>>97844013
People don't really understand what good prep looks like, so they assume "a lot of prep" means writing shit that's sort of orthogonal to gamable content, like detailed ancient histories or granular population statistics for entire continents. People do that, get burnt out, and then swing too far in the other direction because "if less prep is good, obviously no prep is best."

Because GMs with little experience go in tunnel vision, prep one thing in depth, then players go do something else somewhere else, and GMs have to improv everything anyway.

Have you tried NOT playing DnDogshit?

>>97844013
How do you run your games.
Post examples of your prep material.

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Over preparing is fun.
And you can take things you don't end up needing, and use them later.

I have even overprepared as a player, just for the sake of having some fun in-character dialogue handy.

>>97844013
Inexperienced GMs tend to not know what sort of prep is actually helpful, and so the advice is simply to avoid overthinking it or doing more than you need.
Because the sooner a GM is actually running the game, the sooner they get more experience and get a better feeling for what's actually useful to prepare.

>>97844051
I've never had to play something other than D&D.

>>97844059
I detail a town, a broad strokes overview of a couple other towns, I detail a cave, a dungeon, and prepare a few wilderness encounters. Then my players are let loose.

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>>97844013
Railroading is much more likely to happen with too much prep rather than two little. Railroading consists of limiting (usually via contrivances) the ability for players to make choices or experience outcomes in a manner that the GM has predetermined. Period.

Here's why "Don't overprepare" is useful for ALL DMs:
>Players will make decisions you haven't prepared for
>Players will solve problems in a way you haven't anticipated and using fiat/arbitration to limit this because you didn't pre-plan their solution is shitty railroading
>GMs want to use what they prepare. They'll often shoehorn what they prep and it becomes jarring and unnatural
>GMs want to use what they prepare and so they'll contrive for the next thing they've prepped to occur in spite of it not following rationally
>Some GMs get stressed by attempting to prepare for the contingent options and player choices
>Much of the time you spend prepping might be wasted

Given this, finding efficient methods to prepare; such as key details and NPCs, maps only when necessary, situations instead of "plot", and preparing for obvious contingencies but being able to flex if needed by mastering the rules.

>>97844082
If you're going to use the prep, it's not over preparing.

>>97844145
>post example of your prep material

Because prepwork is tiring and minimizing it will make sessions more pleasant for you as a DM.

You are a player as well, and you are under no obligation to do overwork yourself.

>>97844013
the only reason to play TTRPGs over video games is the responsiveness

prepslop takes that away

>>97844013
Because the intended advice is more like “Concentrate on getting the important shit prepared instead of the chaff”, but few people have experience in determining what’s usable and what isn’t. So they simplify it so newbie DMs get in the habit of figuring out what they need to prep for at all if they do.

>>97844159
In my experience, it happens with too little prep, but not because of the material itself is lacking. Rather, it comes from an inflexible GM who doesn’t have the experience in thinking on their feet and/or refuses to admit when they’re well out of their wheelhouse and want to keep it in a lane they think they can control. The railroading is more of a desperation move rather than one borne of malice, but it still can cause bad feelings all around.

>>97844013
Oh, I've seen this one. They're plotting to steal a franchise from the 80s and make it suck.

>>97844013
Precisely to prevent railroad. People often end up taking 'prepare' as 'detail every nook and cranny in corridor B1 of the baron's barracks' and not 'remember the party doesn't actually have to go through the front door'. GMs often get one vision of how their campaign is going to go, then that vision has to meet the players. The more prep work, the more the average GM has to throw away when the players meet the road.
The secret to achieving the right amount of prep work is making things that can easily be repurposed within the same area of the campaign, broad context of the world the campaign is in, or in an entirely different campaign.

>>97844159
>Railroading is much more likely to happen with too much prep rather than two little.
This is a misconception, the only DMs that railroad consider it to be a tool, they use it in place of improvising. Improvising is made much much easier if you've prepared ahead of time.

>>97844281
You have a very poor understanding of the benefits of preparation. It results in many more responses to player actions.

>>97844474
You are describing literally preparing a railroad.

>>97844505
While a railroad is technically included under the later definition, I was talking more in the distinction of repurposing various individual ideas rather than broad swaths of a campaign. The railroad is defined as all options leading to the same outcome, regardless of player choice. If repurposing the statblock of local ogre that was meant as a major fight at level 3 into a part of a larger encounter at level 7 is railroading under your particulars, then use of a bestiary is railroading, as is any repurposed dungeon map.

Seems you dumb niggers need to be put to GMing 101 and since I'm feeling generous I'll school you mongoloids. Here's what overprepping looks like:
>for this session, the adventure will be in the village of greengrass, the blacksmith is a secret cultist of the demon erebor'zul and he's doing a ritual in the basement of his smithy that will poison the well and turn all the villagers into demonspawn because the cult is gathering a demon army under orders of the local lord Baron Evilheart who is also a secret high ranking cult member
You're already concocting a long term plan in mind, you probably already have an idea of the demon army, the baron's city etc. so you're gonna consciously or subconsciously try to place your characters on that railroad.

Here's what proper prepping looks like:
>for this session, the adventure will be in the village of greengrass, and the well is poisoned
That's fucking it. When the characters interact with the well, you yourself don't know what the poison does, who did it, and why they do it. React accordingly in combination with your players' hunches, what is thematically appropriate in the moment to reward their deductions, and keep it fucking self-contained in the village of greengrass.

>>97844681
>deductions
inferences

>>97844681
First one’s fine if the party’s the one being hired to help with the ritual. Knowing what the ritual does means they might get to decide to hijack it and use the demon spawn to start their own campaign of burnination.

>>97844310
>>97844477
Sure, I hear you. I think maybe I'm just speaking from my own perspective having played and GMed for many, many years. I have also done no-prep "challenge" games and minimal prep. My prep is very, very light.
However, my own personal experience has been that when I've been railroaded it's always by a GM who had a specific outcome planned and begin putting up the invisible bumpers to keep us on the specific road he had planned/prepared for us. I don't know how this happens if you don't have anything planned.
I think where we can agree is that being able to improvise on the fly to enable player choice is a mark of excellent GMing.

>>97844748
It's not fine because if you know who's responsible and why he's doing it you're gonna put some railroady shit like
>uhh roll for rumors, some villager says "ohh I was drunk one night and I saw the blacksmith digging in the village outskirts"
>uhh as you pass by the smithy you smell a faint scent of something rotten
>uhh you find a secret compartment under the floorboards of the blacksmith's workshop and it's an icon of erebor'zul

>>97844755
>I don't know how this happens if you don't have anything planned.
Generally to the tune of “it doesn’t cause of p, uh, reasons I guess”
>I don’t want to cross the bridge, I want to go around
>you, uh, you can’t
>why?
>uh…um…you don’t find any other ways around
>at all?
>y-yeah…

>>97844772
You’re not being specific about what’s wrong with that in and of itself, sir.

>>97844772
You aren't describing railroading, you're describing hooks and clues.

>>97844681
I don't think you know what railroading is. Nothing about that initial scenario is a railroad. The players investigate or they don't.
A railroad would be forcing them to a specific end in spite of their choices.
Having things happen that players can engage with is not a railroad as long as the option exists without coercion (which is why "if you don't to X the world will end plots"

>>97844797
I'd argue your example is prep/improv agnostic. Either you randomly came up with a river and a bridge or you prepared for a river and a bridge. The problem isn't whether or not you had a bridge. The problem is stifling reasonable player choices.

