We’ve all been there. You’ve spent hours toiling over story line, drawing maps, setting up encounters and sprinkling in plot hooks. Your players have finally reached that climatic moment when all of your hard work will start to pay off. Then it happens. Your players decide to skip the creepy looking tomb and continue on down the path. Maybe they decided to kill your critical plot NPC rather than take her hostage for questioning. Maybe they decided a life of servitude to an undead lich king is more preferable than an eternity of undead servitude. Sometimes, they simply go right into of left at the fork in the road. Regardless of the situation, your players just completely derailed your campaign and you’re ready to drop a couple of owlbears into their path to make sure they’re going in the direction you originally planned.
“…The dark tomb is obviously radiating evil from within, so why not go inside and explore?…Come on…Please?…”
I’m willing to bet that any DM that’s worth their salt has been tempted to railroad the campaign in an effort to herd their players in the desired direction. And if you try to tell me otherwise, you are a liar and you will spend an eternity on this ship. Resisting the urge to railroad your campaign is kind of a trial by fire situation that all DM’s face at some point or another. For some, it could come during their first few sessions as a new DM, trying to herd those cats in the right direction. For others, it comes the first time they spend hours carefully crafting their first custom campaign just to have their players stomp all over the story and kill every plot point in sight. Regardless of how it happened, it happened, and I would argue that we’re all better DMs now because of it.
Now sometimes the players are apparently accident-prone, fail too many roles or are just plain stupid and the DM has to intervene to keep them alive, whether it’s “fate” stepping in or the DM fudging a few attack and damage rolls. These situations are normal and can happen quite often so I would not count them as an attempt to railroad your players. Instead, I view it as you are taking pity on those trap-ignoring, loot hungry idiots and trying to throw them a bone every once in awhile. I am also not referring to situations where a DM has to intervene in retaliation against a player who is causing discomfort or discord between the rest of the players. We’ve all played or dealt with a player whose only goal seems to be min/maxing characters, constantly metagaming and/or attempting to hog the spotlight all the time. Dropping a flaming cow of doom on those players is understandable and sometimes needed to get the point across of not being a dick to others and letting them contribute and enjoy their moments of heroism as well.
“…Okay, I’ll bite…Why do you want to attempt to steal the jewelry from around the mighty and just king’s neck again?…In plain view of the entire court?…”
I’m talking about those times when your players make a decision you didn’t expect or intend. Sometimes they decide to go the opposite direction that your expected. Sometimes they decide the plot hooks you are throwing them aren’t worth the hassle.Sometimes, they just royally muck up your campaign plans so bad, you must assume they are doing it on purpose. When this happens, and trust me it will, the thought of railroading will come to mind and it will continue to happen as long as a DM continues to run campaigns. Why does this happen? Because let’s face it, sometimes players just want to do what they wanna do, DMs plans be damned. The mark of a good DM is one who can take these curve balls and run with them, despite the outcomes they provide.
It is normal for a DM to take great pride in crafting a campaign and its plot hooks. However, it can be helpful to limit the rigidness of your campaign. If I’ve learned anything over the years of being a DM, and a player as well, flexibility is key when running and playing these campaigns. You might be planning for the party to head east in your campaign, with at least 5 sessions worth of story written up and prepared. However, it helps to over-prepare in this sense. What if the players decide to head west or in any other direction other than the one you intended? Having at least some basic ideas thought up about what might happen in those directions can give you something to work off of in the event you players do happen to go off the beaten path. It is true that randomness and going off the rails can breed chaos. That chaos can disrupt the game and possibly bring it to a screeching halt. However, if a DM is flexible, chaos can also breed unexpected fun as well as heroic or hilarious situations.
“…So now ya’ll are heading into the mountains?…Away from the battle?…That you started between two nations on a whim?…”
A little structure helps contain the chaos. Too much structure can snuff it out, along with any attachment your players might have with the current campaign. Letting your players affect the campaign world with cause and effect situations can help them garner more interest and intrigue, even if they are random and fly in the face of your original story plans. Also, it usually doesn’t take too much to adjust the content and direction of the campaign if needed. If you had plans for your players to encounter a group of pirates in the Seas of the East, who is to say they can’t encounter the same brigands in the deserts of the West. The DM can just take the encounters they had in mind and just reflavor and alter them to fit a different theme or setting. So now the DM has offered an alternate path for the players while still retaining some previous ideas without causing any railroading of the campaign.
In my humble opinion, that is the one of the brilliances of tabletop RPGs. Most are written in a way that storyline and setting can be changed without really affecting the mechanics of the rule systems. Verily, it would take very little time to reskin sea pirates into desert brigands. The creature stat sheets could pretty much remain the same, rather you just need to change the setting and flavor of the battle. Tabletop RPGs are meant to be very freeform and interchangeable when it comes to settings and situations. I’ve personally seen the D&D 5th Edition system reskinned into a Western genre. I’ve also seen the Chronicles of Darkness Storyteller System reskinned into a sci-fi setting. Of course, I’m not saying that a DM’s players are going to take the story off the rails that much. But, these examples show just how adaptable these rule systems can be. You are only limited by you and you players’ imagination.
“…Hmmm…Well…I really didn’t intend for the dwarven king to be killable…but on the other hand, I really can’t argue with 3 natural 20s in a row either…”
All this being said, some of the best moments I’ve ever experienced as a DM or a as player is when the party when off the beaten path, looking for fun or trouble as it came. It has gotten to the point that I personally do not make very many story plans when I DM anymore. Rather, I envision the setting that the players are in, give them some context and just turn them loose. Of course, I might have some ideas of where I would like to see the story arc end up. However, this the players’ story at the end of the day. As such, it’s best to let the players tell the story through their actions and consequences. Whether those consequences end up in heroism, comedy or tragedy, it all comes down to your players and the roll of the dice. I can’t really tell you how many campaign settings I’ve completed with friends that were “by the book”. I also can’t tell you if they were really even that interesting. However, I can tell you what happened just about every time the party went off the beaten path and really put the DMs’ storytelling skills to the test. Sometimes, you just have to let go and embrace the chaos. No matter the outcome, there’s always gonna be a great story to tell at the end of it.
