What it feels like to play in a railroaded game
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- Опубліковано 16 сер 2020
- if you know, then you know.
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"As you go to say no, you say yes"
Ah yes, the floor here is made of ceiling
The fire is so wet
The water is so hot
@@nathanex5122 I mean, water can be hot
@@therr2146 ah yes this comment is made out of bullshit and doesnt have any facts
@@nathanex5122 The water ignites paper. Yes, I do science.
@@icarue993 Who are you, who are so wise in the ways of science?
Jacob: *settles in the bath and starts to relax*
The King, rising out of the water: "Another settlement needs our help. Here, I'll mark it on your map".
Natgeo1201: is Desbug
I thought the exact same thing! King Preston Harvey.
This character I would love. He just appears and gives you stuff then just leaves, asking you to vist every once in a while maybe. Cause he's lonely and just a weird nice guy.
What a shame that the King is already part of the Minutemen, he would've fit right in at the Railroad
Goddammmit Preston, go away
Honestly, if my GM opened up with: "so out of the bathtub rises the king" I'd be fully and completely onboard. That's a good king yo.
If i'm taking a bath and the king pop on the woman side that a dead king.
@@angerskarin9222 Hey, she could be a trans king and she'd be just as valid in that space as any non-trans, non-king person.
Dorime
@@kelavia2112 Ameno
What is dead May never die, but rises again, harder and stronger.
"The King rises out of the water."
"Roll initiative."
[Dark Souls boss music starts]
*Megalovania x Darksouls intensifies*
That made me laugh too much-
I like reading this as the player saying "Roll initiative" in response to the DM
"Ilinash, Monarch of The Hot Springs"
“As you go to say no, you say yes.” Ah, Fallout 4, we meet again.
Gives a new meaning to “railroad”
What's incredible about saying no in Fallout 4...
Is sometimes your character will state an explicit *no* and yet... the quest will still start. There is literally *no way* to refuse a quest. Unless its given by a non-essential NPC... in which case, you know, there is one option.
Hello! Vault-Tec calling!
Did we even play the same game? I said no dozens of times and turned down quests. Granted, the options are confusing at times, so I'll give you that. But there's two easy ways to remedy that.
1. Mods that fix the wording of options.
2. Disable the notification of the quests that you don't want to track. Out of sight, out of mind.
Playing Fallout 4 makes me wish I was playing Fallout 3 or NV's DLC, though. :(
I need to convince this NPC who has clearly taken very stern change on not working with the brotherhood again, to work for the brotherhood.
I pick the orange and 1 line of dialog is enough to convince her.
fucking bethesda.
Characters: We go home to sleep.
DM: Alright. As you sit on your bedsheets, preparing to rest, they suddenly shift as the King *emerges from under your bed's covers*
That's pretty bad... Or pretty good...
*Bard intensifies*
Under a females covers
The only proper response here is: "I roll to seduce the king."
How did he get here?
He rose out of the bedsheets
I feel like a genuine campaign could be made from a party of adventurers just trying to live a chill life but are constantly interrupted by the King who's trying to make them accept absurd quests they'd never realistically want to accept.
thats effectivly skyrim. Sometimes i just wanna chill and be a little thief, but every Jarl or other mildly important NPC has a "Die in some cave for me please" quest
DM: "You enter the library, it is quiet and peaceful with only a few commoners browsing the shelves and librarians doing their duties."
DM: what would you like to do?
Party: We would like to start browsing the books in search of information.
DM: Great, "As you approach a bookshelf, it suddenly rotates revealing the king who is there to tell you important information about the quest."
There’s a dnd podcast called die of laughter where they are several episodes in and have refused to leave the starting tavern so far. Very funny and the dm is trying to be very creative to get the story to them lol
The Big Lebowski but DnD
@@ryanbrandsen7703 that series is about to drive me insane cause all Poob does is make people shit themselves as Sam does everything in his power to make the situation 10x worse and Bryan's just there for the ride. 😂
I can't stop laughing at the image of a king rising out of the water talking to the adventurers with a straight face scaring the crap out of the party.
Got something I'm supposed to deliver. Your hands only.
I like to imagine he's still in his fancy fur robes and crown with sceptre and stuff
Skyrim lol
It's funnier imagining the pale king doing this
This, this made me laugh, then the mental image of him just handing pouches of paper, completely drenched like, "yes, please hurry"
When he said, “the king rises out of the water,” I felt that.
*George Takei has entered the chat*
He could've at least walked into the bath house normally or something
In other context that could be awesome.
The king is a surprise villain
@@LordBrittish" oh my" that actually sounds like a fun villain concept xD
"I attack the king"
"Okay, the king falls dead"
"Oh than-"
"His chest bulges and tares, the sound of muscle and bone breaking, as a smaller version of the king rises from the dead body"
And now I have my next NPC. Thank you very much.
i would lowkey surprise adopt the king
thats one way to kill off murber hobos fast, make up the sheet and ask the murder hobo to roll initudive and all of the tiny king would kill the murder hobo
"I attack the smaller king"
"You kill him fairly quickly, and he falls to the ground."
"Now I'm king I guess"
"Actually, as you approach the kingly robes, a small scaled hand pushes them aside and you realize... there were two other kobolds underneath these robes.
The king was actually three kobolds in a trench coat."
@@Insertfunnycomment why was that so funny
When the king rose out of the water I imagined him in a T-pose.
That sounds horrifying.
Establishing dominance
Someones watched the Depeche Mode - Personal Jesus [The Stargate Mix] video eh!
We all did
Roll initiative lmao
"the king rises out of the water" i pictured some immaculate 10 pack dude with a crown and a burgerking beard just rising up arms stretched back, head tilted back, slow motion, long hair. hilarious
Omg I see it
*queue pillar men theme*
"awaken, my servants" are his first, majestic words. He stretches his arms widely as the light across the room shifts in color. Water bubbles by his side as two other men appear, both in similar regalia and exuding a similar aura of vigour, power, and majesty.