>>97844902
There seems to be a lot of confusion about that in these threads. People think that linear contingencies or even folks following from one lead to another is "railroading". It's not. Railroading is when you force things to happen in a contrived or arbitrary fashion (as opposed to following naturally from the world or player action)

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>>97844931
Yeah, pretty much. Railroading imo is mainly in the aspect of shutting down choices made by players, whether it’s from having a specific guide you wanted followed to the letter or because they got into a situation where they’re very nakedly trying to work around a lack of content via resorting to “because I said so”, they just asked for an example where one can railroad vis lack of preparation .

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>>97844310
>>97844477
No, i think pill guy is right. A GM with zero prep cannot railroad you, because there isnt a track. If you dont prep at all, literally all you can do is improv by definition. The rails show up when there are paths set out, and whatever you want to do would derail that plan. You cant kill the princess because if you do the guards would execute you, there would be no adventure and the game would end.

Which really shows why setting and enforcing expectations about the kind of game you're playing is so important, and why you should prep effectively. Reasonable players are normally fine if you just ask them not to kill the princess, but dumb cunts will bitch and moan about it, so you plan the encounter such that killing the princess is impractical or too expensive, and any attempt would loop back to your intended paths anyway - half railroad half quantum ogre. Dumb cunts will bitch and moan about that too, but if you've ever run a game you'd know why its standard practice

You cant ever prep more than two steps ahead because players WILL jump the rails and you cant afford to prep five encounters a week and only ever use one or two. So even though you should expect and design for alternate options and branching paths, you should be planning single problems with multiple solutions and not multiple optional problems. God help you if you plan multiple problems with multiple solutions, which is what "dont overprep" is really all about. At the end of the day the story will collapse to just one things that happened, you technically never need more prepped than whatever that exact line ends up being.

>>97844976
>A GM with zero prep cannot railroad you
For what it’s worth, I’ve seen it happen. Once gave a player a chance to run a game. Dude prepared a village, a bunch of goblins to fight, and nothing else. Anything to do in town that wasn’t related to asking about the goblins was met with “you hear nothing interesting” or “they didn’t have that here”. Anything related to leaving town was met with “there’s nothing there”. The one time we asked what would happen if we just stayed at the inn and drank was “you can’t do that”, no reason behind d that. And it just kept on like that, up to the point we forcibly marched ourselves to the goblins instead of ambushing them because he didn’t prepare a map beforehand for that, whereupon the goblins were slain and…well, the game ended because that was the most he bothered to write down.

People are used to the idea of a railroad being a giant set of barriers everywhere, like an iron cage. They haven’t met the version where you’re walking along a bridge in an empty void.

>>97844681
Your first green text is 100% superior to your second one, and you're too dumb to realize.

>>97844563
>repurposing the statblock of local ogre that was meant as a major fight at level 3 into a part of a larger encounter at level 7
Why would you even put in the effort to repurpose something into something completely different. That's not easier than just making something new.

>>97844772
Rumors are the hallmark of a good sandbox campaign. The key to them is to allow them to be untrue, and even contradictory. However there's nothing outright wrong against being told a rumor that highlights something you've prepared. Breadcrumbs=//=railroad

>>97844681
Brother you made your shit so much worse by cutting out Baron Evilheart. Baron Evilheart is a man you can build a whole campaign around.

>>97844976
>A GM with zero prep cannot railroad you, because there isnt a track.
Bad take, even with zero preparation you can find yourself railroaded. They're not mutually exclusive.

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>>97844976
>players WILL jump the rails
GOOD, you shouldn't have fucking rails.

>>97844013
>hy is "Don't overprepare" such common advise given to DMs
because you get diminishing returns
if you prepared a massive 500-room castle with every single spoon, fork, and knife and their monetary value tracked, your effort is going to be wasted when your party interacts with almost none of it

>sometimes it seems like people are allergic to putting effort into building adventures
because its common for new DMs to think absolutely every single situation has to be accounted for when thats not true


>Railroading typically happens when a DM is underprepared for their sessions.
just because you can be underprepared doesnt invalidate the pitfall of overprepping

>>97845245
>if you prepared a massive 500-room castle with every single spoon, fork, and knife and their monetary value tracked, your effort is going to be wasted when your party interacts with almost none of it
This is only an issue if you never intend to reuse the castle. Of old it was very traditional to run the same adventures with new groups. These were often distributed as "modules."

Of course, by the standards of neo-nu/tg/ I'm fairly use modules are intolerable railroading.

>>97845253
>This is only an issue if you never intend to reuse the castle.
re-using unused material is a way to make sure your overprepping isnt totally wasted
but that doesnt change the fact that you overprepped in the first place

mitigating the issue doesnt mean it wasnt one in the first place
its better to have something and not need it than vice versa, but its even better to walk in with the exact amount of material the players will use

>Of course, by the standards of neo-nu/tg/ I'm fairly use modules are intolerable railroading.
even back in the days of ADnD the average group was making up their own campaigns and not relying solely on modules

>>97845209
>>97845192
No, if you already planned the demon cult and Baron Evilheart then no matter what your players do in that village you're ALWAYS gonna lead them to the cult and/or the Baron

>>97845293
Your logic doesn’t make sense sir. Why are you this certain this will “always” happen?

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>>97845245
Are these details wasted? the different houses, the different NPCs, what and where their life savings are stored. It's a good habit to know these things. It enhances verisimilitude and gives a stat buff to improvising.

>>97844051
This isn't a system issue, it's a GM/storytelling issue

>>97845320
>Are these details wasted
they arent wasted, but theres obvious diminishing returns when you find yourself creating stockrooms just to fill out the blank spaces on your map
you can have an identical experience when you learn to include what is and isnt important to the game

>>97844041
This, you have to go in expecting the players to go off the rails. Yeah have an outline and all that, but make it flexible and able to adapt to your players coming at it in unexpected ways. No plan survives contact with the enemy.

>>97844013
You are fucking retarded. Your whole post is just fucking retarded.
>>97844051
You too
>>97844082
This guy is the least retarded motherfucker in the whole thread and he's a redditfrog poster.

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>>97845025
I dont really see the difference? In that case the GM prepped something and forced you to play exactly the thing he prepped. Its more obvious if they cant improvise small details to save their life, but its the same principle right?

>>97845222
You cant be "on rails" unless someone lays a track. Its in the fucking name. You're an idiot misusing a term you dont understand.

>>97845236
You're also an idiot using terms you dont understand. You dont even know what rails are. And i seriously hope that AI generated thumbnail isnt from your youtube channel, because yikes.

>>97845397
Upon reflection, “prepped” is an over generous interpretation, since despite saying he prepared a village, he didn’t actually prepare a village. He prepared a map that he stole off google search, which isn’t a sin in and of itself, but he didn’t populate it with anything. No npcs, no locations, no descriptions, nothing. It was blatantly obvious he was basically making this shit up on the spot cause he got lazy, and resorted to “because I said so” cause he backed himself into a corner and knew it.

>>97845411
Kek. Well, thats definitely a different way to do it

>>97844013
Because it's a fuckton of wasted time and effort. The best thing you can do is have a general outline for several different plausible outcomes and fill in the blanks as things progress. If you're putting excruciating detail into every little thing 99% of it is going to be completely ignored and you're going to be blindsided by something you didn't think of and had zero preparation for because you were so hyperfocused on an expectation of things going how you planned.

