Listen, you have a job (or two!) or School (or both). Your free time is limited to craft encounters, maybe something comes up before you can sharpen your hooks. You have only so much time to prepare. Its ok to Railroad.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, I know that Railroading is a sure sign that you are tyrannical DM that never brushes his teeth and goes out of his way to kick puppies, but we all have to be realistic. You are not a machine that can just procedurally generate content. Encounter Design, Story Telling, NPC Creation, World Building, these things are craftmanship. Craftmanship takes time and love.
I know everyone wants to make their campaign a sandbox, but you can make a more compelling narrative with more nuanced characters and a more lived in world if you run a more guided campaign. Think about any Sandbox video game you've played, the Environment, the NPCs, the combat. Did any of it feel truly lived in, or did it feel stilted and robotic?
The key is to make sure your players have agency. You aren't making choices for them, you are setting them on a path. You want them to engage with your encounter, because that's all you have, but they get to choose how to engage with it. Maybe they do have fewer options, but those options have more concrete and impactful consequences. Maybe they do have a few less choices, but those choices are more meaningful and have more staying power.
Talk to your players, find out what they are intrested in, design with that in mind. After each session ask them what they are looking forward to, what they want to achieve, design around that. You probably are not a DM with a successful stream, you are probably just someone who wants to make something to enjoy with friends. Its like a cake, if you bake it for your friends out of love, they are going to appreciate it.
Talk to your players, find out what they are intrested in, design with that in mind. After each session ask them what they are looking forward to, what they want to achieve, design around that. You probably are not a DM with a successful stream, you are probably just someone who wants to make something to enjoy with friends. Its like a cake, if you bake it for your friends out of love, they are going to appreciate it.
That is the part that is true in EVERY group of DnD (or should be true).
After all, it is about having fun! That counts for the players AND the DM!! #DMsAreJustPeopleToo
Listen, you have a job (or two!) or School (or both). Your free time is limited to craft encounters, maybe something comes up before you can sharpen your hooks. You have only so much time to prepare. Its ok to Railroad.
.........
The key is to make sure your players have agency.
If the players have agency, it's not railroading. There's space between sandbox and railroad.
@Pantagruel the problem is that the common perception is that influencing/limiting player choice in any way is seen as Railroading by alot of people. I don't really blame them, Critical Role is the most visible example of the hobby and it is very much a true Sandbox. Matt Mercer is great at sandboxes, and his players enjoy sandboxes because if nothing else happens they can role play with one of the best NPC role players in the business. I love Roleplaying, but I can't do it for 4 hours straight every Sunday. I enjoy the mechanics of the game and I want to play with them too.
I love #DmsAreJustPeople I want to add #DmsArePlayingToo
Is it player agency when you prepare 4 "railroads" and let them choose which to follow? :D
I prepare a set possibilitiesI consider likely, and if the PCs do something weird I'll come up with something on the fly and, well, it may not be anywhere near as polished as the expected flow (or it might quietly lead them to one of my prepared possibilities via an alternate route). IME players feel railroaded when it seems like their actions cannot actually influence the plot -- but if you offer them a path (without forcing them), probably 75% of the time they'll follow it. They want to think that they can leave the path, but once satisfied, probably won't actually do so.
In my opinion there are no absolute do's and don'ts in D&D.
Sometimes you need to railroad, fudge the dice, go back in time and start over or just say no that's not going to happen.
Players are not always cooperative, they don't always catch the obvious plot hints or sometimes they just aren't as smart, observant or knowledgeable as we wish they were.
As a DM you sometimes need to direct the players and make things go a certain way to keep the campaign on track or chaos will ensue.
Is it player agency when you prepare 4 "railroads" and let them choose which to follow? :D
Because that is how I prepare most of my sessions.
Pretty much how I do it as well. I always have a main plot and an alternate plot, and then work in character goal, side plot/quest, and “random” encounter. I’ve suggested to others to view a “plot map” on a grid, and as long as you have something planned for each “exit” square from the one the player’s are in, you are good. DM is prepared, player’s have agency. World is not a rail, but multiple rails which gives the illusion of a sandbox.
The best way to give the players a satisfying sense of agency, while still not having to prep insane amounts of stuff, is to design your preferred path around the types of actions you would expect your PCs to take anyway. This won't always work (and DMing would be boring if your players always did what you expected them to do), but it works often enough.
