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heavyfuel
2020-01-17, 11:22 AM
A DM announces - before the very first session - that he already has a final boss planned and statted. The campaign is supposed to take place from levels 2 to about 18.

Is it railroading to assume that your players won't have enough of an impact on the world in through these 17 levels that the final boss might chance?

I'm not against some railroading, but this seems excessive. So what is it: Normal? Red flag? Time to jump ship?

awa
2020-01-17, 11:34 AM
Well 2-18 is in most editions a long time period so that is setting up very far in advance.
However it really depends heavily on play-style, to much railroading is highly subjective.
Its so subjective that their is a lot of argument on what the definition of railroading even is.

My players like a lot of "railroading" and while we simply would not have the time to run a 2-18 game, i do often know who the final boss is even if i dont tend to bother stating up that far ahead.

Lots of people like pathfinders adventure paths and those are one big railroad so how much is to much railroad is a question only your group can answer.

GrayDeath
2020-01-17, 11:50 AM
As long as they are totally free to NOT fight the final Boss if at the time, they dont want or need to, there is nothing wrong with statting up and designing a Big Big Bad early on.

And if the party is very Good and the Bad Guy very Evil, yet for some reasons not reachable (ideally in world, logical and System Reasons, mind!), then this can work out pretty well.

As an Example, though not at the start of a game per se, but at the start of its second half, my palyers knew exactly who the big bad was. ANd msotly even WHERE.
But they also knew he was protected by a field that killed everything alive around him, ahead of them in Power AND that while they had a way to teleport there, they ad no way tog et BACK, and so they decided against facing him "early".

So in and on itself , it seems a bit too much effort too early on (after all, you never know the party will even last that long), but no Red Flag, or even Railroading at all (mind, having a Clear plot and a clear enemy is not Railroading!).

YMMV though, as alweays.

Berenger
2020-01-17, 11:59 AM
Having a design for a final boss and assuming he will be around for the endgame has nothing at all to do with railroading.

If he is willing to change rules and circumstances on the fly to ensure that nothing you do harms the final boss before the final battle, that would be railroading, but this does not follow from the situation you described. An assumption is an assumption, railroading is an action (or a lack of reaction).

Koo Rehtorb
2020-01-17, 12:08 PM
This doesn't really relate to railroading. I doubt I'd be interested in a game that was this heavily plotted in advance though.

DeTess
2020-01-17, 12:23 PM
It's odd that the DM would announce it like that, but it's hardly a red flag.

The DM could have pre-statted the boss because it's some kind of ancient being that ahs already achieved its peak before the start of the campaign, so the stats he made are the ones that are applicable, even if you decide to fight him at level 1 for some reason. Maybe the campaign is mostly about the PC's gathering enough power to beat the boss, and as long as you're fairly free to go about gathering power as you see fit, there's nothing railroady about it. For that kind of campaign, pre-statting the boss might even be be a good to avoid the temptation to build the boss to counter the PC's.

AHalfOrc
2020-01-17, 12:31 PM
I'd say it's a sign that your GM might be a bit of an overpreparer, which could lead to railroading if they're too inflexible to roll with things if the players go out of the bounds of the grand plan.

The only to find out how much railroading you're in for is through playing with that GM.

kyoryu
2020-01-17, 01:29 PM
Yes, it's railroading. 100%.

Just like every Adventure Path or equivalent ever published. So it's a fairly common game style, and there's nothing wrong with it if you're into it.

So our opinion doesn't matter. The question is if you can enjoy a game like that. Some can. Some can't. Personally, it's not my preference, but I can deal with it if I know it going into it.

Quertus
2020-01-17, 01:53 PM
There's been a lot of good points raised in this thread - too many for me to agree with all of them.

Yes, this is a warning sign that your GM's style may be inflexible, and they may sink to railroading if your styles are incompatible. If that is a concern for you, you should raise that concern.

Now, me, I had figured out who was going to be the BBEG, gave the party the opportunity to help him rise to power (they took it), everything was going according to plan… and then they ended up joining him. :smalleek:

Well, I rolled with it, threw out my plans, and ran the "ally of the BBEG" game.

So, one can place an element in the game, and even give it an intended purpose, without railroading. It's when GMs grow too attached to their story rather than the party's story that you have to worry about railroading.

Mastikator
2020-01-17, 02:49 PM
Potentially: it's 0% railroading. I could easily envision a full sandbox campaign where once the players reach a certain level a doomsday end boss will attack them.

