Telling a story vs. railroading

[Quasqueton]

What I'm saying is that if before the first PC is even created and before the DM knows the personallity behind the different PCs that he's DMing for, and he already knows what the final encounter of the campaign is going to be, then that doesn't really sound like a very PC involved game.

If that were true, then yes, it is railroading. And if you look at what I've said, I think you will see we are agreeing on the concept (a DM predetermining everything in the campaign is, indeed, railroading).

But buying a series of adventures, and figuring that the PCs will naturally, logically, and willingly follow the plot is not railroading. Assuming the PCs will continue following the "storyline" they've been on isn't predetermining the campaign. Dragon hunter PCs "should" be expected to follow dragon-hunting adventure plots, in general. And a DM is not railroading by purchasing a dragon-hunting series of adventures -- that's just smart preparation.

Quasqueton

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I like D&D because playing the game is telling a story. Everything the PCs do leaves a story in their footprints (wake). You may not set out to create a story with D&D, but if you play the same characters for any length of time, you’ve told a (their) story. This is a big difference between RPGs and other games. I've always thought of it as a big selling point for RPGs over other games.

If you enter the Caves of Chaos and proceed to kill or drive out all the evil there in, you’ve told a story (what you did and how you did it). A story no less than if you entered the Sunless Citadel and drove through to the evil druid and defeated him (what you did and how you did it). In both scenarios, a story unfolded through Player action in response to the adventure situations.

If the baron offers to pay you 10,000gp to go into the Dungeon of Danger and retrieve the Glorious Gem for him, you’ve started a story. How you go through the dungeon and find the gem is a story. When you turn the gem over to the baron, you’ve told a story. What the baron uses the gem for may continue the story.

If you recover the gem and decide to keep it for yourself, or perhaps to take it to another city and sell it to the highest bidder, you’re telling a story.

If you tell the baron to go screw himself, and you ignore the Dungeon of Danger to instead run off hunting goblins, you are telling a story.

If the baron sends troops and assassins after you for your actions (or inactions), that is just the natural cause/effect, action/reaction, consequences of the story *you are creating*.

But here's the problem. If this happens, now the DM has to write all this stuff. Or predict this, do it all ahead of time, and that takes more time or watch his extra work get wasted. This makes things less fun for the players too, watching the DM scramble to put it all together.

You're better off using something players (PCs) care about, but even that doesn't always work satisfactorily.

 

[Quasqueton]

You're better off using something players (PCs) care about

Why do you assume the PCs don't care about the baron and the gem?

Quasqueton

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Why do you assume the PCs don't care about the baron and the gem?

Quasqueton

They don't sound like they care about the gem if they insult him and march off. (BTW, I think the plot of the baron sending thugs after the PCs is a bit silly. If he can do that, why doesn't he hire them to complete the adventure instead?)

 

[Vigilance]

Im not sure how deciding in advance that Adventure B follows adventure A is any more railroading than deciding what Adventure A will be.

In other words, if deciding that Against the Slavelords will follow Temple of Elemental Evil is railroading, then why isn't deciding to drop the PCs in Hommlett at 1st level railroading?

Sure, they could run as fast as they can away from the Slavelords after the temple, just like they could run screaming from Hommlett at the first sight of an NPC.

But if the whole game is an exercise in making the GM ad-lib, say hello to less satsifying adventures.

 

[rounser]

All games are linear, regardless of who is driving. If the game includes dungeons A. B. and C, and the players choose to go to B first, then A, then C, that B-A-C path is still linear.

That assumes that the campaign is based on AND rather than OR conditions.

Suppose we present the PCs with multiple hooks - they can thwart a wererat infestation at Relfren, raid the recently discovered Halfhammer Crypt, travel overland to Burbrook where a magic item auction is taking place, or ignore all hooks and just go looking for treasure in the Skull Plains.

As it happens, the PCs choose the Skull Plains and find some barrows to clear, spending their time killing undead monks. Meanwhile, the auction ends (and the theft adventure tied to that with it), the Halfhammer Crypt is cleared by a rival adventuring party, and Relfren gets overrun with wererats and the infestation spreads to neighbouring villages. Not only have the PCs had a clear choice of what they do next (from a finite set of options), but they've also affected the setting and the course of the campaign (the rival adventurers are tougher with their loot and XP from the dwarven halls, the wererat villain has become a major threat rather than an annoyance, and the opportunity to make contacts with magic item vendors is gone for now).

Now, I know that having adventures or campaigns with time limits is unwise for several design reasons, but this is useful for purposes of showing a campaign arc and setting which reacts to the actions of the PCs. It's also unrealistic for most of us in that it represents about four times the prep work of just railroading the PCs into Halfhammer Crypt, and a lot of adventure design work has been shelved because the PCs didn't pick up that particular hook...but that's why it's not generally done.

 

[Quasqueton]

Which is a long way of saying that, in part, I agree with Quasqueton

Actually, what you are saying is that you agree completely with me. As what you have said is exactly in line with what I feel, beleive, and have said. You have said nothing that disagrees with my posts.

Quasqueton

 

[Quasqueton]

They don't sound like they care about the gem if they insult him and march off.

But as you said:

You're better off using something players (PCs) care about, but even that doesn't always work satisfactorily.

Quasqueton

 

[Quasqueton]

When people start suggesting that any DM preparation or prethought at all is railroading, then the discussion has moved outside my understanding. So, like I said (and then immediately forgot) earlier tonight, I'm out of this discussion. It holds only madness for me. (And I produce enough of that for myself on normal nights.)

Quasqueton

 

[Vigilance]

It's also unrealistic for most of us in that it represents about four times the prep work of just railroading the PCs into Halfhammer Crypt, and a lot of adventure design work has been shelved because the PCs didn't pick up that particular hook...but that's why it's not generally done.

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.