Hey pretty new DM here getting prepared to run my first open world campaign and just wanted some opinions. I created an adventure that my players can engage in immediately just so they can have something to do but I’m worried it might be a little railroady, I want to avoid this due to the negative connotations associated with railroading so I want to encourage the fact it is an open world and they can go anywhere and do anything as they please. But if they were to deviate from my adventure I fear that I would not be able to make up cool stuff on the spot...oh you want to go over to this forest? Ok...you get there and fight a pack of wolves for no reason...sure I could prepare MORE stuff or keep some modules on hand, but even that is a little more time/work I want to spend doing and then to me that just seems like having the choice of which railroad do you want to follow? Within my adventure I created I’m not going to force any outcomes and it’s the first one I’ve written so I hope it is not forceful. Luckily for me its a group of my irl friends and I don’t think they’ll mind following my story thread, but I still want to become the best DM I can be regardless...

So any thoughts on the above would be great. Tips for improvising cool stuff? Tips for making sure I’m not forcing my players down a railroad through my pre-written adventure? General thoughts and opinions on railroad vs sandbox?

thanks!

My way of dealing with this was to make up 3 initial possible adventures and confront the players with all 3 situations and let them pick. Zombies attacking from a nearby cemetery. Goblins kidnapping children from nearby farms. A tower a day's ride outside of town that was taken over by orcs. They heard complaints about all these things at a town meeting as the first session began, and I just let them pick what they wanted.

Now, I did nudge them a little... by having the Zombies attack the town meeting, so that made that one seem more urgent. However, I was fully prepared for them to take any of those options.

Yes, it was 3x the work. But... I suspect they will end up investigating all 3 eventually and I can use a tower full of orcs kind of anywhere.

There's a few suggestions I can bring out. The most important thing is this: Ask the players at the end of a session what they're going to pursue next time (or ask them during downtime after the session). This gives you time to prep before the next session. During the session, you should have plot seeds available to whet their interest, but don't expect chasing those seeds down to generate a full fledged adventure this session.

This does mean you need to structure adventures so you have the opportunity to feed them plot seeds during the session so they can actually make a choice at the end of the session. This can be ending the session with investigation, or it can be that you have multiple plot seeds in play so they can always choose one of the ongoing options.

I usually have a main conflict/world event going on. Ill toss a few things at the players giving them several options. At one point they had a significant back log of stuff to do. Kinda cool actually. I try to keep things tied in to the main event that is happening within the world or city, or whatever the case. For me the hardest part is guessing where my players are going to go. I generally keep a good amount of hooks on hand with a bit of each one fleshed out. Depending on where the players go I will make the needed adjustments to the game. There have been several times that I have had to wing it with a session, but that is entertaining in itself. Another thing I do is make sure I have encounters on hand beyond anything I may of had set up for specific parts of the story. Keep in mind that you can bring things to the players. Like things that they may of decided to skip or bypass for whatever reason. But make it interesting. Have it so that something has has happened due to their lack of accepting the mission or quest.   

Main plot, alternate/secondary plot, character story lines, and side quests.  Have the beginnings of those things ready at the beginning, and then advance them as they progress.  

I call it plot mapping, start them in a grid square, have the main plot going north, alternate plot going south, character stories east, and side quests west.  Then whichever direction they choose (these do not match up to the world map, this is conceptual, whichever "Way" is the main plot line then the alternate plot is the other "direction".) there will be "sandbox" adventure.  That way you put in quite a bit of work before the campaign.  And then after they start along a plot direction, you have all the others still awaiting "kickoff" and only have to prep the new stuff along the direction they are currently travelling.

Word of warning, if there is time critical items/events along any of the paths, try your best to "force" them to occur while the characters can interact, but if the player's insist, then you should have a Player's Fail state planned for that direction.

So i had the exact same problem when writing my campaign. I solved it in 3 ways:

1. Know your world

This doesn't mean you need a whole bunch of modules on hand (although designing a few random dungeons that can be reskinned from mineshaft to abandoned temple to creature lair to fit wherever the PCs are never hurts). What it really means is that you should think through your setting deeply enough so that you can reliably improvise. If your characters choose a direction that you're not ready for, throw a few random encounters at them to burn a session, but then talk to your players about why they're going that particular route so that you can cobble together something interesting for them to discover during the next session. The more you know your world, the better you'll be able to craft interesting side plots for players who don't want to follow your main campaign. 