"the king decrees"
"the servants obey"
They say one after the other in a seamless stream, as if just one person spoke. Their arms crossed, and backs slightly arched, but no other movement otherwise
"I have a quest for you, adventurer."
Finally, the king himself speaks once more, imposing onto you and your companions the task ahead. For you are only a subject, you must obey.
@@jackers30 Oh god yes. I need to build in JoJo references into all campaigns now.
Same dood
"As you go to say no, you say 'yes' instead."
Pokemon professors when they ask you to fill out the Pokedex.
I was looking for this comment XD
Sometimes they actually let you say no, but then they say some variation of "Come'on kid, I really need the help" and if you keep saying no they will just repeat the same phrase until you accept. It feels like a parody every time I see it.
@@elrafa111 A few games do that I hate it.
I love saying no to mother when she asks you if you want a Pokemon or go on an adventure or something, lmao
Ah, Professor Rowan. We meet again
Honestly, if the king rose out of the water without the whole setup of the castle earlier, that'd just be hilarious. Give us some good insight into the king.
The real-question is why didn't he have a laminated map to show them in the back instead of making them go back to the castle
"as you go to the bathhouse the king rises out of the water and says 'You might wonder why I gathered all of you here today...' [...]"
Just watching it starting at 1:30 is hilarious
@@lucykitsune4619 He is totally a divination wizard... He is so good/powerful he knows about the evil before it happens long enough to know you are the solution, but because he did it before it happens you have time mess around and do sidequest
I was thinking the same thing. I couldn't even be mad at that point.
Railroading DM's = "I don't want to play a game I want to tell a story."
Plot De-railing Players = "I don't want to play a game I want to tell MY story."
Maybe D&D should not be about story until the adventure is over.
More like "I want to play a game to the point where I will test the limits of your prep work and improvisation skills by interacting with the most obscure NPCs who the DM made the mistake of naming"
@@CrizzyEyes Tru.
@@CrizzyEyes Takes a special kind of person to feel insulted by a meme.
@@coyote4326 You're projecting, buddy, I was just making another joke on top of that, which is in fact in the same vein as your initial post
"And holds his arms out, in awe of the fact that you have come"
I like how even the NPC king is thrown off by the forced linear path.
I was expecting him to say "you enter the bath house" and then proceed to describe the interior of the king's throne room
Now I can't get that out of my head.
This is fucking gold
"You enter the bath house to find the king sitting on his throne in the middle of the bath. Expensive tapestries and banners were hastily affixed to the walls, and are slowly wicking up water from the wet floors. The King greets you, 'Good, you've arrived. You'll need to head to Ferngully and defeat the great evil that's been plaguing it.' He fetches a rolled up piece of parchment floating in the bath beside him, and unfurls it, revealing a half-dissolved map. He points out where you need to go, before dismissing you."
The castle is undergoing repairs so king had to move his throne room somewhere. He also likes to bath often
Same
“The paper was laminated”
Jesus Christ that killed me
What killed me was the face Jacob made when he said it, Alexander the boring pseudonym.
And that is not even the weirdest part of the event.
Laminated paper... GOT HIM!!! xD
@@panpan3303 Is...is this an OSP reference?
@@jamiewalters6111 kind of? I’ll just say yes.
-"Can we tell him no?"
-"Roll for it"
-"Natural 1"
-“As you go to say no, you say yes.”
"He paralyzes you"
"No save?"
"Oh, sure, roll a save"
"Wisdom?"
"Sure.."
"Natural 20, 23"
"You're still paralyzed"
True story
There are some monsters with higher DC than 23, but that would be probably be a very high CR monster.
I get your point of it being a railroading, however the save example is not really a good one. There are possibilities of having very high DCs for saves. I as a DM do not know the bonuses for every single save of every single PC. Plus there's almost always options on how to increase it.
Maybe the DC of 24 would be doable if the player used some abilities to boost their save. But they also had no way of knowing 23 doesn't succeed. So this is a normal combat interaction from which PCs and enemies are feeling each other out.
The dm not asking for a save can be fine if it happens like once or twice in the entire campaign for major plot points but if this was like just to drag out a fight because yall were busting the dms bosses ass thats sad
@@31TeV nat 20 are like nat 1 they are an auto pass
@@hazerddex
Saving throws don't get auto pass on 20 or auto fail on 1 RAW, although plenty of people homebrew otherwise. It's only attack rolls where this applies.
If you don't believe me, try to find in the PHB where it says this applies to ability checks or saving throws. You can't, because it doesn't exist.
EDIT: PHB clarification
"Wise King of the Bathwater, what is your wish?"
"Do my quest."
i would if a king just randomly appers giving the players a nug in the directrion they need to go
That's some Tigtone shit and I love it.
To quote another person:
“The king rises out of the water. He recognises you from when you never met”
My Bard: Is that the name of your daughter?
Then there's the other side: Four-five people sitting there in silence as they try to figure out what they want to do while the DM just sits there staring at them after giving a 5 minute introduction and describing where they are.
Railroad adventures suck, but so do 100% sandbox ones too. Games need at least _some_ sort of direction, not everyone is a drama nerd with a huge imagination, some people need a gentle prod in the right direction.
Yes! And for everyone that might be reading this: to help alleviate this issue somewhat, it really helps to think of some sort of personal quest your character is on. So, whenever there is downtime from the Big Bads schemes, you have clear goals in mind that are not directly tied to the "main"-quest.
When the players are done with a quest and don’t know what to do, I always tell them some things they can do, and if I was prepared enough to make a town map, I point out locations they can go shop at or find quests in.
