First non-pre-made campaign advice needed: steering without rail-roading

So, I've been DMing my group for a while now, but up until now we've done prebuilt campaigns so I could get a feel for it.

We now have started my own homebrew campaign (only 1 session so far) and I'd like to know if anyone has some tips for the following situation. I'm keeping things somewhat vague because I'm not completely convinced at least 1 of them wouldn't stumble upon this.

It's a bit of an open map where they have basically started in a corner. The BBEG is located in a desert in the center (think Hyrule Castle in Breath of the Wild), but they don't know this yet (hell, they don't even know yet who or what it is, that's something that will come up during the next session). During or after the next session they will receive their main objective which would lead to them circling the map, and they have to make a choice of which direction they are heading first. They have 2 directions to choose (the general direction of 2 roads), but technically nothing would stop them from going quite literally off-road and just head central. I know that we're supposed to allow them to make their own choices (and mistakes), but I also don't want to subject them to a TPK, at least not this early in the campaign. (For the record: storywise, it doesn't matter that much which direction they circle in, just that the middle is too dangerous for them to cross)

First, I’d say, do NOT tell them the middle is too dangerous to cross. That’s catnip for PCs, and they will 100% try to cross it. Just reading your description, it screams out to me, there’s something going on in the middle, and I really want to know what it is, so that’s where I’ll vote for us to go.

But, in a larger sense, you can’t stop them doing it. You can encourage either direction, but there’s always going to be a chance they choose some other option. In this case, I think my solution would be the BBEG isn’t there, yet. Maybe some cultists are going to summon it there, or maybe there’s a portal there that’s not yet opened, or it’s buried beneath the sand. Something like that.

You can’t control where the characters will go, but you can control what they find when they get there.

One option if there's something that you really don't want your players doing is to just tell them so out of character. Yes, it breaks immersion a bit, but can be the lesser evil compared to coming up with one in game reason after another.

Adapt your campaign as they make choices. If they choose to go right up the middle and you don't want them to engage with the BBEG just yet, put your BBEG on the right or left and give them some dangerous stuff in the middle to chew on. 

Quote from Erik_Soong >>

Adapt your campaign as they make choices. If they choose to go right up the middle and you don't want them to engage with the BBEG just yet, put your BBEG on the right or left and give them some dangerous stuff in the middle to chew on. 

Give them choices, but using the fork in the road example, let them choose left or right, and whichever way they pick, is the way you wanted them to go.

Or have the way they choose, to loop toward the way you want them to go.

Basically, let them think they have freewill, but in reality it is predetermination.

The big issue if one or two want to go left, and the rest want to go right.   They split....so yes you need to come up with something for both routes.  

Quote from Character77006 >>

Quote from Erik_Soong >>

Adapt your campaign as they make choices. If they choose to go right up the middle and you don't want them to engage with the BBEG just yet, put your BBEG on the right or left and give them some dangerous stuff in the middle to chew on. 

 

Give them choices, but using the fork in the road example, let them choose left or right, and whichever way they pick, is the way you wanted them to go.

Or have the way they choose, to loop toward the way you want them to go.

Basically, let them think they have freewill, but in reality it is predetermination.

The big issue if one or two want to go left, and the rest want to go right.   They split....so yes you need to come up with something for both routes.  

 The OP asked how to go this without railroading. Your example is a railroad, as the players have no actual choices.

The way I am running my current campaign is that I have them in a region, I have fleshed out the details of the various different areas, and I have written down mentally what's going on in each one. I subtly drop clues as to what is happening in each area, then I ask them where they go. Wherever they go, I fill out what they're going to do (make a dungeon/encounter table, make relevant NPCs, etc.) I find that they have engaging discussions about where they want to go next, and it makes me happy as a DM. It can take a bit of work, but it definitely *simulates* free will.

As for the central thing, 100% do not try to make it clear that they shouldn't go there yet. They will. Give them three roads, and put more relevant objectives at the end of the roads that you want them going down. If they intentionally try to fight the boss early, sucks to suck, because you can't dodge in DnD like you can in video games.

The important part of not railroading is letting the party choose its own goals.  The BBEG is presumably doing something that's evil.  The players should witness the effects of this as they travel around.  You want them to choose to confront the BBEG on their own accord. But if what the players want to do is tangential, like establish a kingdom/duchy/whatever, the BBEG is going to be a problem because presumably his goals clash with the players establishing a realm, so he or his minions should get proactively involved in thwarting the players, which will create the incentive for the players to go confront him eventually.  And, you know, if the players decide they want to become his henchmen instead, well, that could be a fun campaign too...