This could also be a highly pseudo theater where the players have predefined roles and already scripted lines without their knowledge.

If I were you I'd ask which it is. And if it's the latter I'd ask the DM to just give me the lines so I could evaluate if it's worth sticking around for. The rails might be so good they're worth it, but then I'd need to know in advance thank you.

MoiMagnus
2020-01-17, 02:57 PM
1) Railroading is on the way to handle the session, not on the preparation before. Sure, if your preparation is very focussed, you will be tempted to railroad your players, but it doesn't need to.

2) There is a difference between "meta railroading" (the DM is in control of the scenario) and "in-universe railroading" (a NPC of group of NPCs has significant control over the scenario). I'd say having the final boss ready is a red flag for the second one. But as long as your DM doesn't want to railroad himself and just build the universe like that because he had fun building it like that (and DMs are allowed to have fun when preparing), you probably have a lot of ways to change the course of the campaign to whatever your group want.

3) I'd personally react differently depending on the expected speed of the campaign. If your group use milestone levels with one level per session, I'd be far less wary than if you said me you expect this to be a 3 years campaign.

4) "The campaign is supposed to take place from levels 2 to about 18". This sentence already assume some level of railroading (how do you even know level 18 will be a sweet spot to stop the campaign?). And a lot of optimism from the DM.

In fact, more than railroading, this is more for a red flag for excessive optimism (on the capacity to maintain a campaign interesting up to level 18, on fact that preparing materials for high level fights as soon as now will actually be useful, ...).

King of Nowhere
2020-01-17, 03:19 PM
Having a design for a final boss and assuming he will be around for the endgame has nothing at all to do with railroading.

If he is willing to change rules and circumstances on the fly to ensure that nothing you do harms the final boss before the final battle, that would be railroading, but this does not follow from the situation you described.

yes, exactly. your dm may be an overpreparer, or maybe he simply found himself idly wondering "let's see how powerful this dude is" and statted the guy. i've done that myself.
as for knowing that he'll be the big bad, it may imply railroading, but if he's sufficiently bad and sufficiently powerful, then it's pretty much guaranteed that he'll be the big bad. simply because there is no one else bigger and badder to take the spot.
but i don't see how that can really be railroading. there is a guy who had a centuries old masterplan to do really bad thingsTM. the party, being generally good-aligned1, will have every reason to try and stop this guy. and that's it.

1 technically, the party is free to be bad guys and join up the villain. however, you generally know this before the campaign starts. Me, I'd not be comfortable dming or even playing an evil campaign, so I ask as a premise that the party is decently heroic

EDIT
Potentially: it's 0% railroading. I could easily envision a full sandbox campaign where once the players reach a certain level a doomsday end boss will attack them.

this actually sums up my point very nicely

Altheus
2020-01-17, 05:39 PM
I'd consider this the overpreparation that leads to railroading.

Players are strange, they are prone to do things their own way, they bypass adventures with cleverness, they defeat the boss with politics and manipulation rather than hitting it until it runs out of hit points.

This kind of preparation means that the GM has a plan for how they want things to go down and may well railroad the players down that path rather than allowing them to choose what they do and how they do it.

As long as the GM is willing to abandon all of the prep they've done when the players do something that isn't in the script then they should be fine, the times when the gm is not willing to abandon prep is when railroading happens.

J-H
2020-01-17, 05:54 PM
I'm running a Castlevania dungeoncrawl that goes from level 3 to level 12. The party just hit level 9. I've had Dracula statted for a couple of months, although I am still considering some tweaks. Same for many of the other bosses.

It's a dungeoncrawl. The win condition is "Kill Dracula." It's not railroading to know that they're probably going to fight him.

NigelWalmsley
2020-01-17, 07:18 PM
I'd consider this the overpreparation that leads to railroading.

I would tend to agree with this assessment. What OP has described isn't railroading yet. It might (and I would argue is likely to) turn into railroading, when the DM's expectations collide with the reality of players coming to the table with different ideas. But the DM might also realize that they should work with what players are bringing to the table, and adapt their plans.

False God
2020-01-17, 09:59 PM
I tend to prep my "bosses" in advance, in the same way that I often prep character builds. It usually gives me an idea of their powers and their skills and how they would be applying them to their various evil plans throughout the campaign. Bad guys aren't necessarily leveling alongside the characters as the game progresses. Typically they're already powerful (hence why they're making waves in the world) and looking to gain more power, and the players intersect them at crucial powers to prevent this increased power gain, effectively keeping the bad guy at the same level, while the characters gain levels and bring them closer to fully defeating the bad guy.

