I just started playing Mothership. This game is SO GOOD at helping GMs design situations and conflicts, not plots. I just set the scene, and then everything else is player choice. And it's so fun to run, because I have no idea what's going to happen either!
Tolkien famously had a different approach to the end of MacBeth: the forest literally stands up and walks, and the witch-king is killed by a woman pushing him onto a dead man's knife held by a nonhuman, simultaneously satisfying every possible interpretation of the phrase "no man alive"
@@thodan467 I wouldn't even be so presumptuous as to take is for granted that atani are humans. Also, if periannath were atani, wouldn't that mean the prophecy was false? Since the person holding the knife that ultimately caused the witch-king's death was both alive and a periannath? Tolkien was first and foremost a linguist, he was very careful about words.
I recently ran an old Pathfinder adventure adapted for P2e. At the end of the session as the players were leaving one of the players turned to me and said, "Tell me honestly, you didn't expect us to mutiny and take the ship did you?". I turned to him and said, "The adventure is called The Wormwood Mutiny". The player looked so confused, they made all the choices how could the outcome be predetermined? I found that very satisfying as a Game Master.
Best advice ever. I plan encounters, both social and combat. I do not plan story, and I run with the assumption that around 1/3 of my encounters just won’t happen due to player choice, and that doesn’t mean the world sits in stasis while they’re doing other things. Sometimes, player delay or avoidance should have consequences. If you keep the world moving around the players regardless of their choices, but give them the opportunity to struggle and change the direction and outcome of that movement, the world is alive and the players feel the impact of their choices, successes and failures. Then, just make sure you’re ok with letting things play out as they would rather than as you’d like them to. Sometimes I still have to improvise, but a solid, vital, energetic world and a very flexible plan will do you wonders.
Have a timeline, not a railroad. Keep referring to events that are going on, and Players can choose what to interact with. But if they reject every plot hook, then wonder why they are seen as interlopers the moment they first take interest, it's not against the rules to point out that having not interacted with any of these people in the past means they have no reason to trust you in this crisis, and that some of these people have been actively spurrned by these players in the form of every plot-hook the players rejected.
@@MogofWarthis is just perfect! I was hitting a creative dead end when trying to design a story that targeted the players, simply because I didn’t know what they would do next. So I decided to have the story ongoing, and give them the opportunity to inject themselves into the story. If they choose not to, they need to see the in game consequences of their inaction. One of the things I took as criticism the other day was a player saying “I could say no to the NPC’s subquest, but then I feel we’d be throwing away all the prep work you, as the DM, have done”. I honestly would not have minded if he did that, but the Delacroix he felt there was a conflict between what he wanted to do and what he feels his character would do, meant I do need to rethink how I present the options they have in the game.
My thoughts exactly! Are they making him a love slave? because if so, that is problematic AF. I would suggest the creature join our party and learn some social mores and charm that might let him attract a mate no matter what he might look like ;)
@@howirunit2033 It wouldn't be problematic if the doctor made her weak willed with low self esteem. Theme song: th-cam.com/video/ZhIsAZO5gl0/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=KissVEVO
I feel like almost every game has what i call at least "light rails". No matter what a DM still has to present a scenario or challenge to the players, for it to be an interesting and fun experience. A truly "open-ended" game where you plop your platers in the middle of a town or wilderness with no directions would be bewildering and disorienting for the vast majority of players. You can call it node based if you want but its still rails, just light rails. Which is fine.
Its the difference between a railroad and a road map mixing my metaphors). The railroad is locked on the rails while the road map can occasionally go off road while still going roughly in the intended direction.
Or when the party decides to attack the 14th+ level city leaders when level 3. Heck some of the guards were 5th and 6th level and could whoop the party and did.
"Out, Out, damned spot" is a line from MacBeth. It is a line by Lady MacBeth. She sees a spot of blood on her hands, and she keeps rubbing them to wash it out.
It's like the difference between being directive vs supportive as a manager. In one role you basically tell them what to do each step of the way. In the other, you give them an objective, answer questions, recommend, discuss, support - but they figure out how to achieve the objective. They OWN the outcome and the path there.
My eyes are tired. I read that as "sending them on a bike" - I now want ents on bicycles soooooo badly. It might not be for the Shakespeare purists, but it would be *fun*.
@@drillerdev4624 Originally I wondered about putting them on Harleys but that wasn't nearly as hilarious as thinking of them pedaling on bicycles with their roots, especially realizing that the bikes would probably be like tiny clown bikes to something the size of an ent.
March of the Ents (epic music, then cut to ents on bikes, mute music and replace with squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak as they furiously pedal and hardly move forward).
When conceptualizing a campaign, i figure out the story beats. However the characters get there is up to them. If they ignore the beats and do their own thing, the world around them changes to reflect that choice.
I usually conceptualise a big bad with a plan for world domination, then go down the chain of command to the lowliest footsoldiers. Then I report to the 1st level players some of the outcomes of the footsoldier actions and it is up to them to decide which actions they will put a stop to and whether or not they will follow the chain to the top. If they get distracted by side quests then the big bad's plans gain momentum and their paths will no doubt cross again. So deciding the steps of the big bad's plan is "designing the campaign." Also, if the big bad has minions that (for example) can only be hit with magic weapons, a few chances to acquire magic weapons before they meet those minions is a good idea.
Sometimes it seems like railroading is when you fail to create the illusion that players had a choice. If one of six NPCs has the same intel and the players ask one and follow the lead, did they really choose?
I think one exception to not railroading is one piece of advise from The Lazy Dungeon Master by Sly Flourish about strong starts where he suggests skipping the part where the party meets the quest giver and accepts the quest. The idea is to narrate that part and get to the action faster. I like this advice especially for short campaigns or one shots because if you only have one thing prepared they kind of need to take that option so that isn't really a choice. A bit of a railroad to start but it gets them to an actual real choice quicker.
Usually I will give them options to choose from at the end of the previous session... that way I only have to prepare one module for the next one and we can just start right in on it. Of course they still have the option to leave the encounter mid session... in which case we'll just improv... but usually they don't.
top notch advice, and worth hearing again even for experienced people like myself! That "the DM is *not* the storyteller" is getting post-it-noted to the first page of every campaign journal from now on
This reminds me of how the Angry GM describes agency in his book, Game Angry. Essentially, agency is the degree to which players can make choices, and there are three general tiers of agency. Tier 1 is being able to choose how you react to a situation. Do you side with the dragon after it tells you why it kidnapped the princess, or do you choose to slay it anyway? If you choose to oppose the dragon, do you do so through open conflict or do you try to trick the dragon? Or do you ignore the dragon entirely and just try to rescue the princess and get away without fighting it? Tier 2 is the ability to choose the situation. Maybe instead of going straight to the dragon's lair, you choose to pursue that rumor of the Sword of Dragon's Bane first, and see if you can find that. Or maybe you try to convince the king to spare you a troop of soldiers, and lay siege to the dragon's lair. Or maybe you seek out the aid of the mysterious mage in the woods, who may or may not be one of the fair folk. Tier 3 is the ability to choose your goal. Maybe you dont want to save the princess - maybe you want to take over the kingdom instead. Or maybe you want to delve into the dungeon of Fear and Hunger, and unravel its mysteries. Or maybe what appeals to you is getting filthy rich through piracy. The world is your oyster, and you can do whatever you want. Edit: No matter what, though, the most important thing is that the players are making choices with regards to what their characters are doing. Otherwise, you don't have a game, you have a cruddy play where nobody knows the script but somehow everyone is expected to get it perfectly on the first try anyway.
@@MrShadowbite I don't think there is a tier 4, but there probably should be a tier 0, where the players are basically strongarmed into resolving a given situation in a specific way (like "this is a combat encounter, roll for initiative")
@@taragnor tier 4 is probably just tier 3 turned to 11. I know what you mean by the tier 0, instant fight. I remember one module where you are forced into a fight with the headless horsemen and you by default get decapitated and wake up in a lich's lab. You are then basically forced to go along with its plan to send you back in time
Recently ran a first session where I set up a possible encounter, but did not force it to conflict when the players were clever and didn't just draw swords. It is always so rewarding and fun to see them come up with things I would never be able to think of and have fun doing it. It is one of the many reasons we enjoy this hobby so much and don't just go write books.
This is true of life in general. So many times I've returned to the same bar or holiday destination, with the same people after having an amazing time, only for it to fall flat, despite 90% of the ingredients being the same. Roll with it
I humbly stand corrected from a prior post I made. I have to agree that the 'players and the dice are the story tellers' and the DM is the 'conflict creator'. The ultimate making and melding of the 'dream and imagination' of role playing. I bow to the wise Professor. Thank you.
A great approach! I have a few of my own that maybe lean into this style a little bit… Style 1- set up the beginning and the end and however they choose to get there is up to them Style 2- set up the beginning and let them run wild and free, improvising until a theme shows itself Style 3- asks players what sort of game they want to play (MotW, Save the World, Build the World, Rebel Uprising, etc) and give generic opener and let them pursue their own paths to develop the game they wanted
To be honest I used to run pretty streamlined adventures, in a high magic almost alien world, based in modules and following that logic; the players loved it, but I got pretty bored and knew that the players had so much more to give. So I changed systems, to a lower magic one (lfg) and set the game in Westeros; but the biggest change I made was giving them full control of a small settlement that they have to make prosper to eventualy earn titles and power. They inmediately gave each other titles and things to do (Like, the master of coin, the rural manager, the "lord", etc.) and there are some sessions where I don't even do much, but they spend hours discussing stuff like where to put a road or who to marry, or what will their towns name be, and they have such legit fun that I feel blessed to just be there
So much depends on the DM and the player’s expectations. Railroading, open-style play, they’re both tools. I’ve had wonderful and horrible experiences with both. Open-style play works best when the players are involved in the story and can drive the plot with their own motivations, but falls apart if they don’t. Railroading can be absolutely frustrating for players who want absolute agency for their characters, yet other players want to be taken for a ride.
That's true, I've been in games like that where everyone derps around waiting for something to happen and nothing does until the DM introduces a crisis.
My worst example of railroading my players was during a Call of Cthulhu game. The players wanted to scope out a cult hangout from a nearby hilltop to get an idea of what they might be up against. They planned to use binoculars to do the spying. I had created a nasty ambush and didn't want to tip them off, so I said "Binoculars don't work at night." My players never let me live that one down. As far as being railroaded I played in a game run by a New York Times Best Selling Author. He wanted our party to head west of town to check out some clever creature he created. Our characters did some research on the legends of the creature and decided that heading west was a sure ticket to the great beyond, so we all said nah, we will stay around town. He had the town elders arrest us and had them break our characters fingers until we agreed to head west. The game ended with that session. Sometimes being a great author doesn't make one a good gm.
