I find it amusing that you find NO implication that the phrase "player who tries to derail your campaign" might possibly mean a player did something wrong.
The Invisible Railroad
- Thread starter mneme
- Start date
I find it amusing that you find NO implication that the phrase "player who tries to derail your campaign" might possibly mean a player did something wrong.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
The main disagreeable aftertaste I get when someone advocates illusionism strongly is that I can't help but feel that it creates the wrong impression in certain minds.
I picture this novice, extreme, stereotypical railroading DM who wants to get better at his craft. So he starts looking for how to do that. One of his inevitable first questions is how to handle preparation. So he gets answers liike this, which are basically--get better at hiding what you are doing, but keep doing it.
While my experience is that a much better take for the novice is to stop railroading--and as an adjunct, quit hiding things. You may struggle for awhile, but you'll learn a new skill--rather than "refining" an existing one. Then, after you've done that for awhile, if you want to try some illusionism, you'll not only be better informed, you'll be better at it, too.
For a more experienced DM, it isn't such a big deal. But for beginners, illusionism by its very nature makes it more difficult for them to improve.
I picture this novice, extreme, stereotypical railroading DM who wants to get better at his craft. So he starts looking for how to do that. One of his inevitable first questions is how to handle preparation. So he gets answers liike this, which are basically--get better at hiding what you are doing, but keep doing it.
While my experience is that a much better take for the novice is to stop railroading--and as an adjunct, quit hiding things. You may struggle for awhile, but you'll learn a new skill--rather than "refining" an existing one. Then, after you've done that for awhile, if you want to try some illusionism, you'll not only be better informed, you'll be better at it, too.
For a more experienced DM, it isn't such a big deal. But for beginners, illusionism by its very nature makes it more difficult for them to improve.
Is Perkins confessing to being a damn dirty railroader?
I dunno, I always thought prepackaged Adventure Paths were linear because that was the only way to present a strong story in a pre-written format. I'm actually a bit disturbed that apparently well regarded DMs are apparently taking the time (lots of time) to design their own linear, 'railroady' campaigns for home use. I think I first noticed it on the Critical Hits webzine, I think it was 'Chatty DM' and his failed, linear, 'Gears of War' campaign. Another example was James Wyatt's failed 'Greebriar Chasm' campaign described in his 'Dungeoncraft' articles.
I don't understand why DMs are putting in huge effort to design these campaigns, and yet are not taking the wonderful opportunity that home-designed games have: to take input from the players. I guess that's why I pretty well always run 'sandbox'.
Not really - he seems to think jumping the rails is ok, as long as you can get them back onto the rails later.
I much prefer a "There are no rails" approach. I love proactive PCs/players who do stuff I couldn't even have imagined. I dislike it when players go looking for the nonexistent rails IMCs.
keterys
First Post
When I was younger and/or had more time, I was much more in favor of "Where we're going, we don't need roads" style of play.
Nowadays, I'd much rather have a _lot_ less preparation time and have a fair idea where things are going. If the players want to switch things up, they can do so... but I'd much rather they gave me a heads up well ahead of time, otherwise I'll likely self-correct a bit, like described in the article.
Ie, I'd rather not waste the time spent designing challenges.
Part of it may be because 3e + 4e required a greater investment to design good encounters. In other games or editions, I cared an awful lot less. Not entirely for good reasons.
Nowadays, I'd much rather have a _lot_ less preparation time and have a fair idea where things are going. If the players want to switch things up, they can do so... but I'd much rather they gave me a heads up well ahead of time, otherwise I'll likely self-correct a bit, like described in the article.
Ie, I'd rather not waste the time spent designing challenges.
Part of it may be because 3e + 4e required a greater investment to design good encounters. In other games or editions, I cared an awful lot less. Not entirely for good reasons.
Because they're trying to create compelling and interesting overarching stories. It's plot. It's cause and effect. It's having things that happened earlier in the campaign circle back around to have tangible results later in the campaign. Recurring NPCs with their own evolving goals? You need to plot that. And you need to find places in your campaign when it makes narrative sense to have them appear. And unless you get really lucky... you oftentimes won't ever find those places where it makes "narrative sense" if ALL you do is say to your players "where do you want to go today?" and then follow along wherever their whims take them.