Don't think of it as 'the campaign will end when the players confront the BBEG'.  Think of it as 'There's this evil character here doing stuff and commanding minions to do stuff.  He has motivations.  He takes actions that affect the world.  Conflict arises because his goals and the party's goals are incompatible, and that makes the conflict organic.

As far as avoiding TPKs, telegraph difficulty.  NPC rumors in town are one way to do it, and you can be as subtle or unsubtle about it as you like. Or the players could witness him doing something.  Or come up with some other way to let the players know any fight is going to be rough.  (Also, if they head into an area where dangerous minions are going to be, maybe the players get captured by the minions instead of killed, and have to escape).

Quote from Dentim >>

So, I've been DMing my group for a while now, but up until now we've done prebuilt campaigns so I could get a feel for it.

We now have started my own homebrew campaign (only 1 session so far) and I'd like to know if anyone has some tips for the following situation. I'm keeping things somewhat vague because I'm not completely convinced at least 1 of them wouldn't stumble upon this.

It's a bit of an open map where they have basically started in a corner. The BBEG is located in a desert in the center (think Hyrule Castle in Breath of the Wild), but they don't know this yet (hell, they don't even know yet who or what it is, that's something that will come up during the next session). During or after the next session they will receive their main objective which would lead to them circling the map, and they have to make a choice of which direction they are heading first. They have 2 directions to choose (the general direction of 2 roads), but technically nothing would stop them from going quite literally off-road and just head central. I know that we're supposed to allow them to make their own choices (and mistakes), but I also don't want to subject them to a TPK, at least not this early in the campaign. (For the record: storywise, it doesn't matter that much which direction they circle in, just that the middle is too dangerous for them to cross)

 
So this is where I point to the core books and remind you that they give multiple examples of how a villain can dispose of the heroes that aren't death. In Out of the Abyss for example, the Drow persuing our heroes have poisoned darts that knock the PCs unconscious. The Drow don't kill the PCs, they'll aim to knock them out and recapture them. So, you could choose that route with the PCs waking up in a dungeon somewhere having to escape.

Similarly, there could be a Hag or other trickster Fey creature lurking nearby, if the PCs get into too much trouble you can have the characters awake with the BBEG believing that the players have been killed. In reality the Hag has saved the PCs and placed them into a debt which can be repaid through a side quest. 

It also doesn't hurt to remind players that sometimes, running away is a legitimate answer. 

Finally, there's the environment which can turn and alter the way a battle is occurring. If they pick the more risky path have the weather be described as unusual, maybe a sandstorm is kicking up. Then during the battle, if a TPK looks even slightly possible, have that sandstorm sweep in across the battlefield. The BBEG isn't going to waste time with this nonsense and will simply Dimension Door out of the area. The party meanwhile make some CON saves, but wake up beaten and bruised, but alive.

We as DMs get to put our fingers on the scales and we're playing asymmetrically to the players. That's kind of how it's meant to be. You've got the world on your side that you can turn for or against the player characters. The options then really do become endless.

Just to second what one person said, you can always have in-game information about a region that's too dangerous. Like "that's a known area with lots of hill giants" or something like that. If you just generically tell players "that area is super dangerous" they'll often see it as a challenge. If you give specific details, they're a lot more likely to understand what they specifically can't handle. 

You can also just not tell the players what's out there yet. So you say that the BBEG is in the central desert, but the things they currently need are to the north and south. So maybe just tell the players about the things to the north and south, but don't bring up the desert for the time being. If they look for what's out in that direction, the local maps could tell them it's a big wide desert. But maybe just don't tell them there's any reason to head out that way. 

Or, if you do want the players to know about the BBEG, you can always make a quest structure where they specifically need the things they'll find around the map. That is, it's impossible to get into the BBEG's castle, or he is only vulnerable to very specific weapons, etc. Then make sure the player's know that. From there they can make their own choices. Like "you need the earth and water crystals to open the doors" just tells your players what's going on in their world. What they do with that information is up to them. 

Finally, if you haven't already, look up the Curse of Strahd adventure. That solves a similar problem, where Strahd's castle is prominently in Barovia. So the adventure has to keep the players from simply charging in. It could be a good source of inspiration!

One solution that might seem sorta railroady but could also just be seen as a consequence is maybe there are tougher enemies the closer you get to the middle. Before the players make it to the center, if they're not careful, they encounter a band or desert raiders who aren't looking to kill their victims, but capture and ransom back in civilized areas. Then players instead are introduced to a new problem: how/when to escape? If not, maybe they actually do let themselves get ransomed back do a friendly npc, or maybe negotiate another solution. 

Maybe the whole time they're traveling out of the desert, the raiders can be taunting the party with stuff like "you're lucky we caught you when we did out there" or "you'll find not all who dwell in the Deep Desert are as 'hospitable' as us".