Or the DM may simply be giving you fair warning that "yes the bad guy has stats, and if you encounter him early he may kick your butt".

Zhorn
2020-01-18, 10:03 AM
It's about as railroady as saying "Strahd will be the final boss in the Barovia campaign" or "Acererak is the final boss in the Chult adventure", which is to say it isn't really. They've only set up the big bad looming in the distance.

Now if they're saying they've also set up the where, when, and how of that encounter and direct the players towards it no matter what the party is trying to do, then it is railroading.

As long as where, when and how are variables the players have an impact on, you are in a railroad free environment.

NigelWalmsley
2020-01-18, 10:26 AM
Published adventures like Ravenloft or whatever are pretty railroady, actually. It's just that there's an implicit assumption that if you're running an adventure path, people are pretty much on board with the big bad being decided day one.

Synesthesy
2020-01-18, 10:53 AM
A DM announces - before the very first session - that he already has a final boss planned and statted. The campaign is supposed to take place from levels 2 to about 18.

Is it railroading to assume that your players won't have enough of an impact on the world in through these 17 levels that the final boss might chance?

I'm not against some railroading, but this seems excessive. So what is it: Normal? Red flag? Time to jump ship?

It's a lot railroad, but it surely will make a better story.

However, there is a chance that the boss is so strong / important that you PC won't change the world enough not to have to deal him directly. Let's make an example and say that your setting is the Middle Earth and that the boss is Sauron. Only that this time there is no ring, you have to deal with old Sauron personally. Surely there isn't a way you could change the world without dealing with him, and you need to be high level before doing this. Obviously before you will deal with random orcs, trolls, then Nazgul, only in the end Sauron. Every point between the beginning and the end can't change if you think about it (and your DM won't say it loud, you know).

King of Nowhere
2020-01-18, 11:16 AM
However, there is a chance that the boss is so strong / important that you PC won't change the world enough not to have to deal him directly. Let's make an example and say that your setting is the Middle Earth and that the boss is Sauron. Only that this time there is no ring, you have to deal with old Sauron personally. Surely there isn't a way you could change the world without dealing with him, and you need to be high level before doing this. Obviously before you will deal with random orcs, trolls, then Nazgul, only in the end Sauron. Every point between the beginning and the end can't change if you think about it (and your DM won't say it loud, you know).

no. you still have a lot of options.
you can try to rally the nations of middle earth to invade mordor.
you can sneak into mordor and try to sabotage stuff.
you can try to research a ritual that will purify the orcs from the taint of sauron

even if you follow the general route of attacking first sauron's allies or twarthing his (gradually stronger) minions, you have so many options and possibilities.

Synesthesy
2020-01-18, 03:16 PM
no. you still have a lot of options.
you can try to rally the nations of middle earth to invade mordor.
you can sneak into mordor and try to sabotage stuff.
you can try to research a ritual that will purify the orcs from the taint of sauron

even if you follow the general route of attacking first sauron's allies or twarthing his (gradually stronger) minions, you have so many options and possibilities.

Sure you are right, but still Sauron would need to be dealt with, still Sauron would have stats ready since the beginning, still you would need to level up before trying to fight against him, still the campaign would be shaped around him from the beginning to the end.
You are demonstrating my point: having a boss that shape the world and that you need to be high level to defeat isn't enough to say that the campaign is railroad, because the important is not the goal, but the journey.

Guizonde
2020-01-18, 06:40 PM
honestly, i've got my final boss encounter ready for my campaign. the players are at session 3, if they do things correctly and following the current pace, the endgame will be at around session 17. what the players do has no bearing (so far) on how buff the bad guy will be. his stats are high-level, his stuff is high-level, and his number of mooks and ressources are equivalent to a realistically large terrorist organization.

this is of course subject to change. how so? let's imagine my players "waste" a session being thorough or following a lead to destroy a mutant-manufacturing lab. they gain xp while weakening the boss' ressources. the resulting end-game boss fight will be comparatively easier.

they bungle something and thus seem like the bad guys. unaligned mooks will fight them before the big battle against the bad guy, making the fight harder.

they actually talk down the bad guy by putting him in a logistical (or other) checkmate. well, at least i statted my boss' social skills beforehand, rendering useless violence in the conflict.

