Telling a story vs. railroading

[rounser]

Wow, youre really reliant on the actual system to do everything that an actual half decent DM could pull off in his sleep.

No, I'm not. I'm raising some metagame issues that I think are worth considering.

They should know that the area to the north where the HILL GIANTS are at constant skirmish with the Korchac Barbarian Tribes is a DANGEROUS PLACE TO BE.

So in other words, you're saying "put up signposts in the form of NPC rumour". This relies on the PC's metagame knowledge of hill giants. Are the players supposed to know what CR hill giants are? I mean, obviously they're tough, but how tough? Can we handle them at level 8? 12? 17?

Any group that doesnt at least ask questions about an area that they are going to venture to is asking for trouble.

Are NPCs supposed to know the challenge ratings of every hidden dungeon the PCs discover? What about the ability of the PCs to handle those challenges?

There are any number of ways to address these things. In fact I dont see any problem with the first thing that you mentioned (not using literal signposts, but dropping little hints that this might not be an area that they want to be in). One of the things that I did waaaaay back in second editon was have the PC's have a freindly rivalry with 2 or 3 different groups of adventuring groups, some higher level and some lower level. I had them witness, from a distance of course one such group get taken apart by a threat that would have been too tough for the PC's. How did they know that, because the PC's knew that the other group was more experienced and tougher than they were. So they knew that proceeding would have spelt the end for them.

You've named exactly one way to handle it, and it's awkward. So, whenever the PCs are out of their depth, they see a rival adventuring group getting taken apart? That could work maybe once a campaign, so it's not really a solution.

How is this metagamey and Elminster like? You seek to limit the scope of an argument by using an archtype (the mentor) and then calling it metagamey? Seriously D00d, if the PC's do have a mentor, to you presume that the mentor has no other sources of information? The mentor has no idea what the PC's may or may not be able to handle? No idea that once again the PC's may or may not be the only adventurers who may want to attempt to enter the Marshes of Certain Doom and that a reasonably powerful group of adventurers entered there last month and NEVER RETURNED. Or is using his own resources to investigate the threat him/herself and gauge when the PC's might be able to interceed? If all of that is metagamey then I might have misunderstood what metagaming is....

It's metagamey and Elminster-like because to rely on such a figure is to pretty much put a DMPC who knows all about the PCs and what they're up against into the game. This gives me pause because generally such omniscient characters are frowned upon. Maybe an oracle could work in this capacity, but having to ask an NPC about every adventuring environment PCs are considering approaching is not only awkward, but unheroic.

D00d, isnt what you just described metagaming?

Yeah, it's a metagaming solution to a metagaming problem. I don't particularly like it, and aren't suggesting that D&D implement it, but it does solve a problem that D&D has difficulty dealing with without railroading the PCs into an adventure appropriate for their level, IMO.

 

[Janx]

Whether or not a campaign arc and setting reacts to the actions of the PCs has nothing to do with railroading, IMHO. I can easily imagine a campaign arc that reacts to the actions of the PCs but in which the actions of the PCs are to a large extent pre-determined, just as I can easily imagine a freeform campaign in which the actions of the PCs are far less meaningful simply because they choose not to become involved in anything noteworthy.

I think that's an important distinction to make.

Any logical event that happens as a result of PC action (cause and effect) is NOT railroading.

This means, not pursuing an adventure that is on a "limited time availability" is not a railroad
Attacking the 20th level NPC and getting trounced is not a railroad (in and of itself)
PC inaction, is a form of action.

Furthermore:

Players should have choice, and the DM should not metagame to remove choice from the players. The DM, however, should also get a return on his time and effort invested; the players should not metagame to destroy the value of the DM's efforts.

I don't think that DM's initially think to remove choices from the players. Initially, I suspect they make the mistake of NOT thinking of other choices than some few obvious ones.

If fact, I think this leads to defining 2 examples of railroading:

When the DM sees only one choice, and the players invent a new choice, a DM mistake is to attempt to force the original choice on the players. Example: DM plans a kobold combat encounter. The PCs decide to sneak around the kobolds camp. The DM decides to "make" the kobolds aware of the PCs, and fight them anyway. This is an accidental railroad. The DM was trying to stick to the plan he laid out, and forgot to accept a plausible alternate path. This is an accidental railroad, because the DM hadn't intended this, it came about during the course of the game.

When the DM hinges an important story event on something happening, he may make the mistake of deliberately countering any alternatives, to ensure this event happens as written. When the adventure says, "NPC x will do Y to the PCs, and use A, B and C to ensure that it happens" you have a deliberate railroad. This must be differentiated from having a powerful adversary who logically has the resources to get his way. When the adventure says an event WILL happen, and nothing the PCs do can avoid it, despite attempts that would logically work, you have a railroad.