Not only are they spared the TPK on the main boss, but now you can also set up the raiders as rivals to the party, to be taken out later when the players have reached that point. 

I always like things like this. I'm a fan of having something to prevent a TPK when the players get into something that's obviously over their heads. Personal preference, certainly. But I think it's fun and dangerous when the players can die during their adventures. But I don't think it's any fun when the players just get flattened by something that's way out of their league. Like, a third-level party dying while trying to stop a rampaging fire elemental? A dangerous stretch that tests their abilities. Fun! A third-level party dying because a red dragon swatted them aside casually? Not so much.

For example in my current campaign, the players are in a town that's under siege from a mysterious enemy. They recently discovered his identity, and he lives in the town. Someone they've met before, in fact. So I expect that, naturally, they're five minutes from heading off for a direct confrontation.

In this case, he won't actually kill them, because he's building up to a ritual in which everyone will die in a very specific way, and he needs every soul he can get. So they'll get to discover the obvious (no, we can't just charge straight at the baddie) without discovering what it's like to roll up a new character sheet mid-campaign. 

Here's what I do. You obviously can't just sit down and write a campaign because you can never plan what the jittery bag of cats (your players) will do at any given moment, much less months ahead. Instead, write scenes. Vignettes. Scenarios. Moments. Sit down and ask yourself, "Wouldn't it be neat if [blank] happened?" Make a list of ten or twenty or thirty ideas for scenes. Each should revolve around a specific monster, or a specific location, or a specific tactical situation. Label each scene with a terrain type, a level range, and at least two other scenes that it might then lead to.

For example, wouldn't it be neat if the party had to cross a long rope bridge in the mountains, they get halfway across, and some goblin archers pop out from behind some rocks on the far end and start firing arrows at them? That's a problem. They're stuck, they're in single file, the melee can't engage until they close the distance, they're gonna take a few hits before then. It's a tense situation. Terrain type is mountains or hills. Don't specify which mountains. There will probably be several mountain ranges in your world. Whichever one the party heads towards, that's the one with the Goblin Bridge. Level is probably 2 to 4, because one Fireball would solve the whole problem. UNLESS the goblins are close to the bridge and a Fireball would risk burning the ropes and sending the party crashing down! And if the party makes it to level 7 or 8 before going into the mountains, then instead of goblins, the archers are trained assassins. Now what other scenes might this lead to? The party is obviously going somewhere, so maybe he BBEG hired these archers to stop the party, so a search of the archers' corpses will reveal info about the BBEG. Maybe a skilled ranger could follow their tracks toward the BBEG's hideout. 

Now do that 20 or 30 or 40 more times. You'll end up with multiple scenes that fit in any terrain and any level range. So if the party goes east toward a forest, you pull out a forest scene. If the party delves into a cave network, you've got an underground scene ready. No matter where the party goes, you'll have a scene ready. As the babbling gaggle of chaos minions (your players) move from scene to scene, they will unwittingly be building a flow chart that will gradually reveal the plot of the campaign. And once you know what kind of scenes spark their interest, you can start peppering in clues about a BBEG for them to strive towards. 

This may not work for everyone. Personally, I love doing little exercises like, "build ten taverns in the next ten minutes". I tend to overthink things, so timed exercises like that really force the creativity engine into gear. Making lists on a time constraint is like chopping firewood for a fire. Just my 2 c.p.

Quote from Xalthu >>

Quote from Character77006 >>

Quote from Erik_Soong >>

Adapt your campaign as they make choices. If they choose to go right up the middle and you don't want them to engage with the BBEG just yet, put your BBEG on the right or left and give them some dangerous stuff in the middle to chew on. 

 

Give them choices, but using the fork in the road example, let them choose left or right, and whichever way they pick, is the way you wanted them to go.

Or have the way they choose, to loop toward the way you want them to go.

Basically, let them think they have freewill, but in reality it is predetermination.

The big issue if one or two want to go left, and the rest want to go right.   They split....so yes you need to come up with something for both routes.  

 The OP asked how to go this without railroading. Your example is a railroad, as the players have no actual choices.

Actually I disagree.  Railroad is a lack of choices and forced to go in only one way.  AKA rail tracks. The end result is not relevant to railroading.  It is the journey to get there, that determines if it is railroading. 

Having multiple choices/paths to get to the planned end is not railroading.  It appears by your definition, the DM has to come up with 30-100 different endings depending on the choice a party makes.  And may still not have enough potential endings.

Lots of clues and lots of deterrents. Breath of the Wild is actually pretty good at this because it gives you plenty of things to want to do that aren't "charge directly toward the castle" while also setting up visual and narrative cues that going that way is a bad idea. And for players who don't take the hints, a Link with three hearts worth of health, a pot lid for a shield, and a rusty sword will get absolutely dumpstered by the ancient laser robots sprinkled around the castle in increasing density as you get closer.

