I'm a newbie GM and I've recently been trying to write a new adventure. But I've been having troubles with railroading. I've realised that all of my plot hooks are essentially a way of forcing this new quest onto the players and that I'd have no ideia of what to do if they decided to do something somewhat different, or even going the opposite side of the hook entirely.
How do you deal with railroading? Do you just create a scenario and improvise the consequences of your player's actions throughout the whole thing? Or do you somehow give them a limited array of options for which the outcome you already know? Or do you do something else?
Also, where does "trying to keep them on the quest" stops and railroading begins?
Never try to anticipate a player's actions or necessarily force them down a path or adventure. Rather, write the story of what would happen /without/ any character intervention. In this way you have something to fall back to, a story players can get involved in but they aren't necessarily railroaded.
I.e:
Timmy falls down the well into dungeon
(quest to save timmy offered, could be ignored)
Timmy gets possessed by well demon
(quest to defeat well demon)
Timmy demon slaughters town and raises dead
(quest to defeat undead band)
etc... etc..
You feel?
>>47915129
Railroading isn't "Hey there's a wall here!" Its "Hey there are walls everywhere but here!"Its only railroading if they notice
have an idea but don't chisel the people or place chiseled in stone
Pitch the hook, not the adventure. The adventure is technically anything they decide to do after falling for the hook, so you should only have bullet points, locations, and NPCs ready to go should they stumble onto your breadcrumbs.
>>47915129
maybe create some "meta encounters"? players go to jungle, they meet lizardman chief and his 8 minions. players go to hills, meet orc chief and his 8 minions. city, it's thief chief and his 8 minions. so i suppose i'm saying you can try to do some preparatory work that'll allow you to sort-of improvise more smoothly. never gm'd btw, ymmv, contents may settle in transit, etc.
I generally only have a rough outline of the world as a whole and flesh out the areas around the party. The more likely they are to go in that direction, the more I flesh it out. But there is always a skeleton to work with for at least one session in any direction the PCs go.
>>47915129
>How do you deal with railroading? Do you just create a scenario and improvise the consequences of your player's actions throughout the whole thing? Or do you somehow give them a limited array of options for which the outcome you already know? Or do you do something else?
When planning a quest I first plan things out how I want them to go, then I look for any points the PCs could go off the rails and plan for what would happen in that case.
If the players still manage to surprise me then I just improvise until I can steer them towards one of the other paths.
You also have to realise that players who aren't dicks aren't going to purposefully derail your adventure without a good reason, so once they're in a lane they'll tend to stick to it without much help.
>>47915129
I go by the onion method: first, decide how big and what sort of an onion you want, then start building your onion from where you expect the PCs to go, layer by layer from the most likely you intend to the least likely you can imagine
>>47915223
I think I get it.
But isn't it the same as forcing a quest if the consequences of not taking said quest are too dire?
>>47915356
Where did I put that screencap of the DM with a party that doomed the world in order to overthrow a kingdom in the name of social justice?
The important part is the world keeps going while the players are doing their thing.
>>47915398
So "if you don't do this, you'll make a few enemies" is ok, but "if you don't do this you'll be hunt down and most certainly die" is a no no?
>>47915398
Find it and share please. It sounds like a interesting read.
>>47915129
There is different ways to go about this.
>The no-idea-how-to sandbox
It's just a setting. It is static. Nothing happens unless the PCs show initiative.
>The sandbox of ample opportunity
There are a lot of plot hooks, definitely more than the players can follow up on. What develops out of the ones they do is up to the way the players go about it.
>The autoplay sandbox
NPCs do things. They have plans and realize them over time. The players get to watch from the other side of the room unless they get involved.
>The random box
Random tables or a minigame decide what happens off screen to affect what happens on screen.
>The unanticipated sandbox
There was an adventure planned, maybe even a published module. But the players went so far off track, it's broken now and the GM had to set new challenges out of what the players had done.
Generally sandbox is usually a term GMs use when prep gets too much for them. It is also favored by worldbuilders incapable of delivering a story. But it is just a dichotomy, not a realistic extreme. Sandbox vs Railroad is a sliding scale, and all games end up in the middle.
Without plot hooks players feel completely lost. It kills the world dead and leads to the one player who enjoys just making shit up dominating the entire session. GMs must offer story.
And in a way every story is a rail. But the term railroading is usually reserved for extreme cases of leading players by the nose. Normally the GM just tries to present a compelling situation that offers tension and invites the PCs to position themselves by taking action. This leads to new situations, and so on and so forth.
How written out this is in detail depends on so much, it really only makes sense discussing specific details, like player agency, taking notes, or balancing the group dynamic. With experience comes an individual style, which you can then troubleshoot and develop.
>>47915129
http://www.gnomestew.com/game-mastering/gming-advice/island-design-theory/
this was one of the most useful things i learned as a forever GM. having set "islands" that can be moved around and placed wherever the PCs go.don't tell the players you're doing this otherwise it might be met with cries of "muh agency"
i treat my GM scripts/notes as basically madlibs. if you're anything like me then you also procrastinate a bunch, so it's useful to have premade NPCs, villages, encounters, etc that you make all at once when you're feeling productive.
all this helps keep things fresh and organic while also letting you plan as much as you can. no gameplan survives first contact with the players, so don't beat yourself up while you're learning.
>>47915506
>Find it and share please. It sounds like a interesting read
Pic related
>>47915398
>The important part is the world keeps going while the players are doing their thing.
This is truth.
I find it interesting that originally that was clearly the GM's point, but now it gets overshadowed by what the players chose to focus on rather than how they ignored an obvious threat.
>>47915398
>>47915506
Here you go friends
>>47915757
>Apparently you thought gay marriage was more important than not being killed by zombies and skeletons
Makes me wonder how actual SJWs would respond to that situation.
>>47915356
>But isn't it the same as forcing a quest if the consequences of not taking said quest are too dire?
>>47915486
>So "if you don't do this, you'll make a few enemies" is ok, but "if you don't do this you'll be hunt down and most certainly die" is a no no?
The trick is to go light on the pressure.
Make the pros and cons of any quest clear, so if the PCs ignore it, the cons are seen as natural developments, not punishment.
Ideally, the PCs should want to take the quest, not feel obligated to.
One thing I like to do is set up the area with about 8 proto-BBEGs, and as the PCs defeat them, each other one absorbs more power, influence, and control, getting stronger as the PCs do, whichever direction they choose.
>>47915848
By calling you homophobic.
>>47915732
>>47915512
Listen to these anons.
>>47915780
>>47915757
I figured the chances of this being double posted were about 99%.
>>47915129
Writing an adventure is already railroading.
Play a game where you can't write the story before the actual game, simple as that.
>>47915976
How do we do this? Teach me the ways.
>>47916021
Come up with a setting, some towns, npcs, monsters and shit, point the players in a general direction and let them go wild. Hope you're good at improv
>>47915912
I meant actually having to choose between undead apocalypse and legalising gay marriage.
>>47916095
They'd still call you homophobic.
>>47916095
>>47916082
Improv is key. A lot of time my players just want to dick around in town so i have to come up with shit on the fly.
That being said the improvised stuff has always been the most memorable apparently. I could just be a shit DM though
>>47916127
who is "you" in this scenario.
>>47916130
I got the joke, but it was shit and didn't answer the question.
>>47916021
Make a setting, flesh it out a bit. As the players travel, set some plot hooks. If they bite, build from there. Don't dedicate a lot of time to a quest that might not happen.
I don't get railroading, are there really GMs out there that immediately throw their arms up in the air and shout "campaign failed!" if the players don't immediately bite the first hook?
Do people really plan adventures so strictly like that, that if a single thing doesn't go according to a very exact plan then the entire campaign is ruined?
Do people seriously not just come up with a bunch of bulletpoint plot points that can be dumped in anywhere, lead to be any number of possible hooks?
>>47915976
>Writing an adventure is already railroading.
That is an oversimplification.
The GM, or module writer, writes the adventure and then the players come along and scribble all over the written page with their characters.
Saying that writing an adventure is railroading is extreme.
>Okay so this game I'm going to run is an adventure that takes place on an earth-like planet with humans in a desert, now-
>Desert? RAILROADING!
>...Okay so this game is an adventure that takes place on an earth-like planet with humans-
>Humans? RAILROADING!
>...Okay so this game is an adventure that takes place on an earth-like planet-
>Earth? RAILROADING!
>...Okay so this game is an adventure-
>Adventure? RAILROADING!
>...Okay so this game is-
>Deciding anything about the game beforehand is RAILROADING!
Game /= spontaneous improvisation
>>47916148
>who is "you" in this scenario.
The DM
>>47916171
I've met one or two that I think do that, can't confirm. We all live in fear of the players that never bite, because they're twats and chaotic stupids.
