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Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Railroading and preplanning

I know that a good percentage of OSR DM's out there prefer to have modules with no real railroading, and a basic plot, room descriptions etc.  This leaves a lot of the game in the hands of the DM.  Personally when I've written adventures for my players, I tend to do a lot of pre-figuring as far as reactions are concerned.  It might be partially because I grew up on modules like "The Sword Of The Dales" era AD&D 2e, which was a helluva a railroad.  All this being said, I have a adventure I wrote called "Gloomwood Forest" which I've playtested already.  When I remember my hand written notes, I'm going to write it up correctly with stat blocks and throw it up for giggles.  I will of course pre face the introduction by saying "This is a bit railroadey".  The thing is the adventure is based around 2 maps of a forest, with paths that the PC's can follow (much like dungeon corridors, just a bit more scenic).  Within the adventure there is a bandit camp, a necromancer lair, a old wizards tower, and a few halflings fishing.  Obviously as I stated I have some pre-planned scenarios that happen, with text.  This can be thrown out the window I suppose.

I think I'm rambling....

I suppose the question that comes to my mind, is how much flavor text and plot do you like? I know a lot of guys/gals prefer "the room is 10x15 , there are 3 goblins in it", and leave it up to where the dice fall as far as surprise, morale and reactions.


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