There's always exceptions to these things:
the PCs in most circumstances cannot stop a natural disaster, barring having the right spell or magic item (there's some things you can't affect)
getting attacked by increasingly higher level NPCs good-guys after committing a serious crime (getting arrested is a common result of committing a crime)
Missing an opportunity because the PCs did something else (opportunity seldom knocks twice or waits for very long)

I think in any case, all non-natural events in your game should be:
caused by a logical, and practical NPC action (Lord Evil sends his troops to conscript the Shire)
a logical reaction to PC action (the cops start looking for who stole the Gem)

All of these NPC actions need to be constrained by the resources the NPC should fairly have at their disposal (per the their level/CR), as well as the time needed to culminate the event/encounter, as well as the NPC having the information to act accordingly.

This means the NPCs don't know everything about the PCs, and can't react instantly to the PCs actions (that they were not present for), and can't draw on extra resources (to foil the PCs) just to enact their will (because that would lead to railroading).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Being locked into Ravenloft isn't railroading by my definition; that's just the chosen setting. Forcing the PCs into Feast of Goblyns as their only possible course of action while in there is.

Excepting, of course, that by their very nature, the mists of Ravenloft force you to deal with a certain prescribed area & what is therein (generally speaking, a discrete adventure).

No, because railroading isn't about being tied to a specific place in my definition of it; it's control over the course of the campaign in terms of which adventures occur.

If this is true, though, then knowingly following an adventure path isn't railroading. The DM doesn't have control over which adventures occur. Rather, the players agree to follow a course of adventures that constitute a campaign. No coersion of players, and hence no loss of control, is implied.

Unless, of course, you would argue that allowing players to choose to follow a particular path is railroading.....

(ASIDE: I do understand the distinction between freeform play, which is my preference, and a more linear campaign, but I do not agree that a linear campaign is perforce railroading. I would argue that railroading requires a usurption of player control that results in linear play. The adventure path has linear play, but no usurption of player control [assuming the players agree to play it] and hence is not a railroad. In your demiplane, if the NPCs can leave [caravans?] and the PCs cannot, I would certainly feel that there was an element of usurption of player control, but it does not result in linear play, and hence is not a railroad. If both conditions are not met, I don't buy it as a railroad.)

RC

 

[Elfdart]

So you're saying in order not to railroad, the GM must prepare four adventures and use one? Unrealistic isn't the word *I* would use for that.

Railroading does not mean "this week you're going through the mines of Moriah".

Railroading means within the broad framework of the adventure I select, you have a lot of free will, not you have LIMITLESS freewill.

Even if I'm not writing adventures, the idea that Im going to buy, and read Temple of Elemental Evil and Shackled City, and only run one, just for some utopian ideal of player ultimate freedom?

Forget that. I'm the GM, not an entertainment center.

You don't have to use two or more modules to avoid railroading. It's just that you should avoid herding the PCs around.

For example, the first time I played The Village of Hommlet, our group didn't go straight to the Moathouse. We found out that merchants and travellers were disappearing and decided to pass ourselves off as travelling peddlers in order to lure out another attack. Sure enough, Lareth's brigands attacked and found themselves being ambushed. We wrung information out of the surviving bandits, sought out their lair in the Moathouse, and attacked by way of the secret escape tunnel (essentially we went through the Moathouse "backwards").

When I DMed The Temple of Elemental Evil, the players (for some strange reason) decided to ignore the Moathouse and went straight for the Temple, even though (unknown to them) the Temple was over the heads of 1st level PCs.

Now in far too many cases, many DMs would have railroaded the PCs into playing through in order. They are like hack directors who clutch their scripts like security blankets.

Luckily, in both cases I mentioned above the DM (blowing my own horn, I know) improvised and adjusted to what the players were doing with their PCs. Original thinking should be rewarded instead of answered with "You can't do that."

The big advantage is that players think (rightly) that the actions of their PCs have some effect on the game and aren't just painting by numbers. The other advantage is that if one of the players has already read or been through the module, you can adjust and make him pay!

 

[rounser]

If this is true, though, then knowingly following an adventure path isn't railroading.

Yes Raven, an adventure path with a set order of adventures to be played one after the other that PCs cannot change no matter what they do or no matter what choices they make is not railroading in any way shape or form. That's obviously what you and Quasqueton want to hear, so there, I'm giving it to you and you can do a happy dance or whatever it is you do.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think that's an important distinction to make.

Janx, I could not agree more with your post.

RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Yes Raven, an adventure path with a set order of adventures to be played one after the other that PCs cannot change no matter what they do or no matter what choices they make is not railroading in any way shape or form. That's obviously what you and Quasqueton want to hear, so there, I'm giving it to you and you can do a happy dance or whatever it is you do.

No, rounser, I agree that that would be obvious railroading. Usurpation of player choice + linear play = railroading.

An adventure path with a set order of adventures to be played one after the other that PCs choose to follow is not railroading.

An adventure path with a set order of adventures to be played one after the other that PCs cannot change no matter what they do or no matter what choices they make is blantant and obvious railroading.

 

[rounser]

An adventure path with a set order of adventures to be played one after the other that PCs choose to follow is not railroading.

I also choose not to rob banks because of the consequences.