>>47916021
Step 1) Accept that you have to play a game other than D&D or Pathfinder
>>47915129
It's perfectly okay to set the parameters of an adventure as long as you're sure it's something the players are interested in (and to ascertain that, you can always just talk to them before hand). I like the idea of explicitly stating the mission statement before you begin an adventure so that everybody's on the same page: "this is a story of how your band of intrepid adventurers explored the ruins of the fallen stronghold of Kijakar."
Doing something like that allows you to focus your preparation on stuff the party is actually likely to encounter, rather than trying to fill out the entire world. And if your players object to or refuse to cooperate with this kind of thing, particularly after you've consulted with them ahead of time ("what do you guys think about a good, old fashioned dungeon crawl through the ruins of a fortress around which hang rumors of lost wealth?"), then you should seriously consider punching them in the dick and/or finding a new group of players who aren't assholes. The players should try to be constructive and helpful, following reasonable hooks, and certainly not refusing a mission they said they were okay with beforehand.
Now, that only covers the most basic parameters of the adventure, and you still have to contend with the littler stuff, but that alone should be helpful.
>>47916190
There is no DM, that was the point.
>>47915486
You just have to take it in stages. The more they dick around, the worse things get. Didn't follow up on a kidnapping? More people go missing. Plagues start as the doomsday cult gets closer to their goal. Random horrors start showing up. Eventually they'll get the hint.
>>47916231
Eventually they're playing CoC.
>>47916215
Someone who goes out of their way that much to avoid any and all plot hooks is someone who you shouldn't be inviting back to your game table.
>>47916184
It's not like that.
Presenting a plot hook is a way of saying "I've planned some cool stuff if you do this, so please do this and not that crazy shit you're thinking right now". And in a way, making that suggestion is railroading. Even if it is only slightly, it does try to lead the players towards a direction.
On the other hand, starting a game with " you just woke up and it's a beautiful day outside, what do you do?" doesn't seem right.
>>47916265
Never had one personally but i always dread it. I've heard enough horror stories, do they want to play or not?
>>47916171
>I don't get railroading, are there really GMs out there that immediately throw their arms up in the air and shout "campaign failed!" if the players don't immediately bite the first hook?
More or less. More often, they simply don't have anything else prepared and become obviously annoyed when the players are "being difficult" and not "doing what they obviously should".
I have very little 1st hand experience, though.
>Do people really plan adventures so strictly like that, that if a single thing doesn't go according to a very exact plan then the entire campaign is ruined?
Yes.
Often, they are unpublished, or self-published "authors".
>Do people seriously not just come up with a bunch of bulletpoint plot points that can be dumped in anywhere, lead to be any number of possible hooks?
Some really don't.
I can't tell you why.
>>47916223
This too, is good.
>>47916296
Railroading is the act of forcing the players to stay on the rails.
One could argue that pointing out the railroad tracks is an extremely passive form of that.
But informing the players that the railway station exists is not remotely forcing them to not go mountain climbing.
>>47916223
>The players should try to be constructive and helpful
Let me underline this bit. The welfare of the adventure is not solely the GM's responsibility. The players have a responsibility to cooperate and give things the benefit of the doubt. That doesn't mean that they have to go along with just anything, no matter how stupid or out of character, but when presented a legitimate hook, they should see if they can find an excuse to bite.* And I have a term for players who think that they have no responsibility to behave in a way conducive to a good, fun adventure, and who think they should be free to act solely on the basis of their own whimsy, disregarding any work the GM has done: fuckwads. Or, you know: people looking for a new GM willing to put up with their shit.
*There have been times when the GM didn't bait what was obviously a pivotal hook in a way that I felt my character would ever bite. Sometimes, I have asked to pause the game and had an out-of-character discussion about what my issue was and how we could go about tweaking things so that I could rationalize my character being interested. You obviously can't expect everybody to do this sort of thing, especially since many players are hopelessly self-involved and oblivious to larger concerns, but actually talking with your group about cooperating to build a successful adventure will hopefully make them at least somewhat inclined to give you the benefit of the doubt (rather than refusing hooks that aren't absolutely perfectly targeted to their individual characters).
>>47916479
Pic related
>>47916021
Play Apocalypse World. Or Don't Rest Your Head. Or My Life With Master. Or Commitee for the Exploration of Mysteries. Or Bliss Stage. Or Ganakagok. Or...
>>47916184
I didnt' talk about improvisation. See above, many examples here require preparation.
>>47915757
That isn't the point at all. It's a joke. The DM gets so hung up on his plot that he imposes it on a perfectly enjoyable game. It's funny because it's unexpected. The fact that people misinterpreted it that terribly has forever ruined this screencap for me.
>>47916864
Is it?
The GM has presented the issue to the players and they have chosen to ignore it. Shouldn't that have organically evolved regardless of whether the players decided to cat upon it or not? Isn't that how the world should work?
I mean, the GM could have just ignored his first plot device for the sake of his player's fun, but isn't allowing it to still exist just as valid? He did present the consequences after the players had reached their goal, after all.
When I run a campaign, I never do a "story-based" campaign. I do more of a "world-based" campaign. I create locations to explore and characters to meet, but it's up to the players to "write" the story. To reiterate, I don't write stories for my campaigns; I create interesting locations (with conflicts and such that the players can get involved in) and characters.
Know the plot of your story beforehand.
Example evil guild of whatevers doing shit in district B?
Players are actively avoiding B?
Then make sure something interesting is happening in district A, then have things happen in B as they would without player intervention and see if players will eventually want to see that
>>47916864
>That isn't the point at all. It's a joke. The DM gets so hung up on his plot that he imposes it on a perfectly enjoyable game. It's funny because it's unexpected. The fact that people misinterpreted it that terribly has forever ruined this screencap for me.
This is either bait or you are doing some misinterpretating yourself.
The players ignored elements of the game world in favor of random whim.
The joke is that he smacked them with the consequences of it after their happy ending, tainting it like a passive aggressive dick.
See this
>>47917021
>He did present the consequences after the players had reached their goal, after all
I just tell the players flat out, "I don't have notes for that location." If they then insist, it's usually because they have something in mind. I hit a random monster table with monsters from the quest and some other monsters, put them through 2 encounters, then let them test what they wanted to.
>>47916656
>I didnt' talk about improvisation. See above, many examples here require preparation.
So you don't prepare the story in any way beforehand?
You just make the story up as you go along?
Almost like you are improvising the story?
Kinda like you are saying the only way to play an rpg is to improvise?
Making up the story as you go is fine, so is writing it down first, as long the players can change it with their characters.
>>47917021
No. This isn't a crappy horror movie where a news story flashes on the TV, then the PCs go on to live their lives, and then suddenly a bad thing happens. The world is there in service of the story; the story is not there in service of the world. The GM is the god of the world; it's not somehow out of his hands if the lich still exists.
He's punishing his players for not playing the way he wanted them to. It's a textbook definition of railroading. It's funny because it's unexpected because it's not what a good DM would do. It WAS funny, anyway.
This is like thinking the moral of Catcher in the Rye was "people are bastards/shoot Reagan".
>>47917346
>He's punishing his players for not playing the way he wanted them to. It's a textbook definition of railroading
He's punishing them for ignoring aspects of the world that posed a danger to them. If the players wanted to play A Slice of Life of them sitting around a lounge, some cooking dinner and others crafting little crafts, and a goblin burst into the room and started attacking them with a sword, if they choose to ignore the goblin because they'd rather talk about their little nuanced lives and their Slice of Life fantasy then the goblin kills their characters because they chose to ignore it.
The story is just a larger version of that. Pretending it's not makes you as silly as someone who shoots Reagan for their Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver waifu.
Whether or not the GM is a dick for putting the goblin there depends on what game they were playing and in the story it's stated that they were already playing a game not about gay marriage.
In short, you're either being a troll or a fool.
Please stop.
>>47917021
If the campaign world were an independently sustained simulation in which the PCs just happened to take part, it would make for an awful game. Why? The party would randomly run into something that would slaughter them. And I'm not talking about: "Shit! Those ogres are too strong for us! We'd better slip away before they see us!" No, I'm talking about the ancient red dragon encounter appropriate for when the party is high level happening when they are 1st level. One breath weapon attack and everybody is dead.
That, or everybody dies of dysentery or peritonitis. Like it or not, even the oldest of old school, fantasy Vietnam-style adventures are calibrated with the party in mind. So any pretense of the setting having so much integrity as to function independently of the party's involvement is folly, and what you're left with is an adventure keyed to them and their capabilities. And not just that, but the inclinations of both the characters and their players.
You don't try to force pirate characters to undertake a noble quest to rid the land of ruthless baron who is strangling the welfare of his subjects by taxing them into destitution. They couldn't care less. (Though you could spin it like: the baron is sitting on a shit-ton of money that could be yours!) Similarly, you don't try to force your players to play a game of political intrigue if they just want a good, old fashion dungeon crawl.
Now, I'm not saying the players went about things in an intelligent or particularly courteous way in that story. They made assumptions they shouldn't have and hijacked the GM's adventure. However, the GM is the voice of authority and should've behaved with more maturity that his players, not less. And when he saw that what he had planned was not what the players were interested in, he should've modified the adventure or at least had a discussion with his group about where to go from there.
