The Train Conductor, or How I Learned To Stop Fearing The Rails: Introduction

Railroading is a justifiably dirty word in RPGs, but an over used one.

The main problem that people have with it, is that true railroading means that the player’s choices have no effect on what is going to happen. Most video games, and most bad RPGs operate this way. No matter how cagey the players are, they have to be fooled by the traitor so that they can go through the mission where they break out. No matter how much you dislike that clown, you can’t finish him off because without him the entire second half of the plot doesn’t occur, etc.

As typically occurs, this justifiable fault has been expanded to encompass any forms of plot or the like in adventures. The OSR folks eschew plot altogether, which has its own certain appeal, but doesn’t necessarily work for everyone.

Whether for good or ill, the idea of story, plot, and the ‘frustrated novelist’ approach to adventure design is now firmly ensconced.  The emergence of things like Paizo’s Adventure Paths have also pushed the idea of ‘course correcting’ adventurers into the mix further.

Now, I sympathize with things. As a kid I remember saving up to purchase the old 2e boxed set for Undermountain, and then having my players promptly launch off on a tangent that rendered the entire thing irrelevant.

Hurts, man. Hurts in the freaking wallet. I rolled with it, because rolling with it is what a DM does. But I can understand why someone would want to not lose out on the outrageous amounts of cash people shell out for pre-planned adventures.

As I said earlier though, people tend to interpret any attempt by the DM to salvage his preparation (precious, precious, prep) to be ‘railroading,’ when its not. Again, definitions are important. Railroading, to me, anyway, has always been defined as when the DM has a set course and no event of player choice or interaction will modify it.

Now, when I say disaster prep, I don’t mean crap like Schrodinger’s corridor (where no matter what path is taken, it leads the place the DM wanted it to), I mean actual planning. If you’re a DM who wants to railroad, you obviously did prep. That’s presumably WHY you’re sodding considering railroading in the first place. You want to avoid having your plans or story be thrown askew. Actual planning can help to avoid railroading, while simultaneously getting your players more invested, let them feel like they have an actual impact on the world (what most of them want) and not feel like they’re actors you’re forcing to play for you without actually giving them the script.

There are a few tricks I’ve learned for accomplishing this, and I think I’ll expand on them in other blog posts. I’m not very pithy, so don’t expect clever titles for these.

Musical Inspiration Challenge: Part 9: The First Encounter

With Or Without You by U2

This begins a long march for me. The march of having to figure out 1.) Encounters inspired by music, and 2.) Encounters inspired by what is for the most part very soft music. In a way, I find the challenge somewhat welcoming, but pop music doesn’t especially lend itself to inspiring a fun time of sword slinging.

Still, let’s proceed as before. Onto the lyrics.

See the stone set in your eyes
See the thorn twist in your side
I wait for you

Sleight of hand and twist of fate
On a bed of nails she makes me wait
And I wait without you

With or without you
With or without you

Through the storm we reach the shore
You give it all but I want more
And I'm waiting for you

With or without you
With or without you
I can't live

With or without you
And you give yourself away
And you give yourself away
And you give

And you give
And you give yourself away
My hands are tied

My body bruised, she's got me with
Nothing to win and
Nothing left to lose
And you give yourself away

And you give yourself away
And you give
And you give
And you give yourself away
With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you
With or without you
With or without you
I can't live
With or without you
With or without you

///

Well, a good sixty percent of that song is just Bono going ‘With or Without You,’ or ‘And you give yourself away’ but that’s typical for pop. Still, let’s unpack this.

I mean hell, I salvaged something useful from a freaking instrumental about Walruses, I’m not going to be stymied by this.

The song’s primary meaning is about a troublesome love affair (I think) with the whole crux being on the ‘I can’t live with you or without you,’ and so on. If we pull away the deeper meaning and work on just the superficial though, we can potentially get something out of this.

There’s a mention of a storm that makes it difficult to reach shore, this is obviously intended to be interpreted in a non-literal manner, but we’ve got a magic walrus statue to contend with, and a ramshackle pirate outpost. So let’s examine our current situation..

There’s a terrible storm inbound.

