NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 2540729" data-attributes="member: 22779">See, but there's a problem with that comparison.  In DL, you have two choices - follow the plotline or die.  Now, it's been more than a few years since I last read the DL modules, so maybe my memory is a little fuzzy, but, as I recall, in DL 1, if you chose to ignore the plot and head out cross country, you faced successively larger waves of bad guys until you either got back to the plot or you died.That's railroading.At no point, again, as I recall, could the players turn around and say, "Screw it, I want to be on the winning team.  Hey!  Mr. Dragonlord, sign me up as your newest recruit.  As a gift, here's that gemstone guy you were looking for."Again, any time the party tried to deviate from the plot, they faced successive waves of bad guys until they died.If the party was more pragmatic than the adventure called for, they got slapped down.  Hrm, we got all these refugees that we just saved, but, now they're complaining and slowing us down.  Bugger that.  Let's head up on our horses and leave these losers behind.  Oops, not bringing the refugees sees you dead at the elven border.  Thanks for playing.The modules were full of things like that.Yes, the modules had some fantastic art, and some great cartography. They even had some really brilliant dungeoncrawls.  Xak Tsaroth was a whole barrel of fun.  But that doesn't change the fact that a party who decided not to follow the script - died.Sorry, but, if your plot requires me to follow the script or die, that's railroading.  The fact that the package is pretty and the ideas are cool doesn't change that.  When you have the END of the story already worked out before the game is even played, that's not epic roleplay, that's railroading.  I'm all for epic story arcs where the actions of the players have real consequences.  However, when the actions of the players have only one consequence, don't complain when people start talking about railroading.</blockquote>

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