Yo, so I've been playing DnD for a few years now, only ever played 3.5 and i decided it was time to try my hand at DM, Because after listening to a few DnD podcasts it dawns on me my DM's are shit. Learned v5, read all the source material, memorized all the biggest differences, I'm a decent writer (at least some folk on the internet seem to think so), I'm good at thinking on my feet and I really shine at improv and role playing. I also know how to hold peoples attention, people listen to me for whatever reason. I really don't think I'll have any problem running a game, but what I want to know is not what makes a good DM, instead I want to know what makes a bad one.
Tell me the things dungeon masters do that really give you the shits. Tell me what bad habbits I need to avoid in order to give my players the best gaming experience I can.
Not letting you roll the dice to escape certain situations, even plot ones, feels railroady
Forcing you to go with your actions as soon as you say them, even if your character knew something you didn't
My pet peeves generally involve things being forced.
Jonathan Rivera
Writing a fucking epic narrative and expecting me to sit down and shut up until it's time to ooh and aah at your superb storytelling.
Alexander Gonzalez
One of the hardest things you need to do is just let it happen. Sure, the players are going to do something that is going to invalidate some huge amount of work you did. You could stop them, you might even think they won't know, or you might be able to invent a good reason they will accept.
Don't do it. Just let happen what happens. If they bypass some huge amount of work you did, they did. If they figure out how to talk their way out of a problem, let them.
Use that stuff later if you want.
This is, I think, one of the hardest things about being a DM. Doing a ton of work that because they decided to do X nobody is ever going to see when you had planned for it to be a huge thing they would love.
Oliver Wood
On that note: players often say they do not like being railroaded. However, it is also true players generally don't know what they really want. All of my worst games have been sandbox-style trainwrecks, with enormous amounts of freedom.
As a DM be sure to accept unexpected but welcome decisions and changes, and by no means force an encounter you worked hard on despite your players explicitly going to considerable lengths to not engage with it. If you're as quick on your feet as you say, it makes the experience as a DM a lot more enjoyable to see the story twist in ways you didn't predict. The campaign shouldn't necessarily end the way you expected it to. However, don't be afraid to ruthlessly put your foot down. You have to give the party a driving force, and often that means steering things in a certain direction or even limiting potential character options for the sake of the game. You can leave all the plot hooks you want, but if you just have the characters meet at a tavern and have them go from there out of their own will, chances are they're gonna do fuck-all until the Rogue gets bored and stabs the bartender. Players want agency, but at the same time they want to feel like they're part of the world you created. If they don't know how to do that because of too much freedom, the game breaks down.
If you're blessed with good players, they will also understand this on some level as well and play along. But you also have to give them a strong, in-game reason to do so, even if you're afraid it might be a bit "railroad"-y, especially towards the beginning of the campaign.
Parker Morris
I've honestly gotten more explicit requests from players to railroad them than to stop doing so.
Lucas Ramirez
Players do not like being railroaded, people absolutely hate sitting around not knowing what to do and nothing happening because of it - and likely feeling stupid (and thus frustrated) as a result.
Accept your own limitations. If the players are not coming up with an answer it probably isn't because they are stupid - it is because you did not set the scene well enough. From their point of view they are not seeing what is obvious to you. Your imagination -> your description -> their hearing -> their imagination -> their evaluation. A lot of steps for things that are obvious to you (taken for granted) to be missed.
Be prepared to intervene and help them out. If you suggest 'you could do X' that is fine. But when you do so do it in a way that hides the right answer. Instead of that go with 'you could do X, or Y, or maybe something like Z, shucks anything like ABC maybe'. This put is more like you are thinking with them and trying to figure it out rather than you just giving them the answer.
Nathaniel Perez
That potted plant sounds like a decent GM.
Elijah Russell
It's absolutely true that players have no idea what they want.
Now, as a GM, you always need to have a story. But a good story can approached from any angle and even ignored, while still being relevant to the party and affecting their lives. The PCs need to interact with it naturally. Think of it less like a series of sequential events that must occur and more as a situation that evolves naturally and can be extrapolated to other areas.
