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Originally Posted by Voord 99
I think this is very much a YMMV situation.
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Of course! That's why I'm trying to make it clear that my opinion is my opinion, not The Absolute Truth About The Universe And Everything Else
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(I also presume everybody on MW is intelligent enough to know that).
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There’s an element of “illusionism” to all GMing: even if you improvise a location, you’re likely to do so from bits and pieces of ideas that you already had in your head, and chances are some of that will be stuff that you would have ended up using somewhere else at some point.
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I'd disagree here. If you write down a location, you'll still do that from bits and pieces of things that were in your head already. The only difference is when you accessed those bits and pieces
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And frankly, if everything that's not using material prepared by someone else is illusionism, that makes the term basically meaningless.
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Where I personally fall on the spectrum is that I do feel that, if I offer players a choice, it should affect things. No two paths with exactly the same encounter on both. This is what makes it an exercise in collaborative storytelling for me: the player’s decisions affect my decisions which affect their decisions in a nice and hopefully enjoyable feedback loop.
On the other hand, if I come up with a good idea for something that they end up not encountering because they took the other path, it’s fine to adapt that idea later on for further use in a different situation.
Adapt, though: the problem with moving the whole dungeon is that if a big complex entity that exists in a particular context can be moved easily without needing a fair amount of revision, then there’s cause to worry that it may (may!) not have been a convincing part of a coherent world.
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Agreed.
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Railroading is bad, but it exists because we want to tell stories, and stories have structure to them. The goal is to have flexibility in the structure of the story and remember that the GM is not the only person telling it, but that doesn’t mean that there should be no structure at all.
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Yes, but here's the thing:
I'm not here to tell stories. I'm here to play RPGs, thank you very much!
That means I'm here to roleplay a character. Or, more rarely, I'm here to present the players a world that they can interact with via their characters.
That's it! Either way, I'm here to play and find out what happens when PCs mix with NPCs and setting.
Also, please don't tell me that a story requires a
given structure. That's like saying that when we have the components of a trope, we have to follow the trope.
No, we don't have to, because tropes can be played straight, or subverted, or averted outright.
Same thing with story structures. There's more than one to any story. (For a simple example, consider A Song of Ice and Fire-Martin has subverted so many traditional narratives already, I frankly lost count).
When railroading happens, it's not because the Story requires it. It's because the GM has decided so. That's not wrong, as long as the players are on board - but please, if you intend to do that, just let us know in advance (preferably during recruitment, but I can understand)...and own up to it!
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Originally Posted by The Beefmaster
This is a great point, and I think the difference between "railroading" and "flexible structure" comes down to how you prepare your narrative as a DM.
Coming up with an awesome story that you want your PC's to experience often leads to the railroading you're talking about. The players lose their agency as a sacrifice to your story because the campaign ends up playing like a book.
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Here's the thing:
If I want to read a book, I'm going to read a book, not open MW (in fact, a book is waiting for me, and I should pay it due attention ASAP after I finish this post). Why?
A) I don't need to wait for days to turn the next page
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B) I don't need to type out roughly 10% to 20% of it.
C) If I type 10 to 20% of it (as fan fiction), I can actually change things that matter.
And if the above isn't enough, then:
D) Most GMs that pull out this argument overestimate their writing abilities.
As an addendum to that...
E) I've played with published writers doing this...and it still didn't work for them. (I've also played with a different published author that wasn't doing that, and his games were very successful. My Refereeing style also owns him a lot).
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In contrast, a DM that wants to have a narrative structure while keeping it open for the players should prepare by fleshing out the major actors in the story as much as possible. What is the main bad guy's motivation/ambitions/fears/backup plans/ace in the hole, etc.? What does the local guard think of the bad guy? Will they try to arrest the players for interfering in his plans because they've been paid off, or will they join the players in their struggle? What do neighboring towns/cities/countries think of the conflict going on where your players are messing around?
If you flesh out your major NPCs enough, then you can deal with (pretty much) anything the players do because you can always ask, "how would X react to what they just did?" That way, even if the players waiver from the general narrative path you have planned, the NPC's will naturally "force" them back on track for reasons that make sense in context.
AND those moments give your players a feeling of exhilaration (and possibly dread) when they realize that their actions have meaningful consequences in the world, which in turn will usually get them to participate in the world more and more, enriching the game.
At the end of the day, you can B.S. and improv your way out of anything if you have your characters fleshed out. It makes things a lot smoother, more fun, and more immersive.
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That, however, is (almost) true!
And it also means you don't need to have "a planned narrative path", so there's nothing to
force them "back" to.