Eels very strange to me. On the one hand - the social contract says the players should go where the adventure is. (That's not a railroad, thats the DM planning an adventure and the players agreeing to play it). But on the other hand if you agreed to play the adventure and just went about it differently then its up to the GM to find another way the players *will* interact with it
@@sweetderpg Good observation. My approach is to running a game is to create a sandbox for the players. I have several different plots and interesting locations prepared and ready to go and leave it up to the players to lead me to the adventure. In the past I ran many canned modules and it just wasn't a good fit for me and my player group. Not trying to dis any particular modules, in fact sometimes I will borrow ideas from them and incorporate a location or npc into my sandbox. YMMV
A REALLY good game master prepares 3 ways for the players to TOTALLY BELIEVE they've derailed the campaign. (-; -Let them use a ice wand they just got as "random loot" to freeze a cave lake while your BBEG's pet is in it, or an army is crossing a river!! Give them tips on how to date the BBEG! -Give 'em a wand of distant cantrips so they can light enemy bomb stashes from a distance, or the king's meal taste super poisoned when it isn't! Random tricks once a day. (-; -Give them blackmail material against the BBEG's daughter from which unimportant NPC they obsess with!!! Let them loot a sleeping Santa!!!
The first ever session I ran as a GM was the adventure in the back of the system book. The party, as most are wont to do, deviated from what was printed. Part of why I decided to GM was because I was annoyed at the lack of options my DM seemed to allow, so I ran with the idea the party had. Took me ages before I ran another prewritten adventure, as I learned to just present encounters and plot hooks and run with how the party and dice decide. Now, that second prewritten adventure went off the rails even faster - in the first few minutes instead of about three-quarters of the way through - but I was able to lean on my experience to run with it. I've run a few prewritten adventures now in the past few years, and always adjust things on the fly. Come to think of it, I've actually only once run the same adventure for a different group... I should probably do that more often, to see the fun new ways groups have of going about them.
I took your advice for only planning one session at a time and it has been the best way to run my homebrewed campaign. I have npcs and villains with their own agendas, but it's up to my players to find them and to interact with them. We have been playing for over a year, and I see this going on for many more years. I do a slow level up, I even took a level away once and so far my players have had a blast.
The way that I tend to conceptualize it is that as the DM I create the plot, and then the players and I create the story together through their interaction with the plot.
Whatever works. I try to create situations and the plot emerges through play. But I think we're doing the same thing, just using different words. Thanks for sharing!
I run two open matrix campaigns. One on Mondays and the other on Fridays. They are both the same base campaign. Just like you pointed out, the players drive the game. The Friday group went to a town that the Monday group never went to. The Friday group killed a character that the Monday group kept around forever. It is exciting running an open matrix campaign. I never know what will happen next. The players seem to love it. When I started DMing, I ran Adventure League games. They were very railroad-like. It is a nice starting point. But I am glad I went in the sandbox direction.
Interesting... I been working this idea of a Scooby-Doo themed one-ish shot. Fred(str ie Barb), Daphne(chr ie Bard/cleric), Velma(Int ie wild magic), Shaggy(int/con ie Alchemist) and Scooby(dex/str mnk/rog). The theme continues with the Scooby character having a speech impediment that makes communication almost imposable unless Shaggy assist him. Shaggy/Scooby have a special bond when they are near each other and when their off together.(they have the bad luck/habit of being separated from the group from time to time.) The one shot starts with any of your favorite Scooby-Doo episode theme. (ie."Hassle in the Castle" • "Go Away Ghost Ship" • "A Night of Fright is No Delight") and just the players lose knowing there is a limited time to this one-ish session.
Some level of railroading is necessary to keep the players "on mission" unless the DM has unlimited time to run a sandbox. I can't imagine running a game where 5 PC are each doing their own thing. It would be a nightmare
"Character death is not on the table" is not equivalent to "characters always succeed". That is a simple misunderstanding to make. All it means that out of all the possible results of failure, dying is not among them. Your own game is a perfect example of this: in the Frankenstein scenario, if you let the players choose and don't railroad them to a particular ending, the characters can fail both to kill the monster and convince the doctor to make a bride, yet those endings can be reached without needing anyone to die. Sure, it could happen, and the threat of it happening can be in the air, but it doesn't *need* to happen for the scenario to be playable or fun.
Yes! Players surprising you with their choices is the best part of being a Dungeon Master! I often don't even know how a campaign, or even the adventures inside it, are going to end, just the BBEG, their goals and a few NPCs who are working towards(or against) them. It's based on the characters actions and decisions as they navigate that world that I end up tying all of their threads into an ending that satisfies. It can get a little messy at times but half the fun is figuring out how it all fits together! Great video, as always.
This channel only gets better. Now I want to go back to my English class syllabi and adapt all those stories to DnD. The cask of amontillado, Jane Eyre, the lottery (I guess they already did this in RotFM)…
Railroading I think often comes from the DM's wanting to be "prepared" OR "in control". it's the need to feel in control. It's hard to let go and trust the players. You see in management styles ALL THE TIME in the real world.
I discovered a long time ago that no adventure prep survives contact with the players at the table. I used to spend countless hours trying to plan out every possible outcome I could foresee. I'd usually plan for 5 or 6 different results. Over time I realized that if I planned 4 outcomes the players would come up with option 5. If I planned 5 outcomes the players would come up with number 6. I eventually burned myself out even if it strengthened my improvisation skills. Then one day an epiphany: The specific outcomes and planning for each expected result was a horrible waste of my time and energy as a DM. What was more important was to plan out an NPC chart listing relationships, rivalries, personalities and most important of all motivations. I would come up with a theme and location for the campaign. The only session that would be planned out thoroughly was the opener. There would be a projected ending for the series but it wouldn't be in stone. The game flow would then determine what was happening in the campaign. How did the characters react to the opener? What did they do? What didn't they do? What do they want to do next? Then follows a series of actions/reactions between the PCs and the NPCs (both friendly and not) which would shape the conflicts and drive the narratives. I only planned the next session based on what the players wanted to do or based on what the NPCs were going to do in response to something that happened before. Player choices and motives vs NPC motives and course of action making the best RPG experience we could make collaboratively. It's not all on the players. It's not all on the DM. It's teamwork or synergy that makes it be the best gaming experiences you can have.
PBTA taught me as a GM to be a player too. I make the world react to the players just as the players are reacting to the world. Play to find out what happens!
In regards to a game where death isn't on the table I'd like to quote Alladin II The Return of Jafar, "You'd be suprised what you can live through." Not dying doesn't have to mean that you're going to win.
I take a middle road approach between the railroader and the "never plan more than one session in advance" approach. Instead, I plan my whole campaign arc as though there are no player characters. I write from the perspective of the opposition and the neutral factions, including character motivations and planned events and who is planning those events and why they planned them. Then when my players make choices, I know what repercussions those choices have on the larger plot, and how it interferes with the opposition and/or neutral factions, and can respond with accurate NPC responses and new events on the fly. Then between sessions I alter the existing narrative to account for those choices, and flow those changes forward to the rest of the story.
The game master is a storyteller, he just isn't the only one at the table. Its a co-creative process. The game master tells the story of what is happening in the world around the PCs, and the NPCs, but he adapts the tale to what the players do, its a give and take. If its all left to the players, it can stall out, or become dominated exclusively by the players with the strongest drive and personality, and if its all the DM then the game becomes increasingly less interactive as the players are reduced exclusively to an audience. Its like a good conversation, sometimes you are taking the lead and talking, other times you listen.
Great video as always, Professor! Because I build immersive 3d terrain adventure tables for every adventure, people always think I must Rail Road the players. I don’t but neither do I Sandbox. I have my own method that I call the Carnival Cruise method. In real life, if you want to go on a Carnival Cruise, you can choose any of countless destinations - Hawaii, Alaska, Caribbean, etc. All choices are open to you, but once you make that choice and buy a ticket on a specific cruise, that’s where the boat is going to go for that trip. Probably you will have a fun time because it’s where you wanted to go. Once the trip ends, you get to decide if you want to go on another cruise to another location. I do the same thing with my players in my campaign. At the end of every session I ask my players where they want to go next. Essentially, what cruise ticket do you want to buy? Whatever they decide, that’s the adventure I build for the next session. Each table is designed to last for a 5 to 6 hour single session. At the end of the session, they are free to decide wherever they want to go on the next session - no matter if it's to follow a specific plot from the campaign or to just randomly go off fighting pirates or anything else they can think of. By running it this way, they choose what direction the campaign goes in every session and I can provide them a highly detailed adventure without rail roading them or wasting one second of my time building stuff they will never see. It's been working great for years!
I think the railroad is built into a lot of games and "modules" and published adventures. Across all genres and all systems. It's sort of like sugar as an ingredient in food: it's ubiquitous and you really have to go out of your way ti excise it from your "diet." On the other hand, once you've seen it you can't unsee it and you'll get better and better at removing it from the mix. Once upon a time there was a term that was often used instead of _dungeonmaster_ or _gamemaster:_ *_Referee._* I like that. I like its neutrality, its disinterested quality. "This is the setup. _You players_ decide what to do. _You players_ play the parts of the protagonists in this story. And when _you_ make decisions and roll dice, then it's _my_ turn to interpret, explain and demonstrate what the results are and how the world and its non-player characters react. Good luck, everyone!" Of course, this non-partisan, unbiased approach is what made the old-school games deadly to player characters. But hey! You've gotta take the good with the bad. It wasn't a dangerous quest if there was never any chance of any of the players' characters dying or at least suffering serious injuries or losses.
I agree with all of this. I gave up a long time ago on deciding how a game would end. I just write up the plot, make notes of how the bad guys will act when the PCs begin actively foiling their plans, and make notes of important scenes, locations, and NPCs. I have an idea where everything all leads, but never a set notion of how it will "end". I've taken this design philosophy through my cyberpunk game and it has created some really cool, climatic, and even heart breaking conclusions to some of the plots in the campaign. I've also done the same in running games for several different groups and I'm always surprised how they turn out. One game, "The Thing from Laboratory X", was written for my homebrewed horror game. I've run the game now 6 times and each time it is different. Some groups make it, some lose lots of members, and there has even been two cases of TPK. But I never railroad any groups. I present the game, let them work it out, let the dice fall as they will, and see where it all goes. As a GM it's as entertaining to me, as it is to the players, to see how they will succeed or fail.
It really depends on the group. I have groups that WAYYYYYY prefer to be lead by the nose when it comes to narrative and actually request that their games be run like that. Having a set path isn't inherently bad, it is more about making sure you are aware of what players like and finding ways to cater to their desires. Session zero also helps with this. Making sure players both know they want to play in this campaign as well as making characters that are going to mesh well with the adventure (and this is true for non linear adventures like true sandboxes too, as not every character and player is suited for that experience)
I don’t write much for an adventure. I have a plot, a map or two, a few enemies that make sense to the plot, NPCs and locations as needed and I have a handful of clues they can get in a variety of ways. But they can run into any of the materials in the adventure any way they choose. I like this because I want to be surprised as much as them. I don’t ad lib all that well actually but my players really have fun cause they can do whatever. My main issue is with players trying to figure out “what I want them to do” when really I actually want them to do what they want.
Our crew likes to rotate through different game systems. Our next game is "Tales from the Loop". In this game, the characters are all 10-15 years old, and a mechanic of the game is they cannot die. The can become "injured" and even "broken", but can not be killed. It's not because players and GMs agree to that in a Session Zero: it's a core rule. And for the game setting, styled after "The Goonies" and "E.T.", it makes total sense. I'm looking forward to seeing how my players react to this (very different, to us) style of game play.
This is why I like the randomness and unpredictability of free-form prompts in TTRPGs such as Ironsworn/Starforged. Everyone gets to be a story AND conflict designer. It's also easier to hand-wave things, because prep is play and also it's easier to zoom in and out of situations.
