Poor DM/ Game Advice

[merwins]

The reason I was curious about this is it often seems like there's a fine line between the "macro scripted" series of a campaign, and so-called railroading. And, TBH, I have no dog in that fight, but I'm curious what people think about that.

There is only a fine line if you have A plan for the players. There is no line at all if you have a vibrant world, with a story independent of the PCs.

IOW, if you want the PCs to do something, you're going to have to do a bit of railroading. But if you only care about the consequences of their actions, then you only need to extend the impact of their actions to a reasoned conclusion. The world does the rest.

This is especially useful when you put the work into designing a scenario (single focused event) or adventure (a coherently connected set of scenarios). When I was younger, I'd consider all that work wasted if the players ignored or subverted it. Now, I just play it out myself...

Example: PCs find a powerful magic item while undertaking another task. It has strong... deterrents to being wielded casually. Rather than pay the price to wield it, they abandon trying to acquire it, intending to return when they have better protection against its defenses. On their return to civilization, they're cagey about what they've found, but an NPC figures out they left something behind, and searches it out, and recovers the item for themself.

Same thing happens if PCs explore half a dungeon and then leave. Who's moving in?
Or if they kill roving bandits on the road. Who where the bandits related to? Were they passing through, or regulars? Was there a planned hit that was disrupted (unknowingly) by the PCs? What's the consequence of that target surviving their ambush?
Or if they're in a situation where they can watch a fight or be part of it. Both are viable choices, with very different consequences.

None of this has to be planned BEFORE the fact. You can backfill stories pretty smoothly.

I'm very much in the same camp as @Oofta when it comes to metaplot/campaign planning. There's a solid skeleton of a plan, but you don't put meat on the bones unless your effort is going to pay off--that the players are actually going to use that content.

 

[Oofta]

There is only a fine line if you have A plan for the players. There is no line at all if you have a vibrant world, with a story independent of the PCs.

IOW, if you want the PCs to do something, you're going to have to do a bit of railroading. But if you only care about the consequences of their actions, then you only need to extend the impact of their actions to a reasoned conclusion. The world does the rest.

This is especially useful when you put the work into designing a scenario (single focused event) or adventure (a coherently connected set of scenarios). When I was younger, I'd consider all that work wasted if the players ignored or subverted it. Now, I just play it out myself...

Example: PCs find a powerful magic item while undertaking another task. It has strong... deterrents to being wielded casually. Rather than pay the price to wield it, they abandon trying to acquire it, intending to return when they have better protection against its defenses. On their return to civilization, they're cagey about what they've found, but an NPC figures out they left something behind, and searches it out, and recovers the item for themself.

Same thing happens if PCs explore half a dungeon and then leave. Who's moving in?
Or if they kill roving bandits on the road. Who where the bandits related to? Were they passing through, or regulars? Was there a planned hit that was disrupted (unknowingly) by the PCs? What's the consequence of that target surviving their ambush?
Or if they're in a situation where they can watch a fight or be part of it. Both are viable choices, with very different consequences.

None of this has to be planned BEFORE the fact. You can backfill stories pretty smoothly.

I'm very much in the same camp as @Oofta when it comes to metaplot/campaign planning. There's a solid skeleton of a plan, but you don't put meat on the bones unless your effort is going to pay off--that the players are actually going to use that content.

You pointed out something I didn't. I don't plan adventures per se, I decide current events, power structures, conflicts. Once I have that down then I start worrying about how I see that playing out at a high level if the PCs don't alter the course.

I've had entire cities fall because of the PCs didn't stop the big bad. I've also just recently had a region enter a time of relative peace because they were more successful than I had anticipated.

The fact that players know that previous campaigns altered the course of the world and know they may do the same makes for a richer world.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Glad to see we are not the only group leveling at this pace!

My group started with Lost Mines when it came out, and we've been playing since....they're level 13 now, having just completed Tomb of Annihilation. They also did an updated version of Dead Gods (a Planescape adventure), half of Princes of the Apocalypse, and all of Curse of Strahd, as well as a ton of homebrew stuff.

Very slow milestone leveling.

