What is your general design philosphy when working on your campaigns?

Such as?

When the players make a bad decision in regards to a powerful NPC, have an encounter where they will learn that the NPC is very powerful and now they are on its shit-list, instead of going with a TPK that would have more reasonabily occurred -and that will happen in the future if the PCs stop being careful from now on.

Another situation is when the players are exceedingly dim and can't get hooked with subtle clues and a more direct approach is needed for them to get the message that a strong criminal is indeed strong and they need more preparation to beat them.

Making my players suffer

SEX.

See, the only things of any importance to people are sex and violence. When a game revolved around sex, it's not actually about fucking: It's about the temptation. Is this female NPC attractive enough? Will the PCs want to fuck her? Is someone getting fucked, RIGHT NOW?

Was the waifu inside you all along?

>Was the waifu inside you all along?
Sounds kinda gay, man

>Think who are my players
>Think what they nominally play
>Think what they want to get out of it
>Realize I'm stuck with morons, powergamers and paranoid freaks
>Get depressed
>Kitbash campaign while cooking dinner for them when they are already driving for a game to me
>Nobody notices nor cares

Rolling dice makes people happy.

Literally neither of those situations has to do with quantum ogres... they're just plain old railroading. Still bad, obviously, but not quite quantum ogre bad. What's your quantum ogre justification?

>Sounds kinda gay, man

>He doesn't split off a portion of his own soul to create his own waifu that doubles as a phylactery.

Make the characters suffer. The more unfair, the better. Life isn't fair in the first place, so I'm being simulationist, and the worse the characters have things before their victory (assuming they've earned it), be better it'll feel.

I've never had so much fun GMing since I was John Wicks GMing book.

>Dubs checked
Fun should be a reward for good play, not an entitlement. Play Candy Land if you want to have fun.

Walking the thin line between being challenging and TPK.

There's a difference between railroading and making your players wander in the outback for five sessions because they weren't interested in the questhooks you prepared and artfully dodged all possible encounters by just, You know, not going where they were supposed to happen.

Good observation. What prompted you to make it?

>The world is a fantasy novel
>I have not pre-written the fantasy novel and don't know where it's going any more than the players... well maybe a little more than the players, but not by much.
>The PC's are the protagonists
>Only pre-define enough details to keep the story moving, leaving everything else in a quantum wave state to be collapsed when the reader/camera/PC's focus on it
>Have enough non-quantum-wave-state bits floating around there that the players MUST assume everything is pre-defined, even if it isn't... keeps them on their toes
>Character actions have consequences
>Character death is a boring consequence for unimaginative DM's

>Sticking to the themes is more important than sticking to a single story
>Maintain the consistency of the setting
>It's the GM's job to get the ball rolling, it's everyone at the table's job to determine where it ends up
>Tailor the game to capitalize on the PCs strengths and weaknesses
>Always say "yes, and..." or "no, but..."
>Think several sessions ahead, but never plan more than one session ahead
>Encourage suggestions from the players
>Every session is either an episode of a TV show or a chapter of a book

DIE-DIE PLAYERTHING!

>Create a living but player-centric (or at least player friendly) world. Things happen whether or not the PCs interact with it and NPCs have their own agendas, but ultimately anything and everything can change based on player input

>Don't lead players by the nose, but don't be afraid to be an active participant. You're not telling a story, but neither are they. You're all making a story together

>On that note, railroads and sandboxes both suck in their pure forms. Give them a hook and a goal, but let them get there how they want

>plan in broad strokes, and always be able to adapt

>The players never see behind the curtain, so feel free to bullshit if you can bullshit well

>Try to get player feedback and incorporate things they want or character backstory. Let them make part of the world and they'll be a lot more invested in it

Start with ideas I'm interested in pursuing. Adapt them to be playable and worthwhile for the rest of the group. Find a reasonable way to link the separate ideas to each other.

You my nigga. Although quantum ogre is a shitty and overblown meme in my opinion. There's no observable difference between agency and feeling of agency.