Ah, railroading. That's how my first campaign petered out. I needed to get the party to a particular cave to witness a historical event, but instead, they wanted to wage war against the drow. Classic.
Yes, this is my experience also. I've got my own 'rules' for running adventures. 1. Don't use premade modules or campaigns. Even when players are intentionally trying to stay with the plot, they don't work. 2. Pick a setting and starting location. Let the players make characters suitable for it. 3. Never plan more than an adventure or two ahead. This assumes that players will figure something out, go some place, etc. Don't over invest in case they go elsewhere. 4. Stop making everything "epic" -- it usually doesn't work and often the things they remember as epic or cool are just random things which happen, a normal combat which goes bad and the players happen to pull through by some smart play, etc. 5. Don't adjust encounters to try to force them to be "epic". If the players win (or lose) when not expected, let them. If a silence spell nerfs your bad-ass shaman and the combat is easy, fine... the players won't remember it and some other combat or encounter will be remembered. 6. Ask the players at the end of the session what their characters are going to do (i.e. where are you doing, who are you going to talk to, etc.) and only write up the encounters for the next session based on this. 7. Vary encounters, including difficulty, NPCs, locations, challenges, etc. 8. Don't have plot to start with. Have a setting, idea, and throw enough sh!t at them and see what sticks. Sure, maybe the starting location has them near two countries nearly at war, with political happenings, etc. However, if the players ask in the fighter's guild for work... let them go hunt ogres if they want to do that. Maybe they find something with the ogres or maybe you work in that the ogres have detailed information about guard schedules or something. However, if the players just want to keep doing monster raids... ok, your campaign is now about some semi-famous ogre hunters. 9. Use personal ties to character to introduce plot vs. top-down NPCs, events, etc. If a PCs brother comes and him for help dealing with a local lord over his taxes, it's a better motivator than a notice that the local lord is looking for adventurers. Likewise, maybe the lord is looking for some evil wizard, but it might be better to give one of the PCs a personal reason to care about the wizard... say he's the PCs cousin, or he stole something from the PCs family. Railroading is also a feeling. If the players don't know they are being railroaded, it doesn't matter -- although it is insanely hard to do. 10. Allow your players to help 'railroad' themselves by giving them choices. You could ask the players to give themselves a reason to be on a ship, or ask them to create relatives or friends in a specific city and use these during play. 11. Avoid world sweeping events. Keep it grounded and from the PCs perspective. Yes, maybe there is a war going on, but if the PCs aren't directly getting involved, keep it secondary. Don't suddenly force attacks on them or cities falling to force them to participate in the war if they want to be profiteers or something. Same with massive curses, hordes of dragons, a god being reincarnated, etc. It is hard for players to feel it is "their story" if events would happen without them. 12. Don't be afraid to segment a campaign or even end it. If the players defeat something, it doesn't always need another level of leader to go after. Let that plot arc die. Maybe advance the campaign a few years and have the PCs meet up again. Think a Conan series rather than a Wheel of Time or Lord of the Rings. 5-10 session episodes with their own ends vs. a massive plot taking 50+ sessions. The best 'campaigns' are often just a replay (in people's minds) of everything the PCs did. Players will make their own highs and lows.
Ran the same adventure for Taverller twice. The first group played it with careful audacity, infiltrated the firebase, and blasted their way out in a blood filled, Where Eagles Dare ending. The second group were blindly bold. Their run ended halfway through the first minefield. It helps to have good players, although you can find amusement in the character deaths of poor ones. Either way they need to make the choices.
the secret to rerunning campaigns is to change them each time you play adding details that you might have flushed out during play, including things that players observed or had a hand in creating to the lore of the world, and expanding lore based on those times the players asked a question the campaign had no immediate answer to. this way each time the campaign is run it becomes more vibrant and alive. but yes u must play it with a new group each time'
The game is what happens at the table. I’ve run a game a few times that I designed which is a sci fi horror scenario. I know what happened that led to the incident and what can happen based on the PC’s actions. The ironic part is that the characters always triggered their own demise. It happens a little differently each time, but they chose the path that led to inadvertently summoning cosmic horror
As a forever GM, I have made a high to low fantasy "noob island." I have 9 issues on the island, 1 to represent a bunch of different things that happens in D&D or what ever ttrpg you like. I have yet to get a single same outcome. I have each player roll dice to decide what season of year the game starts, the immediate type of mainland by the island from Port to Port, the main bad dude type (they don't know the outcome of this roll until later) and lastly a roll for what town faction is currently in power. Then I let them loose on the island. It's beautiful how they always come out differently.
When I sit down and plan out the story of a campaign, it's less "this is what *will* happen in this game," and much more "this is what will happen in this game _if the players do nothing_ ." It helps me organize what my villains goals and means are, so when the players come along and start taking axes (or hammers, or spells, etc.) to the villains' plans, I have a strong enough sense of said villains to adapt. If I don't set out a blueprint ahead of time, *I* don't feel like I know enough to run a campaign. But, it is understood (by me, I guess, since I'm the only one who knows the whole thing) that the plan is _meant_ to be broken. (If it isn't, many, _many_ things must have gone tragically wrong.)
I'm currently running the 1E classic series, Desert of Desolation. Having played since 1979, this is the fourth time I've run this adventure, and it's a long one. My current group plays from 7-11 pm on Wednesdays, so with 4-hour sessions weekly I expect this to run 12-15 months at the pace they're going. They started it in January, and they're nearing the end of the 2nd story arc out of 3 (Oasis of the White Palm). So they're about 50-60% done. My reason for outlining this is that this series of modules has a set path that the players must follow in order to complete it. Railroading? To a degree. But I give my players enough autonomy that they can quit at any time. They don't have to finish it all the way to the end. They can give up on the quest and escape the desert, heading back to civilization. But in so doing, they can have repercussions... >>>>Spoilers
Weirdly enough, I had a few players drop recently because I wasn't *railroading* enough. Players were in Salzenmund in a Sea of Claws WFRP4E campaign. The group have a basic objective and they can choose anyway to complete it. (They agreed to find some allies for a norscan tribe). Any path was acceptable. They wanna go noble? Go underworld? Leave salzenmund and appeal to the elves or whatever else they could find? Whatever their heart desired. One of my players come to me after the game and throws up his hands. "I am not creative, so I can't really play these sorts of games!" I thought I provided enough vague direction and my other players enjoyed the session, so maybe it was a one-off situation.
One of my favorite tactics is to write a linear campaign and then watch the players twist it into knots. It adds some entertainment on my part. Some players can see how the story is supposed to go, and then from that knowledge can add some truly fun twists and turns. It does take a bit of getting to know the players, cause some players, when they learn you have a script, are convinced you are going to railroad, or feel obligated to play along. You got to learn who will rebel, who will play along with your script to be nice, and who will take you seriously when you say, "i have a plan, but no plan survives contact with the players, do what you will." i have tried multiple ways and it seems that the method that does the best is up to what the players want, and not everyone at a table wants the same thing. I have lost my touch accommodating all the different styles, so sadly i am not as good as a GM as i used to be.
Almost everything the Professor says stands true, except one thing. As a DM I *am* a story teller. Not all alone, but included in the group with the important role to make it feel real, alive and dynamic. For every decision made by the players, there are consequences happening behind the scene. In fact, quite often, whenever the players shed light upon a mystery, more questions rise from the consequences of their actions. It takes an incredible amount of time, but I believe it is worth it, because it leads to unique stories that you couldn't prepare anyone all alone. Not me, not any of my players. I'm in fact, more of a story teller than my players and once they finish the campaign I might as well present them with a book written from their misadventures. It will be hilarious, they did some things that lead to very unorthodox outcomes. You ever heard of a fiend asking the archfey for help? It's a first time for me too. I genuinely believe if I end up turning their adventures into a book, it's going to be worth reading, even for them. Might as well bind it into an actual book, one for each of us, it'll be the greatest gift ever. They can still fail, doing silly things and mishandling the dice. They can still die, despite the fact I use rules that favour the players, the main characters. They can still make unexpected decisions, leading to even less expected reactions from the world around them. They can in fact, write paragraphs of the story in ways I did not prepare for. The NPCs might be limited to react to the actions of the players, who are main characters of the story, but in the end, I do most of the writing, far more than my players do. Less important things for the scheme of grand things, but in the end, what I do in the background serves as the backbone of the entire story, to make the world believable and feel real to their main characters. Yes, I am a story teller too and I'm proud of that fact and noone can deny it legitimately.
Great inspiration for me as a newby DM. I'm running my first ever Campaign and on every path my players take, I think of how to guide them without telling them "you have to do this". I prepared a dungeon room full of giant rats (homebrew) and gave them two rats that played bad music. Instead of my planned combat where they chase the players through the dungeon, my players improvised instruments with rope and their weapons and started playing music. They did so bad on their rolls that the rats liked their music and started dancing.
Great advice! In my "matrix" I keep adventure possibilities to one or two lines, with many possible paths in different directions. Only when I know where the players are actually going and who they incline to work with do I flesh things out. In our game last week, instead of going to the islands, which I thought was the very obvious next step, they decided to travel to the capital city!
As someone pointed out, Angry GM has a useful framework. My players have one and quite a bit around two for sure, but there are definitely rails around three. In part because it has to be a game I'm interested in DMing, but also just for the practical reality that I have limited time to prep for each session and certain directions may not be realistic. If they wanted to find an ancient tech in a cave and go to space I would roll w that, because I have the interest, resources and tools to do so. But if they wanted to use magic to become happy woodland creatures, I'd gave them the hard no because that's not interesting to me at all.
Omg I love this bit of advice. I hope EVERYONE playing TTRPGs sees this. Nothing I hate more than a railroading dm and if I get the sense that I’m being rail roared I just can’t help but start testing the rails to see if I actually have agency or if the GM is going to just start putting road blocks in my way any time I start to deviate. If I want guard rails, I’ll go play a CRPG on my computer or play an FPS or something.
"You come to a path marked with a trail made of metal. Atop the trail rides a horseless carriage." "So, a railroad?" "Yes." ""I hop on the train." "After you hop onto the carriage, it picks up speed to the point where it would be unsafe to hop off again. It carries you all night." "Cool!" "In the morning, you find yourself at an enclosed village that borders an enclosed dungeon." "I love my choices!"
when we were young and having babies, a friendly couple of mine were due in July. I joked they could call their kid Julius Caesar, my mate retorted they could call the child July Caesarean.
Got a poll for yall. Would you/your DM approve this magic item concept? Masterful Halfplate +2, provides a +2 bonus to AC and Proficiency Bonus. Armor once owned by a renowned swordmaster sorta fluff story. No additional powers as the Prof Bonus gives so many characters extra uses of certain abilities or higher DCs to resist their powers and lots of generally improved ability checks. It would really constitute just making a character a bit better at most things they already do, and isn't so focused on one thing it overpowers certain characters. Its a suit that would make almost anyone consider getting a feat just to accommodate wearing it, or avoid the stealth disadvantage for wearing it, thus "consuming" a very valuable resource from many potential wearers.
i may not know what my players will do next session, but i can prepare the whole world and than i just put the actions of my players in the equation and voila i can react adequatly to there action, whichever it is.