I think it all depends on what the expectations are for the group, and how much they all want to continue at any given endpoint. I think most campaigns that aren't following a predetermined adventure path or similar track will reach several potential end points along the way, and at each one, the group kind of has to decide to keep going or to say the story is done. It's going to vary wildly by group, and will depend on a lot of factors. But I do think there comes a point where there is some kind of logical and final endpoint where the story is done, and there's no reason to continue.

 

[Charlaquin]

You get Supernatural. Lost. The Young and the Restless. Most comic books. The Peanuts comic strip. Improvisational jazz. Your Uncle Lou who drones on and on about nothing at holiday meals after he gets a couple drinks in him. The original, unabridged Les Miserables.

Which is to say, moment to moment it can be incredibly engaging. But, taken as a whole, it may become somewhat repetitive, bland, or pointless.

If you don't care about what happens when it is taken as a whole, then this is zero issue.

I would argue that Supernatural is a perfect example of what happens when a game reaches a natural end point and then keeps going anyway. Although there is evidence to suggest that the overarching story of the first 5 seasons wasn’t exactly planned out in advance, it did manage to reach a narratively satisfying conclusion that tied things together pretty nicely and made the series up until that point feel like a complete experience, for the most part. Then they kept going. They floundered. They eventually found their feet again, kind of, but it never shook the feeling of being forced. As you point out, the individual episodes could be interesting, but the series overall just felt like a mess.

 

[Oofta]

I would argue that Supernatural is a perfect example of what happens when a game reaches a natural end point and then keeps going anyway. Although there is evidence to suggest that the overarching story of the first 5 seasons wasn’t exactly planned out in advance, it did manage to reach a narratively satisfying conclusion that tied things together pretty nicely and made the series up until that point feel like a complete experience, for the most part. Then they kept going. They floundered. They eventually found their feet again, kind of, but it never shook the feeling of being forced. As you point out, the individual episodes could be interesting, but the series overall just felt like a mess.

Whereas I would argue that life didn't end ever college. Or after I moved, or got married or ... well you get the idea.

There are times when I have to come up with new campaign arcs and goals/obstacles, but I'd have to do that with a new group of PCs anyway. Not sure I really see that much difference if the players are still enjoying their PCs.

 

[Umbran]

I agree, except for the last sentence. I think people can care about what happens when the campaign is taken as a whole, and still not design it from the beginning.

This is not in any way contradicting what I said.

If you care about how it appears as a whole, but you have no plan... well, then it is kid of a crap shoot. Without a plan, you don't get a lot of say in the overall result.

In other words, sometimes you just get a series of unconnected modules, and it's a lot like life; you know, no real plot other than what you make of it.

Sure. If that's what you like, that's fine. Maybe you'll get a Seinfeld, and maybe you won't.

But sometimes, there is an emergent theme that comes through, driven by the players through the interaction with the campaign setting the micro choices of the DM.

In theory, that can happen. But pareidolia is also a thing. As is some retrospective cherry-picking.

It's all part of a cosmic unconsciousness.

Not a believer in that. Sorry.

The reason I was curious about this is it often seems like there's a fine line between the "macro scripted" series of a campaign, and so-called railroading. And, TBH, I have no dog in that fight, but I'm curious what people think about that.

I think you are setting yourself up to miss understanding by starting with the word "scripted" - this is a preconceived notion about implementation.

I can create a sandbox, and populate it (in full or only partial detail). No scripting, right?

Well, if the players say they want to play characters that are like X, Y, and Z, and I make sure my sandbox has some bad guys (either big to start, or growing over time) that are very, very likely to be involved in X, Y, and Z spaces, such that the chance of conflict with the PC is nigh inevitable... is that scripting? I am not pre-choosing what adventures the PCs will do - I am merely choosing who in the world there is that is creating situations worthy of adventure.

You talk about characters that live a life with no real plot. That isn't actually much of a statement about the characters, but about the world in which the characters are adventuring.

If your world is basically static, with a bunch of set pieces in it that don't meaningfully interact and change over time, if nothing in the world is happening then the PCs world can be about nothing in particular.

If your world is dynamic, with major movements and changes that impact life in that world, then PCs lives will be about those movements and changes. If there's a war, for example, then the PCs lives will be about war, whether they like it or not, because there it is surrounding them.

