The Campaign Builder's Guild

Quote from: LordVreeg the UnsleepingI also think that Players can sense the detail level, and when they do, they believe in you more, and fall deeper into the game.

But that is just my opinion.

I disagree actually. When players sense you start to have too much detail, the first thought that comes to their mind is - railroad, at least in my experience.

Define "too much detail"

Quote from: Elemental_Elf

Quote from: LordVreeg the UnsleepingI also think that Players can sense the detail level, and when they do, they believe in you more, and fall deeper into the game.

But that is just my opinion.

I disagree actually. When players sense you start to have too much detail, the first thought that comes to their mind is - railroad, at least in my experience.

I'm not sure I follow. Are you thinking along the lines of the plot being so detailed? Or the world? Both? I was largely thinking of the world around the plot. If I can tell them about the history of that statue over there and who it was, just because they asked, then I see that as a plus for immersion purposes, especially when it doesn't even matter in the plot.

Quote from: Elemental_Elf I disagree actually. When players sense you start to have too much detail, the first thought that comes to their mind is - railroad, at least in my experience.

I think it depends on the sort of detail-- mainly, whether the details were actually asked for. If the players investigate things of their own free will and the GM always has a detailed, well-thought-out answer about what they find, this level of detail would be quite immersive and good. No matter what they do, the GM has got an answer, and it lends real verisimilitude because everything is so thoroughly described. However, if the players, no matter what they do, get detailed descriptions of what's going on in that mysterious cave to the east, and it becomes obvious that the cave to the east is the only thing that is really fleshed out, then, yes, it can start to feel like a railroad. So I'd argue that the problem isn't too much detail, but detail that is too narrowly focused on the exact plot points you want to hit and not providing any anywhere else.

Quote from: KindlingDefine "too much detail"

I was thinking of plot oriented detail, not world based descriptions. In my experience, the DMs who prepare the most for their session are also the DMs who least enjoy deviating from their plot. Those kinds of DMs will always bring it back to their well oiled plot no matter what the PCs do. That kind of 'too much detail' divorces me from the story and the game.

Having too much detail in a world sense is never a bad thing, until you spend a half an hour telling your players about the tumultuous history shared between the Kingdom of I'maworldbuilderland and Ilikehearingmyselftalkstan. Players don't want that kind of information because it is not strictly relevant, and if it IS relevant they want facts.

 Think about when you play games with a lot of quests, like WoW. Do you think the majority of players read every single line of fluff in the quest description? Heck no! Players want to scroll to the bottom, see what they have to do/acquire and forge on ahead making their own story. D&D can be very much the same.

Back to the idea of railroady - DMs often have very obvious ways of tipping their players off to what they have prepared, ex.

"Greetings adventurers, I the Mayor have some quests for you! There's some trouble in our neighboring village of Honeybee, and there's rumors of a bandit in the Yellowbear Forest and then there's also rumors of a Kobold clan who set up shop in the caverns that dot Firedeath mountain. They say these Kobolds are as vicious as they are cunning. I'll pay you 300 gold to go tackle those Kobolds."
"But... We want to go see Honeybee Village..."
"Did I mention the Kobolds killed poor Suzy...?"
"No..."
"Oh it was an awful, brutal affair..."
"So what's wrong with Honeybee Village?"
"Uhh... They were attacked by Kobolds like we were!"
"Looks like we're taking on Kobolds this week..."

This example typifies the railroady nature of giving too much detail, then changing the plot hooks you dropped previously to give the players zero options outside of your prepared quest line.

This can also be done in less obvious ways simply by describing one potential adventure point with much greater detail than the others. No player can deny the obvious intent was to excite and showcase the single area of adventure to the exclusion of all others.

Honestly I'm really tired of both methods. I hate that feeling of being pushed down a singular path when I had no say in getting to that point. What I mean is if this is mid campaign and we the players have alienated the King and all of his courtiers and we *have* to stop a demon army from being summoning and the only way to do that is to assassinate the King and put a more amenable person on the throne - then that's fine. We the players robbed ourselves of other options by alienating the King and his courtiers. However, if we just wander into Lakeside village and the Mayor gives us 3 unrelated quests which all eventually have us go on the one adventure we didn't want to - then no, I'm tired of that.

Quote from: Elemental_Elf

Quote from: LordVreeg the UnsleepingI also think that Players can sense the detail level, and when they do, they believe in you more, and fall deeper into the game.

But that is just my opinion.

I disagree actually. When players sense you start to have too much detail, the first thought that comes to their mind is - railroad, at least in my experience.

I think it could happen, but I normally run a large % sandbox style.  For instance, the PCs were given the data to find the stuff under the Steel Libram almost 2 years ago.  But they figured it out a few years later.  I didn't push, didn't rush...Sandbox style can solve a lot of this.
Players worry about a railroad if they've been put on the rails that way before.    

I may get some flak for saying this, buy I think it is true. When you are a player, yes, it is sometimes obvious what the GM "wants" you to do. You know what? Do it.

If it was me running the game, and I really only had one idea of what to do for that session, I would a) hope that I was less obvious about it and b) probably make it so that it was something happening to/because of/between/with NPCs and the PCs stumble into the middle of it and have to decide how to deal with the situation rather then simply presenting them with a generic "quest" to go after. But. I'm not running this hypothetical game, some fictional GM is.

And unlike me, he can't improvise very well, and he hasn't had the time or space in his brain to come up with what's in the forest to the west, because the plot hook he's giving you takes you into the mountains to the east, so the forest to the west's just scenery, right?