Start with what kind of gameplay incentives I can draw from a general setting idea. So for a colonial frontier setting, I drew up the ideas of artifact hunting, monster hunting, trade and maps as a gameplay element. Then for say towns, try and think about stuff like if players want information, healing, goods, hirelings, etc. Add onto this a layer of factions, various hooks, encounters, etc. Start it off with a strong hook or en media res to avoid the whole boring "We're just aimlessly wandering around." part of a sandbox. Half of running a campaign is knowing what to add to it inbetween sessions to match what the players are interested in.

Preserving illusion of choice, while keeping my magical realm firmly in my pants and off the table.

Hey, they won't know there was only one outcome if I don't tell them, right?

>How much can I make my players panic even if I know they're going to win?

>random tables
I pretty much got a fetish for it, i love tables, u use sequences of tables for everything, i got literally two handbooks full of handmade tables. They just make the sessions more fun for me as they select npcs and generate personalities kind of randomly.

>has never actually GMed

>it's either no one dies, or everyone manages to get knocked out and thus get TPK'd
>always give the players an intuition-based warning if they approach a real chance of PC death
>design and narrate monsters and other creatures as a natural part of the world that act on fear, anger and other emotions and instincts
>the setting is much more based around a concept that plays a major part, such as the superdungeon or the village that leads to infinite worlds
>even if the actual accessablity of the world increases in a lineal manner, i always advocate player freedom
>the setting's concept mentioned above is always the major plot that i explicitly want the players to follow and in some way make part of their character

>Fuck players I can always find more
>Show them that they are nothing in the greater scheme of things by having more powerful NPCs slap them around
>Any female player is getting raped because that is the only roleplaying women seem to enjoy
>If you play anything other than a human or dwarf you are gonna have a bad time
>Don't like it, go find another GM faggot

Oh, and if you don't use a coaster you're out.

Probably the fact that he knows that quantum ogres are a way to stall for time rather than railroading the players.

You sarcastic little thing you, you forgot your meme face
:^)

>sandbox
Look at this faggot

I bet you say that your NPCs are interesting, but in reality you're just letting the PCs interact with each other and you are not giving them anything to work towards or to do, just random encounters in the wild.

You're worse than videogame RPGs

Ugh fucking shitlord

Put easy solutions in front of them, but give them the means to pull off more difficult/less obvious solutions.

Oh and avoid using countdown timers that are shorter than, say, a month.

Let me fill your empty womb with my thick manbatter you nasty little fuck puppet

>shitlord
Go back to Tumblr.

>just looked up quantum ogre because never heard that term in my 8 years of play
>its just inane bitching from metagaming faggots

Why am I not surprised?

Sounds gay

ikr?

Man, it's not even bad railroading. Sure they fight the ogre regardless, doesn't mean that their choices don't matter. They just need to fight the ogre.

Whenever I tell shit tier GM's about my gming style they always say I don't actually GM. Presumably because they are intimidated at the thought of a GM who actually puts care and effort into a game, doesn't railroad , creates an actual open world to explore , doesn't force a story and lets the players carve their own path while also sprinkling in interesting hooks and networks of NPC's with goals, where everything the players do has real consequences.

Really makes you think how awful most games are and how lazy most GM's are.

>>Never railroad
>>Freeform, sandbox
Great if you're using the terms right.

>>Never try to tell my story
Not telling "your" story is good.
Never crafting "a story" from your players' actions is going too far.

>>Never fudge dice
Not for everyone.
Sometimes you need to fudge to save the fun, sometimes it's best to fudge the dice as a last resort to fix a problem.

>>Never quantum ogre
The options are:
>Directing your players to the in-depth adventure prepared
Or
>Never running an in-depth adventure
There is nothing wrong with a Quantum Ogre.
If the Players are making a choice without knowing about the ogre, there is no loss of agency and if it's an informed choice, then it's not a proper Quantum Ogre.

But ultimately, it's entirely up to you to ignore tools at your disposal.
You seem to have a healthy approach, overall.

>a GM who actually puts care and effort into a game
>>Lots of cool random tables to springboard ideas from
Heh, right.
I've seen your type of game and it usually ends up feeling utterly meaningless.
I get that you are probably crafting a great living world for the players to mill about in, but you should acknowledge that leaving all meaning and direction in the hands of a group of various people only works with certain kinds of players.

>Really makes you think how awful most games are and how lazy most GM's are.
>I work harder and am therefore superior to most GMs and my method of GMing is the only valid one.
Yeah, it really makes one think.
Settle down maestro.