>>97844013
Because most GMs - particularly those that need advice - over-prepare. Likely outcomes include
>forcing the players into things you have prepared
>floundering when they do something else because they thought they had covered "everything"
>burn out and resentment because they have done a lot of "useless" work, particularly in contrast to the players

A novice's prep is mostly going to suck because they don't know what they're doing. It's likely to be a linear story, which leads to railroading, because that's their main experience of stories. Including a lot of RPG modules.

"Why shouldn't I do more work that won't improve the game and will go to waste?"

Gee it's a fucking mystery.

>>97844059
Here's how I'm running my current game :

Player starting situations : The only rule I implemented was that each player should have their hero begin in the same starting village, but they can be anywhere in that town as per their hero's interests (ie they don't have to all be at the tavern). Now, in my particular case, there is a solid gameplay reason for this related to exploration and biome rules, but I would still more than likely implement this anyway. It's actually my preference to allow the players to decide independently of each other where they begin play according to their occupations and interests without any restrictions (and that's what I did in my last game), but I decided this would be more expedient for the particular sort of game being played. Obviously, after they've all familiarized with the system and world specific rules by way of the starter town and one or more tutorial quests, they will be free to go in any direction they please, for any reason, and may stick together or separate as per whatever their heroes believe most efficient for their goals. All of this is included in the game pitch presented to the players when they're deciding whether to join nearly verbatim as written here, and I make no attempt to disguise it as anything other than gameplay convenience.

Surrounding the stater town are several biomes that I refer to in general as regions. Each features its own theme, environmental hazards, creatures, properties, etc. Each region has a peril rating and hostility level that determines how severe bad stuff is, and how dense / likely to be encountered per turn bad stuff is. Peril is generated by various sources in the world, and is destroyed by sinks (mostly towns and outposts). It flows along gradients from regions of high peril to low, so regions tend toward an equilibrium value over time, which is higher the closer they are to sources. Sources and sinks may both be created and destroyed by the activity of players and >>

>>97845626
other beings in the world, so the average peril of regions can fluctuate over time.

There are various rules related to exploration, but these are more procedure than preparation. That pretty much covers the general setup, everything else is generated during play.

>>97845411
So what's the problem?

>>97844772
None of these are railroading unless you force the players to pick one, or if they voluntarily pick one but you invalidate their decision and force them to pick a different one. Or if they pick one, and interact with it, but you only let them interact with it in a particular way you had in mind.

>>97844976
No preparation at all means no game and nothing to do, which is shit for everyone involved.

>>97844211
Go content scrape somewhere else

>>97845698
No game troll.

>>97845708
Sure anon, sure.

>>97845411
The fundamental problem there isn't how much or how little he was willing to prep, but the unwillingness to improvise.
It wouldn't have mattered if he made a list of NPCs and shops if he was unwilling to come up with what they had for sale on the fly, or come up with any topics of conversation other than pointing the party towards the goblins anyway.

The quality of the prep is going to reflect the person running. If he's unwilling to even pause and try to make up something interesting on the fly, then his prep isn't going to be any different. Adding more quantity won't improve the quality, it just means you'd be waiting for weeks for this lazy guy to finish writing down enough notes to railroad you into fighting goblins anyway.

>>97844013
Yeah I would have to agree with you here. I remember seeing that some fiction authors would write hundreds of pages about their world that no-one else would see just so when they were actually writing the content of their book their world felt believable.

Overall I don't think it is bad to overprep detailed population statistics, heraldry for your fictional houses and ect so long as you stick to one setting and keep expanding on it. This is because of the aforementioned reason, the more prep you put into this autistic amount of detail the more well thought out your world will seem to your players.

As for actual game prep I would recommend not prepping plots but adventure locations, cities, towns and the like with a few hooks so that the players can sink their teeth in and get involved. Its an Adventure game not a story game.

Also let the players fail, meander, prepare, research and then succeed, the game should take as long as it should take, and don't skip the "boring" details. Make them interact with every NPC they buy items from. Make them mark the route they wish to take on the map then roll the random encounter tables, check for no. appearing, encounter distance and monster reactions. Make them follow the dungeon turn system and keep strict records of time. Roll on the disseise table every week to give them extra challenge. and lastly TAX THE FUCK OUT OF THEM.

By doing this you can get more bang for your buck with your prep as sessions take longer. It also allows the players to do what an RPG says on the fucking box and actually roleplay.

>>97844976
>A GM with zero prep cannot railroad you
Of course he can, if he just arbitrarily decides what you're going to be allowed to do after the session started, even if he had nothing prepared.

>>97845950
if you are enjoying what you are writing, then you arent over prepared
but "dont overprep" is obviously aimed at newer DMs who have a tendency to just make a whole bunch of things that never get used, and its a good to build a habit of choosing to prioritize the things your players actually interact with first

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>>97844013
I warn others of pitfalls I fell into. This is a common pitfall. Why does this need an explanation?

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>>97844013
DON'T RUIN THE HUSTLE GOY

>>97846049
>No bro you need more prep!
>Here's all these modules and tables and books to give you more content!
>More! More! More!
>You can never have enough books and material before the game even starts!
>Buy our book on worldbuilding so you can spend years planning before your game even starts!

>>97845632
Essentially, he wanted to GM but thought he could make it all up on the fly and failed. And it was kind of a frustrating experience on both ends.

>>97845946
I’ll agree there. He did admit after the game that he had no clue how much prep work went into this stuff and kept putting it off until game day, which is the real indicator of how badly he’d have tried to railroad even if he was working off a module. Still just wanted to relate a time where someone was railroading with clearly zero prep.

I would replace "Don't overprepare" with "Prepare to be Unprepared" as the go-to advice. Your players will be doing shit you have not prepared for and you should always be ready to seat-of-your-pants wing the fuck out of a session

>>97845950
World building isn't prep, it's masturbation. I don't have a problem with you masturbating, but I don't want to hear about it, and I will call you out if you claim you're doing it for anyone else's benefit.

Have a couple of generic statblocks ready, or use an intuitive system like GURPS where you can make up a plausable character on the fly. Keep the world living in your mind's eye and have your players interact with it

>>97844013
>Why is "Don't overprepare" such common advise given to DMs?
As opposed to what?

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I think you can prevent a lot of indecision and adventure-dodging by just not letting contrarians, OSRtards, and chaos goblin faggots into the group to begin with. Ideally you want 50% of your players to be either extroverts or people who normally DM because they'll actually try to make things happen and be willing to throw you a bone instead of treating you as an antagonist who has to be outwitted.

That said, there's a lot you can do create an illusion of choice. Set bait you know the players will go for(my GF is obsessed with vampires, my friend is a new dad so he'd have his character go help an injured child, etc). Present a binary choice in the same way you'd ask your toddler if they wanted carrots or peas(do you want to down the high road or the rougher back country trail? Both have the bandit ambush you planned for of course). Have a monster attack the party and then flee into a dungeon(players turn into pitbulls on meth if an enemy flees for whatever reason).

And yeah, at the very least you should have maps ready to go and stat cards for any monsters you have the players fight. Players will pounce on any inconsistencies. That said, there's no need to slave away for hours. Jot down ideas you have when you're at work or the gym or wherever. Look for inspiration in past sessions, eg if an evil wizard escaped a few adventures ago, maybe he comes back for revenge.

You can also start in media res. Maybe the adventure comes to the players. They're sleeping in an inn and suddenly the village is attacked. Roll for initiative.