I'm running COS now and really only have to plan one or two sessions in advance. I like the sandbox nature of COS but have been modifying it to increase the drama of the sessions. As a GM I throw problems at my players and allow them to solve them in many different ways. The party could decide to avoid the problem all together, but that choice won't grant as many rewards as resolving the problem. I grant inspiration if the player deals with the problem in a way that befits the character they are playing. As a GM I think you should put pressure on the party to move towards specific goals (carrot and stick). But this is not the same as railroading. One of the ways I do this is to give the monsters and NPC's agency to make deals and try to persuade or coerce the players towards specific encounters or areas of the map. This way I can foreshadow, build drama and hopefully create a stage for heroic action. Once that encounter is resolved, I plane for a few diverging hooks or quest lines, but I still allow the party to explore and possibly get into hot water if they don't take my bait. I believe this falls into the matrix style discussed in the video. I think this is also where experience as a game master really helps. I'm still learning and trying to hone in on what makes the campaign fun...
I think game masters are story tellers to a point. We just don't know how the story is going to end, or the order in which the chapters are laid out. That's for the players to decide.
No one is a story *teller* at a TTRPG table. Everyone is a story *discoverer.* A series of events--such as the events in an RPG campaign--aren't a story; they are a chronology. They don't become a *story* until they get recounted after the fact--and that's wonderful! RPG adventures become *stories* when the people who experienced them reminisce about them together, or tell them to people who weren't there. Will they recount the events factually? Almost certainly not--they will tell them as a story, highlighting the humor, the suspense, the defeats and the victories, and downplaying all the boring bits in between. My point is, it's not a story as it happens; it only becomes a story if what happens is worth remembering and retelling.
My worst decision as a GM with thirty five years of experience:: saving two player characters by changing the outcome of the dices. We are at the end of an important chapter of a famous Coc campaign. Climax battle. the only female character in the group became a real witch. On the verge of killing the big bad, she succumbs to her madness and turns against the other members of the group. She sucks with guns. But she shoots twice at two different characters. She lands two critical hits with double damage. It's Call of Cthulhu man : they're dead. I have to make a decision quickly and I give the characters a chance: throw themselves to the ground and avoid death. Bottom line: everyone knew I was changing what the dice had decided. And what could have been a memorable and sharp ending turned into a banal ending. We all respect the player's, but yeah : you have to respect the dice !
My first homebrew was a railroad, but with a first-time DM and new players, it still ended OK. Some of the best advice I have gotten is to plan what the enemy would do if the PCs did not exist. Each session is either the enemy reacting to the PC choices or going about their nefarious plan. This video was good encouragement for how the players can make their own plan and still fit into the broad scheme of the DM's prep.
Well researched twisted sisters predictions lead to Macbeth s undoing. Excellent educational way to use role playing games 👍. You are Professor DM keep educating and keep rolling 20 🐉🐉🐉👍
Back in the early 90s my campaign went that same way. One of the things I learned was keep a rough idea of points on a map but detail a few local hexes. That way I can adjust or full out change spots when needed as the player's choices expanded their area. As for the joke DB; throw it to the dogs, we'll have none of it.
My campaign design is similar to yours. I have a basic plot outline with 3 to 5 bullit points. It rarely takes up more than 1 sheet of paper. I also do similar for each player character. So let's of choices to be made for the games. I put out hooks for all of the above and they obviously can go in all directions at once. So the end game is what they are working towards. How they get there and who connects to who and how is all the difference. I can use the main plot in another game with different players and different characters and it would not even be similar to the previous story played out. The beginning and the end would have similar themes but thats about it. Sure some planned encounters would be started in a similar way but their decisions could be wildly different. The end game is also similar but what the players do and how they do it changes things in my homebrew world and time.moves forward. Then I write the next campaign
It is not automatically the case that removing the possibility of PC death means the players are going to win. In the game Paranoia, the PCs are clones, and if a PC dies, a new clone is activated, with the latest memory snapshot uploaded to the new clone (usually the events leading up to the start of whatever fight killed them). The reason for the clone contrivance is so the players don't have to spend time on the mechanics of _another new character_ and the overall plot doesn't unravel from a TPK leaving no one in the group aware of what's going on. But that does not mean the group (players or PCs) will win. In fact, the opposite is easily true: because killing a PC doesn't lead to significant _player_ downtime, they can go on meat-grinder missions where the NPC child they are supposed to protect (who _isn't_ a clone) gets killed, the treasure gets taken by a rival group, the asset they were to exfiltrate falls, and so on. As long as the goal of the group is more than "personal survival", victory is not automatic just by ensuring personal survival. Of course, if you start from a game like D&D, where the PCs are incredibly sturdy by default, and then you layer plot armor on the PCs, making the game still have meaningful stakes is not going to be easy.
I believe that the first time I read about matrix design was in the AD&D 2e blue leatherette "Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide". Great video, as usual!
you earned my like and respect between 3 minutes and 20 seconds to 24 seconds. that said, there is a way to make a campaign that does not involve railroading.
Non-linear adventures are definitely best, but also hardest to write. I am really proud of my latest dungeon, "the Red Cloud" as it is extremely disjointed and the PCs can take many roads, which inevitably alienate the opposing PCs. Summary: A merchant releases the disease the Red Cloud to kill rivals and create sickness as he also has the cure which he will sell to the highest bidder. Red Cloud is so named because the infected person sprays a fine mist of blood from their mouth with every cough for their last agonizing hours. During the investigation, it is likely the PCs will be exposed to the plague, becoming infected. The players are on a mission to uncover the cause of the villagers’ deaths, discover the existence of the Tears of Ehlonna and decide whose side they are on. The factions in the town have conflicting goals of spreading the disease, curing the disease, and profiting from the disease and the players must decide who to side with and, consequently, who they will alienate.
I have an overlying plot that moves along with or without the players, and then dangle a bunch of strings in front of them to see which ones they tug on. My job is to tie the strings together as fast as they pull them.
This is the absolute best advice for any DM, old or new. You’re not a screenwriter, director, or author. Your job is to create the challenges & make decisions on the fly to flesh things out. All important conflicts are resolved by the dice & the players. No fudging.
Whether to put your fingers on the scales as a GM is a good question. You may disagree, but sometimes I find that I simply did not plan an encounter well enough to entertain my players. Either because it is too easy or may result in a TPK. In this case I Improvise to tailor things to create drama and difficulty or allow for a expeditious retreat. That said I don't screw with the dice rolls.
I don’t think the issue is so much taking away player agency as much as telling them they have agency and then not honoring their choices. There have been times when the best option for the sake of the story and the player’s enjoyment is just to say “hey, guys, it’s really important that you go here and do this thing next”. This should be done sparingly, of course, but every time I’ve done it my players have said “ok!” and ran with it. Just be up front about it and don’t try to manipulate them.
I like this video. I have told my players that I create conditions in which it is possible for them to succeed or fail and to live or die. One player who is also a GM told me he doesn’t want to play a game where there’s no risk because that means there’s no fun.
Rather than "closed matrix", I would suggest "sandbox with walls". For example, "the events played at the table will stay in the city of Lankhmar." A character who leaves the city is "off screen", basically "retired" until they return). There should not be pre-planned events or plot points, like a particular final boss fight. In a sandbox with walls, the players are free to (attempt to) do or build whatever they want, which will interact with the goals of NPCs & factions and existing conflicts you have created. To me a closed matrix is still railroading with sidetracks. Players can catch on that their choice of sidetrack doesn't really matter, since you are still forcing certain intermediate stops and a final destinations.
Death due to bad dice rolls is not a particularly fun or satisfying experience for many players. That's why many story-focused groups take it off the table as something that can happen randomly (or worse, because the GM has an agenda and is using the rules to ensure players stay on a particular path). Yes, you are guaranteed to live through whatever you are attempting to accomplish. But that doesn't mean you'll come out unscathed. Your character might come out of a battle with terrible injuries, missing limbs or psychological scars. They might lose a loved one or have an essential item taken. Or, they might be put in a situation where they must choose between sacrificing their life and achieving their goal. Any of those outcomes offer much more interesting roleplaying opportunities than just "Bad luck. You're dead". In games where death is a choice, conflicts focus on what your character is prepared to do and what they are willing to lose to achieve their goals. Every dramatic or dangerous situation becomes an interesting question, where you decide whether your character will bow out or keep raising the stakes until they have to put everything on the line. You still get those moments of tension, where a single dice roll determines whether you live or die, but they're chosen moments with high stakes. They're made all the more impactful because of it. That's not to say you can't have similar moments in games where you do allow random death, it's just that tend to happen less often because it's challenging to focus on those elements of the game when you're also trying to play in a manner that minimises risk to your character.
![[TH] RNT vs SPG - VCT Ascension Pacific - Day 1](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/RUTkf8Detj8/mqdefault.jpg)
Rather than a "storyteller", I prefer to be known as a "Disaster Tour Guide".
Awesome. I'm going to start calling my DM that now. 😆
"Disaster Master"
This!
Nice
Amazing. Great idea, mate.
"The GM is not a storyteller. The GM is a conflict-designer." Best description ever.
this I agree with
I just started playing Mothership. This game is SO GOOD at helping GMs design situations and conflicts, not plots. I just set the scene, and then everything else is player choice. And it's so fun to run, because I have no idea what's going to happen either!
Shock Theatre Master
Tolkien famously had a different approach to the end of MacBeth: the forest literally stands up and walks, and the witch-king is killed by a woman pushing him onto a dead man's knife held by a nonhuman, simultaneously satisfying every possible interpretation of the phrase "no man alive"
No man can kill me, why are you throwing me into a lion cage!
Merry did wound the witchking creating an opening for Eowyn to "slay" him and Hobbits are human
@@thodan467 Periannath are a "free people", but like Quendi and Khazâd, they are explicitly differentiated from Atani.
@@notoriouswhitemoth
AFAIK they count as humans
@@thodan467 I wouldn't even be so presumptuous as to take is for granted that atani are humans. Also, if periannath were atani, wouldn't that mean the prophecy was false? Since the person holding the knife that ultimately caused the witch-king's death was both alive and a periannath?
Tolkien was first and foremost a linguist, he was very careful about words.
I recently ran an old Pathfinder adventure adapted for P2e. At the end of the session as the players were leaving one of the players turned to me and said, "Tell me honestly, you didn't expect us to mutiny and take the ship did you?". I turned to him and said, "The adventure is called The Wormwood Mutiny". The player looked so confused, they made all the choices how could the outcome be predetermined?
I found that very satisfying as a Game Master.
That sounds awesome and a great DM moment!
That moment when you realize humans are pretty much all the same, when you realize that you are just like all the others.
You're unique. Just like everyone else.@@HereComeMrCee-Jay
Ah, skulls and shackles... where did you find the PF2 adaptation? Cause i am interested in that
I love it when a plan comes together.
Live it up, though. The best laid plans of mice and men--and especially gamemasters--gang aft agley.
Best advice ever. I plan encounters, both social and combat. I do not plan story, and I run with the assumption that around 1/3 of my encounters just won’t happen due to player choice, and that doesn’t mean the world sits in stasis while they’re doing other things. Sometimes, player delay or avoidance should have consequences.