The story shouldn't be about Fid and his group of bandits that steal from merchants. They're just a symptom of something else. The story should be about rampant corruption in the kingdom, places so poor and unstable that many turn to banditry. It's about people struggling to survive, some coming forth as leaders and good people, and others falling. It's about famine and war now. So, no matter what the PCs do, even if that means *leaving*, there's adventure to be had.
The world feels much more organic if quest givers don't just approach the PCs and ask them to do a job. Have them be suspicious, hostile, afraid. You know, anything other than bland quest dispensers. A courier who panics at the sight of armed men and begs for more time is interesting, while a man who sits at his table and offers quests to people generally isn't. Unless he's rare or otherwise played off well.
It's also helpful to know who the PCs are, as living beings. Most of my adventures are fully sandbox, and what I do is give people options based on their careers/skills and background info.
You know, something like >check the latest rumors at court >contact local smugglers >see the bounty board >seek the council of the clergy
Just laying out what they *could* do usually helps players figure out what they want to. The issue is, you see, most people can't visualize their desired outcome, so they have no idea what they're really going for.
Matthew Reyes
The prime directive for any GM is to read the table and adapt. Never lose sight of that.
Justin Cox
Personal device, don’t expect players to remember everything you say. Or at least tell them to write something down when it’s important. For example I had a wandering not inform the pcs of sleeping bramble blocking the path further down the road. Then the pcs get into an encounter before they hit the sleeping bramble, guess how many thought they could walk right through it? Your word runs the game but don’t expect exacting enthusiasm over everything you do or say, that sort of relationship takes years of work.
Dylan Martin
>One of the hardest things you need to do is just let it happen.
The next hardest thing to learn is when to not let things happen, There are times when players are going to do things that honestly fuck up the game for the other players. Learn when to call a break, learn when to tell a player that they're fucking things up. It's going to be different for each player and group, but there's generally shit that'll fuck up the game and erode any goodwill you've got with your players.
Matthew Robinson
Create problems, but don't have solutions in mind.
If a player makes a barbarian, they wanna do barbarian shit, so when a problem arises, they'll try to use their strength or whatever to solve it. A Rogue player wants to do rogue shit, he'll try to use stealth and trickery to solve problems. If their solutions make sense and they roll decently, let them solve it. It makes my players feel great, like THEY figured shit out instead of finding my specific answer that was already made in advance.
Pic unrelated
Gavin Sanders
I disagree with the OP pic. Role-playing is absolutely storytelling. It's just not the GM's story alone. The GM's job is to present settings and situations and to encourage the creation of PCs that the players will want to tell stories with.
Levi Lee
>Create problems, but don't have solutions in mind.
I go just the opposite. If there is a problem I try to think of several ways that it can be solved. If I can think of a couple of ways to solve the problem then that indicates that it is likely the players will think of a way - even if it isn't one of the ways I thought of. If I can't imagine more than one that would work, I figure I need to modify things as the players may not guess the one way I thought of.
If what you are saying is don't become married to one solution and insist that only that way will work, then I agree with you.
Nathan Bell
Mostly just know your players, every group is different. My long term group loves to shit talk and make jokes in game and out, they love big "set piece" moments and don't mind the sparing use of "cutscene mode", whereas I know other groups I've played with would despise these things.
DMs who don't get to know their players are sabotaging themselves, they're either going to run a game that is unfun for the players or they're going to play it too safe and run a bland generic game.
Henry Edwards
This
That's the best DM advice you are going to get. If your BBEG is in the top of the tower, but the party found a way to quickly get on top of the tower while avoiding all the monsters and traps, don't try to stop it.