This comment was made by railroad gang
I agree with this mostly because a few of my players are like that. Then I see vids like these and it makes me feel bad for lightly pushing them in the right direction. So seeing this comment makes me feel slightly better
Edit:
I also wanted to add that... I've sort of circumvented this by talking to my players and asking them what they want. Giving them personal character plots they may enjoy. I feel that helps a lot.
Oh boy I feel that one! My main group always flounders if I don't drop a story directly in front of them, but it can be hard to make it open enough to also not make it feel like I had to drop something at their feet
"The paper was laminated."
Every line in this video is perfection.
I do legit love the idea of just the king slowly rising out of the bath water as the party is just chilling there with 0 explanation on how he got their or what he’s doing there. It’s honestly one of the funniest campaign memes I’ve ever seen. 😂😂
"I cast Shocking Grasp."
Where did you see it?
“As you go to say no, you say yes,” and “The paper is laminated,” and “The route is a railroad,” are all godly phrases that I live by now
As I always say
It's always the French
If it isn't the French it's the Scottish
And now The Paper is Laminated
if
Player : "can i tell him no?"
DM : "roll a wisdom save. . . vs DC 17"
Player : *rolls die* "16. . ."
DM : "as you go to say no...you say yes instead "
that would be legit
"the King raises out of the water"
Keep your fun out of my D&D, Jacob.
You tell'im crabbo, you tell'im.
King crabbo rises from the sea one wishes to relax in
Crab Army unite
I love your vids!
AS A PALADIN OF THE CROWN, I HAVE SWORN AN OATH TO PROTECT KING CRABBO!!
This is my favorite video they've ever made.
Them improving and genuinely making each other crack up is hilarious.
1:11 "As you go to say no... you say yes instead."
2:30 "the paper was laminated."
"As you go to say no, you say yes"
Heeeey! Is this a DnD games or my social anxieties?!
"How did he get here"
"He rose out of the water"
Silly player. How else could he have gotten there?
@Pardoner Geoffrey yes
“The papers are laminated” yes, that explains everything
He misty stepped there
“I attack him”
“You miss”
“And remember kids gods go first in initiative”
“His bonus is higher than your ac so there’s no real reason to roll.”
“Legendary resistance”
“He casts power word kill”
"Wait! I didn't even ROLL! How did I MISS!?"
"And as you're swinging your sword, the king points out the location of where you need to go on your map."
This happened to me in my first ever session as a player
"I attack"
"Something stops you from drawing your weapon"
"I punch"
"You can't rise your arm"
"I spend a sorcery point and cast fireball without somatic component"
"You choke"
"I have my snake familiar bite them"
"It gently curls around the king"
It happens
"The king rolls his Charisma to talk you down. He re-rolls 1-19, taking the better result, so I'll just skip to the Nat 20. You wake up one hour later with a location marked on your map."
This happened to me today. I've been playing with this DM who simply selfinserted himself as the captain of this ship we were on and gave us orders all the time and we had to do what he wanted. But it gets worst, just wait. So there was a wreckage and we are just stuck in an island, we thought for a second that we had lost this annoying bossy (supposedly NPC) character, but then he just appeared out of nowhere, started giving us orders, describing what we (the players) were doing and the decisions we made, the rest of the party said basically "okay, I guess I'll do that...?" and as he got to the point when he began to tell me how my character was healing his buddy (because apparently that’s all my druid can do, he deadass INSTRUCTED ME to put into my character sheet that I almost never get into combat and even when I do so is only to be the healer. I'M NOT EXAGGERATING) I said "okay, first of, I don't think my character would do that, I mean, I don't even know who this guy is to begin with" because we never roleplayed or anything, first time knowing that guy existed, didn't even know his name... And he said, "nononono, you actually like this guy a lot! You see, your character doesn't interact much with the rest of the crew, but you like this guy! So you decide to heal him. Roll a medicine check now"
This is one of the worst things I've heard in a long time
Nah man, I'm pretty sure my character laughs and watches him die.
Yeah no. I say goodbye and leave the campaign lol
Skeweton King bwake you haynds!
This would be a really cool setting if it is revealed that you are really trapped in some kind of spell or illusion or Labyrinth that forces you to take the quest.
"As you go to say no, you say yes" has the same energy as JRPGs that have a Yes/No question but only advance the dialogue if you say yes
To be fair, in a quest like "Will you help me with this thing?", the most civilized response I can think of for when the player says "No" would be "It's alright, bro. If you change your mind, I'll be here.".
Besides, that also gives the player the opportunity to prepare for the quest before triggering the start of the quest.
Or no, as is the case with joining team rocket
Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia, litrally has a question that won't let you pick no, dispite seeming to offer it as an option. Spoilers Below
When Heath tries to get you to trade The ranger they Captured Keith for the gemstone you recently got that is needed to stop team Dim Sun, it gives you a yes or no option, but if you try to choose not to it will just make you repate the option until you give in, cause there is only one route allowed
Worst is when they put the no option first so you cant carelessly spam through it either.
@@AnnaMno1 You didn't really need a spoiler warning from some random game to make that point though.
Legendary Railroad: If a PC says "No", you can choose to make them say "Yes" instead.
NPC:Can we have intercourse?
Player: No
DM: uses ability
Player: OOOOOOKAY IM GOING HOME NOW SEE YOU NOT NEXT WEEK OR EVER AGAIN!
Do you go to the castle
No
Roll a wisdom save
6
You are charmed and you go to the castle
@@Solrex_the_Sun_King Yes, thank you for the creepy rape joke.
"Wait, we never agreed to go to the castle and meet the king."
"Roll an Intelligence saving throw."
Between the King meeting Jacob with open arms and meeting up with him at a bathhouse, i feel like the DM forgot to mention some ”intimate” backstory between him and Jacob
Railroad DMs should warn their players with a whistle and a conductor's hat.