>>97846049
Has anyone in the thread told you to buy anything?

>>97846167
What do you mean failed? There's nothing wrong with making everything up as you go.

>>97846911
There's no such thing as adventure dodging since the players choose which adventures they go on.

>>97846911
Why should it matter if the players "pounce on inconsistencies"? Yes, obviously I'm making up everything the monster can do during the fight. I tell the players this is how the game is at the start of the game. So what?

>>97844013
> Why is "Don't overprepare" such common advice given to DMs?
Because DMs start forcing players into shit they prepare.

>>97844059
So why did you ask if you weren't interested in the answer?

>>97847091
Please read the things you respond to. In the context of the post, he failed in hosting a good game by attempting to improvise the content of the adventure for the start, but did so in a way that both the players and GM were left unsatisfied. Yes, there is nothing inherently wrong with that approach, but not every attempt will be successful. Especially if it’s you’re very first time GMing and you aren’t good at thinking on your feet.

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>>97844013
>Railroading typically happens when a DM is underprepared for their sessions.
>Prep-intense action happens as a result of lack of prep
Grab a (You) and fucking choke on it

>>97846250
By that reasoning, if we want to call it that, playing games is masturbation as well.

>>97845397
>You cant be "on rails" unless someone lays a track. Its in the fucking name. You're an idiot misusing a term you dont understand.
Holy irony, you don't know what railroading is if you think it necessarily needs planning to happen.

>>97847330
Nah.

>>97848058
Yeah, the irony is from you.

>>97845950
good post

>>97846724
As opposed to nothing? it wasn't contrasted with anything you retard.

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>>97846911
>there's a lot you can do create an illusion of choice
shit DM

>>97848076
Seriously, you do not understand what railroading is. It's when you negate player agency, it's when you do not allow their good ideas to happen, it's when you are trying to force an outcome. Preparation has nothing to do with it, it's about the inflexibility and unwillingness to let players play.

>>97845950
terrible.

>>97846911
Why would I want to give my players the illusion of choice when I could just give them choice instead? Why would I want to have less fun instead of more fun?

>>97847330
Don't feed the trolls.

>>97848368
Ironic.

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>Prepare every single settlement, lair, dungeon, NPC, faction, wandering monster table, economic model, religions, rumor tables, anal circumferences, and tavern menu on the continent
>Players immediately ask to buy a boat and sail to the other continent

>>97848538
Well I hope you had fun doing that, anon, because now you're going to do it again. And don't forget the filler islands on the way, you can derail the party for some time while you work on the other stuff.

>>97848183
What constitutes as a choice? Are quantum ogres railroading or is the world just a dangerous place where you're going to find a fight whether you chose well or not? And who says the players will have less fun? If you prep a bunch of stuff and they ignore it, then you've got to wing it usually, which in my personal experience ends up being a more comedy focused route because all of my improv skills are dependent on "yes and-ing" and my players can't be serious unless I put them in a serious scene.

>>97848538
A ship that could sale the ocean would be hella expensive, no matter how you factor it.

>>97845626
>>97845629
So totally sandbox with no compelling reason to do much of anything?

Because as you are describing it, it barely sounds like a game and I personally would never play it. Sounds rather theoretical and vague rather than something that can even be played. Plus the first few sessions would entirely be spent just trying to group together. Since everyone independently being split up doing their own thing is both absurdly boring since everyone is basically playing their own game at the same time, but aggravating to run as a DM, since again you are running several separate games at the same time until they group up.
But If it's what your friends like then whatever.

Sounds legitimately like a bad time to me all around.

>>97848538
You're a bad DM for not anticipating this and having another continent built up.

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>>97849497
>What constitutes as a choice?
Distinct outcomes, I cannot imagine it being much more than that. If there's a plethora of options, some of them likely overlap in varying degrees, but if there's a choice to be made there's at least some binary presented. You're either choosing A or you're choosing B, there might be more, but what is clear is that A is not B. A choice is between either this, or it could be that. picrel is a famous philosophical quandry about how your hands are tied, and you're obviously picking A, because B is pretty much A except you die. (Hobson's Choice)

>Are quantum ogres railroading
They are a form of railroading. Player's agency is negated in favor of reutilizing something you've prepared, and you insist it has to happen instead of what players are choosing. The problem is not that there's a fight along different paths, the problem is that it's the same fight, and that you insist there's a fight. In a proper sandbox there's more outcomes than just if you go that way you fight, and if you go that other way you fight.

>who says the players will have less fun?
It's much more likely that less rewarding decisions will result in less fun. I cannot imagine a scenario where that's not implicitly the case.

>>97850912
>So totally sandbox with no compelling reason to do much of anything?
I've seen this wrong impression frequently lately. There's absolutely reason to explore as an adventurer.
>Sounds rather theoretical and vague rather than something that can even be played.
it's Roleplaying, perhaps you have heard of it

>>97847206
I don't lurk the same thread for several days at a time to wait to reply to someone the instant they post.
I have a job and sleep.
Besides, answer given feels suspect to me anyway.

What exactly are you expecting? Approval, headpats?

>>97850939
>this troll again.

You don't play games and you are full of shit.

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I've been DMing for over seven years now, and every time a campaign flounders it's because I put more time into obsessing over the menu of a tavern than the arc of the quest the PCs are going to undertake. Let me put it in more simple terms; players are going to remember an imaginative combat encounter significantly more than the fact you have historically accurate wheat in the field. Players are going to remember the NPC that is described as, "fat, balding, and is convinced he would've been an amazing sea captain if he didn't get gout" significantly more than some fully-realized quasi-tulpa that has an entire history and family tree.

I'm tired, anons. I guess I'm not trying to fluff this up. Prepare what needs to be prepared. Have an idea where you want things to go, but if you do too much prep than you're going to trap yourself in a prison of your own design.

>>97845629
Sounds very vidya gaem-y

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>>97850950
shit DM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtT6jHgxo0s

>>97850942
What is suspect about >>97844145

>>97850985
>Prepare what needs to be prepared.
Why did you have to flounder so much to realize something that is obvious to proponents of prep.

>>97851087
I never sought out "how" to GM. I learned through experiencing other GMs and trial+error.

>>97851076
>>97851081
>pay attention to me
>let me waste your time with bullshit for no reason
Here is your last (you)

You overplayed your hand.

>>97851105
Make your players suffer, they aren't mine.

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>>97844013
As usual it boils down to conflating a problem (burnout, railroad) with an unrelated cause (game preparation). What a GM needs the most is modular content (e.g: maps with positioning schematics, stats, environmental hazards, notations, etc...), what they don't need is planning whole scenarios, it's best to vaguely outline them and rely on them only as kickers/hooks. That's what "don't overprepare" advocates actually mean.

>>97849497
You know what a choice is. Stop pretending to not understand. You're not fooling anyone.

>>97850912
Who said no compelling reason to do anything? Why are you lying about the content of my post?

>>97850942
It doesn't feel suspect to you.

When you ask a question and someone answers it, you WILL acknowledge the answer and thank them for it. It's not up for discussion. DO NOT REPLY TO THIS POST.

>>97851015
No, not really.

Worldbuilding (or rather region and location building) is much better use of your energy than encounter or story planning. If you have a strong grasp of the sandbox you can rotate in your mind, improvising on the fly becomes easy. Prepare some generic statblocks for the kinds of enemies they might encounter, and if the party ends the last session at the entrance to a dungeon, make a dungeon, but beyond that session specific prep is silly and will be wasted or lead to railroading as you force them to experience the kahntent.