If you keep the world moving around the players regardless of their choices, but give them the opportunity to struggle and change the direction and outcome of that movement, the world is alive and the players feel the impact of their choices, successes and failures. Then, just make sure you’re ok with letting things play out as they would rather than as you’d like them to.
Sometimes I still have to improvise, but a solid, vital, energetic world and a very flexible plan will do you wonders.
Good planning!
Have a timeline, not a railroad. Keep referring to events that are going on, and Players can choose what to interact with. But if they reject every plot hook, then wonder why they are seen as interlopers the moment they first take interest, it's not against the rules to point out that having not interacted with any of these people in the past means they have no reason to trust you in this crisis, and that some of these people have been actively spurrned by these players in the form of every plot-hook the players rejected.
@@MogofWarthis is just perfect! I was hitting a creative dead end when trying to design a story that targeted the players, simply because I didn’t know what they would do next.
So I decided to have the story ongoing, and give them the opportunity to inject themselves into the story.
If they choose not to, they need to see the in game consequences of their inaction.
One of the things I took as criticism the other day was a player saying “I could say no to the NPC’s subquest, but then I feel we’d be throwing away all the prep work you, as the DM, have done”.
I honestly would not have minded if he did that, but the Delacroix he felt there was a conflict between what he wanted to do and what he feels his character would do, meant I do need to rethink how I present the options they have in the game.
Every time I run The Keep on the Borderlands or the Lost City, the outcome is always different, but always satisfying!
True!
Has any Frankenstein group ever asked the creature "what if the bride rejects you?"
I don't believe they did.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 Interesting. That would have been the first thing I would have had a character discuss with the creature.
My thoughts exactly! Are they making him a love slave? because if so, that is problematic AF. I would suggest the creature join our party and learn some social mores and charm that might let him attract a mate no matter what he might look like ;)
@@howirunit2033 It wouldn't be problematic if the doctor made her weak willed with low self esteem. Theme song: th-cam.com/video/ZhIsAZO5gl0/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=KissVEVO
Roll a 1. Bride rejects him, campaign gets stuck so let's play another.
It happens
I feel like almost every game has what i call at least "light rails". No matter what a DM still has to present a scenario or challenge to the players, for it to be an interesting and fun experience. A truly "open-ended" game where you plop your platers in the middle of a town or wilderness with no directions would be bewildering and disorienting for the vast majority of players.
You can call it node based if you want but its still rails, just light rails. Which is fine.
Light rails is good too.
My players enjoy that and still ask and search for plot hooks, I can present some too. I'd they don't like it they won't bite
@@elgatochurro For sure. I always try to have at least 2 or 3 plot hooks brewing so they have a few choices available.
Its the difference between a railroad and a road map mixing my metaphors). The railroad is locked on the rails while the road map can occasionally go off road while still going roughly in the intended direction.
@@liamcage7208 tbh in my sandbox the players have even decided to just leave the area for a quest.
Letting Deathbringer loose on your players is bad for the campaign.
True.
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1A little railroading doesn’t seem so bad when the alternative involves an axe and a sociopath.
Or when the party decides to attack the 14th+ level city leaders when level 3. Heck some of the guards were 5th and 6th level and could whoop the party and did.
Bad for the players, great for the DM
"Out, Out, damned spot" is a line from MacBeth. It is a line by Lady MacBeth. She sees a spot of blood on her hands, and she keeps rubbing them to wash it out.
Was wondering!
It's like the difference between being directive vs supportive as a manager. In one role you basically tell them what to do each step of the way. In the other, you give them an objective, answer questions, recommend, discuss, support - but they figure out how to achieve the objective. They OWN the outcome and the path there.
I can't believe no-one literally made the forest come to Macbeth by animating/awakening the trees and sending them on a hike.
It would have been ent-ertainment, to say the least.
My eyes are tired. I read that as "sending them on a bike" - I now want ents on bicycles soooooo badly. It might not be for the Shakespeare purists, but it would be *fun*.
@@GoodEggGuy
"The Ents aren't known for being fast to act"
"Give them bikes"
@@drillerdev4624 Originally I wondered about putting them on Harleys but that wasn't nearly as hilarious as thinking of them pedaling on bicycles with their roots, especially realizing that the bikes would probably be like tiny clown bikes to something the size of an ent.
March of the Ents (epic music, then cut to ents on bikes, mute music and replace with squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak as they furiously pedal and hardly move forward).
When conceptualizing a campaign, i figure out the story beats. However the characters get there is up to them. If they ignore the beats and do their own thing, the world around them changes to reflect that choice.
I usually conceptualise a big bad with a plan for world domination, then go down the chain of command to the lowliest footsoldiers. Then I report to the 1st level players some of the outcomes of the footsoldier actions and it is up to them to decide which actions they will put a stop to and whether or not they will follow the chain to the top. If they get distracted by side quests then the big bad's plans gain momentum and their paths will no doubt cross again. So deciding the steps of the big bad's plan is "designing the campaign." Also, if the big bad has minions that (for example) can only be hit with magic weapons, a few chances to acquire magic weapons before they meet those minions is a good idea.
Sometimes it seems like railroading is when you fail to create the illusion that players had a choice.
If one of six NPCs has the same intel and the players ask one and follow the lead, did they really choose?
You took the words right out of my mouth. It's one of those agree but also disagree. Story Beats and reflective world of their choices.
I think one exception to not railroading is one piece of advise from The Lazy Dungeon Master by Sly Flourish about strong starts where he suggests skipping the part where the party meets the quest giver and accepts the quest. The idea is to narrate that part and get to the action faster. I like this advice especially for short campaigns or one shots because if you only have one thing prepared they kind of need to take that option so that isn't really a choice. A bit of a railroad to start but it gets them to an actual real choice quicker.
Usually I will give them options to choose from at the end of the previous session... that way I only have to prepare one module for the next one and we can just start right in on it. Of course they still have the option to leave the encounter mid session... in which case we'll just improv... but usually they don't.
top notch advice, and worth hearing again even for experienced people like myself!
That "the DM is *not* the storyteller" is getting post-it-noted to the first page of every campaign journal from now on
Thank you. New video out now. I think you'll enjoy it: th-cam.com/video/7LCLFpPa1IM/w-d-xo.html
@@DUNGEONCRAFT1 I'm watching it now! It's a blast
This reminds me of how the Angry GM describes agency in his book, Game Angry. Essentially, agency is the degree to which players can make choices, and there are three general tiers of agency.
Tier 1 is being able to choose how you react to a situation. Do you side with the dragon after it tells you why it kidnapped the princess, or do you choose to slay it anyway? If you choose to oppose the dragon, do you do so through open conflict or do you try to trick the dragon? Or do you ignore the dragon entirely and just try to rescue the princess and get away without fighting it?
Tier 2 is the ability to choose the situation. Maybe instead of going straight to the dragon's lair, you choose to pursue that rumor of the Sword of Dragon's Bane first, and see if you can find that. Or maybe you try to convince the king to spare you a troop of soldiers, and lay siege to the dragon's lair. Or maybe you seek out the aid of the mysterious mage in the woods, who may or may not be one of the fair folk.
Tier 3 is the ability to choose your goal. Maybe you dont want to save the princess - maybe you want to take over the kingdom instead. Or maybe you want to delve into the dungeon of Fear and Hunger, and unravel its mysteries. Or maybe what appeals to you is getting filthy rich through piracy. The world is your oyster, and you can do whatever you want.
Edit: No matter what, though, the most important thing is that the players are making choices with regards to what their characters are doing. Otherwise, you don't have a game, you have a cruddy play where nobody knows the script but somehow everyone is expected to get it perfectly on the first try anyway.
That's actually a cool way to word that concept. I've never quite been able to put the whole freedom of choice in RPGs in such succinct terms before.
What's tier 4?
@@MrShadowbite I don't think there is a tier 4, but there probably should be a tier 0, where the players are basically strongarmed into resolving a given situation in a specific way (like "this is a combat encounter, roll for initiative")
@@taragnor tier 4 is probably just tier 3 turned to 11. I know what you mean by the tier 0, instant fight. I remember one module where you are forced into a fight with the headless horsemen and you by default get decapitated and wake up in a lich's lab. You are then basically forced to go along with its plan to send you back in time
As a Game Master (and game designer) of 44+ years, wiser words have never been spoken.
Recently ran a first session where I set up a possible encounter, but did not force it to conflict when the players were clever and didn't just draw swords. It is always so rewarding and fun to see them come up with things I would never be able to think of and have fun doing it. It is one of the many reasons we enjoy this hobby so much and don't just go write books.
This is true of life in general. So many times I've returned to the same bar or holiday destination, with the same people after having an amazing time, only for it to fall flat, despite 90% of the ingredients being the same.
Roll with it
I humbly stand corrected from a prior post I made.
I have to agree that the 'players and the dice are the story tellers' and the DM is the 'conflict creator'.
The ultimate making and melding of the 'dream and imagination' of role playing.
I bow to the wise Professor.
Thank you.
Thanks you for those kind words.
This video is deeper than it looks . Thanks.
A great approach! I have a few of my own that maybe lean into this style a little bit…
Style 1- set up the beginning and the end and however they choose to get there is up to them
Style 2- set up the beginning and let them run wild and free, improvising until a theme shows itself
Style 3- asks players what sort of game they want to play (MotW, Save the World, Build the World, Rebel Uprising, etc) and give generic opener and let them pursue their own paths to develop the game they wanted
To be honest I used to run pretty streamlined adventures, in a high magic almost alien world, based in modules and following that logic; the players loved it, but I got pretty bored and knew that the players had so much more to give. So I changed systems, to a lower magic one (lfg) and set the game in Westeros; but the biggest change I made was giving them full control of a small settlement that they have to make prosper to eventualy earn titles and power. They inmediately gave each other titles and things to do (Like, the master of coin, the rural manager, the "lord", etc.) and there are some sessions where I don't even do much, but they spend hours discussing stuff like where to put a road or who to marry, or what will their towns name be, and they have such legit fun that I feel blessed to just be there
Thanks for sharing.
I do love Dungeon Craft upload day. Best day of the week.
Glad to hear it!
So much depends on the DM and the player’s expectations. Railroading, open-style play, they’re both tools. I’ve had wonderful and horrible experiences with both. Open-style play works best when the players are involved in the story and can drive the plot with their own motivations, but falls apart if they don’t. Railroading can be absolutely frustrating for players who want absolute agency for their characters, yet other players want to be taken for a ride.
That's true, I've been in games like that where everyone derps around waiting for something to happen and nothing does until the DM introduces a crisis.
My worst example of railroading my players was during a Call of Cthulhu game. The players wanted to scope out a cult hangout from a nearby hilltop to get an idea of what they might be up against. They planned to use binoculars to do the spying. I had created a nasty ambush and didn't want to tip them off, so I said "Binoculars don't work at night." My players never let me live that one down.
As far as being railroaded I played in a game run by a New York Times Best Selling Author. He wanted our party to head west of town to check out some clever creature he created. Our characters did some research on the legends of the creature and decided that heading west was a sure ticket to the great beyond, so we all said nah, we will stay around town. He had the town elders arrest us and had them break our characters fingers until we agreed to head west. The game ended with that session. Sometimes being a great author doesn't make one a good gm.
