D&D 5E Players railroading dungeonmasters

[Campbell]

Much like GMs I prefer to have GMs focus on situation instead of deciding how things should go before hand I have a fairly strong preference for players to focus on situation over story when it comes to defining who their characters are. I feel like railroading only enters the picture when people have strong expectations for how things should go.

 

[Lanefan]

I definitely get what you are saying and acknowledge that you are at least trying to make a bit of sense of the situation by trying to restrict as much possible pre-story activity to justify the PC starting at level 1.

But here's the thing from my point of view: Dwarves and elves will gain XP and level up at the exact same rate as their humans compatriots when you play the game, and their maximum levels will all be about the same throughout the course of their "adventuring" lifetime. But because dwarves and especially elves live 3 to 8 times longer than humans... by any sort of metric of what gives a character "experience"... members of those races should have 3 to 9 times more XP and 3 to 9 times more levels than any human PC.

Agreed, which is why on occasion you might encounter some truly stratospheric level numbers among stay-at-home Elves, particularly Clerics and Mages*. As a pleasant side-effect this also provides a sort-of logic behind the existence of artificers etc. capable of making and enchanting some of the stupendous magics the adventurers bump into now and then.

* - the somewhat riskier lifestyles of Warriors and Rogues mean they tend to die off before reaching ridiculous levels; and revival isn't guaranteed in my game.

It is to put blinders on to any sort of logic to think that dwarves and elves only receive "experience" during the same 40 years that humans do (humans aged 20 to 60 before they retire). Average Human adventurers get no XP for the first 20 years of their lives, XP for the next 40, then no XP for the last 20. So human adventurers receive XP and levels for approximately half of their lives. Which means average dwarf adventurers that live to 350 years old should have like 175 years of adventuring, and elves that live to 700 years should have 350 years worth of adventuring. And if they gain XP and level up just the same as humans do (which we know happens because we all play the game)... the 350 years of elven adventuring should really allow them to get up to about probably Level 180. (Level 20 for humans x 9 times as many years adventuring as a human.)

Hang on a bit here - who even among Humans adventures for 40 years? Or even 40 months, for that matter?

Most typical campaigns span just a few in-game years - maybe a decade at most if the campaign goes way long - during which time the adventurers rack up some levels. But, much like pro athletes in the real world, adventuring careers are generally very short. And in this case all the races work the same: no matter how long-lived they are it's those few adventuring years that'll put 'em on the fast track to level-bumping.

And yes, I agree that a 300-year-old Elf could easily have already had one or two or three previous such adventuring careers before this one; which takes me right back to a point I already made upthread around a need for mechanics to codify the slow decay of adventuring skills/levels over time.

But the game doesn't do that. Instead it just handwaves away the other 650 years of an elf's life wherein the elf doesn't "earn XP", just so that they can play the game along with, next to, and the same way human PCs do. Which to me... is ridiculous and stupid and I refuse to jump through hoops to try and justify in the narrative why that happens. So I don't. To me... the narrative of the story and the world have virtually nothing to do with any sort of comparison to the D&D board game.

Where to me if it doesn't all fit together somehow then the underlying point of the exercise - that being that the PCs are an integral and internally-consistent part of the setting they inhabit - is lost.

So while I agree that there's certainly some ridiculous and stupid elements here, I'm willing to jump through a few hoops if that's what it takes to make those elements explainable in a halfway-logical and sustainable manner.

But almost nothing in the board game actually "happens for real" in the story, because the D&D board game make little narrative sense. (And all we have to do is just re-read the hundreds of "What are hit points?" threads to see exactly time and time again why that's the case.)

Yeah, my take in those threads isn't always the most popular either.

 

[Lanefan]

If your players are eager to get back to adventuring inside downtime, that's great! It means they really like the adventures you've set up.

Downtime, though, doesn't mean it should take very long even if the downtime itself is long. When I have downtime, I tell the players how much time has elapsed before their default activity has passed. So if the wizard wants to craft a legendary item, I'd say "you spend the next two years isolated (or however your character interacts) trying to create the perfect custom legendary item. You've made significant progress but soon a pigeon with a sealed scroll in its mouth flies into your tower. The seal is from the king..."

So they had a huge leap of time but it took roughly 2 minutes of in-game time.

Were I the player there, however, I'd be wanting to go into much deeper detail than that.

And your example sounds wonderful. Its precisely, in my opinion, what D&D is about. The party had a problem and they decided to deal with it in an organic and interesting manner. They could have waited to construct their own base and it may have had its appeal, but they made their own mini-adventure and their characters and the players themselves probably felt motivated since its something they personally care about.

Sounds absolutely fun and awesome if you ask me.

Thanks.

Thing is, as player I'd now like to be able to take whatever at-table time we need to get this place up and running; and my guess is it could potentially take two or three full sessions to do it in the degree of financial-logistical-roleplay detail I'd want, given the amount of renovation and work this place needs.

Right now the base-building stuff is on hold, however, as we're playing another party (in the same loose company) on what's looking like it might be a rather long field adventure.