The static world without notable events of its own is the world of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. They wander around until something happens- they pick up a thread or plot hook, which is pretty short, and follow it to a conclusion. Then, they find another thread, which isn't really related to the first. Their world is... felt. There is no directionality.

There is, in fact, another way to get the world of Fafhrd and Grey Mouser, that is totally a railroad. This is the old school 1e "the GM has bought a module, and we play it," campaign that many of us likely cut out teeth upon. Each adventure is unrelated to the one before or maybe there's a short series. But no attempt is made to link them together in plot. The PCs have no real say what they are doing next, so it is a railroad, but without any notable directionality.

Meanwhile, I can get a campaign with a theme of war, for example, by setting up a war happening, and letting the players play within it as they will, or I can pick up the Dragonlance modules.

Which is to say, ultimately, having themes and direction are orthogonal to railroading.

 

[Charlaquin]

In my experience, players who are enjoying a campaign will happily keep going as long as the DM wants to keep running. It's the DM who burns out and wants a change. Not saying that is universally the case, but that's how it has always been in my groups.

(Of course, if the DM has burned out and exhausted the original campaign idea, the quality of the campaign is apt to decline and players may stop enjoying the campaign as a result. But it takes a little while for this issue to become apparent.)

This may or may not be connected to the fact that the groups I play in always have multiple DMs. I know there are groups where one person is the permanent DM, year in and year out; and maybe burnout works differently for those folks. I couldn't do it. After 12-18 months behind the screen, I want to step back and sling some dice and kill some monsters.

I’m my main group’s forever DM, and this seems consistent with my own experience. The players are always happy to play whatever, but they have a noticeably less-good time when I’m not feeling it. Which makes sense, D&D is generally enjoyable as a player, as long as the DM is reasonably competent. But the game is much more enjoyable as a player when the DM puts real love and care into the game than when they’re just going through the motions. If the DM gets burnt out, players will still play and probably have a decent time, but their enjoyment will gradually end up declining as a result of the DM’s disinterest.

 

[Charlaquin]

Whereas I would argue that life didn't end ever college. Or after I moved, or got married or ... well you get the idea.

Right, but D&D isn’t life. It’s a game, and one with a strong narrative element.

There are times when I have to come up with new campaign arcs and goals/obstacles, but I'd have to do that with a new group of PCs anyway. Not sure I really see that much difference if the players are still enjoying their PCs.

Sure, sure. Don’t get me wrong, it’s entirely possible to do long-running campaigns like this, and they can be a great deal of fun. But such campaigns, when done successfully, tend to be structured differently than campaigns with a more narrative focus. There’s a big difference between “let’s play a Darksun campaign” or “let’s play this megadungeon I designed” and “let’s play Curse of Strahd” or “Let’s play this adventure path I wrote.”

 

[Oofta]

Right, but D&D isn’t life. It’s a game, and one with a strong narrative element.


Sure, sure. Don’t get me wrong, it’s entirely possible to do long-running campaigns like this, and they can be a great deal of fun. But such campaigns, when done successfully, tend to be structured differently than campaigns with a more narrative focus.

There is no one true way, you have to do what works for you and your group. I guess I would say my campaigns still have a narrative focus, just that the narrative focus emerges instead of being predetermined. Maybe. Or maybe I just don't really have the right words to describe it.

In any case, I don't ever use purchased modules other than to potentially mine for ideas and encounters so the end "goal" if there even is one is pretty nebulous and can often morph as needed.

 

[Charlaquin]

There is no one true way, you have to do what works for you and your group. I guess I would say my campaigns still have a narrative focus, just that the narrative focus emerges instead of being predetermined. Maybe. Or maybe I just don't really have the right words to describe it.

Indeed, I agree with this completely. Sorry if I wasn’t clear, I think D&D always has a strong narrative focus. Even in more casual, beer-and-pretzels games, there’s still an emergent narrative, it’s just a built-in part of the game’s nature as an RPG.

And to further clarify, I’m not saying that I think your game is a beer and pretzels game, just using that as a general example.

In any case, I don't ever use purchased modules other than to potentially mine for ideas and encounters so the end "goal" if there even is one is pretty nebulous and can often morph as needed.

I’ve run games with specific goals from the outset, and games with more nebulous goals. Both are fun, but have different structural demands in my experience.