as far as i'm concerned, statting the bbeg before the campaign starts is just being prepared. no matter what happens, his physical stats will not change. what if they try to speed run? what if they grind like it's an mmorpg? i don't know, but at least i know the boss stats.

call it railroading if you must, but my way of dm'ing is: you know how the beginning and the end of the adventure. the meat of the adventure is up to the players. your players will start at point A. your players must reach point B to finish the adventure. no telling what happens between the two points, or how they resolve the conflict at point B.

zinycor
2020-01-18, 07:00 PM
Seems to be absolutely alright, most settings do have the Big bad spoiled far in advance. Think of voldemort, Strad, Sauron.

In the end it seems like this BBEG is supposed to be a big deal for the setting, so much as to define it.

King of Nowhere
2020-01-18, 09:19 PM
Sure you are right, but still Sauron would need to be dealt with, still Sauron would have stats ready since the beginning, still you would need to level up before trying to fight against him, still the campaign would be shaped around him from the beginning to the end.
You are demonstrating my point: having a boss that shape the world and that you need to be high level to defeat isn't enough to say that the campaign is railroad, because the important is not the goal, but the journey.

in my campaign the players managed to defeat the villain without a climatic battle. by treating others with honor, they were able to gather an alliance so large that the villains had no hope. it went something like

and now that you've done this, you gained so much respect from the dragons that they are willing to help you in your fight against the army of vecna.
the army of vecna has never managed to win a large battle thanks to your good efforts, and now that you also bring a lot of elder dragons on your side, vecna's allies are suing for peace.
the lich army alone stands no chance against what basically amounts to most of the remaining high level people in the world, plus dragons.
I'd say you win here, there's no point going further
on the other hand, they could not have impressed people as they did without being high level. and they did fight the high priest of vecna several times; phylactery on one side and easy resurrection on the other made none of those engagements conclusive.

but the point is, even when you have a villain shaping the world, you don't need to follow the traditional scheme to defeat them.

Zhorn
2020-01-18, 09:27 PM
Published adventures like Ravenloft or whatever are pretty railroady, actually. It's just that there's an implicit assumption that if you're running an adventure path, people are pretty much on board with the big bad being decided day one.

I'll assume this was directed at my post given the context.
Possible misunderstanding based on my examples, but I'm not referencing running a printed module or adventure path (hence avoiding naming Ravenloft, Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Annohilation, or Tomb of Horrors, opting for just a setting location and named opponent). Just naming the major antagonist and letting the party know that is the individual that needs to be taken down to complete the adventure is pretty much plot-hook-101, be it for a single quest, story arc, or whole campaign.

If naming an opponent, or letting the party know ahead of time that some individual will need to be confronted constitutes as railroading, then all adventures with an antagonist/BBEG would be a railroad, with the only difference being the level of the threat compared to the level of the party when they find out.

Now a prewritten module will have a defined where, when and how, and I agree that they are pretty railroady, but the who, what and why are not the deciding factor of if something is or is not a railroad.

Synesthesy
2020-01-19, 10:41 AM
in my campaign the players managed to defeat the villain without a climatic battle. by treating others with honor, they were able to gather an alliance so large that the villains had no hope. it went something like

on the other hand, they could not have impressed people as they did without being high level. and they did fight the high priest of vecna several times; phylactery on one side and easy resurrection on the other made none of those engagements conclusive.

but the point is, even when you have a villain shaping the world, you don't need to follow the traditional scheme to defeat them.

I totally agree with you. But, if there isn't an anticlimactic weak point to exploit (like if the Mount Doom was near Rivendell instead than in the middle of Mordor), you still need your time and your hard work to defeat the villain even if you outsmart him.

Jay R
2020-01-19, 11:46 AM
Don't critique the game until you play it.

If you read the threads here, or in any other D&D forum, you will quickly learn that there is no agreement on what railroading is, or how much is too much, or what makes a game fun, or anything else.

People are different, and they enjoy different things. And that's fine.

The only valid standard is this one: do you, personally, enjoy the game? Nothing else matters.

Go into the game expecting to have fun, and then, if you don't, drop out.

But go into it expecting to have fun. If you can't do that, then you won't enjoy it in any event. If that's the situation, yes, there is a red flag, but it didn't come from the DM.

Really -- don't critique the game until you play it. And then only critique the part you've played.