You some very good and well thought out concepts on this.
I don't think of it as railroading so much as moving the adventure along. If they want a more sandbox approach they need to be more proactive in telling you what they want to do.
I spend a far amount of time making my modules and blending together selections of monsters. But I give them a goal for the current module.
I sometimes have free play in town days. But I can only take so much of just sitting there waiting for someone to say what they want to do.
Hell, I got a group that can't handle a sandbox (too indecisive and prone to getting confused) and asked me to be more railroady on their game.... so I'm running Descent into Avernus for them.
Hell, I got a group that can't handle a sandbox (too indecisive and prone to getting confused) and asked me to be more railroady on their game.... so I'm running Descent into Avernus for them.
I recently got to be a player for the first time instead of a DM. I was completely lost lol I honestly had the thought "Man, being a player is way harder than DMing".
I've said a dozen times here: Some players don't want to co-write. D&D is their weekly brain-off chill-out time. Those people are perfectly happy on a railroad. Just depends on the group.
The most important aspect is everyone needs to have fun. How you get there is irrelavent.
I agree, but the problem is that alot of DMs (and some players), especially newer ones, think they have to make a sandbox for it to be fun. I want them to see another way. I'm not trying to preach to the choir lol.
I learned how to play DnD by watching Critical Role, I have never seen DND before my first episode. So Mathew Mercer taught me how to DM. I want to reach out to the DMs of my generation so they have more than one example, even if Matt is a great example to begin with.
I just try to end the session with a decision, “where are you going next week?”
Then players can pick where they want to go, and I only have to prep for one option. The problem comes when you ask players at the beginning on a session. Then you have to prep for everything. No matter what, there will be times when players go off script and you need to improvise. But have them pick the big direction at the end, and it gives them agency, and you only one plot line to work with. Keeps it sandbox, but gives reasonable direction.
I actually agree with a lot of the OP. What is railroading, and what is listening to your players? That is the question. As a GM, you can't possibly prepare for absolutely everything, so you have to make choices. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Sometimes you railroad a lot, sometimes very little.
However this I disagree with (not from the first post by OP, but from a "follow up")
@Pantagruel the problem is that the common perception is that influencing/limiting player choice in any way is seen as Railroading by alot of people. I don't really blame them, Critical Role is the most visible example of the hobby and it is very much a true Sandbox. Matt Mercer is great at sandboxes, and his players enjoy sandboxes because if nothing else happens they can role play with one of the best NPC role players in the business. I love Roleplaying, but I can't do it for 4 hours straight every Sunday. I enjoy the mechanics of the game and I want to play with them too.
I love #DmsAreJustPeople I want to add #DmsArePlayingToo
I enjoy CR, and MM is certainly a very good DM, but to me this is not sandbox at all. Perhaps it's me, but what I'm most impressed by by CR is not only Mercer, but also how the players "get along" and "allows" themselves to be railroaded without making any fuzz about it. Yes CR certainly has some episodes with a lot of roleplaying, but almost every other session ends with a fight on a pre made battle map. That's perhaps not railroading, but it's not sandbox either.
Sandbox to me is when you basically starts the session with asking the players: "what do you want to do?". D&D isn't very well really rigged for that, but some RPG's actually are. I don't say they are better or anything (because sometimes they certainly ain't), but they can be sandboxes on a completely other level.
Some railroading can be necessary at times. No DM should allow their game to remain stagnate for fear of "railroading" there are times in nearly every campaign where the players need a little direction. I agree with other posters that alot of this is about everyone at the table being on the same page as far as what kind of game they all want to play.
DMs don't really need to do much more preparation to sandbox than to railroad.
In terms of combat encounters, you just need to have a things up your sleeve that work regardless of what the players do. E.g. low-level players might encounter bandits on the road regardless of whether the road they're taking is the one north to save the village, the one south to go warn the king, or the one east to follow rumors of treasure. A cave map can work regardless of whether the cave is the one with the orcs or the one with the skeletons.
