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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rothe" data-source="post: 2967921" data-attributes="member: 39813"><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> I can understand the situation you describe.  I've only dozens of plot hooks etc from being apack rat about materials for 27+ years.  many a time in the past have I played, and accepted the convenient from a real life perspective, 6 total strangers meet in a bar and decide to trust each otehr in securing untold wealth in the face of mortal danger.  :\    Now we try to put a better face on it.  But in a way that's a group railroad we all got on the train because we were too lazy to walk.While I love the idea of adventures starting themselves, only intimate knowledge of a setting can provide that.  What I do, and it works for us, is just ask the players what they are looking for and provide all the information there characters might have and the many ways their characters would know how to find more info.  But when we jump on a train to dungeon X it's by consensus, and Ive luckily got enough material in my back pocket they can get off at any time. Exactly in my view as well.  That's why I take a narrow view of the specific term "railroad" where a DM gives you no choice and will bend in-game rules to force you to do something they want, which doesn't arise from anything the PCs do.  It includes a DM not playing fair, which is where I see the killer DM aspect of "railroading" come in or the surprise piece of information about situation X that every creature above the age of 5 in the setting would know but the DM doesn't tell you.   <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> Funny how that happens.  You did this intentionally to get them to think it was important?  I've had such things happen but never intended it.Never done it.  If someone is talking about a BBEG or such it is probably because it is local news people would naturally be talking about.  Especially in an age before TV, gossiping and talking is what you did.  Again this sort of thing, need to convey info to players, can be helped by asking players what they are interested in, old tales, relics, political infighting in the kingdom, then telling them what their characters would know about such things. Never on treasure and yeah on the items.  I do design encounters with a consistency to setting first, but sometimes with erring on the side of a fun game.  For example, the party encounters the remains of a victim to a "trap" lets say in a secret passage.  He is loaded for undead fighting.  It happens he was an unlucky thief of a party of tomb robbers. This signals to the party that undead may be nearby but it makes sense such remains might be there.  The theif didn't know what kind of undead he'd face, so he has got a bit of everything including plain wood crossbow bolts (wooden stakes).  Now eveyone is conviced vampires are ahead.  Not really, but the poor thief didn't know that.  It happens randomly but not as a plot device.I've used it too much, but luckily only to get something going and we all agree to it.  I've always had the characters agree to the little backstories I create as to how they all know each other and might potentially be predisposed to trusting each other.  Often not much more than growing up in the same small town.   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /> Maybe realted tot he above.  New PCs don't come in without some conenction, however tenuous, to at least one member of the party.  Ya' seez this here elf he is a friend of mine. Capice?Adventures designed with a entry portion that's not going to easily slaughter them? Sure, but I've worked that into setting.  All CR balanced throughout, never, but I've been big on an ecology for decades and I think I end up doing by a "food-chian" approach what WotC has quantified.  The areas where you get slaughtered at low level, you got to work to find yourself in, but you can and the only warning sign may be the bones. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Well it's never a railroad if we all agree to it IMHO.  I count agreeing to it as accepting to play in a DMs setting.  Once you agree to that you shouldn't complain about the setting as long as the DM is consistent within that setting.   Setting have limits, hence distinguihing one from the other, some of which may be metagame as in I have 5 kids and a 6 day a week job so I can only prep so much. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /> Well I don't know if MMV. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  I agree the number one criteria for a great game is if everyone (DM included) is having fun.</blockquote>

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