Keeping control of your game while keeping illusion of liberty

[Fenes]

Obstacles are one thing, but if the obstacles are not meant to be possible to overcome, then I feel railroaded.

Impassible mountains? No guide? No route through? No way to fly over it?

A river without a ferry? No way to swim through it?

After a certain point, it becomes clear what's a feature of the campaign world, and what's just the PnP version of the 2 foot deep pond you cannot wade through in CRPGs.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I think if the players reach a part of the dungeon you haven't written, you've screwed up.

In my defense, I'd like to add that I was 10 years old.

 

[S'mon]

In my defense, I'd like to add that I was 10 years old.

One possibility is to generate it on-the-fly, 1e DMG has random dungeon tables that work great for this kind of emergency.

 

[Melan]

Having been a video game designer for many years, I often had to deal with level limits and also noticed some good and bad ways to handle them in my R&D. Of course, a video game isn’t the same, but many of the same tricks can still apply

As a video game designer of many years, he thinks too much along their analogies. Video games are constrained by the fact that building a game world requires costly assets and development time, while the world of a real roleplaying game takes a single leap of the mind to shift your gears and adapt to your players' wishes. You can just say "and after you scale the wall at the end of the valley, you see... a plateau choked with dense vegetation, and a few outcroppings which look like old statues. In the distance, there are... tumbled down battlements, and the remains of an old fortress." In a computer game, the plateau would require you to create "old statue" objects, and build the terrain in meticulous detail; in your mind, it takes a moment to fill it with new things! That's our edge over the machines.

Of course, a DM may want to focus his or her campaign in some way (by geographic location, type of adventures, a theme or what have you), but it is better to be up front about it than use (cheap) deception.

(Also, "in my R&D" is a hilariously stupid and pretentious thing to say about game development. You ain't building particle accelerators, Ace, you are making home entertainment. This goes for the "R&D" department at Wizards of the Coast, too.)

 

[jaerdaph]

I don't see any legitimate cause to scream "railroad" here. He just gave a list of obstacles to put in the way of PCs to help focus an adventure.

QFT!

And while "talking to your players" OOC is a good solution for most things, in this cases it sucks. My greatest enjoyment in RPGs is exploration and having it cut off OOC sucks the fun right out of the game for me. On the other hand a barrier that's logical and in-genre is just part of the game.

I remember telling the players "don't go there - I haven't written that part of the dungeon yet" as a new DM. With more experience I learned that that wasn't fun for either me or my players and started other approaches.

QFT again!

 

[cmrscorpio]

I've found one trick really works well for keeping PCs generally on the track. I'm sure most (if not all) of us DMs have done this in the past.

Don't tell them other things exist. If you don't want the players to go off on tangents, then don't seed them for it by telling them extraneous information. Sure, you want to provide a rich world, but more often than not, the players want to know what is relevant to what you want them to do.
For example, say your characters stumble upon a treasure map. Don't put anything on that map that you don't want them to encounter. If a map to a hidden treasure site, why on earth would the map maker put anything else on there besides the absolute essential things needed to find the treasure. You put relavant landmarks/riddles/cyphers, and that's it.
If your players walk into a tavern and start hitting up the local partons for gossip and you want them to investigate the local ruins, don't have a dozen rumors about the maurading orcs over in the next town or that the local priest has been wandering the streets at night.
As someone mentioned before, telling your players that there is a dense, nigh impenatrable jungle inhabited with fierce, deadly monsters is tantamount to saying "ATTENTION: THIS AREA EXISTS". If you draw attention, PCs will pay attention.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

Well, I don't see all this in quite the same way.

I find it enhances story if I don't write plots at all. To me, the story isn't something that's preconceived. It emerges naturally in the course of the game.

Every player character is under pressure of some kind--but it's the player who gives them that motivation. (It's often as simple as, "I need to get hold of a very large amount of money for reason X so I became an adventurer.") Theoretically as a DM I'm on-hand to help the players decide on a motivation if they don't have one, but in practice I haven't needed to do that for years.

Each player struggles to achieve the player character's motives in a hostile and dangerous world. The things that happen to them as they do are the story. Therefore story is the result of the game, rather than a process within it.

Now, sometimes, I'll want the players to go in a particular direction or pass through a particular obstacle. I do think there's a place for that in D&D. It's called a dungeon.

If the players choose to go into a dungeon, then they know their choices of destination will be restricted. By great big thick rock walls. They usually make the choice to enter the dungeon because it gets them more loot than hanging around outside in the wilderness; once they're in there, they're playing a game of tactical exploration and combat on a restricted gameboard, and they know it.

But I don't agree with the idea of making the outside world into a kind of super-dungeon with its own thick rock walls (or impassable mountains or whatever). It's a place where the players get to do free-form roleplaying however they like. Same with towns and cities.

It helps me a lot that I run a system where you don't have to pre-prepare stat blocks, you can just make them up on the fly.

 

[jaerdaph]

To me, the story isn't something that's preconceived. It emerges naturally in the course of the game.

Which I will also QFT!

I will also quote Dave Stebbins from my signature, because this is good advice always worth remembering: I'd rather compare adventure creation to writing HALF a story, realizing that the players and their PCs will fill in the other half.

 

[GreatLemur]

This DM wouldn't last a minute with my gaming group. Dense forests, treacherous swamps, haunted castles and heavily guarded fortresses? Those are crying out for adventurers to try their luck!

Seriously. I once set up a decently well-guarded fortress and gave my very creative players and their 2nd-level characters opportunities and resources to use subterfuge and stealth to get to their objective without just kicking in the door and taking on everyone inside. I even told them they didn't have to storm the freaking castle. The response?

"Oh, no. You show us a castle, we are storming the castle."

I love my players. Seriously, it's when they veer off of (what I imagine to be) the path and try things I never expected that I most enjoy GMing.

 

[buzz]

And while "talking to your players" OOC is a good solution for most things, in this cases it sucks. My greatest enjoyment in RPGs is exploration and having it cut off OOC sucks the fun right out of the game for me.

I can sympathize with this when a primary goal is immersion. What I (and I think some others) are trying to say, though, is that if you do some talking before the game gets going, all of this herding technique and OOC talking stuff should not be necessary.

What it comes down to is getting away from the (unfortunately ingrained) idea that everyone involved goes off and creates PCs and adventures in total isolation from each other and then comes to the table expecting a good gaming experience to just magically happen. IME, this methodology never works to everyone's satisfaction. If anything, it leads to frustration and campaigns that die off.

I've found that effective pre-game communication can make even heavily plotted published material (which I use a lot, honestly) thoroughly enjoyable for everyone. These days, I always start by giving the players the gist of the scenario, and then basically doing a "casting call." I let them know what kinds of character elements will tie in best to the adventure, and I make sure that we have the core D&D roles covered. If a player wants to do something unique, I find a way to work it into the adventure, or at least reach a compromise that will provide a good hook for the PC. Once play begins, I try to clearly communicate the scenario's short- and long-term goals.

FWIW, my own experience and the feedback I've gotten from my players has shown that our games have gotten dramatically more enjoyable since we started doing things this way.