Because that recurring evil baron that has been the BBEG of your campaign won't get to be used that much anymore if the players suddenly decide to find a portal to Sigil and then go planes-hopping for the rest of the game.
I just don't believe you need pre-plotting to get the good stuff you describe. That's never been my experience.
My best work as a DM seems to be done designing one session at a time; I have overarching themes but they are very general and do not resemble a plot, more an idea.
Well, I think part of the problem may be what different people consider to be railroading. Personally, I don't necessarily think its railroading for the DM to keep his plot lines running per se so long as you are not forcing the party down a given path.
Take the evil baron vs. Sigil example above. The PCs have reason to believe that the evil baron is up to no good. However, they find a cool little trinket/ritual/whatever that lets them head off to Sigil so off they go. Now, the DM is left with three choices regarding said evil baron. Option 1) Make it so that the players really don't want to continue their planar adventures (i.e. "Ehhh, yeah there are a lot of people here, but there's a surprising amount of order here, nothing really for you to do, unlike back in Evil Baronville.") Option 2) abandon the baron plot line and come up with a new one that involves Sigil and the planes. Option 3) come up with a way to tie the planar adventures into the events going on in Evil Baronville.
Perkins is advocating Option 3. Option 1 is far and away the most railroady. Its basically saying "Sure, you're free to make choices but the game will suck if you make the wrong ones." Option 2 definitely puts things in the hands of the players (a good thing) but also runs the risk of really having a schizophrentic campaign where one session may or may not flow into the previous and following sessions. Each session stands on its own but is not necessarily related (though they certainly can be).
Option 3 on the other hand, finds a way to combine the two and get the best of both worlds. Maybe the evil baron is being influenced by a powerful devil, or a cleric of Tiamat, or whatever. Maybe the PCs start to uncover a plot by Vecna-ites to kill the Lady of Pain and learn that one of the keys to the plan is securing an artifact located somewhere in Evil Baronville, etc. The idea is to have a basic framework for where the campaign is going, but to leave the "How to get there" in the hands of the players.
Personally, my experience has been that my players, if left to their own decisions, will make none. I love the idea of cooperative world building. Unfortunately, most of my players are merely interested in getting together for a few hours every couple of weeks and only having to put in a few minutes of work before each session. There's nothing wrong with that. The only problem is, if I don't start tying their decisions into the overarching plot, we'll end up simply doing a bunch of random encounters.
Now again though, I think the idea is to let your plot evolve with the player's decisions. The decision to go to Sigil needs to become important rather than "You fools, why are you going to Sigil?" Doing this, you can make the players feel as though they are driving the plot while you are subtly drawing them into yours (even if that plot is a bit different than it initially was). For me, this will create a much more compelling game than if I were to simply improvise based on the decisions the players make each session. Some DMs are able to provide great games in that context, but a lot are not. Without some direction, most plots will unravel fairly quickly imho.
Crazy Jerome
First Post
Agree. I know you don't need pre-plotting, in fact. Because I often don't plot and get precisely all of those good things.
Now, it is true that for any given NPC, it might not work. I'll need a few extras to see which ones will stick, and then run with them. However, I know if I have 10 NPCs with decent goals and motivations, I can bank on 4-6 of them recurring and acting in ways that would in a post-game log appear indistinguishable from if someone had plotted them. It is so indistinguishable that the players in the game often don't believe me when I tell them it was not plotted.
It is also true that players being able to do anything is probably not your best bet if you want this result. Fortunately, I can keep the players from running off to Sigil by framing the campaign at launch such that the "box" part of "sandbox" is fairly clear. If the campaign is about mucking about in the Empire, then the players will rarely want to leave the Empire. And as far as I'm concerned, a good sandbox is not about limitless play (that would be good freeform, maybe). Rather, it is about agreed upon limits--within which, anything goes. You can do anything you want with the sand in the box. You can't change the box.
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