Eels very strange to me. On the one hand - the social contract says the players should go where the adventure is. (That's not a railroad, thats the DM planning an adventure and the players agreeing to play it).
But on the other hand if you agreed to play the adventure and just went about it differently then its up to the GM to find another way the players *will* interact with it
@@sweetderpg Good observation. My approach is to running a game is to create a sandbox for the players. I have several different plots and interesting locations prepared and ready to go and leave it up to the players to lead me to the adventure. In the past I ran many canned modules and it just wasn't a good fit for me and my player group. Not trying to dis any particular modules, in fact sometimes I will borrow ideas from them and incorporate a location or npc into my sandbox. YMMV
A REALLY good game master prepares 3 ways for the players to TOTALLY BELIEVE they've derailed the campaign. (-;
-Let them use a ice wand they just got as "random loot" to freeze a cave lake while your BBEG's pet is in it, or an army is crossing a river!! Give them tips on how to date the BBEG!
-Give 'em a wand of distant cantrips so they can light enemy bomb stashes from a distance, or the king's meal taste super poisoned when it isn't! Random tricks once a day. (-;
-Give them blackmail material against the BBEG's daughter from which unimportant NPC they obsess with!!! Let them loot a sleeping Santa!!!
The first ever session I ran as a GM was the adventure in the back of the system book. The party, as most are wont to do, deviated from what was printed. Part of why I decided to GM was because I was annoyed at the lack of options my DM seemed to allow, so I ran with the idea the party had. Took me ages before I ran another prewritten adventure, as I learned to just present encounters and plot hooks and run with how the party and dice decide.
Now, that second prewritten adventure went off the rails even faster - in the first few minutes instead of about three-quarters of the way through - but I was able to lean on my experience to run with it. I've run a few prewritten adventures now in the past few years, and always adjust things on the fly. Come to think of it, I've actually only once run the same adventure for a different group... I should probably do that more often, to see the fun new ways groups have of going about them.
Thanks for sharing.
OMG, my 8th Grade English teacher used to tell that "out, out damn spot!" joke.
I took your advice for only planning one session at a time and it has been the best way to run my homebrewed campaign. I have npcs and villains with their own agendas, but it's up to my players to find them and to interact with them. We have been playing for over a year, and I see this going on for many more years. I do a slow level up, I even took a level away once and so far my players have had a blast.
Glad they like it and it's working.
The way that I tend to conceptualize it is that as the DM I create the plot, and then the players and I create the story together through their interaction with the plot.
Whatever works. I try to create situations and the plot emerges through play. But I think we're doing the same thing, just using different words. Thanks for sharing!
The “storytelling” in RPGs is a collaborative process!
I run two open matrix campaigns. One on Mondays and the other on Fridays. They are both the same base campaign. Just like you pointed out, the players drive the game. The Friday group went to a town that the Monday group never went to. The Friday group killed a character that the Monday group kept around forever. It is exciting running an open matrix campaign. I never know what will happen next. The players seem to love it. When I started DMing, I ran Adventure League games. They were very railroad-like. It is a nice starting point. But I am glad I went in the sandbox direction.
Sounds fun and I'm very impressed you can keep both games straight. I have a hard enough time keeping track of past events in one campaign.
Interesting... I been working this idea of a Scooby-Doo themed one-ish shot. Fred(str ie Barb), Daphne(chr ie Bard/cleric), Velma(Int ie wild magic), Shaggy(int/con ie Alchemist) and Scooby(dex/str mnk/rog). The theme continues with the Scooby character having a speech impediment that makes communication almost imposable unless Shaggy assist him. Shaggy/Scooby have a special bond when they are near each other and when their off together.(they have the bad luck/habit of being separated from the group from time to time.) The one shot starts with any of your favorite Scooby-Doo episode theme. (ie."Hassle in the Castle" • "Go Away Ghost Ship" • "A Night of Fright is No Delight") and just the players lose knowing there is a limited time to this one-ish session.
Go for it.
That set of diagrams from XDM is helpful. I haven't seen a comparison quite like that before -- thank you, PDM!
Glad it was helpful!
Some level of railroading is necessary to keep the players "on mission" unless the DM has unlimited time to run a sandbox. I can't imagine running a game where 5 PC are each doing their own thing. It would be a nightmare
"Character death is not on the table" is not equivalent to "characters always succeed". That is a simple misunderstanding to make. All it means that out of all the possible results of failure, dying is not among them.
Your own game is a perfect example of this: in the Frankenstein scenario, if you let the players choose and don't railroad them to a particular ending, the characters can fail both to kill the monster and convince the doctor to make a bride, yet those endings can be reached without needing anyone to die. Sure, it could happen, and the threat of it happening can be in the air, but it doesn't *need* to happen for the scenario to be playable or fun.
Yes! Players surprising you with their choices is the best part of being a Dungeon Master! I often don't even know how a campaign, or even the adventures inside it, are going to end, just the BBEG, their goals and a few NPCs who are working towards(or against) them.
It's based on the characters actions and decisions as they navigate that world that I end up tying all of their threads into an ending that satisfies.
It can get a little messy at times but half the fun is figuring out how it all fits together!
Great video, as always.
This channel only gets better. Now I want to go back to my English class syllabi and adapt all those stories to DnD. The cask of amontillado, Jane Eyre, the lottery (I guess they already did this in RotFM)…
Write it up and share! Cask of Amontillado would be fun...
Been meaning to do an Dnd encounter on "the Wanderer"
Railroading I think often comes from the DM's wanting to be "prepared" OR "in control". it's the need to feel in control. It's hard to let go and trust the players. You see in management styles ALL THE TIME in the real world.
Hahaha that Macbeth joke at the end was genius!! Thanks Professor!
I discovered a long time ago that no adventure prep survives contact with the players at the table. I used to spend countless hours trying to plan out every possible outcome I could foresee. I'd usually plan for 5 or 6 different results. Over time I realized that if I planned 4 outcomes the players would come up with option 5. If I planned 5 outcomes the players would come up with number 6. I eventually burned myself out even if it strengthened my improvisation skills. Then one day an epiphany: The specific outcomes and planning for each expected result was a horrible waste of my time and energy as a DM. What was more important was to plan out an NPC chart listing relationships, rivalries, personalities and most important of all motivations. I would come up with a theme and location for the campaign. The only session that would be planned out thoroughly was the opener. There would be a projected ending for the series but it wouldn't be in stone. The game flow would then determine what was happening in the campaign. How did the characters react to the opener? What did they do? What didn't they do? What do they want to do next? Then follows a series of actions/reactions between the PCs and the NPCs (both friendly and not) which would shape the conflicts and drive the narratives. I only planned the next session based on what the players wanted to do or based on what the NPCs were going to do in response to something that happened before. Player choices and motives vs NPC motives and course of action making the best RPG experience we could make collaboratively. It's not all on the players. It's not all on the DM. It's teamwork or synergy that makes it be the best gaming experiences you can have.
PBTA taught me as a GM to be a player too. I make the world react to the players just as the players are reacting to the world. Play to find out what happens!
Love your channel Professor and our community! Such a fun and creative hobby we have.
In regards to a game where death isn't on the table I'd like to quote Alladin II The Return of Jafar, "You'd be suprised what you can live through." Not dying doesn't have to mean that you're going to win.
there was that elf vengeful dwarfes cut about a dozen arms and legs in complete dwarf
I take a middle road approach between the railroader and the "never plan more than one session in advance" approach. Instead, I plan my whole campaign arc as though there are no player characters. I write from the perspective of the opposition and the neutral factions, including character motivations and planned events and who is planning those events and why they planned them. Then when my players make choices, I know what repercussions those choices have on the larger plot, and how it interferes with the opposition and/or neutral factions, and can respond with accurate NPC responses and new events on the fly. Then between sessions I alter the existing narrative to account for those choices, and flow those changes forward to the rest of the story.
The game master is a storyteller, he just isn't the only one at the table. Its a co-creative process. The game master tells the story of what is happening in the world around the PCs, and the NPCs, but he adapts the tale to what the players do, its a give and take. If its all left to the players, it can stall out, or become dominated exclusively by the players with the strongest drive and personality, and if its all the DM then the game becomes increasingly less interactive as the players are reduced exclusively to an audience. Its like a good conversation, sometimes you are taking the lead and talking, other times you listen.
Great video as always, Professor!
Because I build immersive 3d terrain adventure tables for every adventure, people always think I must Rail Road the players. I don’t but neither do I Sandbox. I have my own method that I call the Carnival Cruise method. In real life, if you want to go on a Carnival Cruise, you can choose any of countless destinations - Hawaii, Alaska, Caribbean, etc. All choices are open to you, but once you make that choice and buy a ticket on a specific cruise, that’s where the boat is going to go for that trip. Probably you will have a fun time because it’s where you wanted to go. Once the trip ends, you get to decide if you want to go on another cruise to another location.
I do the same thing with my players in my campaign. At the end of every session I ask my players where they want to go next. Essentially, what cruise ticket do you want to buy? Whatever they decide, that’s the adventure I build for the next session. Each table is designed to last for a 5 to 6 hour single session. At the end of the session, they are free to decide wherever they want to go on the next session - no matter if it's to follow a specific plot from the campaign or to just randomly go off fighting pirates or anything else they can think of.
By running it this way, they choose what direction the campaign goes in every session and I can provide them a highly detailed adventure without rail roading them or wasting one second of my time building stuff they will never see. It's been working great for years!
@3:35 the GM is the 'conflict designer'. ...wow
I think the railroad is built into a lot of games and "modules" and published adventures. Across all genres and all systems. It's sort of like sugar as an ingredient in food: it's ubiquitous and you really have to go out of your way ti excise it from your "diet."
On the other hand, once you've seen it you can't unsee it and you'll get better and better at removing it from the mix.
Once upon a time there was a term that was often used instead of _dungeonmaster_ or _gamemaster:_ *_Referee._* I like that. I like its neutrality, its disinterested quality. "This is the setup. _You players_ decide what to do. _You players_ play the parts of the protagonists in this story. And when _you_ make decisions and roll dice, then it's _my_ turn to interpret, explain and demonstrate what the results are and how the world and its non-player characters react. Good luck, everyone!" Of course, this non-partisan, unbiased approach is what made the old-school games deadly to player characters. But hey! You've gotta take the good with the bad. It wasn't a dangerous quest if there was never any chance of any of the players' characters dying or at least suffering serious injuries or losses.
Good points.
I agree with all of this. I gave up a long time ago on deciding how a game would end. I just write up the plot, make notes of how the bad guys will act when the PCs begin actively foiling their plans, and make notes of important scenes, locations, and NPCs. I have an idea where everything all leads, but never a set notion of how it will "end". I've taken this design philosophy through my cyberpunk game and it has created some really cool, climatic, and even heart breaking conclusions to some of the plots in the campaign. I've also done the same in running games for several different groups and I'm always surprised how they turn out. One game, "The Thing from Laboratory X", was written for my homebrewed horror game. I've run the game now 6 times and each time it is different. Some groups make it, some lose lots of members, and there has even been two cases of TPK. But I never railroad any groups. I present the game, let them work it out, let the dice fall as they will, and see where it all goes. As a GM it's as entertaining to me, as it is to the players, to see how they will succeed or fail.
Best way to avoid railroading: don't plan the events, *plan elements* that can react differently and bring various possibilities.