ExLibrisMortis
2020-01-19, 05:45 PM
For now, it's just a DM designing a boss fight. It's not railroading until you get there.

NigelWalmsley
2020-01-19, 06:31 PM
Don't critique the game until you play it.

This is how people end up playing bad games. A TTRPG campaign is a big time commitment (both in that it will take a large number of hours, and in that it will last over several months). You can and should try to get an idea of how one is going to play out, and if you will enjoy that, before diving in. Otherwise you'll end up having sunk half a year of your life into something you kinda hate. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have an open mind, but it does mean you should be willing to say "that doesn't seem fun" when something doesn't seem fun.

Guizonde
2020-01-19, 09:06 PM
This is how people end up playing bad games. A TTRPG campaign is a big time commitment (both in that it will take a large number of hours, and in that it will last over several months). You can and should try to get an idea of how one is going to play out, and if you will enjoy that, before diving in. Otherwise you'll end up having sunk half a year of your life into something you kinda hate. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have an open mind, but it does mean you should be willing to say "that doesn't seem fun" when something doesn't seem fun.

you're just swinging to the other end of the pendulum right there. sure, don't play cthulu if you don't like survival horror, but you can't judge a game based solely on a dm statting the end boss, there's a million reasons to do it aside from "railroading". every rpg has railroad elements to it, be it "cutscenes", or even simple things like clues and a main quest.

i'd go with "until you have more info, go for it. you can't judge solely on the premise that it's not for you because the dm plans ahead." if that was the case, i'd've probably played a handful of games over the past 14 years.

NigelWalmsley
2020-01-19, 09:58 PM
It's everyone's prerogative to decide where their line in the sand is, and it's utterly nonsensical to decide that someone's line is incorrect because you happen to disagree with it. If you think what OP has heard is too little to go on, that's fine. But attack that premise, not the notion that they should decide what games are worth playing in.

Mr Beer
2020-01-19, 10:34 PM
It's everyone's prerogative to decide where their line in the sand is, and it's utterly nonsensical to decide that someone's line is incorrect because you happen to disagree with it. If you think what OP has heard is too little to go on, that's fine. But attack that premise, not the notion that they should decide what games are worth playing in.

OP specifically asked whether the stated scenario was 'too much railroading' and it would be a low content thread indeed if everyone just turned up to say "Well it's up to you OP, no-one else should give their own personal take on it because it's your line in the sand".

Kaptin Keen
2020-01-20, 03:17 AM
A DM announces - before the very first session - that he already has a final boss planned and statted. The campaign is supposed to take place from levels 2 to about 18.

Is it railroading to assume that your players won't have enough of an impact on the world in through these 17 levels that the final boss might chance?

I'm not against some railroading, but this seems excessive. So what is it: Normal? Red flag? Time to jump ship?

Is it railroading to have and endgoal for a campaign? No.

ezekielraiden
2020-02-22, 10:18 AM
I've planned the ultimate final boss of my current game from pretty much the beginning--as soon as the players had chosen what to play, anyway, so damn near the beginning. All of them are invested in the various threats I've presented, and they don't know that all of those threats are linked together in an important way. I have always taken into account what they care about, and they've made their race and class choices story-relevant, playing exactly into my hands as it were.

Is that railroading? Or is that me demonstrating that I listen to my players and use the choices they make to create a campaign I am confident they'll enjoy?

OldTrees1
2020-02-25, 09:56 PM
I've planned the ultimate final boss of my current game from pretty much the beginning--as soon as the players had chosen what to play, anyway, so damn near the beginning. All of them are invested in the various threats I've presented, and they don't know that all of those threats are linked together in an important way. I have always taken into account what they care about, and they've made their race and class choices story-relevant, playing exactly into my hands as it were.

Is that railroading? Or is that me demonstrating that I listen to my players and use the choices they make to create a campaign I am confident they'll enjoy?

It is ... unrelated.

Having a plan is not railroading.

I could plan the PC will walk 1m north, then 2m west, then 3m south, then do the hokey pokey. Having ridiculously hyperbolic plans about what the players will do is not railroading.
But if on gameday, I insist the PCs do that regardless of their possible alternatives or the Player's choices, that would be railroading. (Analogy is not perfect since it is short).

It is not railroading to plan. Although word to the wise, plans can cause the temptation to railroad. Be willing to discard plans during the actual session if the game heads off in an unexpected unplanned direction.

