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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cergorach" data-source="post: 9853520" data-attributes="member: 725">[USER=467]@Reynard[/USER] The issue is not if you're right about it not being railroading or the player is that it is railroading. It's about what the player is experiencing.A couple of points:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Your pnp RPG sessions do not exist in a vacuum, people have lives outside the game that will heavily influence how they play, perceive, and act in your game. That might not be apparent, but it might be there none the less. As an example, I myself was by the end of 2024 not a nice person to play with, it took a while to figure this out myself and I bowed out of our D&D game for months until the stress that was causing my behaviour was past and I had recovered a bit.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What DMs often forget is that how you see the situation, is not how the players see the situation, due to lack of information. And it might not be entirely realistic for the players to have that information, but it might not make the situation more fun for them, it might make the situation less fun. You could give them directly more information as a DM that might be a bit unrealistic for them to have or you can introduce an NPC that provides that information. I have the tendency to want to surprise players in my games, but I'm not playing with 3 clones of myself, different people are different, so I need to balance that with my own tendencies.</li> </ul>How exactly did the locking down of the plane work? Was it in-game mechanics at play that interacted with the players or was it a 'magical' resolution with no player interaction? Did the item that was stolen from plane hoppers actually stolen via in-game mechanics? As in the NPC rolled for pick-pocketing vs. the players passive perception? Did you roll that openly (without telling the players what it was for)? Or some other mechanical system (like a spell that does the same)?Clearly the player is experiencing the situation that they are in a room where 'suddenly' all the rooms are mysteriously locked, but one. And no matter what they do through normal mechanical means, nothing that should be able to open the doors works anymore. That's how (at least) one player perceives the situation, that player can't change their perception without additional input. You're in charge of that input as the DM. And you can claim 30-40 years of being friends or at least player/DM and they should afford you some trust, you need to realize that they have trusted you up till that point, and you've already spent all the trust with that player without noticing that...People change, especially over decades you know them, as a DM you need to change with them. So even if your DMing was good enough in the past, it might no longer be. It's up to you (as the DM) to make that player not feel like they're stuck on a rollercoaster, which they clearly don't want to be on. Discuss with the group out of character before you start the next session, that they are stuck in plane X, that there are ways out. Some will take adventuring, others are quicker, and are withing reach, but they haven't puzzeled it out yet. Then ask if they even want to adventure there, you think you've made a cool adventure, but if they don't want to you can skip it and reveal the quick way out (Wish spell). This gives the players power and might dispel the feeling of being railroaded the the other player(s).Yes, this has the possibility that the work you did for the adventure is lost, but those are the risks of being a DM. I've done extensive prep work for essentially years at this point for the campaign I'm currently running, I have and am willing to further change things in how I run that campaign. But I always kew there was a risk that they didn't like the entire premise, because I was going to start colloring outside the lines of adventures we're used to.I would also advise that you keep talking to each other, discussing wants, needs, expectations, etc. And doing that open and honestly. Again an example, for the last month one of our players was going on vacation and we didn't want to continue our current campaign without them, so we paused the current campaign. Another player/DM did a two session Heist adventure, a theme we normally don't play. So there was a lot of discussion before on how to do that, between sessions, and after the second session we did an evaluation of those two sessions. And to be that was increadibly worthwhile, maybe even as good as the Heist game. We all learned stuff as both players and DMs, and that lead to maybe new ideas (to us) on how our RPGs in the future for the better. Our next session with everyone back will start with discussing with everyone present, some of the conclusions some of us reached and if others think those are good ideas. Then we play a bit and then I also want to do an evaluation of my current campaign, I have some specific questions and am open to harsh critisism from the players...</blockquote>

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