Timing the choices greatly helps, too. If you have your players make big weighty choices about what to do next near the end of a session, then you can prep for whatever it is they chose. So, maybe the session starts with the players fighting through a few rooms. They clear out the dungeon, and they find the NPC at the back of it, who may or may not be a potential ally or enemy, they RP out the interaction with them, at the end of the session they choose where to go next... ...and you've got the time off to prepare. So that way the players might decide to, say, ally with the NPC, or kill them, or deceive them and trick some info out of them, etc.
In my experience also, for many players, the feeling that they can do anything is more important than actually doing all sorts of crazy things. So you give people a quest that they CAN follow, but don't have to... or a choice of two obvious quests (and the opportunity to do something totally different if they really want to...) most players will follow the obvious plot hooks.
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Listen, you have a job (or two!) or School (or both). Your free time is limited to craft encounters, maybe something comes up before you can sharpen your hooks. You have only so much time to prepare. Its ok to Railroad.
I know this is an unpopular opinion, I know that Railroading is a sure sign that you are tyrannical DM that never brushes his teeth and goes out of his way to kick puppies, but we all have to be realistic. You are not a machine that can just procedurally generate content. Encounter Design, Story Telling, NPC Creation, World Building, these things are craftmanship. Craftmanship takes time and love.
I know everyone wants to make their campaign a sandbox, but you can make a more compelling narrative with more nuanced characters and a more lived in world if you run a more guided campaign. Think about any Sandbox video game you've played, the Environment, the NPCs, the combat. Did any of it feel truly lived in, or did it feel stilted and robotic?
The key is to make sure your players have agency. You aren't making choices for them, you are setting them on a path. You want them to engage with your encounter, because that's all you have, but they get to choose how to engage with it. Maybe they do have fewer options, but those options have more concrete and impactful consequences. Maybe they do have a few less choices, but those choices are more meaningful and have more staying power.
Talk to your players, find out what they are intrested in, design with that in mind. After each session ask them what they are looking forward to, what they want to achieve, design around that. You probably are not a DM with a successful stream, you are probably just someone who wants to make something to enjoy with friends. Its like a cake, if you bake it for your friends out of love, they are going to appreciate it.
Nice to hear someone supporting this side of things. I agree that the ideal is a reactive sandbox, and sympathise about how busy life can be.
That is the part that is true in EVERY group of DnD (or should be true).
After all, it is about having fun! That counts for the players AND the DM!! #DMsAreJustPeopleToo
If the players have agency, it's not railroading. There's space between sandbox and railroad.
Is it player agency when you prepare 4 "railroads" and let them choose which to follow? :D
Because that is how I prepare most of my sessions.
@Pantagruel the problem is that the common perception is that influencing/limiting player choice in any way is seen as Railroading by alot of people. I don't really blame them, Critical Role is the most visible example of the hobby and it is very much a true Sandbox. Matt Mercer is great at sandboxes, and his players enjoy sandboxes because if nothing else happens they can role play with one of the best NPC role players in the business. I love Roleplaying, but I can't do it for 4 hours straight every Sunday. I enjoy the mechanics of the game and I want to play with them too.
I love #DmsAreJustPeople I want to add #DmsArePlayingToo
I prepare a set possibilities I consider likely, and if the PCs do something weird I'll come up with something on the fly and, well, it may not be anywhere near as polished as the expected flow (or it might quietly lead them to one of my prepared possibilities via an alternate route). IME players feel railroaded when it seems like their actions cannot actually influence the plot -- but if you offer them a path (without forcing them), probably 75% of the time they'll follow it. They want to think that they can leave the path, but once satisfied, probably won't actually do so.
In my opinion there are no absolute do's and don'ts in D&D.
Sometimes you need to railroad, fudge the dice, go back in time and start over or just say no that's not going to happen.
Players are not always cooperative, they don't always catch the obvious plot hints or sometimes they just aren't as smart, observant or knowledgeable as we wish they were.
As a DM you sometimes need to direct the players and make things go a certain way to keep the campaign on track or chaos will ensue.
Pretty much how I do it as well. I always have a main plot and an alternate plot, and then work in character goal, side plot/quest, and “random” encounter. I’ve suggested to others to view a “plot map” on a grid, and as long as you have something planned for each “exit” square from the one the player’s are in, you are good. DM is prepared, player’s have agency. World is not a rail, but multiple rails which gives the illusion of a sandbox.