2. Take advantage of character backstory

All players love their own characters the most. Drop backstory details into seemingly irrelevant side quests. My players were on a side quest to clear out a bandit lair, where they found a delivery/shipping ledger in the bandit captain's quarters. In the ledger was the name of one of the character's family's business, which was supposedly closed down 5 years ago. That introduced a strong character motivation to investigate, and because they were eager to pull that thread,  I was able to reel them back in towards my planned story without forcing them. 

3. Capitalize on whatever else motivates the characters

Early on, I gave them an NPC friend to travel with them, only to have the first BBEG kill the NPC in an early encounter. Now the whole party is driven by revenge, and they've been chasing that revenge since level 3 (they're about to hit level 9). So if you can tie emotional/character beats into your main story, your players are more likely to follow it because they want to, not because you made them feel like they had to. 

Thank you all. Some very helpful stuff for me to consider.

A lot of good discussion already, and I strongly agree with IBernsetein's points, particularly "know your world" and "include backstory".

I want to avoid this due to the negative connotations associated with railroading

As a brief counterpoint, not all railroads are "bad".  There isn't an inherent goodness or badness to that style and it's really another tool for your toolbox.  We don't know what level you are starting at, but the beginning of a campaign lends itself to a bit more of a railroad, as you the DM show the players some of the boundaries and themes in your world.  As they grow in awareness, and influence in the world, then the campaign can organically become more sandboxy. 

 edit: grammar

There has to be some of what most people would call "railroading" in any campaign or else how would you even get the party together? Are you going to say, "Here's a map, start in whatever town you want" and let them start all over the world from each other? That would seriously hamper gameplay most of the time, as having the party members "split up" is boring to all the people who are not currently "on stage."

In my campaign, for instance, after looking over the backgrounds and such I said, "You are starting here in this border town. Here's what you know about it. You need to provide the reason why you are going there. I can help if you need assistance."

Some would say that forcing them to start in that town is "railroading." But one way or another you have to get the party started out. Sometimes people do things like, "You are all prisoners in an orc mine." Is that railroading? If it is, does that make it bad? (If so, dozens of published modules over the years would be "bad.")

To me what makes something a "railroad" isn't that there is a direction or that the DM is giving you something to do, but that the DM is not letting you side-track if you want to. For example, in my Roman Empire campaign, I have in the back of my mind that something we need to do, and I want them to do, is to go to the city of Rome and experience what it was like in its heyday. I've done a lot of research planning to do this. But I didn't expect them to do it in session 1. However, if they said, "We want to go to Rome," I wouldn't say "you can't do that yet." (Though I might say, "OK give me a few weeks to flesh it out before we play again.") In a "sandbox," whenever they say "Now we want to go to Rome," they go. When its "on rails," I would maybe say "OK you can go" but then the bridge is out, or there are no ships in harbor to take them, or for example, the harbormaster says, "Go clean out that goblin mine north of town for me and THEN I will take you" -- i.e., forcing them to do the thing I wanted instead of what they want.

But just having them say, start in a tavern and hear about the goblin mine and the kidnappings, does not put it "on rails." The players can choose not to investigate, but most players will, upon hearing of a chance for adventure, take the opportunity -- because that's what they're playing to do.

I agree with you, but I have seen some of the things I mentioned defined as "railroading" before.

Every game starts as a railroad. You determine what world/adventure they're doing. You determine if they know each other yet. You get the party together. You tell them where they are, and possibly why. 

The beginning of a game is a railroad, whether it remains that way in the game is up to you.

I don't railroad. What I mean by that is that I don't railroad in an obvious way. If the players have to do something, they are going to do that thing, the thing is, how they get there is up to them, so it feels like they are deciding what to do.

Different people define 'railroading' in significantly different ways, which makes it of somewhat limited use when trying to talk about proper DMing. In the end, it's about the proper amount of freedom of action. If there's unlimited freedom of action, there isn't really a game, and if there's no freedom of action there isn't a game either. However, there's a wide range of possibilities in between, and different players and DMs have different preferences about how much they like. Most players like having some degree of direction, but rebel if they feel that they're being forced.

Most players like having some degree of direction, but rebel if they feel that they're being forced.

