RPGA Scenarios Strengths & Weakness

[pawsplay]

A game can be fairly linear with lots of redirection and still not be a railroad. A railroad will literally not go off its tracks... even in published modules, I have a hard time imagining that deities will descend from the heavens and command the heroes to go to a certain inn, or that NPCs will suddenly become 12th level because a PC attacks them. Railroading is more of a play style issue than one of module design, although modules can be more or less predisposing.

 

[amysrevenge]

i guess from reading everyone views, it boils down to one thing
"dont blame the tools, blame the worksman"

To a degree. Another aspect of it is "Don't go into a vegetarian restaurant and complain when they don't have steak on the menu".

i had the bad luck to run into an inexperienced, inflexible Gm who was very gamist and more interested in roll playing rather than roleplaying.

If you believe in those labels (which I personally do not), the RPGA runs a game that tends way over toward the gamist/rollplaying side of the field.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Let me put back on my LFR Admin hat.

I think everyone has a different definition of railroad. People who are used to a really open, sandbox type game will find LFR adventures very railroady. Then again, I'm used to DMs running published adventures or writing their own in the style of published adventures(AP style adventures). I'm used to there being a clear goal for the party, the entire group agreeing to complete that goal and no one going on side quests.

So, in that way, I don't really consider the LFR adventures to be railroading. They just assume everyone is at the table to play through the story as written and see what happens. I guess I look at them a lot like a choose your own adventure story. You are going to be playing the story of the haunted house, but whether you fight the ghost, run away, or negotiate with it is going to be up to you....mostly. It's likely the ghost is insane and unreasonable and fighting is the only way past. But whether you live or die and how the battle goes is going to be entirely in your hands.

Then again, I view pretty much all D&D to be that way.

Chris Wachal
POC - Akanul
Living Forgotten Realms

 

[Charwoman Gene]

They just assume everyone is at the table to play through the story as written and see what happens.

That is the only useful definition of railroad in terms of D&D. It doesn't matter that you use a warped definition to avoid perceived negative connotations.

It's the "play through the story as written" that is objectionable to some people.

You could use "Plot Channeled" if you want a happy-fluffy-PC-bunny way to say railroad.

 

[D'karr]

That is the only useful definition of railroad in terms of D&D. It doesn't matter that you use a warped definition to avoid perceived negative connotations.

It's the "play through the story as written" that is objectionable to some people.

You could use "Plot Channeled" if you want a happy-fluffy-PC-bunny way to say railroad.

And by that definition, every single adventure module ever written that had a section called background, would be a "railroad".

I just looked at my copies of "Descent into the Depths of the Earth", and "Vault of the Drow". Both of those have an extensive section detailing what has happened. This gives the DM a pretty substantial idea of how the adventure works. I went ahead and looked at several of the adventures from the RPGA. They have the same thing.

When you paint with such a wide brush, then even the classics are "railroads". The only way to complete those classic adventures is for the PCs to stick to the "mission." How they complete the mission is up to them. The current RPGA adventures follow a similar path.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

And by that definition, every single adventure module ever written that had a section called background, would be a "railroad".

Um, yeah I thought that was obvious.

 

[Mark]

IMO, one can learn a great deal about pacing from running a bunch of RPGA scenarios.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

That is the only useful definition of railroad in terms of D&D. It doesn't matter that you use a warped definition to avoid perceived negative connotations.

The problem is that people define "railroading" in so many different ways. I hate the term because of the negative implications. When I hear the word it makes me think "really bad DM who doesn't know how to run a game so forces the players to do things they don't want to so that he can make up for his lack of skill".

And I don't consider RPGA DMs or anyone who runs through a written adventure to be a bad DM. Nor do I view what they are doing as forcing anyone to do anything they don't want to.

The difference to me is the forcing part. When I sit down at an RPGA table, it's because I WANT to play the adventure. I've likely read the synopsis and know the basic outline of the plot and I want to play through it. When an NPC in the adventure comes up to me and asks me to find his family's ancient heirloom from their ancestral crypt, I know I'm going to say yes. Not because the DM is railroading me, but because I want to know what monsters are in the crypt, I want the challenge of defeating them, I want the reward that comes with succeeding.

I only feel railroaded when the DM actively says "No, you can't do that" or appears to be blatantly preventing me from taking an action. If I never come up against that barrier, then I don't care if I'm being "railroaded". Part of the unspoken agreement of playing through a written adventure of any sort is that the players won't actively attempt to break the adventure.