Because if you try to stop them from finding an easy way so they have to go through the gruesome encounters that you were preparing all night. Don't be surprise if they do this. youtube.com/watch?v=2-x9g6fLyv0
Anthony Hernandez
Please explain to us all the magic connection between being railroaded and not knowing what to do. Because apparently you have no clue what railroad means and implies
Gavin Long
Railroading is a crutch for bad DMs. What's happening is likely that your campaign is flopping around aimlessly on the floor and they begged you to pick up the crutch to cut down on the poor thing's suffering. And I won't say railroading is necessarily a bad thing, provided players are down for it. What is a roller coaster if not a good railroad that people pay money to ride on? It's when you try to hide the rails and tell the passengers that they have a choice on where to go that people will get upset, because you're straight-up lying to them.
On the other hand, if you do it right, you can avoid the whole flopping around aimlessly problem even with the most sandboxy of sandboxes. Gygax up there and his friends told all kinds of stories about their games, like the Giant's Bag for example, but what he never did was sit down and decide What Story Was Being Told at the table today. He put stuff around, gave the players stuff to do, and watched what happened. Story was what you told later, packaged up from what happened at the table. You can't force it, but you can prime the pump with interesting places, people, and events for the players to run into.
>It's when you try to hide the rails and tell the passengers that they have a choice on where to go that people will get upset, because you're straight-up lying to them. This is not the worst. The worst is a Byzantine intrigue created by GM for situation that can and often SHOULD (limited resources, insufficient number, too weak party, situation as such etc) be dealt with with as simple as possible approach. Instead you are send on a massive fetch quest to help solve mystery of a side-quest to a side-quest of the main scenario... all to get a carpenter his toolbox back so he can fix your cart's wheel. Nothing sucks more than this type of elaborate railroad that all boils down to beating some bush and pretending the scenario is complex or the world alive, just because the party has "something" to do.
And don't get me wrong. Byzantine intrigues and scenarios can be fun and often are great, too, but that assumes you are actively working against your problems, rather than doing a scratch-list of what GM planned for you. I still remember a massive fetch quest our GM organised for us in '15 and we spend entire year playing that single campaign, essentially being send to wilderness to bring back head of a notorious bandit. Which for weird reasons involved attending poetry contest, dispelling a vengeful spirit from a flour mill, finding remnant of a military attatment send years earlier for that bandit, collecting taxes, out-trolling local forest spirit, facing a werewolf and fucking power-sliding over rainy grass during combat. Nobody minded, because the scenario, while definitely railroady, had a lot of free space to move and the GM wasn't pushing anything at all, aside making sure we do go into those mountains, hunting for the bandit, or the party will have a bounty on it itself within next three months. Cheeky bastard accounted all out actions to a hour, meaning we barely made it back on time.
Luke Cruz
Oh, and also unfucking a township on the other side of the mountain pass and collecting group of mercs armed with crossbows, how could I forget about those. And a dwarven captain of the guard in said town throwing around nudgets of wisdom straight out Art of War.
Carson Smith
Railroading is saying >after agreeing with the king to defeat the dungeon master, you go to the dungeon
The players not knowing what to do is >You have agreed to the king's request to defeat the dungeon master. What do you do now? and then waiting for 2 hours while the group bickers about what to do next, involving half an hour scene with two characters arguing over which element is better, an hour about the thief going to solo steal all copper coins from all beggars and another 45 minutes which overlaps with the other parts about the wizard haggling with the merchant for a map to the dungeon which costs 5 GP.
The good midpoint is >You've agreed to the king's request, do you want to do anything in town before going to the dungeon? No? You're going to the dungeon, right? Ok? Right? Then waiting for about 20 minutes for everyone to deliberate and agree and then going >You go to the dungeon
Caleb Perez
... the fuck any of it has to do with railroading?
Daniel Miller
I'm only the DM of a small solo game. It cracks me up how often my one player asks me things like "What were you planning for me to do when X happened?".
It amuses me so much, because he assumes I'm trying at all to railroad. The only real plans I come up with at the start of a session are where exactly all the characters are going to be at the start, and what their current motivations are, and I figure it out from there what's gonna happen as I take the player's input. I never even understood why you'd do it any other way, a roleplaying game is supposed to be cooperative storytelling where you play the world, and the players play the most important people in that world influencing change within it. Anything else is just the DM jerking himself off.