Before starting my current campaign based on Rome, I gave my players a 2nd option, which was to start with just a small area that I would build, and then they would help me build the rest of the world. This was going to be almost 100% sandbox... they tell me what they want to do, and I build it.

They unanimously rejected this, and preferred the much stronger hand of the DM in the Roman world. I warned them there would be a lot less freedom and most of them had the reaction of "good." Not that they want it on rails, but they wanted the sense that the world was already created and they were unmasking it, rather than that they were co-making it with me. (Even though, realistically, they're still co-making it... just a smaller percentage of it relatively speaking.)

I "think" that while the DM wears primarily the creator hat,  players (while very creative) prefer being in exploration mode.  If they are too involved in the creative part they lose joy from exploration.   If they know what could be around the next corner, the surprise of it is lessened.

Perhaps as DMs, at times we want too much of a feedback cycle so we can course correct.

Remember also that your players will never know whether their decisions mattered or not. Just make it so that sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.

It's also okay, I think, to have a handful of random events to throw in if it turns out that they go in a direction you can't recover from. Then you get to do some furious head-scratching before the next session. Perhaps they choose to work at the tavern rather than go on the adventure. Fine. Your Bard is playing music, the Barbarian is the bouncer, the Rogue is serving drinks and nattering about local gossip.

The next day a desperate young woman comes in, crying that her brother has been taken by goblins, that he'll die if nobody saves him. The party will probably choose to save her brother, and they can be led into a series of goblin tunnels where they slaughter the foul beasts and rescue her brother, and other captives... but they also find clues that suggest that there's a more powerful force acting as a patron to the goblins.

Railroading isn't a term that means there is one end path to an adventure. Railroading means the game is agnostic to player action.

I actually think Star Trek is a good model for adventures in D&D:

There is a situation. Various characters present their arguments  to how to resolve the situation. They players decide for themselves how to resolve the situation. Then consequences.

I once heard someone, I think they worked for Obsidian Entertainment, present such situations like this: It's not the game to tell the player what's right and wrong. The game explores a concept with the player, has a conversation with them, questioning and examining their choices and leaves them to decide for themselves what is right and wrong. 

It's alright to have the players required to investigate ... the zombie graveyard. But as the GM, you need to be open to their actions and present the next scenario (or maybe the next in sequence, after a few other scenarios) as reactive to their choices.  If there is a necromancer in that graveyard (one, why is there a necromancer there? What does he hope to accomplish? Why risk intervention by wandering adventurers?) and your player choose to align themselves with him, then you need to make the following adventures react to that. Railroading would be forcing the players to kill the necromancer, not making sure the players arrive at the graveyard.

I've never really understood the villain, when confronted with five adventurers who just fought their way through the entirety of his stronghold decides to take them on with what little men he still has at his command.

I've never really understood the villain, when confronted with five adventurers who just fought their way through the entirety of his stronghold decides to take them on with what little men he still has at his command.

Depends on whether the villain has a choice. If he's at the top of a tower and has no way out, he might have to fight them. Or he might be a megalomaniac and think he can win anyway.

But you're right... villains should be smart, especially if they are the master of an entire stronghold, and be thinking about ways to escape, trick the players, etc.

Quote from Freman_Bloodglaive >>

Remember also that your players will never know whether their decisions mattered or not.

Well, they might guess. It depends how subtle you are, and whether the result makes sense based on those decisions.

I think railroading is interpreted quite different depending on what style of play we have. We all use it like a negative word, but still I see that something I do is considered railroading by others and vice versa. My suggestion would me: don't mind to much about railroading the players on the first session. If there is ONE session you SHOULD do it, it is the first. You know the world, you know the setting, the players are new, this is the ONE session they actually could need a little railroading (according to me). This is because the main "defense" against railroading is to listen to your players during play and talk to them after play about what they want to do NEXT. You don't have that option on the first session, so rather use it to try to get to know your players.

I quite often start new campaigns in a situation where the players only have "one" choice. Like: "You are all together on this boat, it is sinking, but you see the shore some miles to the east." If the players want to do nothing and drown, that's their choice, but I've never seen that happen. Once they get ashore, I would have prepared a couple of encounters for them that wouldn't really depend on their choices.

But, and this is important. I would have given them hints on the main plot, I would introduce story seeds, and then I would listen to what I think they would like to do next. After the first session, I would ask if I wasn't sure, so I know what to prepare for on session two.

Best of luck :-)