VERY well said.
It really depends on the group. I have groups that WAYYYYYY prefer to be lead by the nose when it comes to narrative and actually request that their games be run like that.
Having a set path isn't inherently bad, it is more about making sure you are aware of what players like and finding ways to cater to their desires.
Session zero also helps with this. Making sure players both know they want to play in this campaign as well as making characters that are going to mesh well with the adventure (and this is true for non linear adventures like true sandboxes too, as not every character and player is suited for that experience)
I agree. I've played with those groups.
I don’t write much for an adventure. I have a plot, a map or two, a few enemies that make sense to the plot, NPCs and locations as needed and I have a handful of clues they can get in a variety of ways. But they can run into any of the materials in the adventure any way they choose. I like this because I want to be surprised as much as them. I don’t ad lib all that well actually but my players really have fun cause they can do whatever. My main issue is with players trying to figure out “what I want them to do” when really I actually want them to do what they want.
Thanks for sharing!
Our crew likes to rotate through different game systems. Our next game is "Tales from the Loop". In this game, the characters are all 10-15 years old, and a mechanic of the game is they cannot die. The can become "injured" and even "broken", but can not be killed.
It's not because players and GMs agree to that in a Session Zero: it's a core rule. And for the game setting, styled after "The Goonies" and "E.T.", it makes total sense. I'm looking forward to seeing how my players react to this (very different, to us) style of game play.
I remember running a version of your Jigsaw Dungeon Mag module for Changeling the Dreaming some 20 years ago. We had so much fun with that one.
This is why I like the randomness and unpredictability of free-form prompts in TTRPGs such as Ironsworn/Starforged.
Everyone gets to be a story AND conflict designer. It's also easier to hand-wave things, because prep is play and also it's easier to zoom in and out of situations.
Ah, railroading. That's how my first campaign petered out.
I needed to get the party to a particular cave to witness a historical event, but instead, they wanted to wage war against the drow. Classic.
Yes, this is my experience also. I've got my own 'rules' for running adventures.
1. Don't use premade modules or campaigns. Even when players are intentionally trying to stay with the plot, they don't work.
2. Pick a setting and starting location. Let the players make characters suitable for it.
3. Never plan more than an adventure or two ahead. This assumes that players will figure something out, go some place, etc. Don't over invest in case they go elsewhere.
4. Stop making everything "epic" -- it usually doesn't work and often the things they remember as epic or cool are just random things which happen, a normal combat which goes bad and the players happen to pull through by some smart play, etc.
5. Don't adjust encounters to try to force them to be "epic". If the players win (or lose) when not expected, let them. If a silence spell nerfs your bad-ass shaman and the combat is easy, fine... the players won't remember it and some other combat or encounter will be remembered.
6. Ask the players at the end of the session what their characters are going to do (i.e. where are you doing, who are you going to talk to, etc.) and only write up the encounters for the next session based on this.
7. Vary encounters, including difficulty, NPCs, locations, challenges, etc.
8. Don't have plot to start with. Have a setting, idea, and throw enough sh!t at them and see what sticks. Sure, maybe the starting location has them near two countries nearly at war, with political happenings, etc. However, if the players ask in the fighter's guild for work... let them go hunt ogres if they want to do that. Maybe they find something with the ogres or maybe you work in that the ogres have detailed information about guard schedules or something. However, if the players just want to keep doing monster raids... ok, your campaign is now about some semi-famous ogre hunters.
9. Use personal ties to character to introduce plot vs. top-down NPCs, events, etc. If a PCs brother comes and him for help dealing with a local lord over his taxes, it's a better motivator than a notice that the local lord is looking for adventurers. Likewise, maybe the lord is looking for some evil wizard, but it might be better to give one of the PCs a personal reason to care about the wizard... say he's the PCs cousin, or he stole something from the PCs family. Railroading is also a feeling. If the players don't know they are being railroaded, it doesn't matter -- although it is insanely hard to do.
10. Allow your players to help 'railroad' themselves by giving them choices. You could ask the players to give themselves a reason to be on a ship, or ask them to create relatives or friends in a specific city and use these during play.
11. Avoid world sweeping events. Keep it grounded and from the PCs perspective. Yes, maybe there is a war going on, but if the PCs aren't directly getting involved, keep it secondary. Don't suddenly force attacks on them or cities falling to force them to participate in the war if they want to be profiteers or something. Same with massive curses, hordes of dragons, a god being reincarnated, etc. It is hard for players to feel it is "their story" if events would happen without them.
12. Don't be afraid to segment a campaign or even end it. If the players defeat something, it doesn't always need another level of leader to go after. Let that plot arc die. Maybe advance the campaign a few years and have the PCs meet up again. Think a Conan series rather than a Wheel of Time or Lord of the Rings. 5-10 session episodes with their own ends vs. a massive plot taking 50+ sessions.
The best 'campaigns' are often just a replay (in people's minds) of everything the PCs did. Players will make their own highs and lows.
Ran the same adventure for Taverller twice. The first group played it with careful audacity, infiltrated the firebase, and blasted their way out in a blood filled, Where Eagles Dare ending. The second group were blindly bold. Their run ended halfway through the first minefield. It helps to have good players, although you can find amusement in the character deaths of poor ones. Either way they need to make the choices.
the secret to rerunning campaigns is to change them each time you play adding details that you might have flushed out during play, including things that players observed or had a hand in creating to the lore of the world, and expanding lore based on those times the players asked a question the campaign had no immediate answer to. this way each time the campaign is run it becomes more vibrant and alive. but yes u must play it with a new group each time'
The game is what happens at the table.
I’ve run a game a few times that I designed which is a sci fi horror scenario. I know what happened that led to the incident and what can happen based on the PC’s actions. The ironic part is that the characters always triggered their own demise. It happens a little differently each time, but they chose the path that led to inadvertently summoning cosmic horror
Oh my god, is it bad that I find Deathbringer speaks to my inner soul better than anyone I've ever meet?
As a forever GM, I have made a high to low fantasy "noob island." I have 9 issues on the island, 1 to represent a bunch of different things that happens in D&D or what ever ttrpg you like.
I have yet to get a single same outcome.
I have each player roll dice to decide what season of year the game starts, the immediate type of mainland by the island from Port to Port, the main bad dude type (they don't know the outcome of this roll until later) and lastly a roll for what town faction is currently in power.
Then I let them loose on the island.
It's beautiful how they always come out differently.
Thanks for sharing.
When I sit down and plan out the story of a campaign, it's less "this is what *will* happen in this game," and much more "this is what will happen in this game _if the players do nothing_ ." It helps me organize what my villains goals and means are, so when the players come along and start taking axes (or hammers, or spells, etc.) to the villains' plans, I have a strong enough sense of said villains to adapt. If I don't set out a blueprint ahead of time, *I* don't feel like I know enough to run a campaign. But, it is understood (by me, I guess, since I'm the only one who knows the whole thing) that the plan is _meant_ to be broken. (If it isn't, many, _many_ things must have gone tragically wrong.)
Nice vid my man.
Our theater group works with both Shakespeare & Shelly.
#NoRailroading.
I'm currently running the 1E classic series, Desert of Desolation. Having played since 1979, this is the fourth time I've run this adventure, and it's a long one. My current group plays from 7-11 pm on Wednesdays, so with 4-hour sessions weekly I expect this to run 12-15 months at the pace they're going. They started it in January, and they're nearing the end of the 2nd story arc out of 3 (Oasis of the White Palm). So they're about 50-60% done.
My reason for outlining this is that this series of modules has a set path that the players must follow in order to complete it. Railroading? To a degree.
But I give my players enough autonomy that they can quit at any time. They don't have to finish it all the way to the end. They can give up on the quest and escape the desert, heading back to civilization.
But in so doing, they can have repercussions...
>>>>Spoilers
Thanks for sharing.
Weirdly enough, I had a few players drop recently because I wasn't *railroading* enough. Players were in Salzenmund in a Sea of Claws WFRP4E campaign. The group have a basic objective and they can choose anyway to complete it. (They agreed to find some allies for a norscan tribe). Any path was acceptable. They wanna go noble? Go underworld? Leave salzenmund and appeal to the elves or whatever else they could find? Whatever their heart desired. One of my players come to me after the game and throws up his hands. "I am not creative, so I can't really play these sorts of games!"
I thought I provided enough vague direction and my other players enjoyed the session, so maybe it was a one-off situation.
Thank you for sharing, Players are SO weird.
One of my favorite tactics is to write a linear campaign and then watch the players twist it into knots. It adds some entertainment on my part. Some players can see how the story is supposed to go, and then from that knowledge can add some truly fun twists and turns. It does take a bit of getting to know the players, cause some players, when they learn you have a script, are convinced you are going to railroad, or feel obligated to play along. You got to learn who will rebel, who will play along with your script to be nice, and who will take you seriously when you say, "i have a plan, but no plan survives contact with the players, do what you will."
i have tried multiple ways and it seems that the method that does the best is up to what the players want, and not everyone at a table wants the same thing. I have lost my touch accommodating all the different styles, so sadly i am not as good as a GM as i used to be.
Almost everything the Professor says stands true, except one thing.
As a DM I *am* a story teller.
Not all alone, but included in the group with the important role to make it feel real, alive and dynamic.
For every decision made by the players, there are consequences happening behind the scene. In fact, quite often, whenever the players shed light upon a mystery, more questions rise from the consequences of their actions.
It takes an incredible amount of time, but I believe it is worth it, because it leads to unique stories that you couldn't prepare anyone all alone. Not me, not any of my players.
I'm in fact, more of a story teller than my players and once they finish the campaign I might as well present them with a book written from their misadventures. It will be hilarious, they did some things that lead to very unorthodox outcomes. You ever heard of a fiend asking the archfey for help? It's a first time for me too. I genuinely believe if I end up turning their adventures into a book, it's going to be worth reading, even for them.
Might as well bind it into an actual book, one for each of us, it'll be the greatest gift ever.
They can still fail, doing silly things and mishandling the dice.
They can still die, despite the fact I use rules that favour the players, the main characters.
They can still make unexpected decisions, leading to even less expected reactions from the world around them.
They can in fact, write paragraphs of the story in ways I did not prepare for.
The NPCs might be limited to react to the actions of the players, who are main characters of the story, but in the end, I do most of the writing, far more than my players do. Less important things for the scheme of grand things, but in the end, what I do in the background serves as the backbone of the entire story, to make the world believable and feel real to their main characters.
Yes, I am a story teller too and I'm proud of that fact and noone can deny it legitimately.
Great inspiration for me as a newby DM. I'm running my first ever Campaign and on every path my players take, I think of how to guide them without telling them "you have to do this". I prepared a dungeon room full of giant rats (homebrew) and gave them two rats that played bad music. Instead of my planned combat where they chase the players through the dungeon, my players improvised instruments with rope and their weapons and started playing music. They did so bad on their rolls that the rats liked their music and started dancing.
Great advice! In my "matrix" I keep adventure possibilities to one or two lines, with many possible paths in different directions.
Only when I know where the players are actually going and who they incline to work with do I flesh things out.
In our game last week, instead of going to the islands, which I thought was the very obvious next step, they decided to travel to the capital city!