>There can be situations where quantum ogres are beneficial and not rail-roady in the least.
>Such as?
Gently guiding your players to the prepared adventure without overriding or negating their choices, rather than abandoning the detailed and tailored adventure in favor of random improvisation.

Open world, not that hard to think of customs and stuff like that if you are a nerd history buff. I never make it where there is only one way to deal with a big bad evil. One campaign the party decided to make alias and join the big bads gang of goons and destroy their organization from the inside by turning the goons against each other. If I remember correctly they were also recruited into the big bads internal affairs group and were tasked with finding traitors in the ranks

>Quantum Ogres r bad mmmkay?
Here, you need this

>For example, suppose you have an important NPC in your dungeon
Okay

>You know this NPC will play an important role in the next encounter
What? No, I shouldn't "know" this. If the players find a cool NPC and decide to take them to the next encounter, sure, but under no circumstances should I be planning a game so inflexible where I need the players to have a specific NPC with them in order to orchestrate the "cool scene" I had in my head between that NPC and whatever the encounter is. If my players miss the NPC, the encounter happens without his help.

>chekhov's gun meme
Stop. D&D isn't a play or a book, it operates under different rules. If player agency as simple as 'choosing which door to go through' runs the risk of breaking your sessions you are doing something VERY wrong.

Why do you force your players to make a decision when you know all decisions will have the same outcome? If you're going to pull a quantum ogre, just don't give the players a choice at all. Then it's not a quantum ogre anymore.

>Sure their choices don't matter, doesn't mean their choices don't matter. Their choices just don't matter.

>should I be planning a game so inflexible where I need the players to have a specific NPC with them in order to orchestrate the "cool scene"
Maybe you need the NPC as a scape goat to show off what the villain is able to do in order to set the appropriate tone, instead?

It is not limited, like your imagination, to an NPC joining the party to help them overcome an encounter.

Throw in lots of shit, see what they latch onto, go from there. Right now, thats "realm building from minor baron"

Accusing that user of being unimaginative doesn't fix the fact that your sessions are so fragile that you need to negate player agency to preserve them. If you're such a creative powerhouse, why don't you just find a way for the villain to demonstrate their power that doesn't trample on player agency?

Having an NPC join the party for a few sessions and getting the group to care for them, however slightly, before using them to take the fall against the villain and give them all the more reason to hate the villain and defeat them utterly.

It's a connection that can't be done with a random NPC that the villain has killed and to which the party has no relation to.

Sandbox relies heavily on the GM preparing tables of random encounters for the players so that they can defeat foe after foe after foe. How is that better than a well told story, starring the player characters? You may think you are oh so much better than the plebs who like a good story, but in the end you're the one who likes to play Minecraft against another group who likes to watch Lord of the Rings or read Harry Potter, who actually has a story.

>Having an NPC join the party for a few sessions and getting the group to care for them, however slightly, before using them to take the fall against the villain and give them all the more reason to hate the villain and defeat them utterly.
Oh you like inserting DMPCs too, explains a lot

>It's a connection that can't be done with a random NPC that the villain has killed and to which the party has no relation to.
Sounds like you're having some trouble imagining alternatives. So much for your boundless creativity, huh?

>Sandbox relies heavily on the GM preparing tables of random encounters for the players so that they can defeat foe after foe after foe. How is that better than a well told story, starring the player characters? You may think you are oh so much better than the plebs who like a good story, but in the end you're the one who likes to play Minecraft against another group who likes to watch Lord of the Rings or read Harry Potter, who actually has a story.
I like that strawman argument you built, brother.
>implying player agency necessitates random tables
>implying player agency necessitates monster of the week gameplay
>implying player agency necessitates lack of story
>implying player agency necessitates lack of direction
Fuck off and learn how to GM

>Never railroad
>Freeform, sandbox
>create multiple unique areas with their own unique ecologies to explore.

You forgot
>Despair as players ignore it all and complain they don't know what to do.

I'm not bitter.
I'm super bitter

As quicknexperiment: at what point has the DM "railroaded" the players?

