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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Abe.ebA" data-source="post: 2969292" data-attributes="member: 32545">Sorry, Rounser.  I didn't mean to put words in your mouth.  I was trying to say that the thing you were talking about wasn't what I was talking about.  I think I understand your position and agree with you, I just wanted to say up front that I wasn't talking about adventure paths and their use or non-use when I say 'railroading' later in the post.In retrospect I should have said, "the campaign plotting style which Rounser was discussing" rather than "what Rounser had a problem with".  In any event, I was just using your name as a reference point for the previous discussion, not as part of an attack on you or your feelings on the matter and so apologize for my misrepresentation.In other news, and in an attempt to salvage something useful from this thread (well, something else useful... I did get a few ideas from the earlier discussion about limiting the campaign world's physical size)...For anyone who can accept the definition posited by myself, RC, et al for a moment for purpose of discussion: when a situation arises where you, as a DM, feel it necessary to railroad, do you think it's preferable to do it in-game or to simply tell the players?  I'll give an example:The session is moving along with the PCs exploring the Crypt of Impending Doom when they come upon a chasm which a recent earthquake cut into the bedrock through which the crypt's network of passages winds.  A couple of hundred feet below and a couple hundred feet away, on the far side of the chasm, they see a light flicker out as someone moves into a passageway on another level of the complex.  Could it be Baddie McEvil, the necromancer they chased into the crypts in the first place?  You, the DM, expect the sight to spur the PCs onward into finding a way down through the crypts to the lower levels and across the chasm to catch up with Baddie.  Instead, one of them says, "I whip out that flying carpet we picked up from the evil djinn three months ago.  Good thing I kept forgetting to sell it, huh?"You don't have the lower level plotted out yet.  You have a couple of badguys statted up for the end of the dungeon but they're way too tough for the PCs to handle right now and you haven't gotten around to statting out Baddie McEvil at all yet.  You forgot that they still had that carpet; heck, you forgot you gave them a carpet.  It was just part of a randomly rolled treasure horde.This is obviously a contrived scenario.  It's not likely to come up very often that the PCs can fly unexpectedly and that said flight ability will allow them to totally bypass your prepared dungeon and skip into unprepared area.  But if it, or something similar in nature if not specifics, came up I suspect a lot of DMs would be tempted to railroad.  So what's the best course?a) "Right, when you land on the distant ledge, Baddie is no longer within sight." and continue the dungeon where they left it on the previous ledge while pretending it was meant to be the lower level.b) "Uh... your carpet doesn't work.  The earthquake was actually an anti-magic earthquake."c) "Okay, off you go!" and ad-lib furiously.d) "Look guys, I forgot about the carpet.  You're two rogues, a barbarian, and a warlock and you haven't bought any potions of flight; I didn't figure you'd be able to fly and I haven't statted out the lower level at all."Option b, I think, is clear railroading.  Option a is a bit subtler railroading since the PCs may very well never know what happened with the maps but you're still forcing them along a route, especially if Baddie stays convinently 10 steps ahead for the rest of the dungeon.  Option c is good in that there's no railroading going on whatsoever, but bad in that (at least for me) ad-hoc DMing rarely provides the same level of detail and challenge that having prepared encounters and challenges does.  Option d avoids the problem, assuming the players agree, but is it a case of railroading just as bad as option b?  Or is it preferable to some (or all) of the other options?  Is there another way to handle it that would be better than any of these?</blockquote>

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