As someone pointed out, Angry GM has a useful framework. My players have one and quite a bit around two for sure, but there are definitely rails around three. In part because it has to be a game I'm interested in DMing, but also just for the practical reality that I have limited time to prep for each session and certain directions may not be realistic.
If they wanted to find an ancient tech in a cave and go to space I would roll w that, because I have the interest, resources and tools to do so. But if they wanted to use magic to become happy woodland creatures, I'd gave them the hard no because that's not interesting to me at all.
Omg I love this bit of advice. I hope EVERYONE playing TTRPGs sees this. Nothing I hate more than a railroading dm and if I get the sense that I’m being rail roared I just can’t help but start testing the rails to see if I actually have agency or if the GM is going to just start putting road blocks in my way any time I start to deviate. If I want guard rails, I’ll go play a CRPG on my computer or play an FPS or something.
"You come to a path marked with a trail made of metal. Atop the trail rides a horseless carriage."
"So, a railroad?"
"Yes."
""I hop on the train."
"After you hop onto the carriage, it picks up speed to the point where it would be unsafe to hop off again. It carries you all night."
"Cool!"
"In the morning, you find yourself at an enclosed village that borders an enclosed dungeon."
"I love my choices!"
when we were young and having babies, a friendly couple of mine were due in July. I joked they could call their kid Julius Caesar, my mate retorted they could call the child July Caesarean.
Got a poll for yall. Would you/your DM approve this magic item concept?
Masterful Halfplate +2, provides a +2 bonus to AC and Proficiency Bonus. Armor once owned by a renowned swordmaster sorta fluff story.
No additional powers as the Prof Bonus gives so many characters extra uses of certain abilities or higher DCs to resist their powers and lots of generally improved ability checks. It would really constitute just making a character a bit better at most things they already do, and isn't so focused on one thing it overpowers certain characters.
Its a suit that would make almost anyone consider getting a feat just to accommodate wearing it, or avoid the stealth disadvantage for wearing it, thus "consuming" a very valuable resource from many potential wearers.
The female warriors replacing MacDuff present a perfect opportunity to do the Eowyn “I am no man.” line.
i may not know what my players will do next session, but i can prepare the whole world and than i just put the actions of my players in the equation and voila i can react adequatly to there action, whichever it is.
I'm running COS now and really only have to plan one or two sessions in advance. I like the sandbox nature of COS but have been modifying it to increase the drama of the sessions. As a GM I throw problems at my players and allow them to solve them in many different ways. The party could decide to avoid the problem all together, but that choice won't grant as many rewards as resolving the problem. I grant inspiration if the player deals with the problem in a way that befits the character they are playing. As a GM I think you should put pressure on the party to move towards specific goals (carrot and stick). But this is not the same as railroading. One of the ways I do this is to give the monsters and NPC's agency to make deals and try to persuade or coerce the players towards specific encounters or areas of the map. This way I can foreshadow, build drama and hopefully create a stage for heroic action. Once that encounter is resolved, I plane for a few diverging hooks or quest lines, but I still allow the party to explore and possibly get into hot water if they don't take my bait. I believe this falls into the matrix style discussed in the video. I think this is also where experience as a game master really helps. I'm still learning and trying to hone in on what makes the campaign fun...
I think game masters are story tellers to a point. We just don't know how the story is going to end, or the order in which the chapters are laid out. That's for the players to decide.
Choose your own adventure.
With "your" in its plural sense.
No one is a story *teller* at a TTRPG table. Everyone is a story *discoverer.* A series of events--such as the events in an RPG campaign--aren't a story; they are a chronology. They don't become a *story* until they get recounted after the fact--and that's wonderful! RPG adventures become *stories* when the people who experienced them reminisce about them together, or tell them to people who weren't there. Will they recount the events factually? Almost certainly not--they will tell them as a story, highlighting the humor, the suspense, the defeats and the victories, and downplaying all the boring bits in between. My point is, it's not a story as it happens; it only becomes a story if what happens is worth remembering and retelling.
My worst decision as a GM with thirty five years of experience:: saving two player characters by changing the outcome of the dices. We are at the end of an important chapter of a famous Coc campaign. Climax battle. the only female character in the group became a real witch. On the verge of killing the big bad, she succumbs to her madness and turns against the other members of the group. She sucks with guns.
But she shoots twice at two different characters. She lands two critical hits with double damage. It's Call of Cthulhu man : they're dead. I have to make a decision quickly and I give the characters a chance: throw themselves to the ground and avoid death. Bottom line: everyone knew I was changing what the dice had decided. And what could have been a memorable and sharp ending turned into a banal ending. We all respect the player's, but yeah : you have to respect the dice !
A character killing the other characters is the most Cthulhu thing ever.
My first homebrew was a railroad, but with a first-time DM and new players, it still ended OK. Some of the best advice I have gotten is to plan what the enemy would do if the PCs did not exist. Each session is either the enemy reacting to the PC choices or going about their nefarious plan. This video was good encouragement for how the players can make their own plan and still fit into the broad scheme of the DM's prep.
Well researched twisted sisters predictions lead to Macbeth s undoing. Excellent educational way to use role playing games 👍. You are Professor DM keep educating and keep rolling 20 🐉🐉🐉👍
Back in the early 90s my campaign went that same way. One of the things I learned was keep a rough idea of points on a map but detail a few local hexes. That way I can adjust or full out change spots when needed as the player's choices expanded their area.
As for the joke DB; throw it to the dogs, we'll have none of it.
LOL
My players know that whatever they do, or don't do, the world keeps moving, and that is bad for their health whatever way. :)
Though this PDM wisdom has been said many times, this video might be the best summary of that wisdom.
My campaign design is similar to yours. I have a basic plot outline with 3 to 5 bullit points. It rarely takes up more than 1 sheet of paper. I also do similar for each player character. So let's of choices to be made for the games. I put out hooks for all of the above and they obviously can go in all directions at once. So the end game is what they are working towards. How they get there and who connects to who and how is all the difference. I can use the main plot in another game with different players and different characters and it would not even be similar to the previous story played out. The beginning and the end would have similar themes but thats about it. Sure some planned encounters would be started in a similar way but their decisions could be wildly different. The end game is also similar but what the players do and how they do it changes things in my homebrew world and time.moves forward. Then I write the next campaign
Thanks for sharing. Nice.
It is not automatically the case that removing the possibility of PC death means the players are going to win. In the game Paranoia, the PCs are clones, and if a PC dies, a new clone is activated, with the latest memory snapshot uploaded to the new clone (usually the events leading up to the start of whatever fight killed them). The reason for the clone contrivance is so the players don't have to spend time on the mechanics of _another new character_ and the overall plot doesn't unravel from a TPK leaving no one in the group aware of what's going on. But that does not mean the group (players or PCs) will win.
In fact, the opposite is easily true: because killing a PC doesn't lead to significant _player_ downtime, they can go on meat-grinder missions where the NPC child they are supposed to protect (who _isn't_ a clone) gets killed, the treasure gets taken by a rival group, the asset they were to exfiltrate falls, and so on. As long as the goal of the group is more than "personal survival", victory is not automatic just by ensuring personal survival.
Of course, if you start from a game like D&D, where the PCs are incredibly sturdy by default, and then you layer plot armor on the PCs, making the game still have meaningful stakes is not going to be easy.
Thanks for commenting.
I believe that the first time I read about matrix design was in the AD&D 2e blue leatherette "Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide". Great video, as usual!
you earned my like and respect between 3 minutes and 20 seconds to 24 seconds. that said, there is a way to make a campaign that does not involve railroading.
Non-linear adventures are definitely best, but also hardest to write. I am really proud of my latest dungeon, "the Red Cloud" as it is extremely disjointed and the PCs can take many roads, which inevitably alienate the opposing PCs.
Summary: A merchant releases the disease the Red Cloud to kill rivals and create sickness as he also has the cure which he will sell to the highest bidder. Red Cloud is so named because the infected person sprays a fine mist of blood from their mouth with every cough for their last agonizing hours. During the investigation, it is likely the PCs will be exposed to the plague, becoming infected. The players are on a mission to uncover the cause of the villagers’ deaths, discover the existence of the Tears of Ehlonna and decide whose side they are on. The factions in the town have conflicting goals of spreading the disease, curing the disease, and profiting from the disease and the players must decide who to side with and, consequently, who they will alienate.
I have an overlying plot that moves along with or without the players, and then dangle a bunch of strings in front of them to see which ones they tug on. My job is to tie the strings together as fast as they pull them.
Good advice.
This is the absolute best advice for any DM, old or new.
You’re not a screenwriter, director, or author.
Your job is to create the challenges & make decisions on the fly to flesh things out.
All important conflicts are resolved by the dice & the players. No fudging.
Whether to put your fingers on the scales as a GM is a good question. You may disagree, but sometimes I find that I simply did not plan an encounter well enough to entertain my players. Either because it is too easy or may result in a TPK. In this case I Improvise to tailor things to create drama and difficulty or allow for a expeditious retreat. That said I don't screw with the dice rolls.
I don’t think the issue is so much taking away player agency as much as telling them they have agency and then not honoring their choices. There have been times when the best option for the sake of the story and the player’s enjoyment is just to say “hey, guys, it’s really important that you go here and do this thing next”. This should be done sparingly, of course, but every time I’ve done it my players have said “ok!” and ran with it. Just be up front about it and don’t try to manipulate them.
I like this video. I have told my players that I create conditions in which it is possible for them to succeed or fail and to live or die. One player who is also a GM told me he doesn’t want to play a game where there’s no risk because that means there’s no fun.
I agree.
Rather than "closed matrix", I would suggest "sandbox with walls". For example, "the events played at the table will stay in the city of Lankhmar." A character who leaves the city is "off screen", basically "retired" until they return). There should not be pre-planned events or plot points, like a particular final boss fight. In a sandbox with walls, the players are free to (attempt to) do or build whatever they want, which will interact with the goals of NPCs & factions and existing conflicts you have created.
To me a closed matrix is still railroading with sidetracks. Players can catch on that their choice of sidetrack doesn't really matter, since you are still forcing certain intermediate stops and a final destinations.
Death due to bad dice rolls is not a particularly fun or satisfying experience for many players. That's why many story-focused groups take it off the table as something that can happen randomly (or worse, because the GM has an agenda and is using the rules to ensure players stay on a particular path).
Yes, you are guaranteed to live through whatever you are attempting to accomplish. But that doesn't mean you'll come out unscathed. Your character might come out of a battle with terrible injuries, missing limbs or psychological scars. They might lose a loved one or have an essential item taken. Or, they might be put in a situation where they must choose between sacrificing their life and achieving their goal. Any of those outcomes offer much more interesting roleplaying opportunities than just "Bad luck. You're dead".
In games where death is a choice, conflicts focus on what your character is prepared to do and what they are willing to lose to achieve their goals. Every dramatic or dangerous situation becomes an interesting question, where you decide whether your character will bow out or keep raising the stakes until they have to put everything on the line.
You still get those moments of tension, where a single dice roll determines whether you live or die, but they're chosen moments with high stakes. They're made all the more impactful because of it.
That's not to say you can't have similar moments in games where you do allow random death, it's just that tend to happen less often because it's challenging to focus on those elements of the game when you're also trying to play in a manner that minimises risk to your character.
lol @ "Out, out, damned Spot!" 🤣