>>97844041

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>>97853773
try me, bitch

>>97852501
It's weird to me that people who say don't overprepare mean to not make railroads. It's like they cannot devise material that's not a railroad to begin with.

>>97854848
Maybe, that could be one of the reasons why people get confused by.

>>97852501
>>97854848
Modularity is railroading. Quantum ogres are a modular encounter.

>>97854848
That isn't why people say it. What they are usually *trying* to say is that you should be economical with your prep i.e. focus on prepping stuff that you can't improvise on the spot to an acceptable degree of quality. But new GMs won't have the experience to understand what they do or don't need to prep, and new GMs also tend to put a bunch of effort into shit that isn't helpful like background setting details or fixed plot points that assume certain PC behavior, so it is easier to simplify the advice and tell those new GMs to cut most of their prep out rather than try to explain the nuances of what prep is necessary and what prep is superfluous.

>>97852501
>What a GM needs
>Proceed to list things that only DM needs
If you are going to talk about DnD-specific stuff, at least use proper terms

>>97855099
>Modularity is railroading. Quantum ogres are a modular encounter.
Not at all

>>97844013
Why? Players do the damndest things.

>>97855638
be ready for it

>>97855718
Overpreparing is a DM having a limited understanding of the campaign world while having some pointlessly detailed dungeon. Or vice-versa.

>>97856303
Oh well, that sounds like something in addition to preparing.

>>97855718
Yeah, by not preparing.

>>97856348
Not really.

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>>97858452
I'm not preparing right now.

>>97848538
>Take the very same material.
>Change the climate and ecosystem for the locations, maybe the kinds of monsters but kept in loosely the same roles and locations.
>Give an accent to the npcs.
>Proceed as if nothing had happened.

>>97844013
Because you need flexibility to not lock up when something unexpected happens.

>>97853773
>When you ask a question and someone answers it, you WILL acknowledge the answer and thank them for it.

Lmao
Good luck with that retard

>>97844013
“Overpreparing” usually involves hyperfocusing on stuff that will be irrelevant to the players 90% of the time, meaning the GM is underprepared for what they actually do.

>>97862077
Pinkertons en route.

>>97844013
I'm pushing fifty and I've been GMing sine I was 12. At some point you just don't need to prep as your mental library of npc archetypes, plot nuggets and tropes in general is just so large you can pull off a game with zero prep time. I don't do dungeon crawls so maps and stiff like that is irrelevant to my games.

Mostly because the kind of people who need advice don't know what they actually ought to be preparing.

Here's what's going on right now in my current game :

A pirate commander is attacking and plundering the outpost the players are currently at.

Outpost residents are defending and making attacks against the ship. Instead of modeling every defender and potentially taking away opportunities for players to do cool stuff, I just have the defenders grant the heroes certain bonuses as long as the outpost has health remaining, and they perform a cannon attack against the ship once per page.

There are a few groups of pirate minions on the ship and on the island, under command of their captain, who grants them bonuses while not occupied or incapacitated.

The outpost is the location, and is divided up into several sections which the players can move between. They are free to act however they wish, according to whatever strategy they think is best.

There are various mechanics and rules concerning the scenario, which I came up with in a couple of minutes, along with the statistics for the captain and her ship and minions.

When this is resolved, however it is resolved, the players will be free to take on contracts at this outpost, or to travel to other islands and explore as they see fit. A few islands are already known to them, and taking to people in their current location might reveal more.

That's pretty much it. Running games isn't hard. You don't need a big mystery or an all powerful villain that the players can't be allowed to interact with until an arbitrary big reveal you've planned. You don't need a story and you don't need rails. The players will provide the story by their actions. All you have to do is put levers in the world and let the players pull them.

>>97873361
And hypothetically, what if the players say “I don’t want to defend this outpost or be at these islands, I want to take a ship and go to another continent entirely?” Cause logic would dictate that they would let you know of this before the game starts so you could adjust accordingly, but some chucklefucks have been known to do that right at rather start of the first game.

>>97873457
NTA but I would give the a quick off the cuff scenario to acquire the ship needed for such an endeavor, which would buy time to prep the "lets go to another continent" shit for next session. If they already have a ship, the local constabulary have impounded it and they have to go steal it back.

>>97873457
One player is a pirate captain who has his own ship, it's currently in his portable storehouse, but may be deployed at any time. This particular outpost is quite small, and its two cargo sloops are out on deliveries at the moment. The players could, if they wished, take actions to acquire a vessel. This could include building a ship or stealing the enemy ship, after or before defeating them. Or they could try to swim to another island. Or they might try something else that I haven't considered. Or they could use the one player's ship, if he agrees. Any of these decisions might be complicated by the ongoing attack, but that depends on their decisions and execution and the abilities they employ. It's entirely up to their imaginations.

>>97873464
There are no true continents in the game, but the players can sail in any direction they like, and there will be cool stuff to discover. No need to wait a session.

>>97873457
Also, there's no way the players could have informed me prior to the game, since the pirate attack was a random, improvised event. As such, it's only reasonable to expect that they, too, will improvise their responses. As you said, they could try to flee. They could even try to ally themselves with the pirates, for all I know. In this particular system, there are mechanical effects that result from acting unheroically, but the players are never prevented from making those decisions.

Not knowing what the players will do is the fun of the game. Why are you framing it as undesirable? If I already knew what was going to happen, what would be the point of running? Or of the players participating?

>>97873457
I've never seen this hypothetical situation of players wanting to go to another continent ever be a "gotcha" in real life, and yet I've seen several anons throw it out as one from time to time.

>>97873846
Those sorts of players are real, but they’re extremely rare, and I’ve personally just handled it by point blank asking them what they’re trying to do and what kind of experience they’re looking for at the table. Once it was just a person being a wiseass, and they left because I wouldn’t take the bait. But the other times, it really was because they developed doubts about the agreed premise but held off on communicating it before the game started, and were initially embarrassed to just say it to the table.

Hence my throwing out said hypothetical. Cause every GM deals with such a scenario differently, some better than others.

>>97873961
It never happens because during session 0 everyone realizes what they're doing, and at no point do people say "hey lets go alllllllll the way away from where everything is".

>>97844013
Its just YouTube grifters and the current autistic obsession with "open world" nonsense.

>>97873961
So were you going to answer my questions?

>>97874001
It’s like one in a thousand chance. It happens. But so rarely that it’s easier to think of it as a hypothetical instead of an inevitable.

>>97874578
No.

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If you are running a system with a focus on grid-based tactical combat set pieces, like D&D 4e or Draw Steel, then you more or less have to get players to buy into the idea that adventures will mostly be linear railroads.

Me, I do not have a problem with this. I am a fan of Living Forgotten Realms adventures and Path/Starfinder Society Scenarios for focusing on tight narratives and thoughtfully crafted tactical combat set pieces.

>DON'T PREP ANYTHING CAUSE THE PLAYERS WILL AVOID EVERYTHING YOU PREP
This seems like one of those common myths spread by people who don't play with friends.
That has not been my experience.
If I mention literally anything that sounds like an adventure, my players will want to go there, I don't have to herd them or whatever, I can just say "NPC Y wants someone to go collect X, he's offering Z for it" and the players will go "We'll do it!" and that's it.
Never have I seen a situation where you go "here's the local map and a bunch of quest hooks" and the players go "we want to leave the map and go to another continent! " It sounds made up.