If you ignore the quest he's given you, and you go for a stroll in the woods to the west, the game will suck. So why do it? Sure, after the session's over, you might think "y'know, this guy's not such a great GM, maybe I should look at finding someone else who's willing to run games for me, or maybe I should just do it myself" but during the actual session, why cause a problem? Just enjoy the ride. There's nothing to say that whatever's waiting for you in the mountains to the east isn't completely awesome. Why not go look?

EDIT: I will admit that this sentiment might result slightly from my idealised fantasy-vision of being a player in a game for once rather than the GM... it is seriously pretty hard to find people who are even willing to run games, in my experience, let alone people who are good at it.

One strategy I try to implement is to create small, modular encounters that can be dropped as needed when things need spicing up.  My players from CE will probably know what I mean - the small microadventures like the suicide statuette, the grave-robbing servitors, the hagman/thief-clan deal, the gorgon fortune-teller, and the Inquisitor of Marainein are all examples of these.  I try to scatter these about to complicate the larger quests (things like the hit on the Masticators, burglarizing Ezekiel Khaan's mansion, or clearing out Herreku's men from Shan-Szut) and allow me to adapt to PCs going off in unintended directions; so if the players decide to head off into the woods to the west (to use Kindling's example) I'd just drop in portable encounter X, tweak it slightly to make it more woods-y, and make it seem like I'd always intended the woods to contain encounter X.  This is kind of the opposite of over-preparing a single, linear plot: it's preparing a dozen smaller plots in addition to the main plot.

I think it works relatively well, but my PCs would be the best judge.  Basically I never want the PCs to feel bored or at a loss for what to do; even though right now they've finished their first really big quest there're three or four dangling plot threads created by small encounters that will spawn other adventures (returning the Gibbering Goddess idol to the Merchant Princess, avenging Gorethirst's death, finding out more about the Fortress of the Umbral Overlord... and then there's that mysterious assassin-worm that attacked Kaius one night - who sent it, and why? Etc.).

Wait, assassin-worm?? When was that?
The suicide statuette remains one of my favorite mini-plots. Would like to do something like that for my own players.
But sandboxing becomes awfully difficult when the players move around a lot. In the Eberron campaign I'm running I really want to keep players on the move, going from nation to nation and this makes it very difficult to make sizeable detours from the "main plot". It's simply impossible to prepare for every possible contingency when the players have access to an entire world. Steerpike's CE campaign on the other hand was limited (for much of the game) to a single city which allows for much more random coming and going.
That being said, your suggested mini-encounters could be used during travel but in most cases they will spice things up rather than presenting a new choice of action (with my own campaign in mind, not yours).

I noticed that it was harder to implant mini-encounters in the travel section, since they tended to turn the adventure into a kind of obstacle course rather than creating the feeling of multiplicity and complexity I was striving for in the city.

Crow, The assassin-worm bit was awhile back - it only took a few minutes.  Kaius woke up (warned pretenaturally by the zehrer which was at that time still incubating in its spheroid) and found something squirming under his sheets.  He discovered an ingurgitatrix, which promptly sprang at him, but he shot it quickly with his revolver (hidden beneath his pillow).  His window was conspicuously open.  Ingurgitatrixes are pretty rare so the encounter was definitely not a simple case of the bed-bugs - someone was trying to eliminate Kaius.  A couple of days later the party left the city for Shan-Szut.

EDIT: I checked the logs, and the encounter can be found in the entry called "Nightmares" two thirds of the way down on the second page.

To expand upon the railroading issue, I've found that railroading isn't a level of detail issue but a focus of detail issue. If the DM pours time into fleshing out specific areas and leaves others blank then they will be forced into railroading players when they do what all players do (something unexpected). This removes the enjoyment of the game because it's no longer a collaborative project but the players listening to the DM tell a story (stories aren't bad but they're not what they came there for). An experienced DM has to be able to have contingencies for anything. You can plan out everything you think of but I guarantee the players will make a bee-line straight for that one thing you didn't think of. Better to at least to some degree be able to pull stuff out of thin air for the players. It's a skill that gets better with time too so the more you can practice doing it the better at it you can get. Of course either way you want to take notes so that you don't mix things up while doing this.

Quote from: NomadicTo expand upon the railroading issue, I've found that railroading isn't a level of detail issue but a focus of detail issue. If the DM pours time into fleshing out specific areas and leaves others blank then they will be forced into railroading players when they do what all players do (something unexpected). This removes the enjoyment of the game because it's no longer a collaborative project but the players listening to the DM tell a story (stories aren't bad but they're not what they came there for). An experienced DM has to be able to have contingencies for anything. You can plan out everything you think of but I guarantee the players will make a bee-line straight for that one thing you didn't think of. Better to at least to some degree be able to pull stuff out of thin air for the players. It's a skill that gets better with time too so the more you can practice doing it the better at it you can get. Of course either way you want to take notes so that you don't mix things up while doing this.

Yeah, I can see this. In this way, the high level of detail that (ie) Vreeg puts into his game is exactly what (might, conceivably) prevent him from railroading. If a GM works out regions A, B, C, and D, they'd be less likely to railroad then a GM that only put that work into regions A and B.

I suppose with this approach, railroading is prevented by being equally prepared for many possible outcomes, while with a more minimalist improv approach, it's prevented by being equally unprepared.

GM style:

1) Write some tantalising but often frustratingly vague setting miscellany.

2) Show this to the players, watch them scratch their heads like drug-fiends and have them tell me what it all means.

3) GM the resultant setting.

4) Cry myself to sleep. (Tears of joy!)

I like the part about 'have them tell you what it means.'

When I used to GM, I often ran off the cuff of my sleeve, especially when I ran AD&D 2e with some 1e to fill in the gaps. Had tables for all sorts of stuff. I also had players who would LOVE to tear apart and abandon things. Eventually that game became each of them raising armies, etc against each other while planeshopping, only teaming up to take out someone they "hated more than each other".