>>47918478 continued
And if you want to play the realistic simulation card (which, as I already noted, is compromised from the beginning), how realistic does it seem to you that this one group of random adventurers paying attention to this one particular problem rather than doing something else is the only thing keeping the world from being plunged into eternal darkness?
"Hey! This one adventure I want you to go on is so important that if you do anything else, you'll be slaughtered!" is pretty much the textbook definition of a railroad.
>>47918478
>he party would randomly run into something that would slaughter them. And I'm not talking about: "Shit! Those ogres are too strong for us! We'd better slip away before they see us!" No, I'm talking about the ancient red dragon encounter appropriate for when the party is high level happening when they are 1st level. One breath weapon attack and everybody is dead.
Why would the low level party invariably choose to go into an ancient red dragon's lair at first level? Or do all "realistic" setting have angry red dragons everywhere?
>>47918478
>And when he saw that what he had planned was not what the players were interested in, he should've modified the adventure or at least had a discussion with his group about where to go from there.
To his credit, he completely modified the adventure.
He just didn't forget or ignore what was already established.
Bringing it back to crush them was a dick move, doing it after modifying the campaign the way the players wanted was a decent move, and because the players ignored a threat to focus on an inane issue they injected into the game, it was funny.
>>47918718
>Why would the low level party invariably choose to go into an ancient red dragon's lair at first level?
Red dragons aren't always in their lair. And if it's not a red dragon, it's a group of giants raiding and terrorizing the countryside. Or maybe it's the cultists who completed the ritual to summon a horde of demons because the only ones who could stop them was the party, and the party was 1st level and never heard of them.
>>47918804
>it was funny.
Sure. In a dickish sort of way. And I'm fine with that. It can be funny when disproportionately bad things happen to other people. My issue is with the folks who it up as a model of good DMing, which it certainly was not.
>>47918813
So, your idea of a "realistic" setting is one where everything is trying to deliberately kill the players?
>>47918478
>>47918526
Although that is correct, you're pushing it to the absurd. Of course, the campaign has to be adjusted to the players. But their actions can't go always without consequences. If there isn't a consequence, then there was never a threat or quest to begin with. In a sense, it would make the players useless.
If all the things that they don't what to do don't happen or get sorted out by themselves, then what's the point of the PCs? What difference do they make in the world?
Maybe I'm over thinking this, but I do prefer a game with real threats than a game that I know will always bend to my will (as a player).
>>47918718
Sometimes it's an expectations mismatch. I'm notorious for littering my campaigns with potential endgame content that's available but a bad idea from the get go. It's not a surprise thing, it's usually along the lines of "your night of carousing nets you a handful of rumors and leads, including the location of an ancient red dragon who has set themselves up as Lord and King over an area. Rumor is the locals have secretly sworn an oath that whomever defeats the dragon will not only have the hoard but that the locals will recognize them as king, as well."
I had a player literally quit a game screaming profanity when I wouldn't nerf the dragon to a lvl-1 appropriate encounter so he could fight it immediately because is his mind "it's a game so anything I can see I should get to fight, and any fights I'm in should be fair ones."
The guy was an ass for a couple of reasons, but he wasn't auto-wrong. Both ways are fun and have their fans I just like one and he likes the other.
Ancient red dragons should never be surprises, though. Players should know when they're looking at stuff that's "red" to them. Even the Balrog was foreshadowed.
>>47918906
Maybe not. Maybe they get lucky. But rolling on the wandering monster table for a random level is sure to cause some problems.
>>47915129
Hang on, did Subnormality do a That DM comic or is that from a more general control freak episode?
>>47919015
I don't know. I just got a random somewhat related picture from Google.
Thanks for giving the source, though.
>>47918990
That's not what having a "realistic" world looks like at all though. Not everywhere has an entire orc warband wandering around, and places that do, that shit is big news. Your idea of a setting existing indipendant of the players is fundamentally flawed.
>>47918929
That's not what he's talking about at all though. He is saying that any game that is realistic will invariably have a random event that fucks over the PCs without warning.
What do you do when you want the party to lose but they get stupid lucky and don't
>>47919107
>Not everywhere has an entire orc warband wandering around, and places that do, that shit is big news.
Okay then, let's take the case of the very greentext we're talking about. The necromancer is preparing to plunge the world into eternal darkness, and only the PCs can stop him. Only they're 1st level.
>>47919228
Right, so they go on a quest to start fighting his minions and become stronger in the process so eventually they can overthrow him. At first they're just nobodies, but by the time they start becoming a threat, they are already strong enough to take what he throws at them.
>>47919191
Stop GMing, go home, and think on what kind of game you were trying to narrate.
>>47919191
>What do you do when you want the party to lose but they get stupid lucky and don't
Pretend you wanted them to succeed the whole time.
>>47919292
Yes, if you're altering the reality to accommodate the party's power level. But I'm guessing that the GM in the greentext didn't allot enough time for the party to gain like 7 levels before facing the necromancer.
>>47919395
>But I'm guessing that the GM in the greentext didn't allot enough time for the party to gain like 7 levels before facing the necromancer.
They staged a revolution and overthrew a, presumably large, country. That shit doesn't happen overnight, anon.
>>47919421
You're weaseling. You're trying your hardest to think of any excuse so that the party wouldn't be overwhelmed. And if your running a game, that's great. It's what you should be doing. But you're not playing the part of a deist god, who just winds shit up and walks away.
>>47918841
>My issue is with the folks who it up as a model of good DMing, which it certainly was not
On that, we certainly agree.
I think it was amazing DMing until the fiat-you're-ded at the end.
My issue is with the folks that assert that players ignoring a world-ending lich, while being important and relevant enough to usurp a kingdom, is a perfectly consequence-free choice.
>>47919714
Nah. Nobody comes out of that story looking particularly good.
>>47919714
I mean to say that rolling with the gay marriage was amazing, and the world death epilogue was shit DMing, but still funny.
(I woulda laughed as a player)
>>47919763
The lich seems kinda badass.
>>47919458
>You're just making excuses because you're pointing out the flaws in my arguments.
>The Lich gains power from homosexual acts of affection
>The players unintentionally fueled his meteoric rise to power by fighting for gay marriage
>Now they have to kill all the gays to weaken the lich enough to kill him
>>47919458
He says they spent the entire campaign fighting battles and doing intrigue. Presumably they leveled up at least a bit.
Also, how is it 'altering reality' to have the players fight the minions before the necromancer? Presumably, the necromancer is busy on his plots and has secluded himself away. If he didn't need to do that, then he would have just destroyed the kingdom from the word go.
The only flaw is if he just said they lost instead of allowing them to try and play it out and fight off the undead hordes. It's not bad DMing to have something you established at the start come into play later.
>>47918920
>If all the things that they don't want to do don't happen or get sorted out by themselves, then what's the point of the PCs?
This
Threats need to be real or nothing is.
I don't have ignored threats resolved by good npcs,
I have them resolved by evil npcs.
Each disaster they ignore,
just empowers the eventual BBEG more.
>>47919458
What? Trying to move a rather large law, such as the legalization of gay marriage, in a medieval fantasy campaign no less, would probably take a lot of time; the same time that could be spent adventuring and getting strong enough to fight the necromancer/lich/whatever. Y'know the trope where heroes burst through the door right as the final ritual is happening? That's probably what the DM would be gunning for, so every second WOULD in fact count.
>>47919815
Even if it the PCs do have enough time to level up and face the necromancer in the story--something which is debatable at best--that does not mean that the PCs would always have enough time under similar scenarios. So the best you can say is that sometimes they might have enough time. Not very convincing.
>>47919852
This also assumes that the players are the only ones leveling.
>>47919900
If the PCs don't have enough time, then they can't stop the necromancer at all now can they?
>>47919849
Congratulations on coming up with a solution that's a bigger dick move then just Auto Death GM Fiat.
Let's also discuss the fact that it's extremely unlikely that the timing of the lich's takeover in the story, right when they were signing the law, was due to realistic simulation rather than a "fuck you" to the players.
>>47919926
Nope. And they're the only ones who could. But they can't. So nobody can. The end.
>>47915757
I think if the DM had put other warnings in during their adventure, like a small band of skeletons roaming the road or strange undead happenings, to warn them that the Lich was starting to grow in power... it would have been perfect DMing. If it was one thing at the beginning and he never brought it up again, then it was bad DMing.
If they chose to continuously ignore a threat, they deserved it.
>>47919950
Well tbf thats just the easy solution.
The other one is to get everyone to stop acting gay for 24 hours so that it permanently affects the lich's power. Or to get all the straight people to fight with each other, as that's the opposite of homolove.
>>47919978
So your argument is that the premise you laid out was a lie? that's a bold tactic, anon.
>>47920039
We'll see if it works out for him, Cotton.