>There is a dungeon out west called the Temple of Lament. If the players come across it, they can explore it.
>There is a dungeon out west called the Temple of Lament. The party overhears rumors about it in town, and can investigate at their leisure.
>There is a dungeon out west called the Temple of Lament. The porter says his son went missing while exploring rumors surrounding it, and offers payment to explore it.
>There is a dungeon out west called the Temple of Lament. The GM had intended an important item the players are looking for be somewhere else, itially, but quietly shuffles their notes so that it's here instead because they've wanted to run this dungeon for a while
>There is a dungeon out west called the Temple of Lament. The town keeps getting attacked by cultists that operate out of it, and these attacks will continue until someone follows up on them.
>There is a dungeon out west called the Temple of Lament. The players are going eastwards. The GM renames it and moves it to the eastern end of the map so the players are more likely to encounter it.
>There is a dungeon out somewhere called the Temple of Lament. The GM has decided the players will stumble across it the next time they travel through uncharted territory.
>There is a dungeon out west called the Temple of Lament. A recurring antagonist is hiding out there, and is immune to spells cast outside of it. You'll need to venture its depths to defeat him!
>There is a dungeon out west called the Temple of Lament. The cult of the apocalypse is performing their doomsday rite here, and if you don't go here to stop them the world will end
>A gnome jumps out while you're on the road and shouts a magic word. Suddenly, your party finds itself in the Temple of Lament!

1 is fine assuming you're running the type of campaign that supports that kind of thing
2 is good
3 is good
4 is fine if the PCs had never encountered the Temple of Lament, shit if they encountered the Temple of Lament and just decided not to do it for some reason. especially if the reason still exists.
5 is good
6 is questionable for the same reason as 4
7 is good
8 is good as long as the players take the bait of their own volition
9 is good
10 is complete lolrandum garbage but it's not railroading unless the players had previously declined to enter the Temple of Lament

It's only railroading if you negate player agency. Providing a plot hook is not railroading.

>having no nuance

Let me put this in a way even (You) can understand.

When was the last time you read a Good, popular story on Veeky Forums about a "sandbox" game?

This guy is right you know?

Well a player wouldn't know it's open world, and what GM brags about a cool thing players "stumbled across" if it's an ass-pull due to open world?

>If you're going to pull a quantum ogre, just don't give the players a choice at all. Then it's not a quantum ogre anymore.
First, I'd like to point out that the above only makes sense if you start out with "not having a Quantum Ogre" as a more desirable outcome than having an illusion of choice.

>Why do you force your players to make a decision when you know all decisions will have the same outcome?
I permit, not force, my players to choose the actions their characters take.
If one of their choices would move their path away from the prepared adventure, I move the landscape around, behind the scenes, to present the adventure in their path.

You seem like you're getting hung up on the dumb ogre example.
The idea is not necessarily to present the players with a choice, like "taking the left path or the right path", and then ignore their choice to do what you want.
Many times it's just about slipping the adventure under their feet as they walk.

But sometimes the illusion of choice can add perceived depth, and perception is 99% of reality.

Here's an example:
>Five PCs are in a vast room filled with 2,357 identical magic doors. Each door opens into a different, random magical room with random wondrous contents. Each PC can only open one door. Once each PC has opened a door, they can leave the vast room and no more of the doors will ever open.
How many magical rooms do you need to prepare the contents of?

>Sounds like you're having some trouble imagining alternatives. So much for your boundless creativity, huh?
>Thinks himself the superior gamer
>his brain can't differentiate between a DMPC and an NPC
Not a big surprise, really

>It's only railroading if you negate player agency. Providing a plot hook is not railroading.

Makes me wonder, because I've heard CoC and certain investigative horror games being described as 'railroady' because PCs either need to find a series of clues before they advance, and/or because the ability just to up and leave is taken from them (ie being isolated ala The Thing)

So I mean...it makes me wonder if my idea of railroad has either been wrong all along, or has changed.

It would have been simpler if you didn't reply.

There are many examples on linear games that are good, as opposed to "free player agency" """sandbox"""" games. I can name a few if you want.

Well done, both of you.

From GM perspective or Player? Cause a player describing a cool thing has no clue if it's linear or not, REALLY. And a GM explaining the PCs following their narrative specifically is just jerking your uninmaginative self off.

>No, I shouldn't "know" this.
This is correct.

