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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadeflayer" data-source="post: 7972318" data-attributes="member: 7023332">Very interesting (6+ month old) post.  I have been researching this after a recent incident and wanted to see what this forum thought.I created an adventure where players have milestone events that they must complete to proceed to the next milestone.  The first half of the adventure goes something like this:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players decide to research a legend they overhear concerning a lord and his knights that failed to live up to their vow in life of defending their lands from a red dragon.  The legend says that the lord and his knights, long since dead, cannot be released from their ghostly conditions until they fight the red dragon.  The ghosts only appear during a full moon.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Uncovering details of the legend requires research to find the truth / more clues.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Research and clues identify the location of the castle ruins, when the ghosts appear, and that this all happened 600 years ago.  (Milestone)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players travel to the castle ruin’s, but no ghostly dead, so they wait for a full moon</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The ghosts appear with the full moon.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">After communicating with the ghosts, the players are told by the lord of the ghosts that they need to battle the same red dragon in order to be freed.  This means they have to find the red dragon and convince it to attack the ghosts.  (Milestone)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players realize there is nothing in the ruins that would be worth a red dragon’s benefit, time, or interest (Chaotic Evil Red Dragon are selfish like that).  Not to mention that the ruins are barely an outline after 600 years.  No hope for a new lair even.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players now have to find out when this original red dragon attacked, and if anyone recorded where its lair may have been.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players research identifies the location of the red dragons lair.  (Milestone)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Players travel to the red dragons lair.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Inside the lair are the bones of the long dead red dragon.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Full stop! (resurrecting the red dragon would be the next milestone).</li> </ul>Questions:  What do the players do?  Drop the quest? Figure out how to fake the dragon attacking, if possible (its not)? Find someone to resurrect the red dragon?  Find something they can use to resurrect the red dragon (they are too low level to do that themselves)? Also, what happens when the red dragon is resurrected?  Free lunch for the red dragon (TPK possibly)? Party flees?  Etc. There are many possible choices and outcomes.So, the real overarching question to this post is how much of this scenario is “railroading” and how much of this is “player agency”?My thoughts...<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Following this legend was a group decision (player agency)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Researching requires lots of player decisions and actions (player agency)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Traveling to the ruins and engaging with the ghosts (player agency)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Researching the location of the red dragons lair (player agency)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Traveling to the lair and finding the bones of the now dead red dragon (player agency)</li> </ul>Where in the above scenario is there “railroading”?</blockquote>

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