I have a haunted house quest that I have planned for a game. The first hook will be a woman asking the party to help find her missing children (shocker they are in the house). If they don't go for and introduce another hook for example they hear rumors about the house and say they ignore that and I add another hook is that railroading https://speedtest.vet/https://vidmate.bid/?
Nope. That's how many official adventures run- Curse of Strahd, I'm talking about you.
If you can, give the party three choices in the beginning. Then when they come back from that, they still have two quests left. They pick one, and when they back from that, there are three new choices.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I have a haunted house quest that I have planned for a game. The first hook will be a woman asking the party to help find her missing children (shocker they are in the house). If they don't go for and introduce another hook for example they hear rumors about the house and say they ignore that and I add another hook is that railroading?
If players persist in being uninterested in your quest, it may be time to abandon it and come up with a new idea, but it's not railroading to put in new plot hooks. Railroading is when the players don't have a choice. This includes not giving them any other options for things to pursue.
I don't think so. In an ideal world we all would be able to create interesting and engaging quests and encounters on the fly in real time in response to player choices, but the reality is that we put a lot of time and effort in to planning things and it is totally fair to want to use what we have prepared. The only thing I would say is make the hooks different in their approach to give the players the opportunity to seize the one that they like, and modify the quest a little bit to accommodate which they go for. For instance, if they don't go for helping the woman find her children, maybe have someone else in town offering a bounty on whoever took the kids, so the focus isn't finding the kids for them but hunting the bad guy down, and if they happen to find the kids along the way great, but then you can generally use most of what you have planned, but the story, and the tone is still shaped by the players.
I have a haunted house quest that I have planned for a game. The first hook will be a woman asking the party to help find her missing children (shocker they are in the house). If they don't go for and introduce another hook for example they hear rumors about the house and say they ignore that and I add another hook is that railroading?
Actually, this is how both Lost Mines of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak are explicitly structured. Both have job boards that start off with three quests, when two are complete the next tier of quests are unlocked and the party can choose which one to do next.
In the OP's case, having multiple hooks for the same content can be quite normal if there are multiple plot lines which involve the content. Missing children, investigate scary sounds at night or strange sightings, someone wants to buy the building but is concerned it might actually be haunted ... lots of possible plot lines and it really doesn't matter which the player's follow up on. However, if they go for the property assessment job, or the investigation job, they should still run into the missing children at the appropriate point.
If multiple choices exist, it doesn't appear as railroad because whatever choice the party make lead somewhere and they don't know that taking a different one would lead to the same place.
I agree it’s not a railroad as long as they can opt not to go in. And remember no prep is wasted. If they don’t go in now, maybe you re-tune the encounters and throw it at them again in a few levels. Or save it for the next campaign.
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I have a haunted house quest that I have planned for a game. The first hook will be a woman asking the party to help find her missing children (shocker they are in the house). If they don't go for and introduce another hook for example they hear rumors about the house and say they ignore that and I add another hook is that railroading https://speedtest.vet/ https://vidmate.bid/ ?
Nope. That's how many official adventures run- Curse of Strahd, I'm talking about you.
If you can, give the party three choices in the beginning. Then when they come back from that, they still have two quests left. They pick one, and when they back from that, there are three new choices.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
If players persist in being uninterested in your quest, it may be time to abandon it and come up with a new idea, but it's not railroading to put in new plot hooks. Railroading is when the players don't have a choice. This includes not giving them any other options for things to pursue.
I don't think so. In an ideal world we all would be able to create interesting and engaging quests and encounters on the fly in real time in response to player choices, but the reality is that we put a lot of time and effort in to planning things and it is totally fair to want to use what we have prepared. The only thing I would say is make the hooks different in their approach to give the players the opportunity to seize the one that they like, and modify the quest a little bit to accommodate which they go for. For instance, if they don't go for helping the woman find her children, maybe have someone else in town offering a bounty on whoever took the kids, so the focus isn't finding the kids for them but hunting the bad guy down, and if they happen to find the kids along the way great, but then you can generally use most of what you have planned, but the story, and the tone is still shaped by the players.
Actually, this is how both Lost Mines of Phandelver and Dragon of Icespire Peak are explicitly structured. Both have job boards that start off with three quests, when two are complete the next tier of quests are unlocked and the party can choose which one to do next.
In the OP's case, having multiple hooks for the same content can be quite normal if there are multiple plot lines which involve the content. Missing children, investigate scary sounds at night or strange sightings, someone wants to buy the building but is concerned it might actually be haunted ... lots of possible plot lines and it really doesn't matter which the player's follow up on. However, if they go for the property assessment job, or the investigation job, they should still run into the missing children at the appropriate point.
If multiple choices exist, it doesn't appear as railroad because whatever choice the party make lead somewhere and they don't know that taking a different one would lead to the same place.
I agree it’s not a railroad as long as they can opt not to go in.
And remember no prep is wasted. If they don’t go in now, maybe you re-tune the encounters and throw it at them again in a few levels. Or save it for the next campaign.