>Sandbox relies heavily on the GM preparing tables of random encounters for the players so that they can defeat foe after foe after foe.
Not necessarily, Assumption McGee.

All that said,
>>implying player agency
>>implying player agency
>>implying player agency
>>implying player agency
Every bit of that was implying, with albeit questionable accuracy, about sandbox games, not player agency.
Fuck off and learn how to read.
Or are you so delusional that you consider the two synonymous?

>CoC and certain investigative horror games being described as 'railroady' because PCs either need to find a series of clues before they advance
It can lend itself towards a more linear game and it's certainly easier to fall into railroading habits, because most players aren't real investigators and need clues/tracks to follow.
But it can vary widely, due to the GM.

>because the ability just to up and leave is taken from them
That's just accepting the premise of the game.
There was a story recently in a thread about a game of CoC where the players all decided to ignore the mystery and fuck off to Miami instead.
You don't take a vow of poverty when playing Monopoly.
You don't play an investigation game and play a character actively disinterested in investigating.
Having them isolated opens up the character options to those investigating reluctantly, like Shaggy and Scooby.

The 'sandbox' nature of the game always fades into the background of a good story. Doesn't mean it's not important to the way the story plays out.

You're playing word games and pretending it changes the fact that you're railroading your players. I get there's no such thing as badwrongfun, but are your players aware of and ok with the idea that you're presenting them with the 'illusion of choice?' Like they're playing a choose-your-own-adventure game on their computer?

>Every bit of that was implying, with albeit questionable accuracy, about sandbox games, not player agency.
Sandbox games hadn't entered our discussion up to that point. It's clear he was trying to attack my advocacy of player agency by attacking sandbox games. I pointed out how ridiculous that is. Regardless, player agency does necessitate some level of sandbox.

>You're playing word games
No I'm not.
I'm speaking plainly about a concept you clearly don't understand.

>you're railroading your players
No I'm not.
Railroading is a concept you clearly don't understand.

>are your players aware of and ok with the idea that you're presenting them with the 'illusion of choice?'
That would defeat the entire purpose.
You would know that if this weren't a concept you clearly don't understand.

>OBVIOUSLY you just cant understand my superior way of playing games you PLEB
Not an argument, and quit being dishonest with your players.

>I can't understand concepts so I'll pretend the poster I'm responding to in any way expressed that their method of GMing was Superior! In greentext! Haha!
Deflection is not an argument, and quit being dishonest with yourself.

>It's clear he was trying to attack my advocacy of player agency by attacking sandbox games.
And you defended yourself sloppily, which is what I was pointing out.

>player agency does necessitate some level of sandbox.
That's like saying that the GM providing plot is railroading.
It's only true if you stretch the term to near uselessness.
They aren't synonymous, by the way.

What is most important is the experience and what I can make for the players.
I always state my intended tone before the game begins, and I strive to fulfill that goal.
What I think a lot of GMs forget is that crafting a good campaign is artifice: you must MAKE it great, often by your efforts behind the scenes to compared to the players. That is why I have no problems fudging dice or using quantum ogre; the only people who know that shit is the GM, and it's the players' experience that is actually important, not how trve your game is. More important is making sure the players are rewarded for forging their own path and ideas.

I try to flesh out the world in my campaigns, leave a bunch of plothooks, and then script out on a game by game basis what happens next based on what the players do during the game.

There are discrete "arcs" to the story, generally prompted by whatever characters are in the area and which player is associated with those arcs.

Player agency is good and all, but luckily players are simple puzzles in terms of what they want, so it's possible to have a mostly scripted story as long as everyone is interacting with it.

These two sum it up perfectly. Never change, Veeky Forums

"They're going to get a phenomenal happy ending. But good Lord it's going to get fucking bleak on the way there."

>Never try to tell my story
Are you at least trying to tell a story at all? One worth retelling later, that your players would even feel good about?
>inb4 you send out an ultra badass monster
>players kill it in a few rolls because of shit resistance roll on the monster's part
>players are bummed because everything pointed to the monster being a badass who would probably have provided a great challenge to them
>b-but WAIT there's more! The monster was just a servant to an even bigger th-
>>Never quantum ogre
>nevermind, you killed the monster, nothing else happens
>players are still feeling blueballed by that encounter

>create multiple unique areas with their own unique ecologies to explore.
Okay. Now why should the players care about your speshul snowflake areas?

