them
Bring them to authorities
Lock them up nearby

the DM would be more likely to have answers for these types of things. I suspect most DMs don't consider what happens after a capture before they happen.

Janx

 

[RangerWickett]

Another key thing is to ask the players for ideas on what their characters are interested in. Establish goals for them to achieve, and think of what their opposition might do, but don't give them a course. Just make sure the world has enough detail that they are aware of what options they have.

Oh, and a biggie -- don't put the PCs up against a foe that is too tough for them, then try to let them win through good fortune. It sucks six ways from Tuesday to be a PC, go up against an all-powerful lich, and then have the lich be beaten down by a third party, or have a god show up and say, "BEHOLD! I AM TAKING AWAY YOUR POWERS! FACE THESE ADVENTURERS ON EVEN FOOTING!" Or if you want to do that, foreshadow it like mad, so that the PCs are relying on it, instead of being surprised by it.

Basically, railroading is when the players don't get to do what they want. And they want to win. They don't want someone else to win for them.

Know when to let go. If the players keep asking why the hell this city full of wizards can't handle the problem by themselves, don't try to explain away their concern. Just have the wizards handle it, and have the PCs deal with something else. I made this particular mistake myself. Quite awful, it was.

 

[The_Gneech]

Oh, and a biggie -- don't put the PCs up against a foe that is too tough for them, then try to let them win through good fortune. It sucks six ways from Tuesday to be a PC, go up against an all-powerful lich, and then have the lich be beaten down by a third party, or have a god show up and say, "BEHOLD! I AM TAKING AWAY YOUR POWERS! FACE THESE ADVENTURERS ON EVEN FOOTING!" Or if you want to do that, foreshadow it like mad, so that the PCs are relying on it, instead of being surprised by it.

Well, you can occasionally get away with something like this -- in the midst of a large monster assault on a wizard school in my game, my 6th-level party was set upon by a pair of beholders, causing them much anguish and panic. However, before they got blasted to cinders, the bronze dragon NPC I wanted them to become friends with swooped down (also causing the group to panic at first) and blasted the beholders, who then fled.

The group didn't get any XP for "fighting" the beholders, since they hadn't; really all the scene did was establish friendly relations with the bronze dragon. It made for a very exciting moment, tho, and the players seemed to love it. All of the actions taken by the beholders and the dragon were rules-legal, and at no time was the PCs' free will negated.

This is not something I'd recommend doing on a regular basis, mind you.

-The Gneech

 

[gizmo33]

I think maybe there are two kinds of railroading, I don't know what to call them - maybe "plot railroading" and "action railroading". Plot railroading is where PCs are forced to do something at the mission level. Action railroading is where you nerf certain abilities, or mess with the way that PCs tackle a certain mission.

Plot Railroading: forcing the PCs to accept the mission to go kill Darth Vader
Action Railroading: forcing the PCs to send one of their number in single combat against Darth Vader and forcing everyone else to stand around and watch

I'm much more comfortable with Plot Railroading than Action Railroading. Although one can often lead to another. I think it's important to avoid both when you can, but I think the initial post in this thread glossed over the difficulties of ad-lib DMing, which you are sort of forced to do unless you have enough preparation time (which sometimes I do).

I never actually *force* anyone to go on a particular adventure - but sometimes the alternative is to go home and tend the crops. Although 99% of the time it doesn't come down to this because I ask what the players want to do ahead of time. IMC at 1st level you are basically chased out into the world to start adventuring - heavy plot railroading. After the first session though, you're on your own. I usually have a very good idea of what the interests of my players are - that's usually the reason we start a campaign to begin with.

 

[gizmo33]

The group didn't get any XP for "fighting" the beholders, since they hadn't; really all the scene did was establish friendly relations with the bronze dragon. It made for a very exciting moment, tho, and the players seemed to love it.

Used sparingly (maybe once in a PC's lifetime), I wouldn't mind this at all, and I really dislike heavy-handed DMing. I think you can only do so much to make your campaign a sort of "massive multi-player simulation" that some DMs (like me) strive for. So to establish the bronze dragon as a guardian/ally I think something like this is fair - done gently. If PCs run away from the beholders, I wouldn't drag them back and force them to fight just so that the bronze dragon can save them.

IMO there is a difference between establishing the bronze dragon as an ally in the way you describe, and preventing the PCs from later deciding to assassinate the dragon by nerfing their hide ability or whatever. For some reason, the first is ok to me, while the second is not. But I can't put my finger on the difference (maybe it's that "plot" vs. "action" railroading I talked about).

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Even simpler: Don't write a plot.

At all.

Not even a little one.

Just create an interesting place for the characters to explore, and turn them loose. Adminster what happens as impartially as possible.

If they're good players, they'll create a story out of the raw materials you give them.

Edit: Wait... I posted before Crothian!

 

[The_Gneech]

Used sparingly (maybe once in a PC's lifetime), I wouldn't mind this at all, and I really dislike heavy-handed DMing. I think you can only do so much to make your campaign a sort of "massive multi-player simulation" that some DMs (like me) strive for. So to establish the bronze dragon as a guardian/ally I think something like this is fair - done gently. If PCs run away from the beholders, I wouldn't drag them back and force them to fight just so that the bronze dragon can save them.

Well neither would I! But as the dragon showed up in the next round, it's not like they could've gotten very far anyway. FWIW, the players would have been perfectly able to start wailing on the dragon if they wanted to, I wouldn't have stopped them. However, not being suicidally insane, they opted for parley instead.

-The Gneech

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

The "powerful mentor NPC fends off the BBEG while the PCs escape/do something on the side/watch in horror as their mentor gets beaten down/cheer as their mentor beats down" scene takes so much flak, and I just don't understand why. As a player, I always enjoy this, and it's such an iconic part of fantasy and space opera.

Gandalf in Fellowship of the Ring, Duncan Idaho in Dune, Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars...

Obviously all DMPCs. I mean, they all even got brought back in later installments! Damned munchkins, all.