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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Zombie-a-GoGo" data-source="post: 1270028" data-attributes="member: 15749">...and, alas, I think I was wrong.The last time I DMed, back in the day 'round five years past or so, I had the players eating out of my hand. I played fast and loose with the rules (2nd ed., it was practically a requirement) and focused on the story. I never railroaded; gave the PCs an earthshaking plot, a number of different factions they could align with, lots or politicking, betrayals, epic quests and a cosmos-changing endgame. They loved it. They told me how great I was. I believed them.Stopped D&D for a while, got back into the game recently, and with an all-new group of players, all-new ruleset, I thought that I could weave that DM Magic O Mine once again.Heh. You know what they say, the best laid plans and all that...Two sessions into the game, I feel like I've been run over by an infernal steamroller. I've done no railroading, so far as I can see, but my players insist that "The Guard wouldn't act like that" or "the thieves' guild wouldn't do that" and, the worst: "It doesn't matter what we do. You're just trying to get us arrested so you can force us to go on your adventure." AAARGH!After the game last night, I felt like a complete failure. Worse, I felt like I had let my players down. Noting felt cohesive; it seemed (from my side of the screen) as though everything that had happened to the PCs was completely arbitrary on my part.Example: The cleric of Pelor accused the town guard of wanting to steal the goods they had brought from the abbey to market. The officer present, a fervent follower of St. Cuthbert, was highly offended and, already having reason to suspect the PCs of a crime (a murder victim found outside the local church where the PCs were storing the goods until market day), demanded that the cleric come to the guardhouse for further questioning. In chains. The Cleric said no, made some more disparaging remarks about the guard which further incensed the officer, and finally the officer drew steel and told him not to resist arrest or he would cut him down.So of course the Cleric said "go ahead." Note that the cleric had no weapons or armor - town law that such things cannot be carried within the city. So the officer attacked with the flat of his blade and knocked the cleric out. Captain of the Watch is summoned and the PCs try tot talk their way out of being taken to the dungeon to await trial.Now, to my way of thinking, there was no way they were getting out of going to trial. Insulting the honor of the guard, refusing an order of the guard, and then there was the fight with the guard - if you can really call it a fight. But when their attempts to weasel their way out of going to the dungeons failed, they accused me of railroading them. "Oh, it doesn't matter what we say, we're going to go to jail anyway because that's what the DM wants to happen."I was stung! But things went on, and when we wrapped up for the night I felt like a failure. I felt guilty for not allowing them to talk their way out of the repercussions for their actions.This happen to anyone else? Am I a railroading DM and just don't realize it? Someone say something, anything; right now I feel like a pretty poor DM.</blockquote>

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