>>47919978
Uhh... ultimately it's up to the DM to give them enough "time" (well, more like encounters but details) to become level with the necromancer. Sure, you could have the necromancer level up with the party as time passes, but a good GM will have it so that the party and the BBEG will stay roughly the same level so that the final fight will come down to moreso the skills of the players and necromancer instead of just "one guy is 10 times stronger than the other and it's just gonna be a slaughter."
>>47920092
>Uhh... ultimately it's up to the DM to give them enough "time"
Yes. By designing/modifying the campaign/setting to accommodate the party's capabilities. But at that point the world is no longer a realistic simulation that functions independent of the party's involvement, which is what we're talking about. My stance is that the using the realistic simulation argument to justify the everybody getting slaughtered in the greentext is rubbish, because no game is actually run like that. They are all, to varying degrees, designed around the players and their characters.
>>47920092
(same anon) To add on, them going off and doing the whole overthrow of the government and becoming leaders could have been used better, as the players now have a kingdom at their disposal. Perhaps instead of just outright bringing apocalypse, the GM could have brought some big warning signs that basically say "Uh-oh, times up PC's, you guys better get moving, the necromancer ain't fucking around m8s." And then have a big battle where they send off their new army to distract the minions of the necromancer while they disrupt his ritual.
Another thing to note, is that doing encounters with your party helps solidify some sense of teamwork. You tend to discover strategies and tactics with your party the more you fight battles, and how you solve diplomatic problems. The party, by the time they reach the BBEG, should have a decent bag of tricks that they can use against him, that was all developed naturally through adventuring. Doing just political intrigue stuff for several months would certainly help their roleplaying a lot, and help them sharpen their wit, but it wouldn't be of much use in a fighty type campaign, which was what the GM originally intended (and ultimately still did at the end... sort of).
>>47920170
So, in order for a setting to be realistic, the players should not be able to grow in power and rise as heroes before they get roflstomped by something far more powerful than them? Makes sense.
>>47916296
There is literally nothing wrong with plothooks as long as you allow the players to ignore them.
If they're real players, if they're good players, they will realise that the game will be more fun if they go on an adventure instead of shitting around - and they will follow the plothooks.
That said, I always offer multiple plot hooks. One or two major ones for 'quest lines' I have plottet out. They should be the most intriguing plot hooks.
Then I add a few one-session hooks. A haunted place. Bandits here or there. These people went missing in this wood. There's this axe stuck in the top of the mountain.
Whatever.
>>47916082
This might be a bad idea. You shouldn't just make towns and Npcs, but also provide hooks that the party can take or not.
Oh, a passing seaman notices the party and asks them to clear out a pirate lair that has been plaguing the coast and sea for months.
An old woman has enough money to buy their services to deliver a box to her daughter in the woods.
Suddently there's a bandit raid in the night! Roll for initiative! (GM also rolls a few times in secret to see if a bandit NPC snatched something from the party and if he got away)
These are some examples of hooks you can use for your party.
>>47920170
Well, it kinda still does. Realistically speaking, the necromancer is still leveling with the party. Note that the necromancer probably isn't directly leveling up like they are; he'd probably be out and about getting all the preparations for the ritual juuuust right, so that his plans would go off without a hitch. He wouldn't just be amassing stupid amounts of power by grinding mobs like the party is, he's got bigger fish to fry. So you can still realistically advance the world independently from the PC's without having to muck around with balancing the final fight or the BBEG too much. Just wait around until either the PC's run out of time (by then they should be close to the BBEG's level anyways), or if the PC's are a bit ahead of schedule, throw signs that the end is nigh. Not too much mucking around behind the scenes, and the setting+characters all have the illusion of progressing naturally and realistically.
If the party instead chooses to not get stronger and wastes time doing things that don't help them against the BBEG in a campaign that clearly does revolve around a central plot, and isn't a 100% sandbox, then a moderate consequence should be in order. Perhaps not outright ending the campaign like he did, but something should be shown that the world still moves around them, no matter what they do.
>>47920298
Ehhh... the stealing thing is always gonna be an iffy one to pull though. If it's a diehard campaign where actions have consequences and you don't often get second chances, and the players are fully aware, then yeah, I would be angry, but just shrug my shoulders and try to be more careful next time. If it's a little less hardcore, maybe give the players a chance to get their stolen goods back through another plothook. Oh, those bandits that stole some of your shit also happen to be harassing the nearby town you like, lets stop them!
>>47915129
That pic is retarded.
Just make the same encounters for the players like if they were on the other road.
>>47920415
^ This right here daddy-o
>>47920275
It's not an independently-functioning, realistic simulation if the challenges that the PCs face are designed with their capabilities in mind, no. Realism doesn't make for a particularly good game.
so /tg/ is telling me to make Oblivion and not Morrowind?
i should always just increase or reduce the level/difficulty of the enemies to match the party?
i thought it was really fun in Morrowind when i came across a tomb early on that was full of vampires, i made it through a heavily locked and trapped door only to find myself in an extremely dangerous area with vampires running at high speed wearing magical equipment, one tried to paralyze me but i barely resisted, and i managed to escape with my life but without any loot
would it be better to just swap the vampires with some giant rats upon entry? and make it an easy encounter?
>>47920004
Word. Especially since otherwise the players are meta gaming hard
>Well your characters should have just known that the lich was growing in power to usher in an age of darkness!
>>47920463
Well, honestly depends. A more tough-as-nails campaign should have places (hell, LOTS of places) that the PC's really shouldn't be going to just yet. If they do, try and make it obvious that the shit here may end up in a "bit off more than they can chew" scenario. If they try anyways, just do the encounter like you usually do, only change it so that they have an escape route handy. Like, "Oh no! These cave bears are too tough! What, roll perception? Oh shit, there's a small nook in the cave that the bears can't follow us through, everyone run!"
If it's a lighter campaign, then yeah, try to adjust things a little so that the party isn't always overwhelmed (throw in a bit of challenging encounters here and there to keep em on their toes though. Can't have your players going soft).
The biggest thing is making sure your players understand what kind of campaign their in. The last thing you need is everyone going "what the fuck DM you suck what's with this stupidly strong enemy!" when you originally made a hardcore campaign but no one knew that.
>>47920444
So any setting where the PCs ever face something they can reasonably overcome is unrealistic?
>>47916218
Not funny anymore
I never understood the issue with railroading in a general sense. If I obviously set up the players to go into a dungeon and planned out this dungeon, then fuck the players if they want to go spend the whole session doing something completely unrelated.
Of course you can't expect for any single event to go 100% how you planned it, but you can always tell the players "hey, I really didn't account for you bypassing A and B, so please just don't do that." Hopefully your group is reasonable and doesn't want to skip half of what you planned out.
The best way to get better and prepare for this is read some adventure modules, both for ideas and to learn how to plan things out. They usually aren't reliant on the players acting a certain way. But of course they can't account for "the players try to befriend the kobolds and help them raid all the cities" because that's just fucking silly
Pic related is the easiest way to move from railroading to completely open play.
>Leaving the city from the west? You're running into a patrol of goblins with a macguffin.
>Leaving the city from the east? You're running into a patrol of goblins with a macguffin.
>Leaving the city from the south? Best believe you're running into a patrol of goblins with a macguffin.
>A sailor wants you to recover his doodad from a shipwreck. When you get there, a necromancer has already got his skeletons diging on the seafloor.
>Ignore the sailor, that old woman's grandson hasn't come back! Turns out he's been captured by a necromancer and is a test subject.
>Old people bore me. Let's go sign up for the tournament to win the honour of being the prince's bodyguard! The bodies of the 3 competitors who died during the tournament vanish overnight. A perception check shows one set of footprints leading to where the bodies were left, but 4 sets leading away.
Your players never have to know. Just be prepared for something to do with the sailor and old woman by the time you get back to town.
>>47921175
>Just be prepared for something to do with the sailor and old woman by the time you get back to town.
Damn you and your magical realm.
>>47920463
You escaped once but died and reloaded a previous save a bunch of times in similar situations, though. Which is usually awkward in TTRPGs.
>>47920512
>>47920004
>I think if the DM had put other warnings in during their adventure, like a small band of skeletons roaming the road or strange undead happenings, to warn them that the Lich was starting to grow in power... it would have been perfect DMing. If it was one thing at the beginning and he never brought it up again, then it was bad DMing.
>If they chose to continuously ignore a threat, they deserved it.
Well I think being told "full well that you had to kill that lich before he completes the ritual and ushers in a new age of eternal darkness." was a pretty clear warning but that's me.
>>47915129
Don't force the players to take the plot hook, but have their be consequences if they decide not to.
If the players don't stop the Orcs ransacking the town for example, they'll come back to find the town burned down and now they can no longer rest there. They fucked up and their inaction caused the world to change.
>>47915356
No, why would it be? If they don't want to take the quest then they don't want to take the quest. If they complain how they couldn't have known that it would have resulted in consequences, then they're whining. You don't need to be a genius to understand that.