"All aboard a main questline choo choo"
Actually I did just that. I warned my players that the first hour of a campaign was a slight railroad to get things going smoothly. I'd actually recommend this if you are going to do it.
@@voided_sun Communication is key!
Who would've guessed
Player: I need an item card.
DM: Here ya go.
*hands over Reading Railroad from Monopoly*
Ok! I'll be in the caboose!
(Slowly plans to pull a old man Henderson) let's see if we can uncouple a few worthless cars along the journey. Hey, what is this thing about a certain quest tied to this stupid book? I tried to toss it into the shredder and it somehow caught fire.
The paper was laminated... that's how ready this King was to creep on someone in a bathtub.
No I like to imagine he just carries those on him at all time. Just in case
@@theprimestskeletron676 I mean.. he has to tell SOMEONE about the troubles in Felrond.
"He raises his arms out in awe of the fact that you have come."
Had a DM exactly like this.
Hell, before the campaign started, we had a Wizard PC obsessed with Warforged who was secretly a changeling, and a PC who was secretly a Warforged. All of us players were really excited to RP their first encounter, and the first couple of days that they'd know each other.
We even talked about how excited we were about all of this in front of the DM.
Then, when the campaign finally starts, he says "So you've all known each other for 6 months" and talked and talked and talked for almost 30 minutes straight. Deciding every thing we do for us, and creating blank environments and situation where we always had to do one specific thing to progress.
We complained about this, and he simply refused to take any suggestions into account. So the players and I just left the campaign and started our own.
Some DM's don't actually want to DM, they just want to write a book.......
I love railroading in my games! I think it's an underused form of transportation but it works better in more steampunk-y settings, so I understand why it's not in every campaign. But it can make for really cool sequences, scenes, and fights!
scared me for a second there lmao
I think it can be used in moderation but not the entire game
Yeah, the lightning rails in Eberron are really useful! The world's really big so it can save a lot of time when it takes ages to cross a single country.
FuriosHobbitGaming
Agreed, though a party that acts as a train crew in order to find new places to get new jobs as adventurers would be pretty cool.
DarthBinary
They also look awesome
Plot twist: he doesn't remember agreeing to help the king because the wizard cast _modify memory_ on him.
Now THAT would be the setup to a pretty interesting campaign.
@@zachmercer1065 It's also a great way of misleading your players into thinking that they are being railroaded at the start of a campaign because you can just state that they all remember agreeing to go on a certain quest (as long as none of them are immune to being charmed). It sets up a plot hole that might be missed unless any of the players take the spell into consideration and it can be used to set up an ambush on the characters.
It's all about communication. You as a group need to set the right expectations. You can still have a linear storyline where the players have agency and can make decisions. It's when you give them no options and only allow one solution to a problem that it becomes very frustrating. This issue can be completely avoided if people just talk about what kind of game to expect.
I like to use the Dungeon Siege method. The characters have a destination in mind, but because they're on foot, it takes a while to get there. On top of this, there's an invading army on their heels, so they functionally can't linger too long in any one spot.
I love how the camera man just starts laughing when he says "when you go to say no, you say yes instead"
"I attack him"
"Okaaay.... roll a d20"
"Nat 20"
"You cleave the king clean in half down the middle. You stand there, covered in sweat and blood. You shake in shock at what you have done."
"Cool, I wanna leave the bathhou-"
"The king's body shakes as a second body rises from within the pool of blood"
Dnd encounter; The King.
A king who keeps emerging from pools of liquid to ask the aid of adventurers about problems on Greyhawk despite the fact that The King is only encountered in Forgotten realms. He seems oblivious to that fact.
He is always friendly and thinks highly of adventurers, but cant leave his pond.
@@carpedm9846 Sounds like a bizarre SCP.
@@Ditidos The King of Deep Water
"1st of all, rude. 2nd, as I was saying, I have a quest for you adventurers"
DM: The second king body shoots fire out his mouth at you, but you block it with your spinning weapon, which you then launch to stab the king in the chest, with a loud brass sting from James Horner.
Player: .... is this Krull?
DM: This is Krull. You're in Krull now.
I almost didn't catch the start of the railroading, I legit had the same double take irl
Edit: God I hope that laminated line was improv, that's fucking gold
"As you go to say NO you say YES instead."
"N...N...N...NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNYES!"
This makes me laugh so loud! I recently joined an online group that was such a railroad! I was guarding a staircase after a main battle and suddenly I was in an airship doing something.. I mean literally 30 seconds earlier, the DM asked me what I was doing and I told him I was reaching into a satchel to grab oil to throw down some stairs to slow some bad guys who were charging up it..
But he said, right - you all run then jump on the awaiting airship before they can get to you, and you travel for a few days when you notice a large group of birds following you.. I'm like - I THROW MY OIL THAT I JUST PULLED OUT AT THEM!
After the game the GM told me I needed to interact with the story and be more serious, and be less "funny".. He also told me I was meta gaming... I told him it wasn't a story i could react to as it seemed he was running my character not me. He asked me to leave the group, and I happily did.
Jacob's character: _settles into the hot tub_
The King: _rises from the waters in his full royal gown, takes a deep breath_ Let me tell you of the troubles in Fellrond.
Lets all hope and pray that we never have to deal with this kind of game.
Aye aye
I feel railroaded til World anvil ;)
too late, bro
I was playing a railroad campaign for three weeks. After the third week I just got up and left in the middle of the game. Never looked back.
This is pretty much how the first campaign I ever did was lmao
I can’t decide if it is funnier to imagine the king was just underwater waiting for them, or that he had some magical technique that allowed him to warp there to follow the party.
"And as you do, rising out of the water.. comes the king! To tell you about the troubles in Felrond."
"How-..HOW DID HE GET HERE?!"
