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<blockquote data-quote="kigmatzomat" data-source="post: 2956073" data-attributes="member: 9254">DL was not a railroad, per se.&nbsp; It was, however, a story with few options before player choices make the plotline unrecoverable.&nbsp; Player choice could destroy any module. Take the generic &quot;king requests the party go on a quest and he offers fabulous wealth in return&quot; story.&nbsp; If the players attack the king it can all go sideways.&nbsp; The question is, how likely is it that completely rational gamers will derail the adventure?&nbsp; In DL1, most of the time you have only one obvious rational choice (go from Point A to Point B ahead of the army).&nbsp; Fighting the army has a zero chance of success and fleeing does nothing to stop the evil army.&nbsp; So only unintuitive or irrational decisions will derail DL1.&nbsp; Railroad adventures require the DM to force the players to do a particular thing at all costs or the adventure collapses while ignoring multiple, rational alternative actions.&nbsp; Bad railroads require the players do something stupid for the plot to work.&nbsp; One SR adventure I vaguely remembered expected the players to go and rough up a fixer for info, causing a cascade of revenge to dump on the PCs.&nbsp; We simply paid the fixer for the info.&nbsp;&nbsp; It destroyed about half the plotline b/c we didn't use a violent approach.&nbsp; It may have destroyed more of the plot but we had a decent GM who spent 15 minutes frantically rewriting the adventure so it made sense.&nbsp; A good GM doesn't have to run a railroad adventure as a railroad but he probably won't get much value for his money.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="kigmatzomat, post: 2956073, member: 9254"] DL was not a railroad, per se. It was, however, a story with few options before player choices make the plotline unrecoverable. Player choice could destroy any module. Take the generic "king requests the party go on a quest and he offers fabulous wealth in return" story. If the players attack the king it can all go sideways. The question is, how likely is it that completely rational gamers will derail the adventure? In DL1, most of the time you have only one obvious rational choice (go from Point A to Point B ahead of the army). Fighting the army has a zero chance of success and fleeing does nothing to stop the evil army. So only unintuitive or irrational decisions will derail DL1. Railroad adventures require the DM to force the players to do a particular thing at all costs or the adventure collapses while ignoring multiple, rational alternative actions. Bad railroads require the players do something stupid for the plot to work. One SR adventure I vaguely remembered expected the players to go and rough up a fixer for info, causing a cascade of revenge to dump on the PCs. We simply paid the fixer for the info. It destroyed about half the plotline b/c we didn't use a violent approach. It may have destroyed more of the plot but we had a decent GM who spent 15 minutes frantically rewriting the adventure so it made sense. A good GM doesn't have to run a railroad adventure as a railroad but he probably won't get much value for his money. [/QUOTE]

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