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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
8098 Posts |
 Posted - 17 Dec 2011 : 06:43:03
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I confess that I apparently have a penchant for railroading my PCs along my pre-planned adventure paths. Most of the time I'm deceptive enough to get away with pretending I'm a mastermind über-narrator while winging it all together on the fly, but sometimes my PCs see through my many-layered ruses and call me out.
For years, their usual manner of doing this would be a cadence of pistoning arm motions and chuffing locomotive noises, slowly at first then gradually speeding up, unavoidably followed by loud crescendo of "Choo-Choo!" and "Clang-Clang-Clang!" noises. An unstoppable phenomenom which is both tiresomely aggravating and utterly hilarious to witness. Gameplay usually resumes after a short break, with me generally playing a bit defensively while they're all hawklike in their critical perceptions.
In recent months this has been replaced - after a complicated series of rather "unfortunate" adventuring circumstances set in the Bloodstone region - with their new mantra of "in Soviet Vaasa ... game plays you!". Plus an innumerable (and insufferable) supply of badly accented Soviet Vaasa jokes (How many people are in your party? Oh, about 150 million).
Does anybody else suffer from any of the classic DM flaws and fallacies? And how do you and your players handle it?
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[/Ayrik] |
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Kyrel
Learned Scribe
151 Posts |
Posted - 17 Dec 2011 : 14:44:49
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I'm sorry if this ends up sounding condescending. It's not supposed to be. But seriously, if you know that you have a tendency to railroad players to keep them on your prepared story arch, why not just work on not doing it, if it's a problem? Practice just winging it. How about just making up some different mini-plot openings the players might stumble across during a story. You probably all know the Realms pretty well, so why not try running a complete sandbox style game. Drop them in a place in the Realms and go something like:
"You wake up in the inn around the time you normally do. Your mouths feel like a goat died in it, after all the ale you consumed last night before going unconscious in your room. Your fonds are beginning to run low, after your attempt at drink Waterdeep dry over the last couple of weeks, and you realise that you should probably begin considdering looking for another job or something. What do you do?"
And then let the rest be up to the players. Have absolutely nothing coherent planned, but simply have your knowledge of the Realms, a bunch of ready made random NPC's and descriptions of different people and places, and then see where your player take the story. Without a plan or story to follow, there won't be any track to railroad them along.
Don't know if that was the kind of comment you were looking for? |
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Ozreth
Learned Scribe
249 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2011 : 03:49:09
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| Couldn't agree more. |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
8098 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2011 : 04:47:34
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Nobody's perfect at everything. Not even DMs. Especially not DMs. You cannot honestly appraise and admit where you make mistakes or have areas of weakness?
I appreciate that my players are able to voice their concerns about my faults in an open fashion (even if it is often annoying and mocking) ... much better than them conspiring and complaining among themselves in a secret or duplicitous fashion while I reign unchallenged and continue forcing them to play a game they do not and cannot enjoy. They, in turn, appreciate that I'm responsive to their complaints and thus they employ humour instead of less productive approaches when voicing their dissent. It is possible for everybody to still have fun, even while arguing that something's unfair. |
[/Ayrik] |
Edited by - Ayrik on 18 Dec 2011 05:27:24 |
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Ozreth
Learned Scribe
249 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2011 : 07:18:21
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Ah, well, in your first post you hadn't mentioned that you were responsive to their complaints. You pretty much said that you just keep on doing it :P
Anyways, I'm bad at killing time. I struggle with the stuff that goes on in between plot drivers and action. Going fishing, shopping, playing cards at the tavern etc. Need to get better at it though as I've always thought these moments are just as important for the atmosphere as the other stuff. |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4503 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2011 : 12:36:45
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quote:
Originally posted by Ozreth
Anyways, I'm bad at killing time. I struggle with the stuff that goes on in between plot drivers and action. Going fishing, shopping, playing cards at the tavern etc. Need to get better at it though as I've always thought these moments are just as important for the atmosphere as the other stuff.
Same here. While I've done things that are fun and interesting outside of Plot/Combat, it's usually far and few between. I leave it up to my players to go and do something in town and yet they kinda just sit around.....asking what they can do. I always say "Well, anything! If there is something that interests your PC, you can pursue it. Like drinking? Go drink and maybe you'll fall into a drinking game. Like gambling? Well here's a slew of ways to do so (I work in a casino, so it's not hard for me to come up with stuff). Arm wrestling, throwing darts, dancing, yadda-yadda but the PCs rarely try these things unless it's plot or story relevant.