JNAProductions
2020-02-28, 02:06 PM
I've planned the ultimate final boss of my current game from pretty much the beginning--as soon as the players had chosen what to play, anyway, so damn near the beginning. All of them are invested in the various threats I've presented, and they don't know that all of those threats are linked together in an important way. I have always taken into account what they care about, and they've made their race and class choices story-relevant, playing exactly into my hands as it were.

Is that railroading? Or is that me demonstrating that I listen to my players and use the choices they make to create a campaign I am confident they'll enjoy?

It's the latter, assuming you modify it as needed based on player choices. As OldTrees said, having a plan is fine. Probably for the best to have one, for a lot of DMs. But if you stick to the plan even if the players go against it, THAT is railroading.

For a more realistic example, say part of your plan is that the PCs go south to fight the great wyrm Scalathrax. You drop some info on Scalathrax, let them know some weaknesses and strengths, and hint heavily they should handle him. The PCs then decide that the dwarven civil war brewing to the north is more important, and head north to deal with it. If you then have them encounter Scalathrax anyway, it's at best going to feel contrived, and more likely going to feel like their choices don't matter.

Now, let's say the dwarven civil war was a throwaway line that you never intended to matter, just to give a little flavor, and you have literally NOTHING planned for the north-only the south-plus you can't wing it well. At that point, just talk to the players. Tell them what's going on, and ask them what they think the best course of action is. As a player, while I prefer more open-ended gameplay, if the DM isn't able to do that or just plain doesn't want to do that for whatever reason (could be as simple as the DM only has fun with a linear game) I'm happy to go along with the plot and the plan, so long as I'm having fun.

Ultimately, railroading is not the same as linearity-a linear game is fine. A railroaded game is not. A linear game is one with a clear plot, going from A->B->C and so on, without much in the way of deviation possible. A railroaded game is virtually always a linear game, but it's one where the DM forces the players into the linearity. If a DM plans a game and announces from the very start that it will be linear, so please don't try to push the boundaries, that's fine. You can game if you're interested, or not if you're not. It's when a DM says "Open world! Pick any path! The world is your oyster!" and then prevents you from doing anything against the plot or forces you into it that there's a problem.

Skydow
2020-02-28, 03:33 PM
For all we know, he might not actually have his boss set in stone in the first place. As nobody's seen the boss in question, the campaign (and boss) could still very well adapt in response to the party's actions overtime and none would be the wiser on the player end.

JNAProductions
2020-02-28, 03:49 PM
Yeah-to the OP, I wouldn't worry about it overmuch. Play the game. If the game feels railroady, talk to the DM, but just having a good idea for a final boss ain't a huge deal.

GigaGuess
2020-03-09, 10:54 AM
Like...to me this needs context.

Lord Bertram, the King Pretender to the throne? Possible the party could sympathize with him, unless he's an utter bastard.

The Evil From Beyond, the thing with more letters in it's name than teeth in it's hungering maw, posing an existential threat to all? Safe bet the party will wanna step up and handle it.

It *can* be railroady, to be sure, to ensure the party will not be able to preemptively stop his release/arrival/what have, but let's face it, that is a stock plot point, the inability to thwart a threat preemptively, necessitating the party to stand up to a threat that would be far out of their league. That is to say, of course, this is *my* POV. If it's something you're not into, then talk to your DM about your concerns.

ezekielraiden
2020-03-11, 06:38 AM
It is ... unrelated.

Having a plan is not railroading.

I could plan the PC will walk 1m north, then 2m west, then 3m south, then do the hokey pokey. Having ridiculously hyperbolic plans about what the players will do is not railroading.
But if on gameday, I insist the PCs do that regardless of their possible alternatives or the Player's choices, that would be railroading. (Analogy is not perfect since it is short).

It is not railroading to plan. Although word to the wise, plans can cause the temptation to railroad. Be willing to discard plans during the actual session if the game heads off in an unexpected unplanned direction.


It's the latter, assuming you modify it as needed based on player choices. As OldTrees said, having a plan is fine. Probably for the best to have one, for a lot of DMs. But if you stick to the plan even if the players go against it, THAT is railroading.

For a more realistic example, say part of your plan is that the PCs go south to fight the great wyrm Scalathrax. You drop some info on Scalathrax, let them know some weaknesses and strengths, and hint heavily they should handle him. The PCs then decide that the dwarven civil war brewing to the north is more important, and head north to deal with it. If you then have them encounter Scalathrax anyway, it's at best going to feel contrived, and more likely going to feel like their choices don't matter.