"He... rose out of the water."
That NPC King is a man who knows how to get things done. He sounds like a perfect partner to our favorite wizard.
"Let me tell you of the problems in Fellrond. First, there is a big fucking tree monster harassing our trade routes."
Wizard-*excited* Ohh
"Next, we've heard a large bandit group has built themselves a fortress in the mountains. Out of very dry wood"
Wizard-*salivating* Haaaah yes.
"Lastly, an enormous demon has been summoned in the west. Our scryers have learned it is entirely composed of a substance called.....*checks laminated notes* Hydrogen.
Wizard-FIRE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALL!
Ok, imma take a bath now.
King: *rises from bath water* Hello there
General Kenobi
General Kenobi!
General Kenobi, you are a bold one.
Good thing everybody recognised the king
@@salmanmahyuddin8384 Assuming Jacob was playing a Male character, it's a good thing the DM decided the ruler of that town to be Male.
- Yes
->No
NPC: "Surely you want to help the citizens, right?"
-Yes
->No
NPC: "Surely you want to help the citizens, right?"
I think the "literally about to die laughing" moments you guys include before the cuts are the best parts about your show. Like, my god, they never fail to get me to giggle.
I especially love how he lost it when the dm said "the papers are laminated"
I love how you can hear someone start laughing after he said "When you go to say no, you actually ssy yes" XD
It's Jacob who laughs
so, you want to not attack the goblins mmm ,roll sneak "rolls 18" they see you with a "rolls 13" , they spot you
"But I have a +15 to stealth"
"Well yes but actually no"
@Retrogamer 420 but why would you even make that person roll if their result is completely irrelevant?
Yeah. There’s no point in letting a character sneak if the DM just has them noticed anyway.
@Retrogamer 420 Yes. But if being seen was integral to the story, the dm wouldnt have asked for a stealth-roll
@@kapitanbeuteltier5889 You do ask, because they (or the dm) doesnt know its integral, it would be weird to be like "You were spotted" "Cant I sneak? We were sneaking what happened?"
“As you go to say no, you say yes.”
That alone is worth the like for this video! I love it.
He's basically just reading them a story at that point lol
Usually how I avoid railroading is tell people before the game starts. Like: “Hey, In waterdeep make a character who’ll want to stay there and maintain a house and or business” works like a charm
That's what session 0 is supposed to be, but so many people just don't listen.
Could you explain this?
@@birthdayzrock1426 they means have people make charactors that would want to be in the plot. For example i have a game about local politics so i asked people to make charscotrs thst care about the health of the community. Works super well.
@@birthdayzrock1426 it means to make characters that *want* to be in the story. I have had so many edge lords say "why would my character save this person?" Or "my character doesn't want to save these people, my character wants to kill them."
Like, ok, if your character doesn't want to play the game, make a new character then. You're the one who made him in the first place.
Thats a bit different of a type of railroading imo. Its one thing to have a specific campaign you want to run, but to literally make it impossible to do anything but what the dm wants to happen, HOW the dm wants it to happen is something else entirely. Lets take jonathans idea as an example. Yeah the campaign is about politics, but you arent allowed any option in how you handle them because the dm only seems to want you to ally with THIS family, and do only what THEY would want, etc etc etc. Every other option you try auto fails and leads right back to the single path the dm wants you to follow.
The look Jacob gives him when he say, "The paper was laminated." 🤣🤣🤣
This actually helped me feel a lot better about my own game lmao. I’m DMing a campaign for the first time and have been worrying about whether it’s too railroad-y, but maybe it’s not actually that bad lol
A wise man once said: "We shouldn't be awarding points for clearing a bar that's subterranean."
I am always the DM. I asked one of my buddies to DM one time so that I could be a player for once. He agreed. He went a bought some pre-made module to run us through. Which was fine with me. I just wanted to be a player.
The game starts with us, a party of 4 people, all level 3 with no weapons or armor. We are walking down a road and see an ogre with a greatclub and chainmail armor. So of course, we run away.
From there, we look for jobs on the job board. The only job available is guarding sheep on a farm overnight. So we do that. Then the next day we go to the tavern to ask around for more work. A man approaches us asking us to do some adventuring job going into a cave or something, and he would pay us 10 gold each. Since we had literally no gear, I asked the guy if he could give us 50% up front to buy gear, in order to raise the odds of success for our mission. He declined. So I asked if he would do 25%. He said "You know what? Forget it. I'll find somebody else."
So that night, we guarded sheep again, then again, then again.
Eventually next day we found that same guy and approached him. I said "Look, we made enough money guarding sheep to get some supplies. We will take that mission if it is still available." to which the guy said "No. I want nothing to do with you lot anymore.
So again, we guarded sheep. And the next night we guarded sheep. And the next night and the next night, and the next night. And no matter what we did or where we went, there was never anything else to do.
So we just called the game over after about an hour and a half of sheep farming.
We all asked the DM "What the heck man?"
DM: "You guys didn't do what you were supposed to do!"
Players: "What were we supposed to do?"
DM: "Fight the Ogre."
Players: "Why would we fight the ogre with no weapons or armor?"
DM: "It wouldn't have killed you. It would just knock you out, then you wake up in the old man's house and he gives you the quest."
Players: "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."
DM: "It's what the book says! Anyway, the book says if you don't fight the ogre, I'm supposed to have the old man approach you when you go to the tavern."
Players: "Ok.. so what happened?"
DM: "You tried to haggle him. The book says the old man hates hagglers and if the players try more than once, he will no longer interact with them."
Players: "So we were just supposed to accept a dangerous mission with no gear at all?"
DM: "Yeah. I guess."
Players: "So then what?"
DM: "That's it. Those were the only options to start the campaign. Either the ogre on the road or the old man in the tavern, and you guys screwed them both up."