I once held a tournment the PC could compete in and it was actually a lot of fun for them. There was the grand melee which 3 of the PCs participated in, the Joust, an obstacle course, a few games for spellcasters (acid darts, Fireball Tossing, and wizard duels) and all had prizes ranging from magical weapons to wands and wondrous items. These items weren't very powerful in nature (they were like 5-6 level). |
Diffan's NPG Generator: FR NPC Generator
E6 Options: Epic 6 Campaign |
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MalariaMoon
Learned Scribe
326 Posts |
Posted - 18 Dec 2011 : 14:18:46
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| I sympathize with you Ayrik - I also have a tendency to rail-road somewhat. I enjoy plot-driven adventures and I think ultimately a good plot heightens the drama and action within a game. I think the truly memorable adventures come when PCs are trying to achieve some goal, but sometimes it can be hard to reconcile this with the free will of the players. I've never tried a completely 'sandbox' style adventure (I should give it a go), but even with a completely open-ended game I'd quickly find stories I wanted to tell. I don't think a DM should feel too bad for prodding his players in the direction of a good tale. |
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Faraer
Great Reader
3308 Posts |
Posted - 19 Dec 2011 : 01:22:35
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| It seems a rather unsympathetic and uncooperative attitude from your players, Ayrik. Do they understand that it's not really possible for most DMs to consistently and completely improvise really good sessions, that preparation is a lot of work, and you can't prepare equally for everything they could possibly do? If their enjoyment is really contingent on the illusion that you have no concept of how play might go, you'll just have to pre-plan less, as has been suggested, but that sounds to me like a rather one-sided adjustment, and perhaps you could come to a more mutual understanding with your players than you seem to have. And as you imply, a game driven neither by DM nor by passive players goes nowhere. I say all this as someone who prefers to think of RPG plot as 'what the PCs (and secondarily NPCs) do'. |
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Ayrik
Great Reader
Canada
8098 Posts |
Posted - 19 Dec 2011 : 01:55:23
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Ah, well. I do get away with it many times, unchallenged and undetected. Sure it works out well for everyone, but it is technically no less unfair.
There are times when I accede unconditionally to my players demands. There are other times when they accede to mine. These are all outnumbered by those times when some sort of compromise can be reached. As I stated earlier, DM and players in my gaming all appreciate that there can be open and rational resolution of meta-D&D problems. The ugly truth is that I don't want to see any players walk away, nor do they want to lose their incredibly brilliant and exceptionally modest DM. There are times when I bluntly say "yeah, you're being railroaded along a prepared path" or they bluntly say "in Soviet Vaasa the trains go to bad places, but they're still better than getting there by walking". |
[/Ayrik] |
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Kentinal
Great Reader
4706 Posts |
Posted - 19 Dec 2011 : 02:07:47
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In some ways two majors errors, having players not really willing to understand the game, however the worst was and sometimes still is being willing to DM a game. *G*
Oh errors of risk clearly occurred, hooks to try to draw in one direction did not always work. All games require all players to be working together to have a fun session.
All players need to include the DM. |
"Small beings can have small wisdom," the dragon said. "And small wise beings are better than small fools. Listen: Wisdom is caring for afterwards."
"Caring for afterwards ...? Ker repeated this without understanding.
"After action, afterwards," the dragon said. "Choose the afterwards first, then the action. Fools choose action first."
"Judgement" copyright 2003 by Elizabeth Moon |
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Kilvan
Senior Scribe
Canada
896 Posts |
Posted - 19 Dec 2011 : 15:34:06
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I think I'm a good DM, guys who played with me who had played with others before think I'm great (at least they say so). Still, I have flaws, and I think I am aware of them more than my players.
I create campaigns that are way too big, it takes years to complete them. This forces us to go to higher levels (they are now level 16), and now encounters are extremely long and ridiculous. But the story is good, so we all want to see it through, and that will probably take another 6 months. One of the reasons is that I prefer to wait until mid-level (8-9) to introduce serious plot lines which will result on the actual campaign. Before that, it is mainly fillers and "random" quests with no follow-ups, but I slowly introduce NPCs that are going to have the spotlight later on.
I'm probably too nice as a DM. I don't remove exp for resurrection, so the player who dies just loses gold and the exp for the encounter, which is enough for them to not want to die, but not enough to be afraid. I give a lot, but I take little. We are having fun, but I guess I don't encourage to think outside the box, even though I'm fully prepared for whatever crazy ideas they could come up with. They trust me to make fair encounter, and fleeing a battle has never been considered. I guess they know that, even though I'll never tell them, I want them to win. I have been guilty of fudging dices once in a while, when the player with the less exp was about to die (again).
What else, I give too many magic items. I don't use random encounters (I hate those things, even more on high levels with 2-hours encounters). I give exp for good RP, but I hardly take any for bad RP. I do not like "small encounters", meaningless minions who serves only as fillers or to removes some of the caster's spells.
In other words, I have a certain style, and I fear my players have become accustomed to it, maybe too much. Next campaign I won't be DM, that will break the mold, I can't wait. Imagine, not knowing what will be in the next room, it's been so long... |
Edited by - Kilvan on 19 Dec 2011 15:39:02 |
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DMing mistakes