>>97874640
Your funeral.

>>97875104
Lol. Come fite me irl

>>97874721
That’s because you play with normal people and not strawmen.

>>97874721
sounds a bit like...railroading

>>97844027
>>97844041
These two hit it on the nail. It’s not about “not prepping at all” it’s about keeping the right perspective when prepping.

The rule of thumb I bring up is on shouldn’t do their worldbuilding with the goal of writing an encyclopedia of the setting, write out their world like they are writing a travel guide. So focus on what’s currently going on there? what’s there to do? What might traveling adventurers run into? Your basically first and foremost preparing for what should happen if the players go there and have just enough lore formulated that if the players zag, when you expected them to zig, you can improvise something without skipping a beat. If you want to afterwards go back and do a deep dive into the location, that’s fine, but it’s not to the detriment of the larger setting.

Because this was a trap even I’d fall into in the past. Where you get so wrapped up in the world building, wether going from top-down or bottom-up, you forget that the PCs need something to do or the world is going to be boring for the players.

Thus the “write a travel guide first, textbook later” philosophy.

> but what if I spend all this time writing out this one location and the players never visit it?
Well, Did you have fun world building that location? Did you still have something prepped for where they DID go? If so, then it wasn’t time wasted.

>>97874721
Seth skorkowsky on YouTube kinda talks about this, the “world-breaker” and the “RPG terrorist” are the kinds of players that create these probems, and they are more one-off anomalies than common ttrpg occurrences. But they are more likely to be complained about online, creating the false impression that they are something common.

>>97875356
Nta, but it's also good to prep things that are more or less evergreen. Locations, factions or individuals with specific motivations, and how they interact, shit like that. Worrying more about what and who are in the world is a lot more important than trying to account for every choice that the PCs might make. I guess that's the other kind of over prep: attempting to make a detailed, choose your own adventure style flowchart. Equally as bad as encyclopedia style world prep.

>>97875112
Post address bitch

>>97875373
Can't break a world. Players really can go anywhere and do anything, and they'll find adventure in every case.

>>97875445
Oh yeah, for this reason, when it comes to NPCs you really should just write up 4 generic NPC stat blocks:
> the pedestrian
> the merchant
> the security
> the leader
These are the 4 NPCs players will most frequently interact with, (if you want to cook up some regional/class variations, go nuts, but keep it broad). So rather than plan out every NPC in a location, just keep shit broad and if the players interact with someone, you can pull up the appropriate stat block, make up a name, and just roll with it. If the players decide they want to keep returning to that specific character, for whatever reason, then you can give them more depth of personality, a more unique stat-block, or whatever. Only develop the NPCs the players are actually interested in.

>>97875482
They’re named for intent, not for effectiveness. Mr hose are the kind of people who enjoy pushing people’s buttons and being nuisances in general, like the kind that tell you their character decides they don’t want to go on an adventure or intentionally taking stupid and disruptive actions for their own amusement. In that particular instance, they don’t honestly care to go on an adventure or make a decision that just happens to be contrary to what the table expects, the goal is more to push the buttons of the party or DM by intentionally ignoring every option presented for one they don’t actually intend to follow up on. They’re usually just kicked out once it becomes apparent they aren’t there to play a game but to troll the table by wasting their time, but they’re very different from the kinds of guys who just don’t like what’s offered and want to try something different.

Ex. Instead of say a lady deciding to ignore the local npcs and go exploring the lands on their own because they feel it would be a better use of their energies and attention, the “worldbreaker” would intentionally start trying to venture to places the rest of the party isn’t interested in, like climbing clearly impassable mountains or trying to find a boat on a landlocked campaign, and just keep doing this until asked to stop.

>>97875628
Well, the person who deliberately refuses every plot hook just to be a disruptive ass more accurately describes the RPG terrorist.

The “worldbreaker” is the one who’s constantly trying to find the edges of the setting and then gets disappointed when they find them. Like, when the GM shows the players the campaign map and tells the players “okay this is our setting” the world breaker immediately wants to go past the map’s edges to see what’s there, then gets bummed to discover that there’s actually nothing beyond the map’s edge because the GM didn’t build the world out that far (there was no reason to), or zooms in on a locale, asking for more and more detail until the GM admits that there isn’t anything else to learn, the world isn’t only so deep. And they effectively “break the world” by breaking the illusion that this is a real, living world and not just a fictional stage, which it is and they found the backstage area so immersion is ruined. The way it’s described, they aren’t being malicious, they’re just over enthusiastic and let curiosity get the better of them.

>>97875494
>Only develop the NPCs the players are actually interested in.
This is broadly applicable. Its essentially the advice in the -Without Number games, start incredible broad and vague and only drill into the immediate stuff you need.

>>97875628
I wouldn't have any problem with someone trying to climb a mountain or find or build a boat. If I didn't want players to be able to climb mountains, I wouldn't put mountains in the game. There's nothing to disrupt. If you want to adventure on your own, you can. You'll probably be less effective, but that's fine.

>>97875720
There is no edge of the map, and there is no limit to how much detail I can improvise.

>>97876265
You don’t sound like you’ve run a game before.

>>97876280
That guy shows up in everyone one of these prep/railroading threads, and says the exact same incredibly vague, pointless shit. Just don't engage.

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>>97876280
You'll have to pick a different method of avoiding the discussion now that you've run out of arguments.

>>97876290
Everything I said is correct, which is why you're now replying to yourself instead of presenting any supporting arguments for your position.

>>97876290
Good point.

>>97876293
As soon as there’s a post worth substance by Mr nogames, maybe someone will bother.

>>97876304
Ironic.

>>97876304
No, not a good point.

Yep, no response. I win, railroaders lose.

97876302
>argue with meeeeee please please please argue with me! I have no life, please argue with me!!!!!!
97876293
>Chat gpt, please give me some horrible notes for the game that I don't have so I can win an argument on a Scandinavian gardening webzone.

Humiliation ritual. No (you)s for you (you).

>>97876274
I don’t know who told you that, but they lied to you.

>>97873361
Yep, got it in one.

>>97876518
I win and you lose.

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>>97876518
How much impossible to replicate with AI proof would you like? I can provide an infinite amount.

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>>97873457
then they have to get a ship and crew that's down for the plan, and deal with the pirate commander's goon squad that's on ship ransacking duty, which is probably enough to fill out the night's session, then you can prep for the foreign port the party fled to in time for the next session.
"don't overprepare" is more appropriately formatted as "you can only play one session per session"

97879363
97879368
>Double replying
>More AI slop

touch grass. Or play games. Do anything other than this.

>>97879389
No, they can use the player's ship that he already owns, and the players and the captain's summoned crew are more than capable enough to sail it themselves, like I already said. There is no need to arbitrarily split sailing into a separate season.

>>97879404
Not AI slop, obviously. Why are you still embarrassing yourself?

>>97879441
there's still the goonsquad to deal with, which it is entirely feasible to fill a session with, and thus from there more likely than not have no need to build a foreign port until after the current session.
the most seat-of-your-pants bullshitting would probably be introducing the harbormaster in the foreign port the crew's sailing for, and maybe throwing in a random merchant ship flagging them down to ask for directions and news, but you've probably already come up with a workable frame of those in the time it took to read this post.

97879445
>repeatedly vague posts and manufactures AI slop as """""proof""""
>Thinks anyone but him is embarrassed.

k

>>97876293
Is that discord pbp?
So that other anon was right, you never ran any actual games?
So why do you feel you can contribute to the discussion on this topic?