And that was the first and last time I got to be a player with that group... Nobody would accept anybody but me being the DM after that. Any time I asked anybody else to DM after that, all I got as an answer was "No. I don't want to be a sheep farmer again."
That's legit messed up. You should have made him redo it all from scratch for this horror story.
@@aaronrachiele5521 Not a chance. He literally said "See? This is why I didn't want to be DM in the first place."
And even if I had convinced him to try again, nobody else would have accepted it. I just went back to being the forever DM because my friends wouldn't play if it wasn't me.
2:10 “how did he get here” the king “By the power of G-Fuel of corse”
that would have been a perfect ad
this is why i always say to my players ,"what do you want to do" for them to decide what they want to do next. Unfortunately, most of my players never know what they want to do. i just want them to do something anything so we all can have fun playing dnd but they are so indecisive then they complain about me railroading them when i offer them things they could do. as always great sketch.
My players have been so indecisive, that for literal months I just rolled on random encounter tables instead of writing the campaign, and they enjoyed the fuck out of it. Why are my players like this?
Yeahhh. Was literally just thinking this.. The other day I had to railroad my players off Dellmon Ranch in PotA because they REFUSED to leave and kept mulling about all the orcs in the area and setting up traps on the farm. We've already spent 4 session there, they fought off a horde. Elven back-up showed up to take the farmsteaders away to a safer place. The farmsteads left the next morning after the attack, but the party said they were going to use the ranch as a base to fight the orcs, after the elves telling them there were THOUSANDS in the area.
It seemed like 1/3 of them were hell bent on fighting ALL the orcs and TPKing themselves against armies of hundreds (they barely survived fighting 90 of them, and they wanted to fight 10 times that.) The other 4 didn't know where to get next exactly but 1 wanted to go back to a town..THe Warlock who needs not sleep... So I get a message from him being like "I can cast phantom steed and get the party to Beliard in 1 hour"....Ooook, soiunds liek the best plan....
SO..."You are all sleeping in the caravan when it begins to move, Eskel is taking you all to Beliard."...... NGL the 2 that wanted to TPK the party against a hoard were ACTUALLY mad and kinda bent that they didn't get to divert the campaign into an orc hunting game that would likely end in their demise....
Sometimes, verrry rarely tho, parties needs to be railroaded in order to save the overarching campaign......
@@k-aw-teksleepysageuni8181 I dont know if they signed up for the specific story module knowngly (I would expect it to be so) but maybe... You could say fk it and roll with it? Task them with ending a horde of orcs... Or outright kill em... Send the hoard let em all die, they will be mad but thats the freedom they want, that is both player & character making a bad desition "A *HOARD* is comming" "We stay and fight" alright.
Orcs proced to sorround them 9-1 and every time one dies another takes its place on the swarm. Then they die get mad and you just tell em "what did you expect you wanted to face and orc *HOARD* on your own?"
@@proxy90909 See the problem was it was 2/6 players, 3 were totally indecisive and quiet, and 1 wanted to get the hell outta there... the 3 indecisive players were all kinda on an off day, but I know they love their PCs story arcs and usually are the more self-preservative types, not "martyr heroes"....
SO I just kinda took the reigns as the DM and went with the Warlocks plan since he bought the caravan they're all sleeping in. He comes from a merchant family.And he doesn't need to sleep and can ritual phantom steed. So I guess it wasn't really a true railroad on my part, if anything they shoulda been mad at the player playing the warlock.
Either way the session turned out fine and they're back in agreement to continue fighting the cults.
But it's an example of a time where it's okay for the DM to be like, "OK, you are doing this now"...as much as it may "feel" like a railroad to some players....
@@k-aw-teksleepysageuni8181 You made the right call for the most players, still I think sometimes you gotta go hard on the players (when you have set conditions beforehand of course), and let them "pick their poison" if 2 of them wanted to stay you can go 2 ways about (2 ways that are probably not the lawful good option if you catch my drift)
A) Choo choo all aboard the railroad option: You 2 stay to hold back the horde... roll new characters you died an epic death against a horde of orcs, the rest of the party moves on.
B) You 2 stay... Roll iniciative (kill them on play) now roll new characters. This option is probably kinda boring for the others who were not quite feeling it yet, but if they didnt feel like doing anything in particular maybe watching 30min combat were the others get rekt will entertain them. Sadly it'll probably be boring to the warlock.
Its like having the edgy lone wolf... I he wants to be alone let him brood in the taver corner... The rest of the party con go do something fun, he may join when he feels like its apropiate and out of hes own will or just roll a character willing to work with a party
Edit: important note I AM *NOT* an experienced DM i have a stunning 2 campaings record with 0 finished campaings score. The first honestly was a blast thanks to my players but it didnt last more than 7~ sessions of like 6h each cause of outside situations. The other one has gone 6 sessions of like 5-6h and is still going strong, had some oneshots in between but nothing mayor.
00:15-1:15 This is literally, almost word for word, exactly how our current DM started our first session lmao. Our characters started out having all received a letter inviting us to see the king we don't know, in a land we don't know, about a mission we have no information about, also we are already at the castle and walking through the hall to the king to speak with him. Also time skips us around to speed us to his scenario for the session.
doesn't sound fun, why do you still have them as dm?
@@PapaBearIsHere
Could have been a first-time DM. Could have been a DM that’s a bit awkward with the initial plothook but is great otherwise. Could be a bit of uneasiness with the first session. Doesn’t mean the campaign can’t be fun.
I'd love The King as a "monster", and he's there to trick/lure you onto a railroad path that's actually a hallucination by having you accept his quest, where you're trapped in an extremely linnear story where you can almost not make any moves that go against the story, and the way to beat it is if you succeed wis checks to first notice it's an actual hallucination, and then wis checks to try and deviate from the story, derailing the story in any way that ruins the plot will kill The King and set you free.
