I hate to railroad. I kind of had to for the first session of my latest campaign. I was running Salvage Operation from Ghosts of Saltmarsh and basically the Paladin had no earthly business being on that boat. He's not motivated by money, and he doesn't care if an aristocrat gets his fortune back. But I needed something to bring the party together and give them a shared experience to build on. I addressed this with him long after the session and he understood.
It brought to light that, while I wanted everyone to play whatever character they wanted, I didn't align their motivations. As it turns out I should have had the conversation with everyone at the very beginning that I have some adventures in mind that I want to run them through and could they help me figure out the "why" as to why they're there and working together. I've had to shuck and jive a bit but I at least have a good couple sessions ready going forward that make sense as to why they would be working together.
My only alternative is write the campaign session by session. I don't like writing too far in advance for one, because I wan't the party to have the freedom to wander should they want to. But that comes at the sacrifice of an over-arching storyline, which I am having a hard time coming up with. I have a setting that I'm half borrowing from a book, and there are a few key NPCs that I've introduced, but I'm struggling to come up with a story that each of the players would logically follow along with together.
The first thing I do when planning a campaign is to look at the world from the villain's perspective: what goal am I trying to achieve? What resources do I have at my disposal? What would the first 3-5 steps of my plan have been if the heroes never interfered?
Think of your campaign world in these terms. You're setting the board and making the first few moves. Over time, these moves will start to be felt more and more by the players, incentivising them to involve themselves. If the players don't take the bait, don't sweat it, just keep following the Plan to each step's logical conclusion and show the players the effect it has on the world, the people in it, and either directly or indirectly, them. Eventually the players should find themselves in a situation that pits them against the bad guy's minions, and then the bad guy will have to start changing their plans in order to account for the heroes' intervention.
Not gonna lie, in order to fully maintain player freedom, some amount of week-to-week planning might still be required, but not always (as not every villain counterstrategy will take only one session to come to fruition).
The main thing is to always be planting what is going on in the world. Even if you're not saying verbatim "the bad guy has awoken the spirit of the volcano and causes an eruption far to the east to feed his salamander servants", you can say things like "more refugees are pouring into town lately" or "trade from the east has been sparse and people are running low on grain", or "rumors are going around that the eastern island of Scyra was wiped off the map by the gods!"
And as the villain keeps getting what they want, their reach extends, and eventually the players are faced with a decision to make: so we allow this to keep happening to the world, or do we try to stop it?
Aim for your story to be a series of narrative checkpoints, with the players free to go off exploring tangents but eventually returning to your preplanned events (this may take session-to-session updates but not major rewrites). So more of a slalom race than a railroad.
As for your Paladin that doesn't really fit into the narrative, that's just something to work with the player on. Maybe they have some creative ideas in mind already, maybe "wanting to go on exciting adventures" is enough of a narrative, maybe they just don't care that much, etc. That's not really a problem unless the player thinks it's a problem
The first thing I do when planning a campaign is to look at the world from the villain's perspective: what goal am I trying to achieve? What resources do I have at my disposal? What would the first 3-5 steps of my plan have been if the heroes never interfered?
Think of your campaign world in these terms. You're setting the board and making the first few moves. Over time, these moves will start to be felt more and more by the players, incentivising them to involve themselves. If the players don't take the bait, don't sweat it, just keep following the Plan to each step's logical conclusion and show the players the effect it has on the world, the people in it, and either directly or indirectly, them. Eventually the players should find themselves in a situation that pits them against the bad guy's minions, and then the bad guy will have to start changing their plans in order to account for the heroes' intervention.
Not gonna lie, in order to fully maintain player freedom, some amount of week-to-week planning might still be required, but not always (as not every villain counterstrategy will take only one session to come to fruition).
The main thing is to always be planting what is going on in the world. Even if you're not saying verbatim "the bad guy has awoken the spirit of the volcano and causes an eruption far to the east to feed his salamander servants", you can say things like "more refugees are pouring into town lately" or "trade from the east has been sparse and people are running low on grain", or "rumors are going around that the eastern island of Scyra was wiped off the map by the gods!"
And as the villain keeps getting what they want, their reach extends, and eventually the players are faced with a decision to make: so we allow this to keep happening to the world, or do we try to stop it?
This is the best advice I've gotten. Thank you. I have a lot of thinking to do now.
I think you really hit the issue that this is a session 0 problem. The good news is it’s never too late to have a(nother) session 0. Rather than contorting yourself into a narrative pretzel, put it on the players. It’s a game, they need to be able and willing to meet you part way. It usually works better pre-campaign where you can tell them: we’re starting in a tavern in a small town. Why is your character there? Then let them figure it out. The entire burden is not on you to make them interested, they have to be willing to become interested, to find a reason for their character to continue. At this point you can do the same. Tell them it would have been better if you’d done this earlier, but well, we’re past that. Why is your character here right now? They can usually massage their reasons with a minimum of retconning, and then everyone is happy.