>>97876290
Same modus operandi everytime: going nuh-uh at every sentence and then a string mindless contradiction until he shouts "I win" into the void.

Don't prepare your story, prepare your world instead

>>97876290
he shows up in every thread that isn't a general

>>97879483
Fortunately, the game isn't divided into discrete sessions, and it wouldn't matter if it was. Only civilized islands have NPCs, and NPCs only matter for the services they provide, so there's no bullshitting required.

>>97879846
Where?

>>97879806
More games than you, certainly.

>>97879646
Yeah, why are you embarrassing yourself?

>>97879852
I agree. Stories should be natural to the world.

>>97880238
That doesn't mean anything, since there's no story that you create intentionally. It's not a concern.

>>97880271
Uhm?

>>97880227
don't try smart-mouthing anyone
you have to be borderline legally disabled due to mental retardation
to not understand how real games are different to pbp games,
and what are the implications to prep specifically.

if anything you have no say in this precisely because that's the "proof" you went for

>>97879368
>>97876293
I was very confused for a bit until the other anon pointed out this is a play by post game on discord, taken as a mobile screenshot.
What system is this even?
Also
Don't you have minimum an entire day between each post in a play by post game? At least that's how it was back when I played in the old WotC forums back in 2001 or so. That's a very different beast than actually directly talking to someone live and trying to think of what to say and what to improvize.

>>97844013
>sometimes it seems like people are allergic to putting effort into building adventures.
There's a gap between under and over preparing.

>>97844013
Why do you mistake prep for effort?

>>97880350
We had multiple posts from each player yesterday, in addition to posts by the GM.I don't understand your question. Why would there be a minimum time period between posts?

>>97880333
I'm sorry you don't understand that they're not different at all and you don't need to prep. Drop the attitude. I on the other hand, will continue to condescend, since I'm better than you.

>>97881710
>So insufferable as to be unable to game with friends in person
>Think they can say anything to anyone else about games

Lolno.

>>97881736
Lol yep.

>>97881690
Prep is effort. I get it might be common for people to prep a linear story and the game actually derails, but this is not because of prep, but rather prepping the wrong things.

>>97881700
>multiple posts over an entire day
>the same as actually having a conversation IRL
Not being in person is different than talking over discord, and both are completely different than writing posts with all the time in the world to think and improvize.
Honestly everything you've said in this thread is completely invalid because you don't need to improvize anything. Improvizing requires doing it live. You're not playing live. You're just preparing as you post.
Kinda pathetic that you can't tell the difference, it means you've never actually played with real people standing in the same room as you in your entire life.

You've single-handedly ruined the reputation of every proponent of "don't prep" on /tg/.
I will now always suspect they are playing on discord instead of actually playing.

>>97881700
>We had multiple posts from each player yesterday, in addition to posts by the GM
>posts by the GM
so you aren't even the one running the game?
Jesus

>>97881857
No. Prep is effort, but effort is not only prep, and prep is rarely the best way to spend effort.

>>97881903
You still didn't explain your question. Why do you think there would be a minimum time between posts?

>>97882207
Who said that?

>>97844013
>Railroading typically happens when a DM is underprepared for their sessions.
um no, it's a symptom of overpreparing and not wanting your preparation to go to waste when those pesky players decide to go do something else instead of following your prepare rails

>>97845370
naw, that guy is pretty retarded, since this issue doesn't depend on the system

>>97882346
It can be either/or. Or, more accurately, railroading usually comes from preparing *badly* rather than specifically too much or too little.

>>97882315
>Prep is effort, but effort is not only prep
pointless truisms

>>97882416
No, quite significant and important truisms that fundamentally alter that nature of the discussion, in fact.

>>97882321
not that anon, I was just reacting to your "multiple posts over an entire day" mention.

>>97882543
Right, and that was in response to "Don't you have minimum an entire day between each post in a play by post game?"

The answer to that question is : No. We don't. And I'm confused as to why anyone would believe that would necessarily be the case.

>>97882562
ok, I could still just direct the rest of my post to any of your other posts anyway, since the fact that playing by post is completely different than playing IRL is still self-evidently true.
Also why would you even play by post on discord instead of just having a live game?

>>97882583
Why would I do that when I could just play by post?

>>97882668
Because discord is not a good platform for play by post games. There are better places for play by post.

>>97882693
No, it works quite well.

>>97882668
>Why would I play actual games when I can play a horrible, neutered facsimile of a game?

This really sums up everything wrong with this vague posting jackass. Very funny, very illuminating.

>>97882709
Who are you quoting?

>>97882709
You mean vague posting like "Why would you do X instead of Y" as if one of them is the default, without any sort of explanation or reasoning as to why I should prefer one to the other? That kind of vague posting? Jackass?

>>97882720
>>97882728
Touched a nerve?

>>97882753
So you admit you were trolling? Alright, you're dismissed, then. Enjoy your ban.

>>97882709
He is probably also playing some normieslop 5e troon friendly game lol

lmao the damage control

>>97873361
Yep, got it in one.

>>97844013
I doubt you have any idea of what typically happens to any DM under any particular set of conditions.

>>97844013
>railroading
That's a good thing. You're here to roll dice, not live in an open world spoken into your fucking imagination from the GM's brain. Retard.

>>97844013
>railroading
That's a bad thing. You're here to make decisions, not live in a story spoken into your fucking imagination from the GM's brain. Retard.

>>97893262
No? you're completely backwards.

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>>97844013
GMing is hard. Players who never ran a game don't really understand how difficult it is to imagine something and then present it engagingly to people, who then interact with it in real time. When you're planning a game, most of the preparation is just getting confident with your premise and setting. Railroading happens when the GM wants to present the material they're confident is more likely to be higher quality, as opposed to gambling on something sloppier and insubstantial.
When players go out of their way to put GMs in situations they never intended to run, they are going against the fundamentally collaborative nature of the hobby. Yes, the GMs should immerse the players in the world and have their actions matter. At the same time, the players need to engage with the GM's premise in good faith and not deliberately negate their time and effort like it's some kind of principle.
I personally believe the "don't overprepare" argument is just these problem players reacting to being told the GM put time and effort into the game, which should be respected. Instead of reflecting on whether engaging with the GM's plot hook makes for a better experience for everyone, they would rather just suggest the GM put less thought into the plot hook, so it's less wasteful when they get ignored.

>>97844013
>This bullshit thread is still going on

>>97893683
It's pretty easy, actually.

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>>97893683
Nope.

>>97894095
It’s not that easy. Not unless you’re lazy and your friends are sparing your feelings on how boring and slapdash your games are.

>>97894107
Nope.

>>97893683
My tip for you is to design "leading questions" those are things that naturally instill curiosity, to the degree it wouldn't make sense to leave it alone and not engage with it.

>>97894774
Your answer means nothing.

>>97896065
Ironic.

>>97844027
fpbp

>>97893683
Have you considered running a play by post game, so that you can spend 10-20 minutes coming up with a reply to any player actions?

>>97873457
Railroading is one thing but if their intent is to just wreck the game and escape the map without any character motivation, purely for the sake of knowing it has edges and will be funny for the room of people playing the game (out of character knowledge), then if you're stupid enough to keep trying to DM for them, simply have a storm hit their ship and make the cunts roll to survive washing up on the shore of the correct island where the game takes place. Hope the ship wasn't a rental because now there's a debt collector looking for you too.
Out of character railroad aversion is lot worse than logical factors of the world they're in pushing them to accomplish something specific. That said, If they were just trying to slip away and escape the pirate horde, that has some decent IN CHARACTER reasoning, but it would be very difficult to acquire a ship, crew and plan an escape from a blockaded port so they're in for a decent game of piratey action anyway and everyone is a winner.

