Would you consider this railroading?

[The Grackle]

You present the characters with a situaiton, and they go off on their adventure. You run the evenings fun and you are then done. Rather than pick up where you left off the next session, you start them off half a continenent away and 1/2 a year later in a new "start the adventure" scenario. They go off in whatever direction they choose and you put whatever you want to use in thier way. The adventure ends and you do the somthing similar the next session...

would that be railroading?

Aaron.

Nahhh... That's just keepin' things interesting. I call it the A-Team game b/c at the beginning of every episode you have to break Murdock out of the asylum.

It's fun to do stuff like this every once in awhile. Once I skipped ahead 6 months, starting the PCs in the middle of a massive combat w/ a recurring foe they were hunting, and I wouldn't tell them what was going on until it was over. Then they not only had to figure out what to do next, but what had happened in the back story.

There's a lot more ways to tell a continuous story than hour by hour.

BUT, I wouldn't do it too much. Not in between every game.

 

[Mark]

It's just running an episodic campaign.

Heck, it's probably more "realistic" than having one hair-raising adventure after another.

Yup. It always takes some time between assaults for that next mail order parcel to arrive from the Acme Corporation...

 

[hong]

Sounds like one of many CRPGs out there.

Ah, this must be another instance of using "CRPG" as a synonym for "stuff I don't like". Certainly no CRPG I've ever played has featured weeks/months of downtime in between the action. If anything, it goes the other way: you level up constantly, so that you're like a demigod at the end while still barely out of puberty.

Since CRPG is a synonym for "stuff I don't like", as is "munchkin", your statement could be rewritten as "sounds like one of the many munchkins out there". It still doesn't really make any sense, but it's easier on the eye.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

It doesn't seem like railroading to me. I mean if the new scenario calls for it and the tone of the campaign is somewhat epic, then it is probably OK. However, what *I* would have done in that situation is spent about an hour of set-up with it, explaining how they came to travel that far.

Also, it depends on the mentality of your group. Are they easy going or suspicious?

 

[rangerjohn]

I can't think of many where a long period of time passes. But Breath of Fire III has literally years pass, and you have to recollect the party. However there are several that go from one part of the world to another, with no way to get back.

 

[Numion]

If you've asked them what they are going to do in that 6 month period it is not railroading (assuming you took their doings in to account). It was just fastforwarding a little longer period than usual. I quite often jump ahead of couple of days if they are travelling - this is not much different. If nothing adventureworthy presents itself during 6 months, there's hardly need to go into detail.

Railroading implies lack of free will or inconsequence of action on the PCs or players part. This is neither, necessarily. It's just speeding up game play when you don't bother playing out the ordinary and mundane part of the PCs life, and still want them to have that.

I've never done it, I've just often wondered if it's completely plausible that characters level 20 levels in a years game time (thats how long its taken on the two occasions already).

 

[Berandor]

Well, when DMing the Advneture Path (any minute now), I'll be having downtime between adventures, too. I would call it versimilitude, not railroading. As you said, the downtime will be accounted for, and the players might even get to do something in between. I'd even say this is more freestyle than many campaigns, where PCs barely have time to craft one or two scrolls before the next adventure calls.

It's also nice for long-ranging plans of villains, when the PCs interrupt his/her plans not constantly, but maybe once a year until (s)he is fed up with it.

 

[MGibster]

They go off in whatever direction they choose and you put whatever you want to use in thier way. The adventure ends and you do the somthing similar the next session...

would that be railroading?

Aaron.

Not at all. It's a pretty reasonable way to go from adventure to adventure with out getting bogged down in a bunch of boring details. You can even use this technique if players have a specific goal in mind. "After six months of searching for the Tome of Silly Pranks, you have arrived at the Cliffs of Resounding Laughter."

The d6 Star Wars from WEG recommended this as a great way to start adventures. I started almost all my Star Wars adventures in media res. They PCs were involved in some sort of combat that may or may not have been related to the story. In the opening adventuer of the campaign I had them fighting an old enemy none of them knew they had at character creation. In another I had them fighting to escape enslavement on another planet.

Every GM has to put up little signs that say "adventure this way." It's their job to put out hooks that interest the players and it is the job of the players to bite once in a while.

Marc

 

[jester47]

If you start the evening saying, "You are in a small village. Tales abound of a dangerous band of outlaws in the forests to the west!"

And then a player says, "Screw the outlaws. I've got to destroy this evil artifact. I'm headed toward the volcano that lies to the east!"

And then you say, "Ok...you head east...and run into a dangerous band of outlaws!" then that's railroading.

Well thats assuming I ony had one hook and one group of baddies ready. West is bandits, east is kobolds. I would probably have somthing in mind for each hook dropped in town and then have a backup idea ready to go for the complete unexpected.

Aaron.

 

[jester47]

No, not railroading- just poor planning.

Ashamed to say I have done it.

I would call it more planing for the free form than poor planning. I would have most of the stuff ready to go, locations and baddies and such. Throw in some random encounters and you can have yourself a ball.

Aaron.