DM Sins v DnD podcasts

[incarnate236]

I was listening to some of the acquisitions inc podcasts after having watched Robot Chicken DnD some time ago and can't help thinking maybe the railroad issue most complain about in DM's isn't an intrinsic problem but rather an issue of storytelling. It seems like Perkins (DM in question) is very prone to railroading characters through a path but does so somewhat skillfully. This of course led me to believe perhaps bad dms may just be bad storytellers. What are your thoughts?

[Kafana]

As far as D&D goes, I'd say that the DM is responsible for, at most, 60% of the enjoyment and the quality of the game. If you have a group that's willing to play their characters but still keeps in mind that the DM isn't a god who can detail every situation they won't try to derail the campaign. The DM should have an insight about the nature of the characters, what they hate or like (preferbly by getting a good background of the character, my experience was that I'd never get less than five pages for a low level character, up to 15 for mid levels) and create encounters accordingly, so that in the end you are railroading, but through the nature of the characters rather than just because.

It also depends on what type of game you want to play. If it's a sandbox you just have to create a bunch of random encounters with short stories that might connect 2 to 3 quests. Other than that there is no railroading. If you have a story to tell you will have to railroad in some manner if you want that story to be told, at least the gist of it.

What I usually do in my campaigns is design the starting area really well, and allow the players to get a feel of three or four main quests before they have to decide on one. Once they've decided I'd usually take a break for two weeks and design the first half of that main quest as best as I can, covering all the basis and then go on from that.

In the end, you can be the best storyteller in the world, if you're group is a dungeon crasher group then all you really need is to know how to setup challenging combat encounters and the railroading is a prefered way to get the group from one combat to another.