Now, let's say the dwarven civil war was a throwaway line that you never intended to matter, just to give a little flavor, and you have literally NOTHING planned for the north-only the south-plus you can't wing it well. At that point, just talk to the players. Tell them what's going on, and ask them what they think the best course of action is. As a player, while I prefer more open-ended gameplay, if the DM isn't able to do that or just plain doesn't want to do that for whatever reason (could be as simple as the DM only has fun with a linear game) I'm happy to go along with the plot and the plan, so long as I'm having fun.

Ultimately, railroading is not the same as linearity-a linear game is fine. A railroaded game is not. A linear game is one with a clear plot, going from A->B->C and so on, without much in the way of deviation possible. A railroaded game is virtually always a linear game, but it's one where the DM forces the players into the linearity. If a DM plans a game and announces from the very start that it will be linear, so please don't try to push the boundaries, that's fine. You can game if you're interested, or not if you're not. It's when a DM says "Open world! Pick any path! The world is your oyster!" and then prevents you from doing anything against the plot or forces you into it that there's a problem.

I was primarily asking the OP, though I appreciate your words of support.

That is: while I haven't explicitly statted up the "big bad" (it's...not really the kind of thing that stats are appropriate for, it's more a "ruin the plans" kind of bad guy), there is one specific big bad, they've been the big bad from day 1, and pretty much nothing the party could do would change whether this is the big bad. In other words, apart from giving the big bad stats, my situation appears to be the same descriptively as what the OP heard.

Not wanting to get too deep into the weeds on this: the big bad is a devil, a powerful one, who has been plotting for literally thousands of years just to gain greater influence over the region. This is absolutely a "Xanatos Gambit" situation: the devil set up four bad-guy factions, all with mutually-exclusive evil plans. If any of them win, devil wins. If the players stop all of 'em...that means one of said devil's tiefling descendants, a special contingency, has achieved heritable fame & power. If the players are clever, they can figure out a way to even defeat that, but it will require some real work.

Hence, "no matter what they do," there's really one and only one big bad for the campaign, and everything they do to overcome what I've planned at least starts off working in the devil's favor. If I really wanted, I could have statted up the devil day 1, and said exactly what this DM did. I wouldn't do that because I consider it poor form, but I could have done it. Therefore, if what I'm doing isn't railroading, the OP's DM genuinely might be in the same position--it would at the very least be jumping to conclusions if we assume that that DM is railroading.

The Glyphstone
2020-03-11, 12:47 PM
I'm running a campaign right now that explicitly had the BBEG defined from the start, and who the players learned would be the BBEG around session 3 or 4. Stripped of context, it's an ancient slumbering god of the 'exterminate everything and devour all life' existential-threat variety, so there's no real question of whether or not they will end up going to fight it at the end.

The actual campaign is as far from railroading as you can get while still having a coherent plot, a vast West Marches-style sandbox full of encounters, adventures, and other groups/factions. It's entirely up to the players where they go and how they gain power, resources, and/or allies that they'll end up mustering to bring to the fight at the endgame when the evil god wakes up. So I think I'm firmly in the camp of 'these two things aren't contradictory'.

Jay R
2020-03-11, 06:31 PM
This one comment from the DM might be a potential warning sign from a known poor DM. But why would I be preparing to play with a known poor DM?

From a competent DM, it's not a problem at all. It can be done quite well. It's no different from saying that the Batman will face the Joker in his 1,000th issue. There's nothing wrong with continuing villains, and it doesn't indicate that your characters (in the game) or Batman (in the comic book) would have no effect along the way. There are lots of worthwhile effects other than killing him. Destroying the villain's plans, stopping his minions, exiling him from the planet, messing up his alliances, saving people's lives, etc., are all having serious effects.

The crucial observation is that this shouldn't be the only thing, or even the most important thing, you know about your DM.

For me, that one fact would be trivial compared to everything I already know about my DMs. If I was willing to play with him or her in the first place, this would not affect my decision in any way.

[Of course, I only play tabletop, so every DM I've ever had has either been a friend of mine, or a friend of a friend. In the latter case, I tend to ask the mutual friend about the DM. I have no experience with a DM who is an internet stranger. In that case, I would find out as much as I can about how he or she runs a game before it starts. This comment doesn't do that, so it's not important.]