 

[Lanefan]

Let's assume for a moment that humans lived 500 years. Every once in a while people get tired of their profession and go on to do something else. I'm a software engineer and one day I decide I don't want to do that any more so I go back to school and become a brain surgeon.

Did my years of experience writing code go away? No.

Yes. Over time two things will happen: you'll inevitably forget some of what you knew, and you'll miss any new developments in the field.

Does it have any impact on my career as a brain surgeon? No. Experience that elves and dwarves have in their lives prior to adventuring is orthogonal to their new lives.

Maybe. Maybe not.

If I'm bringing in a 1st-level Elven Thief who 84 years ago was the head of a Thieves' guild and an expert Thief in her own right, that past experience is either a) front and centre thus giving me an immense (and IMO unfair) advantage, or b) has been forgotten somehow, for which the game has no mechanics.

That, and the dwarf/elf that is hundreds of years old is an exception to the general beginning adventurer and I'm not sure what kind of structure you could put into place that would make any sense from a game perspective. Not that I think one is necessary in the first place, of course.

As someone else suggested, we have it that about the 150-500 age range in Elves spans about the same stage of maturity as the 20-40 age range in Humans. So, if your Elf is starting out at 250 years old (roughly the average in our games) it's the equivalent of about 25-ish in Human years, only with way more experience as a mature adult under its belt.

 

[Lanefan]

If you want mechanics do this:

“There’s a guy who owns a bar. He was once a famous adventurer who was a renown, 20th level fighter. He slayed a red dragon with a vorpal sword and the head is mounted over the bar. That was 35 years ago. He’s now a 5th level fighter with a belt of Giant Strength and a vorpal sword.”

That's the fluff - which is great, don't get me wrong - but fluff is all it is.

Where's the crunch that tells me how he got from 20th level down to 5th over those 35 years, and how long it'll be before he drops to 4th? (in any edition: this question is in fact edition-agnostic as this same problem has existed since day one)

Even better, find me some crunch that tells me which of his skills/abilities have decayed more than others over that time, and at what rates. Is he still an expert swordsman after those 35 years, for example, but now without most of his previous hit points and no longer proficient with most other weapons?

 

[cbwjm]

One thing I like about the complete race books was that it sort of explained what those aged elves and dwarves were doing, they were granted additional proficiencies depending on how old they started.

In 5e terms, I could see starting an aged elf having a couple of backgrounds or maybe even expertise. Power gamers might try to take advantage so you could maybe find a way to balance it, would have been useful to still have age make changes to your stats.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

That's the fluff - which is great, don't get me wrong - but fluff is all it is.

Where's the crunch that tells me how he got from 20th level down to 5th over those 35 years, and how long it'll be before he drops to 4th? (in any edition: this question is in fact edition-agnostic as this same problem has existed since day one)

Even better, find me some crunch that tells me which of his skills/abilities have decayed more than others over that time, and at what rates. Is he still an expert swordsman after those 35 years, for example, but now without most of his previous hit points and no longer proficient with most other weapons?

Well, if he’s 5th, his proficiency has gone down and he has 5HD. Maybe he has a lower Con too. Probably lower str and Dex since he’s now an 75 year old NPC and not a 40 year old NPC. He probably picked up proficiency in brewing so that went up by 3 points.

sorry. I just don’t understand why you need mechanics. Is there mechanics for aging and when aged by a ghost? That might inform you on how to proceed.

 

[Asisreo]

Were I the player there, however, I'd be wanting to go into much deeper detail than that.

Thanks.

Thing is, as player I'd now like to be able to take whatever at-table time we need to get this place up and running; and my guess is it could potentially take two or three full sessions to do it in the degree of financial-logistical-roleplay detail I'd want, given the amount of renovation and work this place needs.

Right now the base-building stuff is on hold, however, as we're playing another party (in the same loose company) on what's looking like it might be a rather long field adventure.

I see.

Usually I ask players during session 0 if they prefer to resolve downtime in-game or out-of-game. Hearing about your preference, I'd probably suggest doing all the in-depth stuff out-of-game. The last thing I'd want is to limit your engagement with my world simply due to constraints but I'd respect how you're being polite to your fellow players.

 

[TerraDave]

Is that a bad thing? Players try to influence the game with the actions of their characters. And the only win condition is "have fun" - it's not zero sum. So is it a bad thing to influence the setting towards one a player want more with backstory?

This is not world building. Its give my PC an edge that they cannot otherwise have.

But again, I am the one who usually ends up having the fun, so I guess we agree.

 

[hopeless]

From my point of view the game is supposed to be fun for all of those playing as well as the DM.
One thing this thread has made clear is that I'm not a railroad DM as I want my players to be invested in the game, unfortunately that requires my players to actually want to be invested in it.
My experience suggests they either don't really care or when they do they fail to understand things like the peasant version of the Batman origin doesn't work when you're establishing your campaign and your players don't understand this is a two way process and all at least one seems to be interested in is mindless fun, the kind you get just playing a video game.
Maybe one day I'll figure out how to get that point across, one day...