The Opposite of Railroading...

[Pbartender]

It isn't railroading with a negative connotation, but it is an agreed upon set of tracks.

No... It's more like the interstate highway network.

You've got big strait, fast-paced roads that go in one direction and directly to a particular destination, but within which you can change lanes. Additionally, at reasonable intervals you can get off the highway, cruise along the scenic back country roads for a while, and then hop back on the highway a little farther down.


That's a pretty close analogy for my games.

 

[LostSoul]

What other tools and techniques do DMs use to have interesting/fun material ready "on the fly"?

I recently finished a campaign that was really low on prep. My prep consisted simply me asking myself, "What are the NPCs doing now that will mess with the PCs?" and making a little note of it.

To get to this point, we:

1. Built the world together as a group;
2. Built the NPCs in broad strokes;
3. Built the PCs as driven characters who had achievable goals;
4. Then I fleshed out the NPCs to conflict directly with the PC's goals.

It was a short game*, and it wasn't D&D. I think it would be pretty easy to do the same thing in D&D, though, leaning heavily on the Monster Manual and pre-generated standard NPC blocks.

* - 7 sessions of action-packed play plus the worldbuilding one. We could have continued, but the major goals of the characters (who lived!) - that is to say, their story - was done.

 

[Chiaroscuro23]

To take a different tack on anti-railroading...

"Freewheeling"

When the the DM asserts practically infinite and unlimited choices for his players within his campaign world without the benefit of clearly defined plot hooks. Often, this results in the player-characters wandering around aimlessly, becoming bored and accomplishing nothing of note within the game.

One way to go plotless and not wander aimlessly is to make sure the PCs start off with strong motivation. One technique I'm experimenting with right now is Flag Framing and Conflict Web, though this works best in games where players explore a social environment rather than a physical environment. And it doesn't help you present a fair challenge, which is normally the tough part about D&D (the PCs can have a complex relationship with Baron von Puffenstuff, but Puffy needs to have the right number of levels if and when they ever actually get in a fistfight with him.)

How much you can move from Railroading toward Freewheeling on the continuum will depend in large part on how active your players are. Players who expect to be given the plot will be confused and unhappy with freedom. Players who expect freedom will be unhappy with a plot.

-C.

 

[Graybeard]

All the GMs I have played for and even myself are guilty of a little railroading from time to time. It's not always a bad thing. Sometimes you need to get the players going in a certain direction. In my campaign, I started with the PCs being members of an adventuring guild. They were on their way to a meeting when they encountered a group of bad guys attacking some civilians with bows. The PCs decided to intervene and defeated the bad guys. Then they found out it was a diversion to kidnap some children. The players could have decided to ignore that part of the plot but (fortunately for me) did not. This has led into bigger and bigger plots involving local gangs (who were doing the kidnapping), a well known playwrite, etc. All are tied into my grand scheme. The players could decide to go off and do whatever they want. I have several mini encounters/adventures prepared just in case. What the players don't know is that all of them are tied into the grand scheme. At the moment the PCs have just recovered an ancient artifact of one of the PCs goddess. They were expected to return it to the church but decided to keep it because they had heard that several groups were looking for it including the BBEG (which they haven't met yet, only heard about). I suppose most would not consider this railroading. I did allow a minor BBEG to escape once even though it was possible one of the PCs could have cacught them. I needed this villian to return at a later date. I could have let the PC catch the guy and winged it later. Instead I had the bad guy escape using a scroll of dim door. This put him out of range of the PC and allowed him to escape.

 

[The Green Adam]

One way to go plotless and not wander aimlessly is to make sure the PCs start off with strong motivation. One technique I'm experimenting with right now is Flag Framing and Conflict Web, though this works best in games where players explore a social environment rather than a physical environment. And it doesn't help you present a fair challenge, which is normally the tough part about D&D (the PCs can have a complex relationship with Baron von Puffenstuff, but Puffy needs to have the right number of levels if and when they ever actually get in a fistfight with him.)
-C.

This confuses me a bit. I'm not entirely certain I understand what your trying to say and I apologize for missing it. Can you explain it in more detail?

My players tend to generate their own motives for their own characters. Player characters are in a constant state of exploring the physical and social environment of their campaign universe at all times (or at least the two are heavily intergrated :\ ). Maybe it's because D&D isn't my main game but the tendencey in my campaigns is for the players to be more concerned with their motivations and the plot at hand. If Baron Von Puffenstuff killed one of their brothers and has it coming, they'll work toward the goal od taking him out no matter how powerful he is. We don't really address what level of power or skill the enemies or challenges are, just that they have reason enough to face them.

 

[William drake]

I'm having a bit of a problem with the term railroading being thrown around in a negative connotation here. So instead of defining railroading which obviously means
different things to different people, define how the opposite of railroading works in your game. This means that if youre a DM who doesnt like railroads you must be running a railroad free game. For me that usually means youre running a plot free game that allows the PC's to do anything that they want to, but I could be wrong about that which is why I'm asking for examples.

Give details not some vauge outline. specific details. Thanks.

