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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7276199" data-attributes="member: 4937">I would not expect this railroad to survive the first switching station.What you haven't yet learned as a GM is that you can't plan like that.  You have to plan for all the forks that might happen. a) The PC's might not get captured.  It's hard to capture someone that is intent on resisting.   You might want to just start with them on the boat captured.b) The PC's might not decide to escape.   They might decide to make the best of it and win their freedom through some other means.c) Upon getting a boat, they might not decide to go to this little fishing village.  Upon getting there, they might immediately leave.d) They might decide to cooperate with the pirates rather than fight against them.  They might decide being pirates is more fun than fighting pirates.e) The PC's might not decide after defeating the pirates in the village to follow up with destroying the pirates in the 'Hub'.f) Conceptually, you are trying to run a linear plot in an environment that maximizes the PC's ability to set their own agenda and go where they want.  Since you seem to be an inexperienced DM, this is a recipe for disaster.Your whole plot is based around the PC's making the decisions you think they should make or that you'd want them to make.  You've not actually given them hooks or motivations.   You've not really established the reasons 'Why' this is happening.  You're going to quickly run into the problem that the PC's agenda may not match your agenda.  An ocean campaign is a Sandbox.  Now, all of this is repairable, but it involves allowing the players to have at least the appearance of being proactive and probably working with the players to give them hooks - "My sister has been captured by pirates!" or "My father was murdered by pirates!" or what have you.  You are trying to treat it as an Linear adventure, and that probably won't work.  You need to build a sandbox filled with side quests, lairs, numerous NPCs, and multiple plots.  The main reoccurring villains might be these pirate/slavers, but allow the game to evolve to that organically, with the PC's deciding what they should do about it.</blockquote>

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