D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[payn]

Though the easy answer to that is "It just looks like a sandbox. Its a railroad with illusionism laid over it heavily."

Yeap, which is why ive gotten real weary of sandbox pitches. I've had too many fake outs over the years. The worst was a GM that wouldnt railroad in the traditional sense, he would let players make all kinds of decisions. However, none of them would amount to anything until they found the "right" decision which was like one of those Sierra adventure games when you had to pull the door instead of push it. We'd exhaust hours with red herrings, failed plans, false leads and the GM would just nod and inform us it was all moot until we just kicked in every door and killed every person in every adventure....

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Yeap, which is why ive gotten real weary of sandbox pitches. I've had too many fake outs over the years. The worst was a GM that wouldnt railroad in the traditional sense, he would let players make all kinds of decisions. However, none of them would amount to anything until they found the "right" decision which was like one of those Sierra adventure games when you had to pull the door instead of push it. We'd exhaust hours with red herrings, failed plans, false leads and the GM would just nod and inform us it was all moot until we just kicked in every door and killed every person in every adventure....

Yes, pixel hunting. It is the literal worst way to run a game.

 

[RealAlHazred]

We'd exhaust hours with red herrings, failed plans, false leads and the GM would just nod and inform us it was all moot until we just kicked in every door and killed every person in every adventure....

Look, they wouldn't have given you the hit points and treasure allotment of every person in the Keep on the Borderlands if you weren't supposed to just go in and kill them all, would they?