How not to railroad

[Thornir Alekeg]

One other thing that I do to help is to have a few fully prepared encounters that can be dropped into just about any situation. This way if the players decide to do something completely out there from what I might expect, I can drop in one or two of these and entertain the group for the day. After the session I can start preparing something that will work with what they chose to do. Often times, I somehow try to work in the dropped-in encounters so they seem like they were more significant than they were planned to be and I look smarter than I really am (not too hard, I know).

 

[gizmo33]

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.

Yea, I basically was just seconding your post. Most of what I wrote was just addressed to the general reader, I figured by the tone of your post that this was your DMing style - I didn't think you had forced your PCs to stay in the battle in order to witness the dragon - but I thought it worth clarifying on the topic of railroading since I support the way you run this (ie. it fits my DMing style) yet I don't like railroading in many other situations. I was trying to describe a difference that I can't find a simple way to describe. In fact, I think I've played in games that have done the "bronze dragon" thing in ways that were ok, and ways that were not. I can't quite figure out what the differences are - there are times when the DM seems like they just want to show off their uber-NPC and the game becomes less about the players. This was not the impression I got from your description.

(Sometimes when I quote someone in a post, in order to put my post in context, it winds up being interpreted as a disagreement when I don't mean it to be. I hope that didn't happen here. I also often make mistakes with paragraph breaks and using the word "you" to mean the general reader.)

 

[The_Gneech]

(Sometimes when I quote someone in a post, in order to put my post in context, it winds up being interpreted as a disagreement when I don't mean it to be. I hope that didn't happen here. I also often make mistakes with paragraph breaks and using the word "you" to mean the general reader.)

No, no, it's all good. I was just elaborating a little.

-TG

 

[Darkness]

Sometimes when I quote someone in a post, in order to put my post in context, it winds up being interpreted as a disagreement when I don't mean it to be.

Well, just add a few words of explanation at the start of your post. E.g.:

"Agreed. In addition, ..."
"Yes, it's basically..."

Or whatever's appropriate.

 

[gizmo33]

Or whatever's appropriate.

Agreed

 

[sniffles]

I thought Ranger Wickett's point were particularly good.

As a player who plays under a GM who regularly puts his railroad engineer hat on, I'd say the most important thing to remember is this: this a game for a group of people, not just for your own enjoyment.

No matter how cool the plot sounds to you, try to think about whether or not it's going to be cool for your players. And if they start looking frustrated or angry during the session, it's time to let your little pet plot development go. I almost walked out on a session once because the GM in question just wouldn't bend his plot one centimeter to accomodate the players.

 

[Janx]

Even simpler: Don't write a plot.

I would have to disagree here. A fair number of us DMs just don't work that way. We gotta have an outline of events we TRY to bring about (note I said try, you can't force it, or that's railroading).

Additionally, not having a plot written down doesn't prevent railroading. Railroading happens when the DM does everything to circumvent PC actions he doesn't like.

Take the incident of the captured kobold. Completely unexpected. No plot. The DM expected it to die. The PCs question it. The DM roadblocks and simply refuses to have the kobold release any info, which he hadn't even thought of (in his mind, there is no info).

Additionally, I don't like a plotless game. It feels too much like wander around and rescue kittens. It is too difficult for most GMs to envision a larger scale plot that make sense all in their head. They gotta write it down.

Janx

 

[sniffles]

I would have to disagree here. A fair number of us DMs just don't work that way. We gotta have an outline of events we TRY to bring about (note I said try, you can't force it, or that's railroading).

Additionally, not having a plot written down doesn't prevent railroading. Railroading happens when the DM does everything to circumvent PC actions he doesn't like.

Take the incident of the captured kobold. Completely unexpected. No plot. The DM expected it to die. The PCs question it. The DM roadblocks and simply refuses to have the kobold release any info, which he hadn't even thought of (in his mind, there is no info).

Additionally, I don't like a plotless game. It feels too much like wander around and rescue kittens. It is too difficult for most GMs to envision a larger scale plot that make sense all in their head. They gotta write it down.

Janx

Agreed! A completely plotless game does not sound entertaining to me. But when the way the GM wants the plot to progress becomes all-important and the desires of the players/characters are no longer acknowledged, something is broken. Flexibility is a key attribute for a good GM, IMHO.

 

[SweeneyTodd]

It's important to note that "plotless" doesn't mean "prepless". If anything, I find it harder to prep now that I don't use plots, maybe because it's a different part of the ol' noggin I'm using.

You have to come up with an interesting situation, NPCs with their own goals and connections to other characters, and keep on hand things to throw in to spice up a flagging situation. Without a plot, you get away with letting the players come up with the answers, but you still have to write the questions. And open-ended questions (in terms of situations that can evolve over time) are harder to write than ones answered by "go here, do this".

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Agreed! A completely plotless game does not sound entertaining to me.

A group I played in for years devolved into a plotless game. It was terrible. The DM was a great guy, very creative. We had many rules interpretation figths over the years and he was stingy as hell with magic, but the games were fun for a long time. Eventually it hit a point, after he was laid off from work and found a new job, where he didn't have time to spend on planning and preparing. The game ended up lacking anything like purpose and sometimes even continuity. It got really boring, fast.