The best way to give the players a satisfying sense of agency, while still not having to prep insane amounts of stuff, is to design your preferred path around the types of actions you would expect your PCs to take anyway. This won't always work (and DMing would be boring if your players always did what you expected them to do), but it works often enough.
You some very good and well thought out concepts on this.
I don't think of it as railroading so much as moving the adventure along. If they want a more sandbox approach they need to be more proactive in telling you what they want to do.
I spend a far amount of time making my modules and blending together selections of monsters. But I give them a goal for the current module.
I sometimes have free play in town days. But I can only take so much of just sitting there waiting for someone to say what they want to do.
Hell, I got a group that can't handle a sandbox (too indecisive and prone to getting confused) and asked me to be more railroady on their game.... so I'm running Descent into Avernus for them.
...cryptographic randomness!
I recently got to be a player for the first time instead of a DM. I was completely lost lol I honestly had the thought "Man, being a player is way harder than DMing".
Thank you guys for chewing on this with me.
The most important aspect is everyone needs to have fun. How you get there is irrelavent.
"Shadow Hide You..."
I've said a dozen times here: Some players don't want to co-write. D&D is their weekly brain-off chill-out time. Those people are perfectly happy on a railroad. Just depends on the group.
I agree, but the problem is that alot of DMs (and some players), especially newer ones, think they have to make a sandbox for it to be fun. I want them to see another way. I'm not trying to preach to the choir lol.
I learned how to play DnD by watching Critical Role, I have never seen DND before my first episode. So Mathew Mercer taught me how to DM. I want to reach out to the DMs of my generation so they have more than one example, even if Matt is a great example to begin with.
I just try to end the session with a decision, “where are you going next week?”
Then players can pick where they want to go, and I only have to prep for one option. The problem comes when you ask players at the beginning on a session. Then you have to prep for everything. No matter what, there will be times when players go off script and you need to improvise.
But have them pick the big direction at the end, and it gives them agency, and you only one plot line to work with. Keeps it sandbox, but gives reasonable direction.
I actually agree with a lot of the OP. What is railroading, and what is listening to your players? That is the question. As a GM, you can't possibly prepare for absolutely everything, so you have to make choices. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. Sometimes you railroad a lot, sometimes very little.
However this I disagree with (not from the first post by OP, but from a "follow up")
I enjoy CR, and MM is certainly a very good DM, but to me this is not sandbox at all. Perhaps it's me, but what I'm most impressed by by CR is not only Mercer, but also how the players "get along" and "allows" themselves to be railroaded without making any fuzz about it. Yes CR certainly has some episodes with a lot of roleplaying, but almost every other session ends with a fight on a pre made battle map. That's perhaps not railroading, but it's not sandbox either.
Sandbox to me is when you basically starts the session with asking the players: "what do you want to do?". D&D isn't very well really rigged for that, but some RPG's actually are. I don't say they are better or anything (because sometimes they certainly ain't), but they can be sandboxes on a completely other level.
Ludo ergo sum!
Some railroading can be necessary at times. No DM should allow their game to remain stagnate for fear of "railroading" there are times in nearly every campaign where the players need a little direction. I agree with other posters that alot of this is about everyone at the table being on the same page as far as what kind of game they all want to play.
DMs don't really need to do much more preparation to sandbox than to railroad.
In terms of combat encounters, you just need to have a things up your sleeve that work regardless of what the players do. E.g. low-level players might encounter bandits on the road regardless of whether the road they're taking is the one north to save the village, the one south to go warn the king, or the one east to follow rumors of treasure. A cave map can work regardless of whether the cave is the one with the orcs or the one with the skeletons.
Timing the choices greatly helps, too. If you have your players make big weighty choices about what to do next near the end of a session, then you can prep for whatever it is they chose. So, maybe the session starts with the players fighting through a few rooms. They clear out the dungeon, and they find the NPC at the back of it, who may or may not be a potential ally or enemy, they RP out the interaction with them, at the end of the session they choose where to go next... ...and you've got the time off to prepare. So that way the players might decide to, say, ally with the NPC, or kill them, or deceive them and trick some info out of them, etc.
In my experience also, for many players, the feeling that they can do anything is more important than actually doing all sorts of crazy things. So you give people a quest that they CAN follow, but don't have to... or a choice of two obvious quests (and the opportunity to do something totally different if they really want to...) most players will follow the obvious plot hooks.