this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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Sure, throwing away 40+ hours of work because one player chose to go completely off rail is fun once or twice, but it gets old really really fast. Nowadays I run my games on a pretty rigid railroad. At the end of the session I ask my players what they would like to do and that's what I'm preparing. Sure, there's some wiggle room, but if you decide to do something completely different, there's a pretty big chance it will result in character death.
I was with you in the first half. But shouldn't there be some out of game communication between "This is not the direction we agreed upon beforehand" and "I will kill your character as punishment"?
Yeah, I think there's a big difference between "I thought they were going to investigate the smith, but they're really suspicious of the wizard now and want to check her out first" and "they decided to forget about the whole civil war for the throne thing and open a BBQ joint for the local goblins"
Nowadays I'd probably just explicitly be like "Hey, so, when we started this game we agreed on a certain tone and direction. Specifically, it was going to be about a power struggle for the throne. Running a restaurant business in D&D sounds wild, but that is really a different kind of story and a different game. If you want to do that, let's talk about it. Otherwise, I'm asking you to stay more on theme."
Though I say that and my best game had plenty of "beach episodes". One time literally, after they saved some sahaugin from being subjugated by a siren.
Exactly! My prep is pretty robust towards different means of achieving an objective. Usually plan for two to three different courses of action and can improf everything in between. My comment was directed exclusively at the "Yeah, that dungeon looks interesting, but I'm gonna troll the king instead" type of shennanigans.