>>97896767
There is no irony in you being a moron, that’s just your sad life.

>>97897053
It's the true test for a DM worth their salt. The players will never find the edge of the game world. They'll just be traveling.

>>97844681
From experience playing with these 'zero-prep sandbox' fantasyslop GMs who brag about coming to the game with three sentences of notes, their players are always either 70iq simpletons happy to just throw dice or, more commonly, bored out of their mind.
>The merchant you met is named uuuuh Robert. He has a problem with uuuuh goblins that are coming from uuuuh an old fort in the forest. Oh, you want to head there? It's uuuuh, pretty far, you won't make it this session. On the way you get attacked by uuuuh three wolves. Throw initiative.

GMs who do a minimum amount of legwork are more bearable, but there's a finite amount of 'location with a couple of small dungeons and 3 factions locked in a precarious stalemate' you can throw at your player's before they tune out.

Flexible, minimal prep will give you a wide open, but deep as a puddle campaign. Might be doable if you play combat-heavy system where you can stall with a 2 hour fight against a few goblins, but who wants to play this shit?
If you want to play something more than beer-and-pretzels at best, yawn-fest at worst, you'll need actual prep. Secrets, clues, relationship maps, locations, timetables, handouts, key scene diagrams. And no, none of this will lead to railroading. It's material to build your improv upon and give it depth. You'll know it's worth it when your player's will treat your world as real instead of a funny playground.
>B-but what if my players decide to sail away?
The only times I've seen players make this type of disruptive decisions was when the campaign was so fucking boring that the only enjoyment they could get was to make the GM squirm by throwing this type of curve ball. Players want to be the heroes of a cool story and Frodo didn't just fuck off halfway through his quest.

>>97897092
Ironic.

>>97897461
No, players don't want to be in a story. If they did, they would have signed up for a story. Since they signed up for a game, and not a story, we can conclude that they want to play a game. QED.

>>97897115
Travelling where though? Why?
I mean your campaign would have to be complete dogshit for a character to just access to a sea ready ship that the party alone can man as their first action, but without character motivation it's just annoying the DM for the sake of annoying the DM and should be met by the wrath of god. Storms, meteors suddenly striking is more believable than the blacksmith's apprentice seeking glory magically gaining a boat and sailing in a straight line with no heading while laughing. I can't see this scenario ever happening in a real session though. How does he get the boat without a lot of playing to earn money, contacts at the harbour/a boat seller/rental? How does he convince the party to go along with this senseless bullshit without them having him committed or just saying "ok bye then"? Your campaign has to fail at multiple points and even then like I said, if they test the DM the DM simply needs to clip them for their blasphemy and carry on a sensible game.

>>97898047
Why can’t they want both?

>>97898753
On the other hand, if their whole deal is that their dream is to own a ship and sail and explore, or sail to another continent that exists in your lore, and the rest of the party agrees to help with that dream for whatever reason is motivating them, then you could make a great campaign out of that by itself and should be pleased that the party is committed to a goal that requires them to team up and deal with many situations to achieve. Getting the boat could be done in so many different ways, steal it; get hunted by the navy, buy it; who's selling? what do they want? how can you get it or get around getting it?
You might end up missing potential plots if you'd prepared them (surely there should be some kind of bigger story that pleads for their eventual involvement) but you'd all still get a good campaign out of it. I suppose you could just throw in at some point news has arrived from [first continent] that there was some evil wizard that threatened the kingdom going on you didn't hear about but he has now seized the throne and plunged the world into darkness. Make your plot progress regardless of their involvement. Could be quite funny that another team of heroes is constantly in the news for doing the shit they were meant to do, and the players still get the lore dump you're desperate to take on them.
I like a well thought out dungeon with hidden areas and bosses and loot rooms, that are planned out beforehand though. Most players I've played with seem to like knowing the world isn't just randomly generating and there's a set structure to the cave for them to figure out for example. In fact I think most players are just there to do the dungeons, collect money, find new enchanted weapon on boss, walk to next town to get heading to next dungeon. Just because they can sit in the tavern RPing with dwarves all day and trolling the DM, doesn't mean anyone ever wants to do that.

>>97897461
>Robert the merchant has a problem with goblins in an old fort within the forest. Oh, you want to head there? On the way you get attacked by three wolves. Throw initiative.
literally no issue

>>97898753
>Travelling where though? Why?
It's up to them?
>I mean your campaign would have to be complete dogshit for a character to just access to a sea ready ship
Maybe, but if the party wants to sail they will need money and supplies, it takes a sizeable crew.
>it's just annoying the DM for the sake of annoying the DM
Maybe, I would give them the benefit of the doubt if they aren't twirling their mustache though.
>Boat, money, ect
I agree, but if they intend to go sailing then what I said before, it's a test of the DM's mettle to have a seamless game world.

>>97898957
>>97897115
>>97894095
>>97894106
>t. play by post player (not even GM)

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>>97898993
which one though

>>97898957
>>97898939
Beat you to it.

>>97898993
And you just fed the troll (you)s because...?

>>97898905
They can. They're two opposite things. A game isn't a story and a story isn't a game. You can't do both at the same time.

>>97898753
No, I haven't found it annoying to me at all, actually. There's nothing weird or unusual or unreasonable about players having vehicles. Most games I run have at least one player that chooses that option.

>>97898993
So he plays more games than you? Got it.

>>97900182
Except that’s a false dichotomy. Stories are created from the games that we play together, and story elements are used to enhance the experience of the game itself so that the players can enjoy it on a level higher than solely the dopamine hit of rolling dice and mathematics. You can effortlessly have both story and game in the same activity. Something you’d know if you actually played any.

>>97900619
Do you think that if you call out the troll, he'll stop? He's been shitposting for years.

>>97900642
At this point, I don’t do it for the troll’s sake, I do it for the one or two people who might be actually considering this discussion and have their own thoughts. I know this guy is a retard and that the mods refuse to stop him. But maybe someone else will actually consider that it’s not impossible to have story and game and maybe make the world a less shitty place.

>>97900619
No. It's not. A story is an authored narrative with intent determined by one person. A game is a set of rules and procedures participated in by multiple people with no pre-determined outcome that cannot be predicted by anyone in advance. They are as perfectly opposite as any two things can be.

>>97900642
>>97900689
Your position is wrong, and mine is correct. You're the troll. Learn from your betters.

That was simply pathetic.

>>97900740
>>97900745
Saddest samefag

>>97900877
Yeah, you were.

>>97900998
Yep, no argument. Glad you agree that I'm right.

>>97901032
lol the sad fuck actually got triggered being called out

>>97845950
Prep in bell curves.
Things closer to the top and centre affect more than things at the wings,
e.g.
>Highly Affective: The King Outlaws Magic (Event)
>Almost No Affect: How much gold farmer #2273, titled "Joe" hides under his bed

One of these two happenings is far more significant than the other. If you chart the metaphorical trunk of the tree, you can figure out branches on the fly.

>>97901080
Ironic LOL

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>>97901498

>>97901520
Yep, you don't know what it means. Quite ironic given your image :)

>>97898939
Plots? I'm not running a book.