NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5123209" data-attributes="member: 4937">I agree that the transition from A3-A4 is a classic railroad moment, but I think you can provide even more extreme examples of 'railroad'.The worst case I can think of is there is a published Chaosium 'Call of Cthullu' adventure based off 'The Shadow out of Time'... [SPOILER]...where the Great Race of Yith arranges to have the PC party sent forward in time to a point where humanity is extinct and the Great Race is once again the dominate species on Earth (this time inhabiting insectile swarms).  After vivasecting the PC's and putting them back together, the PC's are sent forward in time in a space capsule again, this time to the end of the universe and along the way are allowed to observe the unfolding of the end of history.  At not point whatsoever in any of this do the PC's have any control over events.  The entire adventure is essentially one long DM monologue interrupted only by the quite optional improv theater of the player.[/SPOILER]Unlike the above CoC scenario were oppurtunity to influence events seems carefully scripted out do to the disparity between player power and NPC power, I believe that its possible to adapt Dragonlance to a more open game, but yes, as written you are on the railroad.I agree that the 'railroad' is analogous to a novel, but a 'choose your own adventure' book is only in fact a better designed plot-driven adventure.  The players have some choice, but most of the choice that they have is illusionary.  Instead of one possible outcome to each scene, there are 2 or 3, and quite often, different threads of story when successfully negotiated simply converge back together.  The whole idea in a sandbox is that it doesn't converge.  No two groups playing in the sandbox build the same thing.  If the 'railroad' is a novel, the the 'sandbox' is well, 'a sandbox'.  I agree however that most campaigns fall somewhere in the middle between two possible extremes.</blockquote>

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