That said, combat doesn't have weight if they can't die.

My negro

>again provides literally no argument whatsoever to support his original point
Why are you even responding?

1.) Create broad outline of a story (i.e. plot hook, 2-3 likely outcomes from accepting and acting on the plot-hook, and the finale of the story)

2.) Flesh-out the plot hook as it will be the part of the story least affected by player choice due to it being hard to make choices to change something that is usually the fallout from something bigger.

3.) Following the first session and acceptance of the hook it is now time to revise the remaining parts of campaign to reflect any significant changes that would have occurred due to the actions of the PCs. Alternatively if the plot hook was rejected or the plot was somehow resolved by the players in one session it is now time to make another plot hook.

4.) Just keep the game going and revise where necessary due to PC choices while integrating any good world building suggestions the players come-up with.

5.) Make sure to get feedback from the players after every session. If they do not find the game compelling I need to change that quickly.

More or less how I run things. Railroading sucks but paving the road as you go is perfect. Good thread OP.

Give them situations where winning seems like it would bring about some unwanted side effects (i.e. fighting some well dressed asshole who decided to beat on the mage a bit for kicks and giggles but once your party overwhelms him and his entourage he cries out that his father is some mid-level noble and the party will pay for what they've done). That example I gave could lead to some interesting places whether that be an uphill battle of courtly intrigue or going underground due to murdering the noble's son and disposing of the body will be up to the players.

tl;dr: Players and their characters are susceptible to making bad choices due to poor/incomplete info. make this lack of solid info. cause them panic.

>support his original point
Original point was argued against with nonsense deflection:
>You're playing word games and pretending it changes the fact that you're railroading your players.
This nonsense deflection was denied here:
The nonsense deflection needs supporting or another argument needs to raised.

Ball ain't in my court, champ.

>tfw I only ever run one shots because of schedules and the fact that I mostly play with friends from my hometown and not at uni.

In a pre-session when making characters I see what kind of game they wanna play.
Typically (but not always), players being players, they'll have no original idea in their collective brain mass and I'll need to present a few ideas I've come up with.
They'll choose one, then create characters that work within/add more to that setting.
Afterwords I get to work creating the session, often involving the creation of several homebrew monsters, magic items, and the occasional megazord rules system.

General philosophy of the session creation process is:
>do the players want it?
>do I want it?
>because you're running a one-shot, plan to rail-road at least a little bit because of restrictions on time.
>If a certain result on a dice roll would add to player experience, fudge it.
>what would be a fun, interesting and/or intense encounter that can be trekked through in a decent time frame whilst still being memorable?

I've never run a full length campaign,
but have run maybe ~7 one-shots.
Majoring in Electrical Engineering is a bitch for your free time.

this guys mah negro

This. First point is my biggest complaint against most dms. Make the world uncaring, but receptive.

Ok, so assuming the definition of 'railroading' is 'negating player choice for the purpose of furthering the GM's agenda'

>If one of their choices would move their path away from the prepared adventure, I move the landscape around, behind the scenes, to present the adventure in their path.

So the players make a choice to move away from whatever it is you're throwing at them. You negate that choice by shifting things around forcing them to walk into it. No matter what choice they make they WILL play your adventure. Using terms like 'I permit, not force, my players to choose the actions their characters take' does not change the fact that they have no meaningful way of impacting the story. That's railroading.

You're being dishonest with your players because they're under the impression that they do have the capacity to make real change within the campaign when in reality you're just shifting things around them to play out your novel regardless of what they do. There's nothing wrong with playing like this per se, but at least the storygames designed for it are honest about it up-front and usually involve a high level of player participation in the overarching story.

I approve of this reply.

>Encourage player led goals
>This is worrisome

How so? If anything having the players start to set some of their own character goals after or before the hooks have been introduced can give you not only an idea of what type of game they want to play but also keep them engaged in the game while providing some material for you to weave into the campaign.

How did the game go post car suplexing?

Sounds like the kind of thing a narcissistic and vain user of dark magic would do but I like it. NEET Tulpa loving mage is a go!