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  1. - Top - End - #31

    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    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.

  2. - Top - End - #32
    Bugbear in the Playground
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    Quote Originally Posted by NigelWalmsley View Post
    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".
    Last edited by Mr Beer; 2020-01-19 at 10:36 PM.
    Re: 100 Things to Beware of that Every DM Should Know

    Quote Originally Posted by Jay R View Post
    93. No matter what the character sheet say, there are only 3 PC alignments: Lawful Snotty, Neutral Greedy, and Chaotic Backstabbing.

  3. - Top - End - #33
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    Quote Originally Posted by heavyfuel View Post
    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.

  4. - Top - End - #34
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    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?

  5. - Top - End - #35
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    Quote Originally Posted by ezekielraiden View Post
    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.
    Last edited by OldTrees1; 2020-02-25 at 09:56 PM.

  6. - Top - End - #36
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    Quote Originally Posted by ezekielraiden View Post
    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.
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  7. - Top - End - #37
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    WhiteWizardGirl

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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    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.

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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    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.
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  9. - Top - End - #39
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    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.

  10. - Top - End - #40
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    Quote Originally Posted by OldTrees1 View Post
    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.
    Quote Originally Posted by JNAProductions View Post
    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.

  11. - Top - End - #41
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    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'.

  12. - Top - End - #42
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    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.]

  13. - Top - End - #43
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    I'll add to the chorus that this is nor railroading of any kind.

  14. - Top - End - #44
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    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.

  15. - Top - End - #45
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    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."
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  16. - Top - End - #46
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    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.

  17. - Top - End - #47
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zombimode View Post
    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?
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  18. - Top - End - #48
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    Quote Originally Posted by kyoryu View Post
    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.

  19. - Top - End - #49
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    Default Re: Would you consider this too much railroading?

    Quote Originally Posted by Zombimode View Post
    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.

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