Ravingdork
2020-03-24, 07:30 AM
I'll add to the chorus that this is nor railroading of any kind.

Aotrs Commander
2020-03-24, 08:17 AM
Just like every Adventure Path or equivalent ever published.

I mean, really, just this.

Sounds to me like nothing more iniquitous than the DM essentially writing his own AP, effectively.

If you have a problem with the DM deciding what level he's going to run a game until or having a plan about the plot (in fine or broad level of detail), rather than making it up week-to-week... I really don't know what to tell you.

kyoryu
2020-03-24, 11:20 AM
I mean, really, just this.

Sounds to me like nothing more iniquitous than the DM essentially writing his own AP, effectively.

If you have a problem with the DM deciding what level he's going to run a game until or having a plan about the plot (in fine or broad level of detail), rather than making it up week-to-week... I really don't know what to tell you.

I'd tell him "those are both legitimate styles of gameplay, and I suggest you find a GM that's compatible with your preferences or accept that this GM does things this way. Either way, neither you nor the GM are obligated to play in a game you don't want to. So put on your big boy pants and find a compromise, or agree that your styles aren't compatible and play in different games."

Zombimode
2020-03-25, 06:51 AM
That is a very strange (and confused) question.

I'm about to start (finally!) my Red Hand of Doom campaign. The Aspect of Tiamat is the final enemy in this campaign and (obviously) it's stats are printed in the book. Thus, I've stated the final enemy of my campaign before it has started.

Now the question: where, exactly, is the railroad in this setup?


There isn't, unless the DM actually builds the railways and enforces that the characters actually take the train.


I've no idea what will really happen in my RHoD run. Do I think it likely that the Aspect will be the final encounter? Yes, sure. RHoD is, at its core, a very simple set-up. That, together with the players buy-in of the premise, will make it likely that the adventure will unfold according to its structure (Witchwood/Skull Gorge Bridge -> Rhest -> Ghostlord -> Battle for Brindol -> Fane of Tiamat). But it is not "set in stone" and as long as I don't make it so there is no railroading.

kyoryu
2020-03-25, 09:57 AM
That is a very strange (and confused) question.

I'm about to start (finally!) my Red Hand of Doom campaign. The Aspect of Tiamat is the final enemy in this campaign and (obviously) it's stats are printed in the book. Thus, I've stated the final enemy of my campaign before it has started.

Now the question: where, exactly, is the railroad in this setup?


There isn't, unless the DM actually builds the railways and enforces that the characters actually take the train.


I've no idea what will really happen in my RHoD run. Do I think it likely that the Aspect will be the final encounter? Yes, sure. RHoD is, at its core, a very simple set-up. That, together with the players buy-in of the premise, will make it likely that the adventure will unfold according to its structure (Witchwood/Skull Gorge Bridge -> Rhest -> Ghostlord -> Battle for Brindol -> Fane of Tiamat). But it is not "set in stone" and as long as I don't make it so there is no railroading.

To a certain extent, what you're describing is often called "participationism". Players know that there's a track, they buy into the track, and they don't fight against it.

It's a totally cromulent style of play.

And it's cool that you're willing to let things go off of that path as well.... but if they go far enough off that path, are you even really playing RHoD any more?

Zombimode
2020-03-25, 12:32 PM
To a certain extent, what you're describing is often called "participationism". Players know that there's a track, they buy into the track, and they don't fight against it.

Thats the catch. There isnt a track. There is a premise* and a set-up. You could also call it a starting condition. Then, what the campaign book Red Hand of Doom provides is a) a series of events that are, based on the set-up and the setting, likely to happen, and b) a grab bag of encounters that are based arround those events and their corresponding adventure locations.

But what will actually happen in game will be a result from the interaction of the set-up, the setting and the players actions. Just like if I had no campaign book to work with. The only difference and what "Running RHoD" actually means is that instead of beeing complete on my own when preparing for the next session I will turn to the material provided by the book. But this difference remains completely on the DM's side of the screen. For the players there is no difference: in any case the will experience a game that is shaped by their actions.
There is no track unless the DM creates a track. Using a published adventure or not, preparing stuff in advance or not, is irrelevant.


* Every game has a premise. There is no way arround this.

Pelle
2020-03-26, 03:45 AM
There is a premise* and a set-up.

That premise comes with a goal included, however. I don't consider it railroading, and have set up running a campaign like that myself, but I can understand it if some people rather prefer a more open ended premise and want to develop their goal themselves.