The party needs to find our magical Walrus statue.  

They need to get INTO the formerly pirate, now Hellknight infested compound.

We’ve previously established that there’s a jerk hiding down in town who used to be the boss of this place.

So let’s assume that the guy we were inspired to create from when we were looking at ‘Pirate song’ tells the party there’s  a sneaky way in, past the teeth of the defenses, but it requires moving along tough tidal areas, on a sheer unpleasant cliff face. Furthermore, the route was originally abandoned because..

Now see, the “because” is the important part. We need a creature here. And the song’s theme thankfully provides that. Sleight of hand, romance despite itself, touched with our salty air theme. A siren, or a nereid, or even a hag. Some creature that relies upon misdirection and charm, who lives down there in that clashing unpleasant brine filled craphole (that’s even more treacherous with the storm coming in).

So our party has to deal with an aquatic temptress and her enchanted minions, while contending against the weather, slippery conditions and potential risks of drowning.

Seems like a good first encounter set piece to me. Also, the chaotic tumult might help to serve as a good counterpoint as we move less pirate and more Hellknight, watching the destructive chaos of the storm contrast against the destructive order of the Hellknights.

Phew. Two more encounters to go.

Musical Inspiration Challenge Part 8: The First Complication

Alan Parson’s “Where’s the Walrus.”

Alright, this is the point where I make a small comment, and then try to buy my brain time to think by copy/pasting the lyrics.

Only problem? This song has no freaking lyrics.

As I said back when I started this, and before I was betrayed by my iPod’s shuffle function, the First Complication represents those weird and incongruous elements that occur in adventurers. It’s there for stuff like wandering dragons, or everything happening in a thunderstorm, or the fun weird nonsense that doesn’t necessarily tie directly with the “aim” of an adventure.

So this is going to be where we get into really weird territory.

My first thought was ‘Sheesh, an instrumental?’ and I was considering just having a giant Walrus factor in. Then I got snarky about the title and was like ‘Ah, it should be a giant invisible walrus!’ Invisible walruses (walrusi?) presumably being a sufficient threat.

But this isn’t really about a given monster. It’s about a complication. Things that make life more complicated. Like having to compose an adventure segment using an instrumental titled after a freaking walrus.

And that’s when it hit me. Stop focusing on the title, and focus on the song. The instrumental (I have a link back in second post in this series) is a driving, kind of 80s song, that has a sense of movement to it. A regular focused driving tune.

And that’s what got me. Amidst the pirate treasure, and the Kate Bush inspired Hellknight, we’ve got a bigger and more annoying complication. The town is being over run, its being turned into a Stepford version of the Hellknight leader’s old memories. And..

It’s about to get wrecked by a terrible storm or wave coming in.

Seriously, that’s where this Walrus song led me to thinking. The party has to locate a part of the old treasure hoard where the Hellknights are held up, that supposedly has the power to stop the weather effect that’s crashing in. This also locks us in at a level below where the players can do that themselves.

The complication? Ah, this is where it gets ridiculous. The item is a magical walrus statue. So they have to ask ‘Where’s my walrus?’ Heh, heh…. I’m not crazy.

Now the song also has some oddities, snippets of dialogue just out of earshot, and some phone dial tones (which might help us thematically tie things back to Computer Eyes). So.. Tying in with the idea of gaslighting people, what if our Hellknight is looking for this item too? Scouring through her recently captured pirate stronghold, trying to find it. And our heroes want it. And the item itself has a mad protector, or guardian beast, who is desperately trying to keep it out of both of their hands. The guardian of course unaware that he’s dooming the nearby village by keeping it out of the players’ hands.

So our complication is that the heroes need to find this freaking walrus statue, which is guarded by a hidebound idiot of a guardian, AND the bad guys are hunting for it too. The bad guys don’t want their village eradicated anymore then the heroes do, after all.

Ah, that’s even better.

The heroes have to find out about this, by overhearing the villains! Will they attempt détente? Try to forge an alliance? Or try to make sure that the Hellknight doesn’t capture the item and secure their control over the township even more?

Complicated.

Working as intended.

Suck it, Walrus!