>>47921546
Like I said, that's (alomost definitely) meta gaming. How else would the PC's know the Lich plans to usher in an age of eternal darkness? It sounds like the lead in to a campaign. "In this world, XYZ. There is also a lich planning on doing evil shit. Now, you all meet in a tavern..." Unless a wize old man tells the party "The lich is in X place and doing Y, you need to stop him before Z", then how were the characters to know?
Bear in mind that wwe also only have the DM's side of the story.
>>47920360
>the stealing thing is always gonna be an iffy one to pull though
I agree with you, that's why I specified that you should roll to see if the bandit(s) actually manage to sneak in to steal some shit and not just say "Oh, by the way you got your shit stolen"
My point was that you can't just plop the players down in a town with NPCs and just ask them what they are doing... because most players are not very proactive. If you are one of the lucky few who has proactive players that say "I will settle down in this village, work my way up to captain of the guard and then take over as the major, overthrow the count and then become duke myself" your sessions are most likely going to be boring.
Because even if a player sets out to become the new master of the village, you have to have things happen to them!
>The opposition sends thugs after them!
>There are bandits lurking on the main road, harassing travellers. Deal with them.
>There's a shortage of food! What do?
>Kids have seen a missing person in the woods and now the relatives want to go find her.
The problem I have with sandbox is that it's usually an excuse for the GMs being lazy.
>>47921602
>Bear in mind that we also only have the DM's side of the story.
Exactly, and he said the players were full well informed, and do you really think someone would go on the internet and tell lies?
>>47915512
>>47915732
>>47916223
>>47916479
>>47918929
>>47921037
>>47921175
Why don't we have a PDF on this?
>>47919107
I'm not looking for realism when I play a game fo wizards and orcs.
>>47922120
Because you didn't make one.
>>47915129
First off, pic related. As for my experiences:
Don't plot extensively, PREPARE extensively. Having a small library of broad hooks/places/encounters/names/maps/etc. will let you remain flexible when players to something unexpected--which is usually inevitable.
Ask questions, both to yourself and the players. Asking yourself "Is this interesting? Will the players like this? How can can I flesh this out?" can go a long way to creating diversity in your story/plot hooks and assuring some investment from the players. Asking players questions reminds them of their decision-making agency, and in general it's a good idea to be on the same page as your players. Are they OKAY with your self-described railroading? Or are you recognizing that it's hampering their enjoyment somehow?
Consider the "Floating Islands".
>Build Dungeon A near Town A
>Players go to Town B
>Use Dungeon A near Town B instead since they never saw it to begin with
Used well, it lets you maximize your prep while letting players make their choices freely. Everybody wins.
What are you guys thoughts on a hex crawl with random encounters, some fixed and interconnected and a "main" adventure that can wait some?
>>47922577
Checked.
And also, thank you for posting it: I was thinking of exactly this cap, but I didn't have it handy to post.
>>47922614
Can be fun with the right people.
But I am not really looking for a game like that at the moment. I want to play Exalted.
I'm working on my first campaign myself, I have no idea how to do hooks. I have: Your goal is to get THIS artifact, here are some possible motivations but also make up your own. I feel like this might not really give people a strong motivation, but at the same time I don't want to be writing somebody else's character by telling them why they're doing something, what am I doing wrong?
And also can anybody help me as to how to actually 'end' a game? I'm nearing the end of content of my first adventure and I don't really know what to do besides saying "That's all folks"
>>47920938
>FATE, and found it full of "make shit up" and "discuss shit with the DM"
so he's...complaining about having to be creative and collaborate with the DM to build a narrative?
>>47922683
>Make some nice NPCs that the players like and have them abducted/injuried/robbed so that they will ask the party to help.
>What is your goal rogue? Oh, you want to become the head of organized crime? Right, right: you meet a guy in the tavern, he says he has been tasked with something pretty risky by his boss so he would like you to do it instead. He will also pay you whatever the boss was willing to pay him. Yes, you know that he is a guy from the local mafia...
>Oh, by the way wizard: you would know that the ruin that the old lady wants you to go explore to find something, once belonged to an old arch-wizard.
>That cute waitress you like comes to your table after you've finished your meal and asks for a word with you all. She is worried for her father's sickness and needs help: she can't leave the inn, so she asks you to go get some medicine at the local town, half a day away on foot.
>>47917287
Dude, I don't want to sound harsh, but... I dunno, what about at least reading the book(s)?
>>47920092
>ultimately it's up to the DM to give them enough "time" (well, more like encounters but details) to become level with the necromancer
Or to foil his plans and delaying him, you know. But the players didn't give a fuck and so the necromancer wasn't even delayed, got his army and slaughtered the fledgling republic.
>>47922683
A hook is not an end but a beginning. They are vapid and pop up easily all over a story. It is just something that implies there's more to discover, an offer to the players who can go and find out more, or not.
>The trader explaining how prices are bad because of the conflict (which conflict?)
>The drunk blowing off steam because of all the hard work (making what?)
>The village cowered into hiding from strangers (after what happened?)
>The thief stealing to feed her children after her husband was killed and her home destroyed (by what?)
>The passer by murdered in a back alley (over what?)
>The bag of loot lost in the street (by whom?)
Then according to the players' suspicions and expectations you spin a yarn that is centered about leading on to bigger things. If they carefully investigate it becomes a mystery. If they rush in and blatantly demand it becomes a combat encounter, with consequences. If they sneak around it becomes a heist. If they use contacts and position NPCs it becomes a social intrigue. Mix and match as needed.
If you have problem with ending a campaign, just conclude all open plots and write an epilogue. It doesn't have to be epic.
>>47916296
No, dumbfuck. Railroading is not 'leading the character's in a specific direction.' Railroading is not 'offering a path' to the players.' Railroading is not 'keeping the players from realizing they're on a preplanned adventure.' Railroading is not even 'preventing players from doing an action which you have not planned for.' Railroading DEFINITELY does not mean 'any time the GM has any plans at all it is railroading'
Railroading is a specific term for GM's who have ONE adventure. ONE plot. It can be resolved in ONE way. You cannot decide to go investigate that other place, that would mean you fail and the plot can't handle it. I have nothing planned for that area, so there's a wall in the way now. Railroading is attempting to prevent players from making any changes to the preapproved plot, exploring any areas other than the preformed ones, disallowing certain actions, etc. You are stuck on the rails chum, and cannot leave them, for the train would crash and then nothing would move.
Don't try to pretend that any time the GM has planned any sort of plot hook that it's at all deserving of the word railroad.
>>47918478
>You don't try to force pirate characters to undertake a noble quest to rid the land of ruthless baron who is strangling the welfare of his subjects by taxing them into destitution. They couldn't care less. (Though you could spin it like: the baron is sitting on a shit-ton of money that could be yours!) Similarly, you don't try to force your players to play a game of political intrigue if they just want a good, old fashion dungeon crawl.
The players signed up for your typical kill-the-lich type of adventure, and then wanted to turn it around into a gay rights adventure.
It is indeed a dick move to force something completely different on your players when they signed up for something else, but in this case it is the exact opposite
>>47919458
Are you seriously trying to write off someone who is refuting your argument as a weaseling who is making excuses?
Pic related is basically you right now
Make a situation rather than a plot. With your villains, give them flexible goals so they can change things on the fly. The whole example of having a necromancer trying to get an undead army so you can improv ways for him to do this throughout a campaign.
The only thing that really needs planning is the hook. Make a cool encounter basically to introduce and set up the adventure but leave the ending of that encounter and everything else open ended in what happens.
A lot of times you can have multiple hooks going on for one situation. Have each one introduce different aspects of the story.
Hell, a sandbox can be pretty much created as situations spread out in a story with it being a forest of plot hooks and encounters pretty much. If you introduce 3 plots for every plot the players are able to reasonably investigate, then it gets a certain amount of player choice. Just progress off screen some of the untaken hooks every now and then.
For a new gm, I'd recommend you make an area, make a situation for your main plot and have about 20 encounters; about a quarter of them dealing with the main plot.
>>47915129
I hope you will understand me because my english sucks...
Railroading is a big problem of every GM when he or she starts playing. To deal with this problem i start wrightning my adventures not as a stright line but in small events which i can chain together and coming up with while my group can play a a "free" world. They can do what ever they want and how ever they want but whenever a situation comes up where one of my events fits in, i use it.
Also its important to have a lot of possibilitys to connect these events spontaneously to a good story which leads the group carefule in the right direction.
Anything else is try and error and a lot of experience and learning by doing.
I hope i could help you, you're welcome.
>>47922688
This is why you don't play D&D. This is what it does to you.
You just set up a goal that you make clear to them and maybe one or more ways for this goal to be achieved but dont count on your PCs doing it that way.
Leave the goal and your attitude open to change and have everything else be up to the players to see how they make thier way.
>>47915296
I'm a new dm but I've been trying out this approach
>>47922751
>Dude, I don't want to sound harsh, but... I dunno, what about at least reading the book(s)?