Not so, or I could be wrong. But railroading, as I know it, is pushing or even forcing the players to along with the plot in such away that they can do little else (or I could be wrong, but if so, then I agree that the word is a bit harsh) Example: someone is out to get the king, the players know it, but don't want to deal with ti, and so the DM makes it so that the players have to get involved and this then makes the players mad. My version of this would be, the players don't get involved, and so the king is killed and then the kingdom would fall into different hands. Now lets say the players still dont want to get involved, fine, the plot moves on and the players leave the kingdom, well that doesn't mean that all the nasty things going on stop. Infact, perhaps they worsen. Now, this is not only the orig plot, and a mess, but its what the players wished. I've found that later in the game, when situations like this have happened, the players say "hey, couldn't we have just fixed this in the start?" Most likely its then that they decide to act.


I think when railroading happens, its becasue the DM doesn't have anything else planed, and doesn't know how to continue with the plot that doesn't involve the players. DM's have to remember, that the world turns regardless of player interaction...


Also, every game has a plot, and just because it doesn't go along with the DM's intended story, a good DM should beable to make a link between most everything going on. Now it may not come back to a circle untill later in the game, but everything should tie up neatly in the end, or be left open for fun or party discussion. A sort of clifhanger incase the players want to start up where they left off later...but, this all my come from alot of DM's playing preset games, which, I feel are a bad thing, but that's just me.


Anways, Game On

 

[William drake]

To me, it means you're running a game with multiple plot options subject to change based upon the actions of the PCs.

joe b.

and I would only add, that either at the start, or later in the game, the DM makes it so that many, if not all of the plots were linked in some way shape or form: this guy knew that guy, he was the one that talked to her, they are the reaso for that....bla bla bla.


But, yes, he's right.


Draw a tree, put in the branches, and over the game, put in enough leaves to make it so that the tree is whole, therefor every branch is at least to the naked eye, connected.

 

[William drake]

Again, it depends how we define "railroading" (obviously ). For example, if I design a dungeon for an adventure, and place it just outside the village where the PCs start, it's hardly railroading if I expect the PCs to explore the friggin' dungeon. After all, that's the adventure I designed for them! But there are some players who would resent the fact that I expect them to explore the dungeon. Some players might say, we'll go south instead of north. Who needs a dungeon? And then expect me to make up stuff on the fly.

Incidentally, Knights of the Dinner Table had tons of stories like this. B.A. (the GM) prepares an adventure, but his players decide to ignore the adventure and wreak (sic?) havoc, and resent him for "railroading" them with adventure hooks.

Well, then I would say that he players are Jerks. Why don't people just say that. If the DM told me "hey, the Dungeon makes the game, you are all MAKING dungeon-crawling player-types." then I would know, atleast, at the start of the game, that's it; its the place to be. On the other hand, just because the players dont go that way, a dungeon isn't bound to be in one spot...even if you named it, rename it and use it later. Heck, if they players are causing so much pain, let them wakeup one day with a headache in the center of the dungeon you created with a note saying "get out, and your time is served." Its a fantasy world, just cause they are the players, doesn't get to mean that they get to boss around every other pc that lives there does't it.


Come on, we're DM's we know the world, we make the rules; but I do hate to say it, if its a prob that your players are asking you to make a world on the fly, perhaps you shouldn't DM...I mean, thats part of the job.


Anways, Game On

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

Railroading.

GM: You start in the city of Alder. One day, you and your friends are sitting in a tavern when a wizard shows up and he says here is a map. You follow the road and.. there is a random encounter! What do you do?

(Fight.)

You continue following the trail until you hit the dungeon. You go into the dungeon. Roll a reflex save. Twenty eight? It failed. Because. You all awake in a black room, where you look around and see an elf. He says..


Non-Railroading.

GM: You start in the city of Alder.

Player: I..er.. gather some information.

GM: About what?

Player: Any.. quests?

GM: You find a rumour about a ghost-haunted castle.

Player: Right. I go there.

GM: On the way, you meet some farmers.

Player: I say hello.

GM: They tell you that there is a problem in Alder; the King is a doppleganger!

Player: I head back to Alder.

GM: OK.

 

[S'mon]

Not so, or I could be wrong. But railroading, as I know it, is pushing or even forcing the players to along with the plot in such away that they can do little else

That's right. I just aquired an old Stormbringer adventure, "Rogue Mistress", that is an excellent example of Railroading. It begins with the PCs involuntarily summoned* to the home plane of an invincible chaos sorceress who forcibly implants demonic hearts in their chests which will kill them if they don't fetch the various maguffins she demands - the GM advice says "Give her any powers she needs to coerce the PCs" - and goes on and on like this. It's full of NPCs who get to be far cooler and far more powerful than the PCs. You don't get to be the Eternal Champion, but you do get to accompany (two versions of) him as he does things Terribly Important. The GM advice is all "ensure NPCs X, Y & Z don't die in scene A as they need to do things i, ii and iii in scenes B, C and D, otherwise the adventure won't work". Basically it's a novel, a pre-written story, presented as an adventure. It dates from 1991 when I think such things were regarded as the height of sophistication.

*The summoning incidentally involves chopping the limbs off various nearby NPCs, including an innocent dancing girl. Any honorable PC of mine would immediately attack the chaos sorceress for this, which would then ruin the plot. It also involves an attack by demons in transit, so the PCs at least get to win a meaningless fight before being pushed around by the sorceress.