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Message: <blockquote data-quote="bloodtide" data-source="post: 9732832" data-attributes="member: 6684958">This does not feel like Railroading.  Just about all published adventure modules have a couple different settings, like a swamp or a castle, and have 3-10 encounters in each.  If the swamp has three encounters, the DM will want to run all of them.  I agree.  I hope to offer plenty of advice on how not to be the Clumsy DM.It gets asked often enough of "how to avoid the bad style railroad?"  Though the standard answer is just "do the sandbox".  I think the problem here is that it is just too common.Even at a table of good players that are not jerks they will often enough do things that Inexperienced or Casual DMs don't expect.  And it just does not really work to ask the players to go another direction every couple minutes.  A lot of players would just seee this as a Railroad too.  "Oh we can't do plot a or b or c as the DM is not ready...this game has no agency"Worse here is too many players are enjoy making waves at best, and hostile at worse.  There is a whole legion of bad players that love to get the DM all flustered by doing something unexpected.  The idea is if you totally disrupt the DM and everything they do, the game will be better somehow.  I find plenty of players that agree with this idea.  This is the big problem with player agency: many players think they should be free to do anything at any time.  And that does not make for any sort of story plot.  I find this one common too.  Though I'm also a Killer DM that lets the dice roll where they may.  So many times a PC will die and a player will get very upset.  To the point where they yell and demand that their PC did not and does not die.  It does not phase me much, as I'll just reply "your PC is dead in my game. The End."True, It really comes down to where you draw the lines.2.  "Suppose there is a final match with the main villain. The DM decided that, when defeated, he will not immediately die, but instead he will first deliver an essential final piece of information to the characters. Suppose this happens and, while he starts chanting off his final piece of evil speech, one of the players have his character cast "disintegrate" on the villain. According to the rules, the villain will become dust. This would ruin the epilogue of the game to everyone. A sensible DM will work around this event somehow, such as granting the villain a ring of counterspell with a disintegrate, even if it wasn't supposed to have it. Only the Master know the villain full equipment in details, and he can use this point to his advantage."This is, of course, more Metagaming by a player. As again, the player(s) must recognizance story plot drama things like monologues, speeches and final words. As, yet, again, this is a game. Even if the character would act, the player should not. For the sake of the game.  This is the Big Problem with Player Agency: many players think they should be allowed to do anything.  For no real reason.  Ask such a player if it is Okay to ruin a DMs planned monologue and they will happily say yes.  Ask them if it is Okay for the DM to ruin their PCs monologue and they will cry "No, Never!".  Why?  What is the difference?  This is railroading here: the DM is changing things in the game to deny the actions of a player.  Though note this is good railroading.  The first thought is the above: a player should not deny the DMs Agency and fun.  Again this works both ways.  To kill the NPC to stop the speech is just a 100% pure jerk move.  The next point is that there are other players.  Should one player get to decide for them if they get to hear the speech?  Should one player be allowed to dominate the game?  The answer is, of course, no.  Of course, the above is also Clumsy Dming, and does not need to happen in the first place.Pro Tip-When you as DM need something to happen, you should Player Proof it. Really this is simple enough.  Player Proofing is simple enough, as it just making things in the game that the characters can't effect with "wild wacky actions".  If your a DM with high Game and Rule mastery, then by all means use them, if not you might have to Add to the Game.  This is a concept that has been oddly lost for a lot of modern DMs.  They have the idea that The Game is only what is in the official rulebooks and they are forbidden from adding anything to the game.  This idea is silly.  And easy way to prevent lots of Railroading is to simply make it unnecessary.  And you don't need to add artifacts to blow up the moon, often very, very simple things are all that is needed.  A perfect one for #2 is have the villain’s ghost hang around for a minute to tell the information.  So no matter what, the ghost will give out the information.  At Least Three Things: For just the “essential final piece of information”,or any such important detail, you should never ever only have just one source for it.  This is Metagaming, but no matter how "secret" something is you should always have at least three ways for the PCs to find it out.  Have it on a scroll. Or have a minion or two of the main villain know it. Have a rescued prisoner of that villain know it. That sort of thing.  So if something does happen to one of the sources, there are still the other two.</blockquote>

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