1. Because no matter what is in the books, it will not change the fact that saying that "writing an adventure is railroading" is foolish oversimplification.
2. Because no matter what is in the books, it will not change the fact that if the story is not improvised as you play, then it was written, in some form, beforehand.
3. Because no matter what is in the books, it will not change the fact that the story is either "written" beforehand or improvised.
4. Last, but not least, I don't have to read a pile of books to know the above.
>>47922838
Thank you for defending the term from being misused by idiots.
A decent starting point can generally set the pace and direction. Saying that "everyone is just in the city, what do you do?", leads to players scattering like roaches in a spot light.
Mutual enemy that has plans moving slowly but purposefully. Something they NEED to deal with....in time. Give them some room to do things that would be off the railroad, but helps the railroad. Example:
>Big bads building an army
>Players cannot realistically do it alone
>Hey lets get some help from neighboring communities!
>Main quest now on hold to do alot of other shit at player discretion.
Makes them feel like they accomplished things.Always have your world moving with or without them. They ignore the lich for social justice? The lich will come for you, in time.
Always remember the one golden piece of advice as a GM: Your players, no matter how smart out of game, are retarded. They wont get your hooks unless it benefits them.
I am super late to the party here but the way I create a story for my players and have them play it is very simple:
I do not give the impression that this is a sandbox world.
I tell my players where they are starting and what they should/will be doing at the start and allow them to make up their reason for being there and why they would get involved. Then when the game starts, I introduce my hook or hooks and play the story.
This does not exclude freedom of choice but simply limits the players in scope. I still go about creating what-if encounters, places, and things so that they can make their own choices. However, the goal here is keep the players on your tracks, even if there are multiple sets, rather than running amok in a universe that may only be half-built and having to make up every encounter on the fly.
Both the GM and the Players should be willing to cooperate with each other for the sake of the game's and the storyline's enjoyment. If someone wants to screw around in an open world, they can go play one of the many video games dedicated to just that.
>>47922994
1st, your advice is excellent.
Also, your English is more than fine for internet standards.
If you want some tips on a couple of little touches, read the following. If not, ignore the rest of this post.
>wrightning
Wrighting means crafting, and therefore isn't wrong, but it's not used often, and you probably meant writing.
>what ever and how ever
Technically fine, but usually "whatever" and "however" are used
>possibilitys
When making a plural of a word ending in "y", you usually drop the "y" and add "ies", as in "possibilities".
>carefule
"carefully"
Sadly, many American teenagers do much, much worse.
The real answer is "sometimes you need to railroad them at least a little".
They may get pissy about it, they may complain, but if they don't like it they can be GM and flail around trying to do a completely open world that's something more than random encounters and random maps pulled from a book.
Everyone who says "Don't plan! Let them do what they want to do! Create compelling, rich, original adventures immediately off the top of your head no matter what they decide to do!" is either an entitled player who is too stupid and worthless to know how much work that is and how difficult it can be, or a self-deluded GM who thinks "Well it's not railroading when I do THIS."
>>47915129
Just stop giving a fuck.
Write down all possible shennanagins and just stuff it in where the fuck ever. You want such and such to happen in this city? Why does it have to happen in this city, just take the general idea you want to use next and jam it into where the players are going like a retard slamming a square peg into a round hole. Most of the time locations aren't that essential just change shit on the fly.
>>47924836
>>47922994
>wrightning
>Wrighting means crafting, and therefore isn't wrong, but it's not used often, and you probably meant writing.
To piggyback off what this anon said, I imagine you've created "wrightening" by making "written" into a very by adding -ing. Which would make sense if English were a logical language.
>>47915356
Did the soldiers in WW2 get railroaded by the consequences of not fighting in the war? Things happen. *LIFE HAPPENS*. The world keeps turning. If the players choose not to take part in the global stage, that's on them.
>>47922683
To answer this:
>>47922959
>>47922994
...And to append these good points, I'd recommend making the plot a product of the players.
I know that DMs 'forcing' longass backstories for no reason is tedious, but the motivation is good. I don't ask for life stories, but having a brief timeline of significant events/people in a character's history goes a long way towards creating situations that spur the players on.
For instance, our party has a noble ex-thief, Robin Hood/Goemon sorta guy. His backstory involves being on the run for murder, being at odds with the law, a rivalry with an old gang member, a friendship with an "enemy", and redemption for his past. As such, I incorporate hooks that involve themes pertaining to them--like crooked lawmen, paid assassins, private meetings, etc.
It motivates the player to get involved with it, and the repartee between the players when "their" hooks intersect/don't intersect writes a substantial part of the story for us.
>>47929966
just being devil's advocate here, but if your theoretical world keeps on spinning even without the players' involvement it seems pretty hypocritical to assume that the BBEG will succeed uncontested if the players don't go for your plot hook, there must be other high level NPCs in the world.
>>47931353
Nah, those only exist to kill your players when they step out of line, otherwise they are focusing their efforts in shit that won't prevent the BBEG plan
>>47929966
That said, you also can't assume that the pc party is the only force in the land.
>>47922120
>that lariat loop
>>47915129
Usually what you want to do is railroad in a way that doesn't seem like railroading.
Make good reasons for players to follow your quests. Don't force them to do it - make it worth doing. If you can direct the game however you want without players ever noticing they're doing what you want them to do, you're a godlike GM.
>>47932136
Forgot to mention, remember your players are roleplaying. As long as it makes sense for their characters, they are likely to do it.
>>47931353
Not that anon. But to provide an actual answer to your question:
If there are other high level npcs that could sweep in and save the day, then the PCs were never really important at all.
To avoid reducing the players' actions to being negligible at best, I have the good npcs busy stopping other world-ending horrors "off-screen" so the threat facing the PCs is real. But if they ignore it, other evil npcs swoop in to 32nd the threat and gain power.
If the players ignore the leak(heh, lich) they eventually find themselves surrounded by a flood of evil.
>>47915129
I'm no GM but I feel railroading, to a point, is something players need to expect. Constantly trying to do things that the GM hasn't planned for is just a dick move.
>>47915129
The invisible rail road.
If I want a goblin cave then that goblin cave will appear on any road the PCs choose to walk.
>>47932982
This. Your players never have to know.
>>47916547
>when someone takes your advice page and macros it and then reposts it as "good advice"
Feels pretty good
>>47932202
>guy makes a character for a game of adventure and all that shit
>turns out their only goal is to sit in town and keep being a peon and they will refuse to eat any plot hook because that's not what my character would do
What the fuck do I do? Granted, it's admittedly WFRP2 with its silly random career system, but...
>>47922120
>Why don't we have a PDF on this?
>>47933407
Kudos for summing up the basics of not creating a douche character in one page.And for making the most engaging intro to any gamebook I've ever read.
>>47933666
Dear Satan,
Make them read
>>47916547
>>47916237
You say that like it's a bad thing
>>47915911
>One thing I like to do is set up the area with about 8 proto-BBEGs, and as the PCs defeat them, each other one absorbs more power, influence, and control, getting stronger as the PCs do, whichever direction they choose.
This is actually how I choose my BBEGs half the time.
>>47933686
Awesome!
>>47922932
The problem is that this isn't an argument over the most likely situation in one particular scenario, but rather an argument over whether not taking a party's capabilities into account when designing and running a campaign would lead would ever, or let's say: commonly, be problematic. So one guy lists a bunch of things that would be problematic, and another guy tries to nitpick each one. Sure, he shows why each individual example wouldn't necessarily be a problem, but that's not adequate. He needs to show how each couldn't possibly be a problem, or at least is extremely unlikely to be. Let's take this one for instance:
>>47919292
>Right, so they go on a quest to start fighting his minions and become stronger in the process so eventually they can overthrow him.
Maybe, but not necessarily. The time frame could be long enough, but it might not be. Without the DM erring in the party's favor, there's no guarantee the task would be achievable. Further, this is just an example. Even if it were clear that the time frame was adequate, which it is not, there are similar situations in which it which it would not be. I've certainly played in adventures where the looming threat for a high level party was imminent enough that a low level party would never have enough time to level up to meet it.
>>47931353
Well, the pc's started a revolution. Theres a high probability that those npc's got caught up in helping/hindering that. Which makes it even easier for an outside party (ie the lich) to amass power and make his move.
>>47931353
>>47931534
Well, yes, that gives the DM leave to create rival adventuring parties. If the players miss out on a quest because they're busy screwing around in bumfuck-nowhere, someone else defeats the Big Bads and gains the fame and wealth. Then the party has a nemesis, a rival they can strive against or try to overthrow.
>>47921527
no, if i die i create a new character because autism
still haven't beaten the damn game
I err on the side of simulation, so really the best tools you'll have at your disposal is good improv. skills and the ability to quickly pull up and realize ideas/encounters.
Give the PCs a few hooks for a few related quests in an area, come up with an overall story but it doesn't need to be fully fleshed out because what makes the story tense for the players might need ideas to be shifted mid session.