You can recreate these guardrails in this homebrew world. Weather and other environmental effects get more ominous closer to the big bad's center of power. Check out some of the lair effects the dragons have in 5E for examples of the "we're not supposed to be here yet" regional effects that should scare off low-level player characters. Have townsfolk and random travelers share two flavors of rumors with the party: A.) "There's a legend about a hidden McGuffin of Power in the Mystical Forest to the West" which should point the party in a direction they'll want to go to get a thing they need and experience to level up, etc., and 2.) "Did you hear what happened to the Expendable Adventuring Company? They were almost wiped out when they tried to attack BigBad. The survivors have set up a refugee camp on the Old Road and are warning people away" which should help convince the party they really want to go in a different direction. With the added benefit that if they visit the refugee camp they will see people who they can use their perception or whatever to identify as being somewhat tougher than themselves. Continue to have the party get a bigger variety of rumors or assistance requests from NPCs that point the party in the safer, intended directions and away from instant annihilation. If they need more of a cautionary tale and are getting too close to the danger zone, show them what could happen by having a party that's kind of similar to them but maybe a little more powerful get absolutely destroyed in plain view by the evil defenses.

If they still don't take all the hints and still want to charge directly into the lion's den, then it's time for an above-the-table serious talk. Explain to the players the stakes of heading straight to the big bad are a near certain TPK and you're not going to pull any punches or take it easy on them. If they're still committed at that point then let them do what they're going to do and the chips fall where they may.

Quote from Character77006 >>

Quote from Xalthu >>

Quote from Character77006 >>

Quote from Erik_Soong >>

Adapt your campaign as they make choices. If they choose to go right up the middle and you don't want them to engage with the BBEG just yet, put your BBEG on the right or left and give them some dangerous stuff in the middle to chew on. 

 

Give them choices, but using the fork in the road example, let them choose left or right, and whichever way they pick, is the way you wanted them to go.

Or have the way they choose, to loop toward the way you want them to go.

Basically, let them think they have freewill, but in reality it is predetermination.

The big issue if one or two want to go left, and the rest want to go right.   They split....so yes you need to come up with something for both routes.  

 The OP asked how to go this without railroading. Your example is a railroad, as the players have no actual choices.

 

Actually I disagree.  Railroad is a lack of choices and forced to go in only one way.  AKA rail tracks. The end result is not relevant to railroading.  It is the journey to get there, that determines if it is railroading. 

Having multiple choices/paths to get to the planned end is not railroading.  It appears by your definition, the DM has to come up with 30-100 different endings depending on the choice a party makes.  And may still not have enough potential endings.

You are right, there should be a very large number of possible endings. More than you could realistically foresee. Luckily, the DM doesn’t come up with the end before the campaign starts. That, again, is a railroad, so nice the players don’t have a choice in where their going.
Instead of starting with the end already decided, you just kind of get things moving and see what the characters do. The world responds both to what they do, and what they don’t do. The part of BBEG’s plans the PCs are interacting with come to fruition, or they don’t. And the BBEG and other player in the world respond to the PC’s actions. What the end might look like doesn’t really coalesce until pretty close to it, and should depend upon what’s happened up to that point.

And in any case, telling them they can go right or left, but knowing full well it doesn’t matter which way they go is 100% a railroad. And a very dishonest one at that. You haven’t given them any kind of choice. You’ve just lied to them about their options when there really wasn’t one.

I’ll also add, a railroad isn’t necessarily bad. Pretty much all published campaigns are railroads giving the illusion of choice, and many of them are very, very good. Ditto almost all video games. But in no case should you lie to your players about what’s going on.

For a desert, you can discourage a party from charging blindly into the middle of it just by pointing out the logistical challenges, or by having NPCs point them out.  Do they know what kind of terrain and natural hazards are out there?  If they don't have a particular destination in mind, how much food and water do they bring?  Food spoils and water is heavy, so how far can they realistically travel?  What happens when they have to deal with a sandstorm, or bandits, or hostile creatures, and they survive but something happened to their supplies?  And even if nothing "bad" happens to them, it's difficult to stay on course if there aren't a lot of landmarks around... do the PCs actually know how to navigate by the stars alone?  

Basically, if they get the idea of heading out the middle of the desert despite obvious story points in other directions, you might be able to give them other incentives like finding a caravan or guide to help them... and that next town in the direction of the storyline might be a good place to find one.  Of course, in the end, if they are really set on rushing straight out into the desert after being warned, you might just have to be ready to make them face the consequences.  By all means, toss them a lifeline and give them chances to turn back before they have to roll up new characters, but if they choose death by foolishness, there's only so much you can do to stop them.