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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Helldritch" data-source="post: 8039046" data-attributes="member: 6855114">Again, railroad isn't a bad thing if done correctly. Yhe most important thing is to listen to the players' feedback.  Once in an old campaign, players were paid to find a magic sword in a tomb and they had to be quick about it as their patron knew that someone was on his way there to get it too. The players attained their goal and got out a wee bit before the mysterious nemesis appeared. One player stayed hidden to see who it was and he saw the following:" A man in his sixties surrounded by 20 orcs, 4 skeletons bearing jeweled silver crowns, red glowing eyes and ornate staves. 4 ogres and 2 skeletons wearing charred full plate weilding big two handed sword, thei eyes gleaming red under ornated helmet.". The players assumed a high level necro with 4 lich servants and two death knights. I laughed, said sure, and continued on with the game. The guy was barely level 6, and the skeletons were just wearing props. I congratulated myself for conning the players and forgot about the poor necro. But not the players. At every opportunity they would pay to get info about the necro controloing four liches and two death knights as THEY KNEW I would pit them against him someday. When their contact failed to provide information ( that guy did not exist, he was a product of their imagination), they went further  by paying for divinations, contact other planes and many other ways. They were spending money on someone that did not exist. And guess what? They assumed that the guy was protected somehow from divinations. They were so convinced that he was the main villain that I obliged them and made him the main vilain of the campaign. Escobar the Necrolord birthed out of the imagination of the players. After 20 years, my old timers still talk about their archnemesis. A nemesis they created.Bear in mind that Escobar was a railroad to push my players to the next zone. He was never meant to be what the players turned him into; a nemesis. So railroad can be good, but catching and playing on players expectation can also be good. It required me to rewrite 12 adventures to suit the players' expectations, but it was well worth it.</blockquote>

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