Let's say there's a town and local goblins have been raiding it on and off for the past month, the town has a decent militia so it mostly amounts to hit and run tactics by the goblins, a few people have died, supplies crops etc have gone missing, life is miserable
Now with that we have a few ideas. The players could offer their services and be paid a reward for dealing with the goblins, or maybe they decide to ignore it, in that case we can maybe roll a d6 and on a 5-6 they are ambushed by goblins along the road as they're leaving down.
Let's say they weren't ambushed then, what next? Well we can say that they weren't ambushed, because up the road the goblins laid attack to a nearby caravan, and a wizard who managed to scare them off is beset because they stole his magical orb, and their shaman used it in battle to spirit the group away under the cover of smoke. The wizard is willing to reward the players if they go after them and slay the goblins before they untap all of the orbs power.
Now if the players don't want to at that point, shelve it, have them ambushed by a group of wolves in the night instead to keep things going, in the next town sow rumors about some ruins to the east, and in the ruins you put in a plot hook that you think the players will really go after, but in the back of your mind remember those goblins, and throw them back later as a greater threat that the players may wish to thwart.
However, ONLY do this a good 75% of the time, allowing certain plot hooks to vanish will make the world seem more real to them
>>47924652
>Saying that "everyone is just in the city, what do you do?", leads to players scattering like roaches in a spot light.
wouldn't that be fine for experienced players, they would try to find an inn with a good price, eat and sleep, in the morning ask the barkeep where there's mercenary work
and they're on a quest with no gaudy hook necessary, slaying basement rats or some shit, i guess it depends whether you want to play adventure simulator or x-com
otherwise i agree with how the world should always be moving
I think we actually have enough material for a decent document here.
I try to make "modules".
These, like >>47915279 suggests, are generic events, encounters, places, vignettes, characters, whatever.
They don't have to show up in ONE place and thus force you to geographically shove your players. Can't move a boss to a new zone without the change in venue making 0% sense? Move his whole dungeon, too!
I also recommending admitting to players, "I don't have anything prepared that way, but I'll try, if you don't like my prepared option." It's an invitation for them to generate some ideas and be ready to think of things on the fly themselves, and [good] players can help a campaign move along if they are proactive and posit their own ideas on how things [might] go.
How do I present plot hooks that don't look like they have big flashing arrows that scream "RAILROAD STARTS HERE"?
I want a sandbox sort of deal with a bunch of regional side quests and the like, but I don't want them to be super blatant
>>47944551
>How do I present plot hooks that don't look like they have big flashing arrows that scream "RAILROAD STARTS HERE"?
You really can't.
Offering up quest hooks is like describing a room with a clue in it.
Everything you mention is going to seem like a flashing sign.
The only good option is mention an assortment of interesting things and let the players decide what's important.
>>47944551
You just give them a plothook. YOU GIVE THEM A FUCKING PLOTHOOK, END OF.
Jesus CHRIST you insipid cunts, having a plot does not mean that you are on rails. Having a plot means you are on a path to go somewhere instead of wandering the wilderness. The players can deviate from the path if they so choose, skipping parts of it, making detours, maybe even picking a different path or choosing to go back and wander the wilderness for a while, etc.
Railroading is when there is only one path, and you can't get off of it, the party is stuck riding the rails to their conclusion, and if they manage to derail the train, the whole plot crashes and fails.
For fucks sake. Railroading does not mean 'the GM has a set plan' Railroading is when the players are given no agency in where their story goes.
>>47918427
>larger version of that
speaking of
>>47915757
one thing a lot of people overlook is that the PCs aren't always the only ones capable of getting off their asses and doing something
while these faggots were off doing their free love quest another band of adventurers (or even several) could've done things behind the scenes, defeated the evil lord and come back as vastly more celebrated heroes than the people introducing gay marriage
of course, sacrificing any level of common sense or verisimilitude is necessary to get one over on your players, i guess
even then, maybe the best way for it all to have gone about is for the DM to have talked it out with his players about what both parties are actually expecting of this gamethis is why it's a shit greentext, made up or not
>>47947040
>even then, maybe the best way for it all to have gone about is for the DM to have talked it out with his players about what both parties are actually expecting of this game
Truth
>while these faggots were off doing their free love quest another band of adventurers (or even several) could've done things behind the scenes, defeated the evil lord and come back as vastly more celebrated heroes than the people introducing gay marriage
This option of punishing the PCs, by negating any importance they may have by replacing their role easier than replacing a spare tire, had not been overlooked.
It is comparable to, and just as valid as, negating their achievement through an unstoppable lich army.
>>47947672
>This option of punishing the PCs, by negating any importance they may have by replacing their role easier than replacing a spare tire
can't disagree with that interpretation, i guess
also, moving onto somewhat of a tangent - but i'm wondering how often DMs use other adventuring parties in their games
there's a lot of potential - 'best case' for the players they're a great ally, and a way for the DM to give them a source of information or insight when they're stumped on something
'worst case' they're a fierce rival of, or even hunter of the party, which can give them an interesting recurring enemy (assuming they aren't splattered on the first or second combat encounter, as 'recurring' enemies tend to be)
otherwise i guess they could be used to give more life to the world, demonstrate certain enemy abilities (no faster way to learn about something deadly than seeing it happen to somebody else, after all), and possibly even give the players a source of magical items and trade without running into that weird old trope of every blacksmith and pawn shop in town dealing in £3,000+ artifacts and rare gems
>>47947990
Other, or rival, adventuring parties is a great mechanism for all those reasons.
I don't remember seeing any stories involving them.
The one time I tried it, the PCs murdered them fairly quickly.
I may have made it too easy and telegraphed their abilities by mirroring the PCs too closely.
Pic somewhat related
>>47944551
That's not a railroad, that's a highway sign.
The point of the interstate highway system is that you know where everything is, and you can figure out a whole lot of different ways to get there. Fastest, shortest, stops by the beach, uses the longest bridge in the US, visits all the state capitols in alphabetic order except for Frankfort: doesn't matter.
Say excessive pickpocketing is putting the local economy through the wringer. The town thieves guild is run by Fat Tony. Anyone with underground connections will tell you two things: Fat Tony holds court at a lodge by the river every Saturday night where everyone is required to be armed, and Fat Tony is actually a fairly underweight elderly woman.
Does the Party go lean on Fat Tony to rein in the pickpockets? Does the Rogue want to join the guild? Does the Lawful Stupid Paladin make a suicide charge against the lodge? Does the bard propose working a single larger scam against a "whale?" Does the slightly smarter Paladin deduce a sudden spike in theft probably means a sudden increase in unmet needs and go explore if its something the church can help with?
Who cares? Not you. You just throw out the problem and who to talk to if they want to get involved in it. Players decide when or even if they want to deal with it and how.
Meanwhile, go ahead and make a notecard for Fat Tony, just a quick description and the page # of the NPC you built them off of is fine. Just make sure to note what's going to happen if the players don't involved themselves at all. This way if they go to Fat Tony's immediately you can still hang on to the character. If they involve themselves cross that bit out, if they ignore it circle it and file the card into "introduced but not used"
In 1-2 brainstorming sessions you can have 25-100 of these cards made up *easy.* Statblock, description, problem, go. For double fun working backwards and whenever you ass-pull an NPC make a card for them and then fill it in with details later.
>>47933686
>>47922120
>Why don't we have a PDF on this?
>>47943888
>I think we actually have enough material for a decent document here.
>>47952909
>Getting shit done
It still happens sometimes
>>47953010
I'm fairly proud of it.
Although, I immediately noticed a spelling error right after posting it.
I'm particularly happy with the sandbox version of the OP image.
>>47915129
First, build a setting or take an already existing one and then put in place an overarching plot. The layers can chose then to involve themselves in it or not. Have things play out as they likely would without PC intervention when PCs dont intervene.
There are 2 important things here. Firstly, make sure your players know that you are doing this and that they would be interested in the overarching plot. Secondly, give hints and numerous hooks pertaining to the plot. Dont pull a ''hey gg guys, the gays can marry and now the zombie hordes rise!'', let the know that shit is going down still and then at least they can be aware of what may happen.
And always remember, theres a lot happening in the world and not all of it is going to be at your level.
>>47915129
First off, remember to not be a cunt to your players.
Second, bad railroading is like playing Fable. Remember all the parts where you could do A or B, but they wouldn't matter because C would happen anyway and invalidate you? That. That's shit, don't do it. It feels bad as a player because it makes the player think 'well, I may as well not have done anything' and disincentivizes the player from actively doing anything in the game.
Good railroading isn't really railroading, or a 'but thou must', or a 'well you could say no but you could die' situation. Good railroading is hardly railroading-if things make INTERNAL SENSE then your players shouldn't even think about it. Example:
>Wizard A has goober B which will destroy the world on island C.
If your players are the 'save the world' types, then that might be enough. If they're in it for themselves, offer a reward. Put this into the synopsis you tell them when they're making characters, so that they make characters that would do that kind of thing.