"As you're going to say no... you say yes." I'm so much going to use this on my players next time an enemy wizard manages to get mind control over one of them.
Only a minute in and I’m furious
Edit: now I’m laughing and angry
2:45 "Perfect! Yes,"
I smell a very specific wizard
This sounds like a horror campaign where you are trapped in the dream realm and have to escape
And everywhere you go in the dream, no matter where you intended to go, you end up somewhere wrong.
DM: You guys ready to play?
Me: Yep, hit me with the adventure hook-
DM: [Snake Voice] War...
has changed.
the dwarves tried making a railroad cannon and turned a large portion of the planet into a crater
And the secret elven organization know as the Loyalists has taken control of remaining kingdoms through a suggestive hypnotic memes placed in the population. Your mission, destroy Iron Dwarf and find information about the Loyalist.
But, but war. War never changes.
Then, Purple Gonk fired his Doom Intelligent Critical Katana towards all the presidents
“As you go to say no... you say yes instead.” has the same energy as "But thou must." from Dragon Quest.
The sight laughs at the end of cuts totally made me laugh so much harder than if they stayed perfectly in character
Man it is great to see you grow as a UA-cam content creator I remember when you had like one video out , and I was like man your good you need to create more .
I once played in a game where the DM used the excuse of the fabric of reality in my world is so thin that sometimes things don’t make sense and you teleport around which was just a ploy to not get us to leave his railroad tracks....
I am having portals show up with demons and suddenly teleport people and players in and out of the world... Its an excuse cause very often 1 different player can come to the session.
(Also I had to get rid of my DM-PC I make hard encounters always cause my players like it but I need more people... Sadly playing a druid is a lot of hassle with transformations, spells & what not. So I said fk it and got rid of him through a portal. Managing 4-5 enemies or 3 of the samd an 1 extra strong, plus a transforming character that keeps concentration magic... I feel like I steal the spot light... I am playing alone vs myself and that I go for half and hour so they can go 5min each, felt unfair)
@@proxy90909 I suggest you use the Traveler.
He's fun. Exactly the deity that'd drop players in and out.
You could also think a bit and go "Hmm, are we in a place where this character can just go off to do something else?"
In a city it's easy, they just have stuff to do. You can have them wake up and just a note is left, or if you KNOW when the player won't be there, just talk over a reason they'd leave. Being called by their patron god is a good excuse. Or a secret mission they need to do. Whatever makes sense.
In a dungeon and they just, can't be there, you can RP their character for just a little and have them find some kind of magic stone or circle and they activate it by accident, and it teleports them away. Then you find them later on, either in the dungeon or wherever you go to next. (If you're worried about battles being a tad bit unbalanced, you're the DM, just give them advantage on a few hits, or maybe lower an AC or two as compensation. It depends on the exact situation. You could give them a blessing from a god too, like "The god of justice favors you brave heroes" or something.
Or give them a baby to stab. According to Nott, that fucking works flawlessly.
@@haku8135 I should give them the favor of a god and some magical items, after all the teleport shenaningans its gonna be explained when they meet the BBEG and find out he has been purposfully splitting the party all this time to weaken them to prevent them from gathering strenght and defeating hes minions to easily
"In awe that you've come."
Yeah. I'm in awe that we came too considering we expressed NO DESIRE OF DOING SO
The king appears out of the water
"A new hand touches the beacon!"
The Kings mage probably hás a lot of questions as to why he'd want to be teleported to the bathhouse's pool Xd to save Felrond ofc!
The king rises out of the bath T-posing with a laminated sheet of paper in one hand.
“As you go to say no, you say yes instead.”
see I know this is a joke but I’ve had games where this actually happened. apparently there was just always a mindlfayer or aboleth or some other creature with mind control offscreen that happened to have a vested interest in us playing a linear video game instead of dnd.
A nearby Divination wizard gives you ones.
No mindflayer involved, this deadass fucking happened to me today. The dm was narrating to us our actions and he got to how I was healing random npc number 5 using my spellslots and I said that my character wouldn't do something like that because they didn't know the guy at all to begin with, and he said "you like this guy a lot because he's a cool dude and has tattoos, you like this guy so much! and just kept goin and told me to roll a medicine check.
I don't know, I kinda get, when a DM does that in some circumstances. When the players just refuse to go on the one adventure the DM has prepared for the session for example, then I'd see how that may happen. I personally wouldn't do that, I'd rather stop the game and talk to my players, but you know... not everyone wants to break the immersion like that.
In other cases, I don't understand why someone would do that. If the players don't have a choice, then don't pretend to give them one. Like, what's the point?
@@justsayin...1158 okay, hold on, back up. That’s just the worst kind of DMing possible. If a DM has a railroaded plan that the characters have to follow no matter what, if said DM go as far as to stop the game when they try to get creative and play outside what the DM planed to admonish them is just... do you really don't get it? The DM controls everything, the world building, the NPCs, the main quest, the side quests, everything you can possibly think of is up to the DM... except of course the characters. Because if you gather a bunch of people to supposedly play dnd and turns out you just want actors to read the script you already wrote for them... just write a book and let players have agency.
(To be clear, I'm not talking about players just being rude, throwing the quest in front of them out the window and trying to set the world on fire. You should stop that because they're trying to fuck with the dm, but that's clearly a very different story than railroading.)
@@claire3614 I think there is a misunderstandment here. I don't mean to railroad the entire game. I am talking specifically about when players refuse to go on the quest for the game. How they complete the quest is up to them. But they always always ALWAYS have to start the quest. And I think if a DM is allowed to address the murder hobo in the group, to not be a murder hobo anymore, the DM should be allowed to address when players refuse to start the adventure. Both are disruptive playstyles which get the game nowhere. And I don't mean to say that players always have to immediately start the quest for the game. It is completely okay, to have some roleplay in town or whatever the players like to do before going on the actual adventure. But there should be a general awareness for where the game is supposed to be going and to at least try to complete the goal. Especially in a oneshot scenario where there is typically just one quest the players can go on.