It's the "play through the story as written" that is objectionable to some people.

I guess. I figure I'm playing through the story as written no matter which game I'm playing in. Even in a purely home game, the DM has done some preparation(or at least I hope they have), they know what the enemies are likely to do, they've set up a plot hook, thought about the likely outcomes and courses of action that the PCs will take and written down details of what will happen in those circumstances. Either that or they are entirely winging it...and I don't like games run without preparation.

But if an NPC comes to me in a home game and asks me to find his heirloom in a home game, I should expect that the DM has a map of that crypt made up, a list of encounters and treasures found there and so on. If I say yes, I'm already agreeing to play the story as written, same as in the RPGA game. Only difference is, if I say no, I'm forcing the DM to write up an entirely new adventure in a home game.

 

[obsid]

i wish you were the gm at the recent PHB2 gamesday game at my table. One of the players wanted to stealth into town to investigate why the town was deserted but the gm pushed us into the first combat by not letting the player stealth.

I played the exact same gameday scenerio as you did (I even had 2 12 year olds playing with us to show how easy most of the rules are). Our rogue in the first encounter actualy did sneak up once we noticed the town was abaddoned (it was one of the 12 y.o's too that thought of it). After he went up there and spied on them and came back and told us, we decided to attack from a diffrent direction, we rolled a streetwise check (whcih we got like a 20 on so he let us come from whatever side we wanted). We came from behind and created a natural chokepoint and did very well in that encounter.

Another situation was when it came to the skill challenge, the gm just said you can use these skills in the skill challenge, roll to see if you succeed, he never asked the players to describe what they were doing actually in the skill challenge. It was very gamist.

Our DM said you see tracks heading off in that direction. Then when we followed them we saw a glimse of the girl. I (the warforged barbarian) climed up a building to see her better (and succded once for the team). The bard cut her off by running ahead of her (streatwise check). And the 12 yo dark elf tried to sneak up on her (stealth check). We also had the paladin (the other 12yo) try and run after her (athletics check which he failed). Eventualy when we cought up to her she was screaming histaricly (probably from seeing the giant warforged barbarian looking down at her lol), and the bard calmed her down (dipomacy check). All of this was done NOT by the DM telling us this is the list of things you can do, but asked us what we do, and then finding an approprate check that would fit. Very open-ended.

my player tried to use ghost sound before entering the mill to lure the monsters out but the gm said the monsters were not tricked and when i tried to set fire to the mill on noticing the flammable dust, the gm disallowed it. He only later set fire to the mill himself when he rolled a 1 on his fire attack. He also neglected to describe the grinding mill stone else we would have bullrush the brutes/soldiers into it.

In the first battle one of the little toggalites was off fighting someone else on the other side of a building, and our bard used ghost sound to project the voice of the speedling thing saying "retreat". which did get the troggalte to pull back a bit and go find the speeding as well as confuse the speedling for a turn while he tried to figure out what was going on. And when we got to the mill (we didnt think to try to set it on fire as it was the little girls father's mill) but we did notice a second entrance to the mill higher up next to the spinning blades (although we didnt try to use it). Our DM did tell us about the grinding mill stone, and we did use it quite effectivly several times (I think like 2 of the troggalites got killed by it as they failed there save like 4 times in a row).

Still with all of this there was one point there that it was very close, where I looked around and saw the bard dead (not even healable totaly dead), the invoker on the ground bleeding out, me about to fall over from the poison (not enough body to even start my next round), and the 12 yo paladin and avenger we the only ones standing (and both of them were bloodied and poisoned). It was at this point that I took a look at the paladins skill list and asked him to use a heal skill on me. I second-winded used the potion of vitality that we got earier on the invoker, and used warfarged resolve (so I went from almost dead to like 60 hp). And we finished the game successfully. Some of this I think was do to the DM decideding to throw the final boss at us just as we we attacking the 2 atilery demon guys, (as the game was taking quite a while and he wanted to finish it up) and just after he did one of the demons critted, and the one rolled a 1 blowing the whole place up.

So I guess the moral of the story is it depends on which DM you get, just like any game of D&D. I know when I DM a game I have some idea of which encounters and npc stats are coming up, thats all the LFR stuff gives you. From that point its up to the DM.