>>47952909
Very nice!
What about having 1 main big plot that you'll railroad using narratives from players? The Campaign I was planning to do involves the players going around the world proving themselves to the generals to gain audience to the king, which is then exposed to be getting corrupted so they have to stop him.
Aside from the method of exposition of key main plot ideas, they're free to explore the world full of sidequests including the General's challenge
would this work?
>>47916864
Absolutely. If the picture actually happened there's no excuse whatsoever for the GM and the Players not to discuss it outside the campaign,
>Hey guys, so I wanted to check this real quick. Are you all committed to this revolution? Because I originally thought we were going to have you save the kingdom from a lich and stuff".
>>47952909
Well damn anon I was going to offer to make a revised version of my earlier PDF, but you did a pretty stellar job!
>>47916171
I've only played with one Dm who did this, star trek homebrew, and despite us players coming up with roughly 3 different ways wherein we should have outright killed the villain, the DM said no.
Just no. Not a narrative no, not even a "haha all according to plan" improv, just no, you cant do that.
If you dont want me to kill the BBEG, don't put him right in front of me taunting me. We never played another session because he couldnt adapt.
I DM, have for years now, and Island Design theory is my saving grace. As another anon said, under no circumstances EVER tell your players about island design. Itll kill it for them.
>>47958851
Honestly, for our playing group this knowledge has only INCREASED our enjoyment. Partly because they all learned of it when learning to DM on their own, and partly because they like the interplay the theory creates.
Basically, the better the players (and their characters/RP), the less impact the meta knowledge of islands can have. We also make the effort to mix and match our hooks/stories/NPCs/etc., to blur the line between what was an Island, what was Autoplay Sandbox, and what was improvised.
I can see how it'd betray suspension of disbelief for players, so I won't recommend the magician reveal their secrets to EVERY group, but it's not always a deal-breaker.
>>47915129
Hexcrawl
>>47915129
Don't try to anticipate player actions, this leads to you trying to write scripts for every possible outcome. That way lies madness and burnout.
Instead think in terms of "this is the BBEG's plan." Think about what your NPCs are going to be doing like they are real people and plan accordingly.
>>47917346
>He's punishing his players for not playing the way he wanted them to.
He went along with the campaign, played full well with their actions, implementing NPCs, allowing factions, allowing a war to change government - all kinds of things. This is not railroading. This is not punishing the players. This is doing exactly what you should do as a DM.
The players punished themselves by prioritizing different things. They cared more about changing the rule of the current government and going after a small, minor, BBEG instead of going after the BBEG even if they knew about the lich.
Running a game is not about giving everything your players want. It's about providing challenges, consequences, and a story. You're a fucking retarded liberal because you're butthurt about gay marriage. That much is apparent.
what's Island Design Theory precious
>>47915757
The reasonable thing would have been for the GM and players to voice their opinions on what they wanted. Generic kill the lich quests might be what some people want, but starting a rebellion for some cause might be more down another person's alley. The GM was a dick in for not just scrapping his plans for what his players wanted and instead ruining the ending to an otherwise fun campaign. If the GM cared so much about his generic quest he should have played with a different group or just said "fuck it, gay marriage is allowed but it is extremely uncommon because gay culture and political marriages and heirs and shit, can we move on?"
>>47915129
Don't avoid it. Don't call it a railroad, call it a rollercoaster. That's how it should be played.
>>47959940
Read the thread, sweetie.
>>47915129
Less Planning
More Improv
>>47915223
>write the story of what would happen /without/ any character intervention
I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there. Often, to me, the clicking gears beneath the world having nothing to do with the players is teltale signs of railroading, and more likely to be ignored by your PC's. If you endeavor to make the conflicts more personal to the players, including things their characters care about, then they will get involved: not always in the way you expect, which is good as long as you're not crap at improv, but they will get involved.
>>47960567
I think making a story to fit your pcs is exactly railroading; and one can railroad someone completely in improv or with comprehensive planning.
I think planning is fine, but with complete acceptance that the PCs aren't going to do _ANYTHING_ that you expect them, and so don't plan for PCs.
It also makes the world seem not static, makes NPCs feel more like people and less questgivers and makes consequences real and meaningful. One of the best things for a player to see is impact of their actions, and planning a PCless world lets you map a butterfly effect of their actions.
>>47960738
>making a story to fit your pcs is exactly railroading
Having conflicts arise that the PC's actually care about, rather than just being nameless murderhobos, creates stronger stories in the end. Also, creating a conflict to which PC's have personal connections, knowing they will react, is not the same as trying to predict HOW they will react, which I agree is a big mistake.
The key to making stories revolve around the players without railroading: make conflicts they must react to, but never anticipate HOW they will react. I didn't get good at this until I GM'd SR, and really learned the zen of throwing a seemingly insurmountable problem, and then being liberal with the lateral-thinking solutions.
>>47960738
Why go to all that planning trouble, if what results is something that would be just as exciting if "the warriors of light" went on the adventure.
I suppose, on a more abstract gaming philosophical note, we are already nameless faceless unimportant cogs in a great big world that does not care about us or revolve around us in any way. Why would you tailor your escapist fantasy to do the same? When I started playing in the 90's, my friends and I were huge fantasy novel buffs, and we wanted to recreate the essence of those stories, and what you're describing, while possibly right for some parties, just sounds flat and unable to capture the FEEL of fantasy novels or movies. I'm forever GM these days, but I remember all of us thinking "damn this system doesn't deliver what it advertised" until we learned how to DM games that actually felt like fantasy novels, and try to deliver my players what I wanted in my youth. I mean there's nothing wrong with exploring a living breathing nihilist world that exists independent of you and doesn't care about you (and as the inexplicable popularity of aSoIaF and Walking Dead shows, it's a real hot ticket right now,) but I can already do that.... in the living breathing real world that exists independent of me.
>>47947040
The GM of that game posted something concerning that in the original thread, iirc the party were motr or less the only ones who knew about the lich at the start of the campaign, to wit, one of the players also had a beef with that very lich. Them starting a war was more or less the best thing that could happen to the BBEG's plan.on a sidenot, I love that fucking screencap, it's the fucking skub of /tg/
>>47915129
Just be sneaky about it.
>>47960567
>I'm gonna have to go ahead and disagree with you there. Often, to me, the clicking gears beneath the world having nothing to do with the players is telltale signs of railroading, and more likely to be ignored by your PC's
I’m not that anon, you make sense, and developing plots that never involve the pcs at all is pointless.
However, there may be another way of looking at it than what you are seeing.
Writing the story of what would happen without the PCs interaction is useful for when the PCs don’t take the plothook or resolve it in an unexpected way.
Having those story elements disappear and fade away because the players weren’t interested turns the world into a cardboard cutout.
Knowing whether the lich would continue to conquer or just weaken the kingdom in a fierce battle before being defeated, or if Timmy would get possessed by demons or be saved from the bottom of the well by a rival hero that then discovered a lost gold mine, enriching the village, or any of these things that help make the world more real.
Perhaps they ignore a shady old man who wants them to “reacquire a useless trinket that was stolen from him” and then they later see him hung for attempting to steal a cursed magical artifact.
PC actions have consequences and so do inactions. Showing them what happens when they aren’t there is just another aspect of reinforcing player agency.
>>47959631
>Don't try to anticipate player actions, this leads to you trying to write scripts for every possible outcome. That way lies madness and burnout.
>Instead think in terms of "this is the BBEG's plan." Think about what your NPCs are going to be doing like they are real people and plan accordingly.
So much this.
However…
>>47960738
>I think planning is fine, but with complete acceptance that the PCs aren't going to do _ANYTHING_ that you expect them, and so don't plan for PCs.
>>47961094
>Why go to all that planning trouble?
I do plan for PCs.
It’s actually the most use I get out the alignment system.
I ask myself what an archetypical LG, CN, NE, etc., aligned person would do to resolve the encounter or plothook, and come up with 8 resolution scenarios, with TN ignoring the plothook.
It helps me imagine outcomes that I did not envision, such as the players killing the quest giver before he can explain himself.
It won’t predict the gay marriage inquisition, but it casts a wider net, helps prevent painting yourself in a corner, and often the PCs end up doing something “close” to one of the scenarios.
>>47959940
>what's Island Design Theory precious
>47960442
>Read the thread, sweetie.
He could also read the hot ‘n fresh PDF
>>47952909
THANK YOU
I think I'll print this off and keep it in my core rulebook
>>47968678
Your welcome!
>>47955861
Thanks! I loved your cover.
>>47915356
>But isn't it the same as forcing a quest if the consequences of not taking said quest are too dire?
No. That's giving a choice. Choices have consequences. If you claim to offer one but the outcome is the same either way there was no choice to begin with.
>>47952909
Hey anon, if you end up updating this PDF, could you throw in this picture into the relevant section? Just to complete the set.
This thread just makes me realize how bad I want a mid-week game, somehow, like a Wednesday night sort of thing :(
