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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Norton" data-source="post: 8345641" data-attributes="member: 7031494">If I can chime in on the tail end, I do think effective railroading is a matter of degrees and maintaining the illusion of agency given the circumstances. For example, with VTTs, I spend lots of time prepping maps so my games can only afford so many options. There's not always the ability to use one map for a number of scenarios, either. The encounters become far too specific.If we're role playing and running about a town, it's far more open with tabs of generators and lists of goods/services at my disposal. If I give enough of this kind of open game, they kind of get a craving for something more laid out. The pendulum swings. The choice of two directions in a crawl is usually plenty of agency once they've spent an hour climbing roofs and pickpocketing half-orcs at the pub.Another example is how all of my groups get the chance to go anywhere they want in the Realms, so that gives them broad agency. When they get where they're going, things tighten up. They barely notice. So railroading (or realroading if I'm trying to be clever), can feel natural. Also, there are best routes to travel to places, and a good map they've found by asking around makes them happy to have a clear path because they found it through their agency. So these things work together.And I don't know if anyone else has noticed (perhaps there's a thread here) but avid video gamers sometimes play D&D a little differently. They want exact enemy placements and power gaming tactics discussed ad nauseum. It's tedious for my tastes, but it's how they know games to be and they don't get re-spawns. It matters less and less if they're on a track because if they're not, they're kinda lost and vulnerable. For these types of players, games are more like rides you take rather than paths you make. I'm even introducing an element of "fast travel" by combining 3.5e's Shadow Walk, but it comes at the price of two random tables.So combining lots of broader agency with tightly planned tracks is working for me, especially with VTTs. I get to have more control over a story I want to tell, and they get to level up, kill stuff, and get rich. So far, everyone seems happy.</blockquote>

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