Also, never feel bad about a little railroading. You almost have to for session 1 to get things started. And sometimes, a little even after that.
The other thing is to always have side content prepared ib multiple directions (you don't have to prepare it all up front, but having a hook, rough outline, and first encounter or so is all you need until the players commit to one of them) so the players have a choice of what to do in case they don't feel like doing the main story yet.
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I hate to railroad. I kind of had to for the first session of my latest campaign. I was running Salvage Operation from Ghosts of Saltmarsh and basically the Paladin had no earthly business being on that boat. He's not motivated by money, and he doesn't care if an aristocrat gets his fortune back. But I needed something to bring the party together and give them a shared experience to build on. I addressed this with him long after the session and he understood.
It brought to light that, while I wanted everyone to play whatever character they wanted, I didn't align their motivations. As it turns out I should have had the conversation with everyone at the very beginning that I have some adventures in mind that I want to run them through and could they help me figure out the "why" as to why they're there and working together. I've had to shuck and jive a bit but I at least have a good couple sessions ready going forward that make sense as to why they would be working together.
My only alternative is write the campaign session by session. I don't like writing too far in advance for one, because I wan't the party to have the freedom to wander should they want to. But that comes at the sacrifice of an over-arching storyline, which I am having a hard time coming up with. I have a setting that I'm half borrowing from a book, and there are a few key NPCs that I've introduced, but I'm struggling to come up with a story that each of the players would logically follow along with together.
Does anybody else have that problem?
The first thing I do when planning a campaign is to look at the world from the villain's perspective: what goal am I trying to achieve? What resources do I have at my disposal? What would the first 3-5 steps of my plan have been if the heroes never interfered?
Think of your campaign world in these terms. You're setting the board and making the first few moves. Over time, these moves will start to be felt more and more by the players, incentivising them to involve themselves. If the players don't take the bait, don't sweat it, just keep following the Plan to each step's logical conclusion and show the players the effect it has on the world, the people in it, and either directly or indirectly, them. Eventually the players should find themselves in a situation that pits them against the bad guy's minions, and then the bad guy will have to start changing their plans in order to account for the heroes' intervention.
Not gonna lie, in order to fully maintain player freedom, some amount of week-to-week planning might still be required, but not always (as not every villain counterstrategy will take only one session to come to fruition).
The main thing is to always be planting what is going on in the world. Even if you're not saying verbatim "the bad guy has awoken the spirit of the volcano and causes an eruption far to the east to feed his salamander servants", you can say things like "more refugees are pouring into town lately" or "trade from the east has been sparse and people are running low on grain", or "rumors are going around that the eastern island of Scyra was wiped off the map by the gods!"
And as the villain keeps getting what they want, their reach extends, and eventually the players are faced with a decision to make: so we allow this to keep happening to the world, or do we try to stop it?
Aim for your story to be a series of narrative checkpoints, with the players free to go off exploring tangents but eventually returning to your preplanned events (this may take session-to-session updates but not major rewrites). So more of a slalom race than a railroad.
As for your Paladin that doesn't really fit into the narrative, that's just something to work with the player on. Maybe they have some creative ideas in mind already, maybe "wanting to go on exciting adventures" is enough of a narrative, maybe they just don't care that much, etc. That's not really a problem unless the player thinks it's a problem
This is the best advice I've gotten. Thank you. I have a lot of thinking to do now.
I think you really hit the issue that this is a session 0 problem. The good news is it’s never too late to have a(nother) session 0.
Rather than contorting yourself into a narrative pretzel, put it on the players. It’s a game, they need to be able and willing to meet you part way. It usually works better pre-campaign where you can tell them: we’re starting in a tavern in a small town. Why is your character there? Then let them figure it out. The entire burden is not on you to make them interested, they have to be willing to become interested, to find a reason for their character to continue.
At this point you can do the same. Tell them it would have been better if you’d done this earlier, but well, we’re past that. Why is your character here right now? They can usually massage their reasons with a minimum of retconning, and then everyone is happy.
Also, never feel bad about a little railroading. You almost have to for session 1 to get things started. And sometimes, a little even after that.
The other thing is to always have side content prepared ib multiple directions (you don't have to prepare it all up front, but having a hook, rough outline, and first encounter or so is all you need until the players commit to one of them) so the players have a choice of what to do in case they don't feel like doing the main story yet.