My first D&D experience was with a DM like this, so it completely killed any intrest i had in the game. Many years later i was asked by my friends if i could teach myself how to DM and then be there first D&D experience. I made sure to allways have a opend mind for what my players wanted to do, within reason ofc.
I have been in campaigns like this. The DM later stated that a DMs job is to get the characters to do what he wants them to. He was confused when I told him otherwise.
"I want buy some items" "yes, as you approach the desk, the king is here to explain the great treat, that is incoming to the kingdom"
"its an open world sandbox campaign, but the only way to get anywhere quickly is the train"
Funny as I’ll get out!
And if this is what railroading looks like, this is a refreshing relief as I’ve been scared of creating my first campaign for this very reason.
I love that you got so much content. I don’t play D&D but I love watching your stuff. You make it entertaining to a point where I’m missing (by myself mind you) as if I can relate. Keep it up.
3:30 If you look real close you can actually see the moment when his soul blackens with hatred and his alignment changes to evil.
I had a dm once that railroaded but he didnt narrate everything like that. Oh no it was so much worse, he gave us either one option or maybe two and if we choose the wrong option he said that nothing was there. An example is that he said there was a hallway where you can either turn left or right. we went left and he said there was nothing there, like we took 5 steps and we already hit the dead end. And when someone thought of a interesting unconventional solution he said uhhh no it doesnt work and gave no explanation. The absolute worst thing he did was tell us to kill something but the npc wouldnt tell us what it was even though he saw it fought it and failed. It was a dragon and TPKd us in one turn. OH and I forgot we were lvl 3 when fighting against that dragon
I recently joined a campaign, the other players all had guns and futuristic stuff and were allowed some homebrew and other source books. The DM told me and my friend "you can get to uncommon magic items I will approve or deny them, you can use homebrew for race but not class, and use player handbook with roll stats for character creation on the rest... he pitted us against a horde of goblins and orks at lvl3 with 3 players for session 0, session 1 was all but 2 of a 6 person dnd group (players, DM made 7) vs 8 cyborg minataurs.. and then we fought a fucking silver dragon juvenile at lvl 4.. it flew high up and just out of reach of our spells, but not out of range of the guns, then it got in close and dodged a modded 16 and nat18 to hit, but the 2 "natural" 19's did hit... they then killed it.. and my dm won't DM because I was playing a myconid he approved and used animating spores racial ability to move the Dragon corpse closer to town because encunmberence rules. He told me I ruined the game....
@@hossdelgado626 .........Well I guess my question is, how the fuck did you even stay past session 0?
My idea of a session 0 at level 3 with 2 players is like, a couple goblins maybe? I'd even take some SUPER dangerous guy that you clearly need to escape from, set things up. A HORDE of Goblins AND ORCS? Either the guns make it a cake walk or it's FUCKING MENTAL. Either he's shit at balancing or he's just throwing shit at you, what the actual fuck?
@@haku8135 Its the later honestly. That and hedfudge rollsfor his close friends. My myconid was a druid and I went with circle of spores (he approved this) my two uncommon magic items were a pair of flying boots and a pyroconverger (I'm sorry I forgot the real name of the boots). If I hadn't wanted to have a flamethrower we'd have party wiped tbh on session 0. We ran to a choke point and I used it three times down the point to kill as many as I could, then, if I'm remembering right my friend tanked as a barbarian while I prepared Heat Metal and the ranger or was it a monk? Did what they could. Against the minataurs I used mold earth to dig a hole as to not die instantly from a charge, our minmaxed barbarian friend took th eff m head on (we got a belt of storm giant strength or whatever for surviving session 0... yeah, he realized it was unfair, he thought we'd give it to a mage for decent str checks... nope storm barbarian Throg.. yeah the Thor frog is what he was playing as a barbarian. With Kermit voice). Everything we tried on the dragon just simply wouldn't work but the ranger with a bow and the two with guns.
It was fucked, but it's in the past. I've lost contact with everyone else involved and don't play much DnD after I tried to dm and lost my group of friends over an argument. I tried one session with my brother and his friend, but they didn't care and I've realized I am not a dm, not even a good player if I'm honest. I hope you enjoyed laughing about it, or at least it didn't make you upset or anything. Have a good one.
This had me dying of laughter! Could watch whole sessions of this type of content with reactions. Well done!
Making the railroaded path use an actual railroad was so obvious and so brilliant at the same time. This is my favorite XP to Level 3 video by far. I was cracking up the whole time.
“rising out of the water is the king” got me so good
“the king rises out of the water."
He's the King of All Cosmos!
Katamari Damacy theme song starts playing...
NAAAaaaa
Na Na Na Na na na na
Katamari Damacy
The plot twist is that he had a massive sandbox game ready, but because he was interrupted, he decided to tie them down.
I just watched like a dozen of your videos, you sir, have my subscription.
Times when you need the eldritch spam warlock, and the fire ballin wizard Bigdickwizard6969 to use their magic to blow up everything around.
Better dead or in ye ol' jail, then on a railroad.
But a railroad DM is one powerful being, just like the fireball Wizard...
That's a battle I'd like to witness.
@@nairocamilo this needs to be a skit
"I cast fireball"
"The king raises from the water and cast counter spell"
@@proxy90909 if that dose not be in the skit ima -die- forget how to live
This just makes me mad because this is EXACTLY what my DM is doing.
Send them this.
This one is so funny. Keep up the good work. Brings back great memories
"As you go to say 'no', you say 'yes' instead." This is exactly how I got married.