Players follow an adventure path's hooks because they have no choice but to do so if they want the game to stay on track (which generally they do), because the DM doesn't offer them any other choice but what they're given and they know it. As was covered a lot earlier in the thread, the fact that they're not trying to get off the rails doesn't mean the rails aren't there.

But we're going around in circles here, and I've already complied with your and Quasqueton's requests, so no railroading has occurred.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

No, I'm not. I'm raising some metagame issues that I think are worth considering.

Fair enough.

So in other words, you're saying "put up signposts". This relies on the PC's metagame knowledge of hill giants, too. Are the players supposed to know what CR hill giants are?

No but in the context of the game world, which is something youre either purposefully ignoring just to make your point, if you tell the PC's what Hill Giants are and what they are capable of theyre going to get an idea of how dangerous they are. That has NOTHING to do with CR's.

Are NPCs supposed to know the challenge ratings of every hidden dungeon the PCs discover? What about the ability of the PCs to handle those challenges?

No not every NPC, but the PC's dont operate in a vaccum. In my games at least there are other people doing what the PC's do for a living. They are not the only heroes. And like anyone who has a dangerous profession my player tend to try and find out HOW dangerous a possible threat is before they confront it. CR's arent really an issue for NPC's, but if they've fought that type of creature or know of the creature then they can impart that information.

Once again I dont understand the relevance of you constantly bringing up CR's here when they are really only a tool that that the DM uses to gauge encounter difficulty. The NPC's know NOTHING of CR's...

You've named exactly one way to handle it, and it's awkward. So, whenever the PCs are out of their depth, they see a rival adventuring group getting taken apart? That could work maybe once a campaign, so it's not really a solution.

Okay, I'm not sure if youre trying to be a jerk here but I'll give you the benefit of a doubt for now. That was one way that it was handled and it was effective. To you it was akward, but at the time it had the desired effect, so it actually was a solution and was only use the once. There are no UNIVERSAL fixes. I made it very clear that that it was an example of something that I used to get the point across. Everyone's game is different.

It's metagamey and Elminster-like because to rely on such a figure is to pretty much put a DMPC who knows all about the PCs and what they're up against into the game. This gives me pause because generally such omniscient characters are frowned upon. Maybe an oracle could work in this capacity, but having to ask an NPC about every adventuring environment PCs are considering approaching is not only awkward, but unheroic.

So having an NPC in the game that knows more than the PC's is metagamey? We were specifically talking about a mentor type right? Who said anything about the NPC being omniscient? Youre kinda taking this to the extreme now arent you? If the NPC is there strictly for guidence or support then what's the problem or are the PC's supposed to just get all of thier information from where exactly if no one actually knows more than they do?

Yeah, it's a metagaming solution to a metagaming problem. I don't particularly like it, and aren't suggesting that D&D implement it, but it does solve a problem that D&D has difficulty dealing with without railroading the PCs into an adventure appropriate for their level, IMO.

SO youre basically lacing me for something that I dont consider metagaming, at all, but your metagaming solution is flawed, but acceptable? It's pretty obvious our styles are really different and there is no middle ground here so lets leave this conversation alone for now.

 

[Elfdart]

You've set up a strawman here. No one says that you have to have two dozen adventures ready.

What I have done, quite successfully (and no, I didn't get burned out) was create an area (a large island in my case), with a lot of wilderness. Then create 30 or 40 'lair' encounters (and yes, this is work), and spread them out in the wilderness. Then buy 3 or 4 site based modules (I have at least 20 in my bookcase), decide where they are in the wilderness, and what is known about them, by whom.

Then, just tell the party to 'go adventuring, in seek of fortune'. They decide where to explore, whether to just go in a dungeon blindly, or do research about others that had explored them and their fates, or try to learn the history of the dungeon, or scout it, all in order to learn how dangerous it is, and what kind of treasure might be inside. I don't label each dungeon with an 'appropriate for x level characters' sign. It's up to the party to not bite off more than they can chew.

I mix a few event based encounters into the mix, so that the party has to be reactive from time to time. For example, one week the village the party was staying in was attacked by a neighboring tribe of savages, and the party had to decide to 1) try to flee or 2) stay and defend the village (they chose 2). I foreshadowed the attack in previous weeks through a variety of means, to give the PCs some idea that their base might be in danger.

But generally, I let the PCs decide where to adventure, where to go, what level of risk they want to assume.

What I ask of the players, is to decide at the end of each session what they think they'll do the next week, to give me a heads up on whether I should refresh my memory on dungeon x or dungeon y.

It isn't really that hard! The choice is not to ralroad, or prepare 22 adventures. There is a middle ground.

Ken

That's pretty much what I do. I lay out the lairs, dungeons, etc. ahead of time, decide on random encounters and turn the PCs loose. It's kind of fun to have "Here there be dragons" on the map, more so since the PCs start with something to shoot for. If the players are dopey enough to send their characters dragon hunting at 1st level... dragons have to eat, too. It adds a sense of danger when PCs are faced with dangerous monsters at low level. Not every encounter should be geared for the party's level.