John Young
He doesn't know, he just wanted to vent.
Parker Collins
role playing is not story telling. I'll show you why >once upon a time.... >what do you do? notice any key differences? it's when you think you're supposed to be storytelling that you run into problems, especially as a DM. try not to do this
Joshua Anderson
>Implying those two are mutually exclusive Imagine being this fucking inept. I bet you never even played any TTRPG in your life.
Jason Long
Railroading is telling the party that they go somewhere, without checking that they want to go there.
That's railroading.
Jacob Clark
i've played lots, thanks. as an user states upthread, story is what you tell after the game itself. they are mutually exclusive, and you are a cocksucking brainletted niggerfaggot if you think otherwise
Thomas Parker
>they are mutually exclusive, and you are a cocksucking brainletted niggerfaggot if you think otherwise So like he said - you are inept
Noah Watson
>Railroading is telling the party that they go somewhere, without checking that they want to go there.
No. No no no a thousand times no.
Railroading is when the DM decides that, come hell or high water, players ARE going to go where he wants them to, even if the players don't want to.
The players try to go somewhere else and find that all other roads are blocked off—snows in the mountain pass to the north, no ships in the harbor that can sail south, kingsmen charging exorbitant tolls they can't afford on the west road. But, hey, the east road leading to DM's Special Encounter Town is wide open! Imagine that!
If the players say fuck that and look for adventure right where they are, they get kidnapped by a mage with bullshit sleep-teleport magic and wake up where the DM wants them to be; and then if they try to leave and go somewhere else, either there's a force field around Special Encounter Town preventing it now, or the DM pulls a bait-and-switch and decides that the new place they go to instead was just the original one they wanted to avoid all along.
That's fucking railroading.
Parker Allen
Nice, this picture explains why quests are not welcome here.
Robert Baker
this is a perfectly reasonable explanation of what railroading is and is not, which will most likely be rejected by a thread chock full of storyfags who cannot even comprehend the basic difference between story telling and role playing
Benjamin Howard
Just-one-way-ism. A refusal to accept plans that are logical but not what the GM wants.
Cheating to save favored NPCs, BBEGs, or PCs.
Telling a player "your character wouldn't do that."
Stupid meme characters like luchas or hobos with shotguns killing Hastur.
Jonathan Smith
This. Railroading is not having an overarching plot ideal or consequences for ignoring things going on around the players. It's about going beyond all reasonable means to ensure that what you want is the only option.
Eli Hall
Howdy y'all, OP here. Thanks for the advice guys. The general consensus is that the worst possible thing I can do Is Railroad my players. I'm not a fan of it myself, I like me a good sandbox; and while I never intended to, you've opened my eyes to some of the ways I might have done it without realizing. My first session starts in about three hours time and the advice you've offered has surely helped my game. You guys made dungeons and dragons more fun for five more people today. Thanks Veeky Forums.
Jace Carter
It looks like a three-part post, with the first part describing an example of what railroading is, an example of what players not knowing what to do is, and a speculation on what an example of what happy medium would be.
Essentially, it presents an argument (railroading), shows an antithesis of the argument (players being clueless), and a possible solution to the argument (meeting in the middle).
Basic reading comprehension can tell you this. Or, maybe I'm just a retard and he's spouting nonsense.
Ian Russell
>hobos with shotguns killing Hastur Henderson wasn't a hobo though
Jayden Phillips
I had a dm that insisted that if we didn't write it down or remember it our characters didn't know it anymore either and so he wouldn't repeat it. That proved to be frustrating because yeah we heard it weeks ago, but in game time it was only yesterday.
Josiah King
The point is his version of railroading is wrong. His "okay midpoint" can be just as bad as not asking, because what if they decide they don't want to go to the dungeon? What if they find some other way of completing the request?
The real "okay midpoint" is constructing your scenario such that you don't have to force them to go anywhere. Get them invested early and create genuine stakes that will drive them in the direction you've prepared for.
