Why are DnD adventures written like that??

[@QuestingBeast]

The Knave 2e Adventure Game Jam is live now!: itch.io/jam/knave-2e-adventure-jam Adventure Prompt Generator: questingblog.com/knave-2e-adventure-jam-prompts/ Knave 2e Creator Kit: questingblog.com/knave-2e-creator-kit/

[@miketaylor8582]

I would like to talk to you if you have the time. I am the Ambassador for the upcoming film/documentary "50 Years of Fantasy" the 50th anniversary of D&D and looking for Creators and Influencers in our community.

[@leandronc]

A railroad is difficult to run, but easy to write. That's why they keep doing it.

[@jasongrundy1717]

It's easy to run. I literally just watched a video of a DM complaining having to read 250 pages of adventure was too much and things SHOULD be written as a railroad so they only have to read 1 chapter at a time.

[@rynowatcher]

It is easy to run and creates a cominality of experiance. This is how old school module design works. The issue is how visible the rails are which is a gm skill issue. Ie, if people play the "black sands" module and decide to leave the area because the dungeon is too dangerous, you are out the cost of the module. This is a gm skill issue as all adventures are rail roads.

[@firehazard1792]

I would also say it is a player skill/expectation issue. If I say we are running Dragon Heist until I flesh out my own world a bit more, (Or even we started playing my campaign and reached a point I need to prepare a bit and we want to keep playing today) and the players immediately ignore all the plot hooks and try and leave water deep never to return, that is a player issue.

[@rynowatcher]

@@firehazard1792 this is a problem if you prep a sandbox or a linear plot. If the pc's bounce off the hooks it does not matter what you prep.

[@DoinItforNewCommTech]

They're easy to run, but they're boring as hell because the players quickly begin to understand that they have no agency.

[@lonbpalmer]

The railroad does have a place: In tournament or convention play. If you're running a game at a con, the last thing you want to do is present an open world adventure. They just won't work. You need to railroad the players from interesting encounter to the next and give them agency when you can. Otherwise, the game bogs down into no one doing anything.

[@QuestingBeast]

Railroads are fine as long as everyone knows what they're getting into.

[@Dantprime]

Honestly even if the railroad has a place for tournament I think it would be better to have tournament designed modules than have the official general use modules be railroady

[@jamiequick5971]

I think you can avoid railroads so long as you just have a smaller location. Size and story-linearity aren't quite the same thing - a look at classic tournament modules that were actually run should provide examples

[@TheTerrainWizard]

@@QuestingBeastexactly!

[@user__214]

It depends on your definition of "railroad". The problem in the Dragon Heist example from the video is that there is a predetermined outcome **irrespective of player decisions.** You got the McGuffin too early, so I'm arbitrarily going to take it away from you. That's BS. A convention might involve a linear adventure, or an adventure with only a single hook to pursue, but that's not a railroad unless you're negating player choice by enforcing predetermined outcomes. Incidentally, the creators of Hot Springs Island (an open world hexcrawl) have apparently run HSI very successfully at cons. They give the players a few obvious hooks, and then the players choose one. Not a big deal.

[@ianhammock4564]

As a DM, when I make a puzzle, I live by that most time-honored tradition: wait for the players to do something that makes sense as a way to solve the puzzle and say "Yeah, that does it."

[@Alex-wg7gs]

That's not a puzzle then. Just some random task that has no real right answer/s. At that point why even have the puzzle? I agree with having multiple right answers but if you're just gonna make it up anyways then that's wack

[@thepants1450]

Not a fan of that, as a DM or a player

[@blueshellincident]

Yeah you should at least have one or two solutions ready.

[@SkorjOlafsen]

There's a world of difference between "make sure you can think of at least one solution", but go with anything that works, and "the party must guess _my_ solution or fail." Guess what I have in my pocket is not a fair riddle. But perhaps problem-solving encounter is a better term than puzzle. I will admit that once or twice over the years I've tossed the party into a deathtrap with no idea how'd they'd survive. They never had a problem with those, it's the "obvious, super easy" ones they'd get stuck on.

[@greasysmith3150]

Applejammer sounds like a fancy word for a pb&j with apple jelly

[@tslfrontman]

I'd buy that Crustable

[@jben6]

A custom spelljammer helm powered by the golden apples of Idunn.

[@michaelstevens5712]

I'm imagining that a "Crashed Applejammer" then would be when the Apple Jelly is slightly alcoholic and the sandwich has been toasted.

[@Pistonrager]

Apple jammer sounds like the space expansion for Pasteries and Prisons the Hardcore Donut Gladiator simulation RPG.

[@MemphiStig]

Peanut butter jelly with a spelljam hat!

[@Bugbite0656]

Ironically Dragonheist is my favorite campaign book, and I actually ran it twice for the same group! The real secret is that all the lairs are optional, the opposite of railroad! Instead of immediately pushing a villain to the forefront, I just have all 4 of them interacting in the world, all following their own plans. The one that becomes the main villain is the one the players suspect and investigate. It really makes it feel like a living city with tons of stuff going on all over. And the villains the party doesn't defeat during the book can become main antagonists later if the campaign continues post-book.

[@indigoblacksteel1176]

The players in my group prefer linear adventures to sandboxes. We don't want to be railroaded into solving something the only way it can be solved. We have a lot of tools. Let us solve it. But we're okay with B being the place we get to when we solve whatever was to be solved in A. The DM has prepared B with something cool and interesting. We'd rather have that than to have a choice of any letter of the alphabet, none of which will be as good as B.

[@davidmorgan6896]

I wouldn't enjoy that at all.

[@jimurbas7481]

Would posting a session of you DMing the winning submission to KZbin be a terrible idea? I miss the Sunday Dungeoncrawl! series. You're an awesome gamemaster, and I'm sure your fans would love a demonstration of running Knave 2e.

[@QuestingBeast]

Interesting idea!

[@RPG_Bliss]

This sounds awesome!

[@nickenquist3788]

Oh I must have missed the post. I won’t get into much detail here, but I ran a 5e game of Waterdeep heist and lord all mighty I had to do so much work to salvage that game. Convincing my players to run a bar because “that’s what the book says” was weird.

[@QuestingBeast]

Adventures should never assume what the players are going to do!

[@nickenquist3788]

@@QuestingBeast exactly. Honestly I decided to run it because I thought it would be easy. It was the first real WotC adventure I ran and it made me think I was a bad GM because I didn’t grok the story. It’s only much later did I realize that the insistence of a poorly conceived plot that took away player agency was the problem not me.

[@nickenquist3788]

@@keithkaczmarek yeah. I saw that in the book right at the last session. And I ignored it and let my players keep the gold they stole lol

[@drillerdev4624]

​@@nickenquist3788while I understand your points, I think in this particular case (and based on your comments, I know 0 about that module) there may be a few reasons for that: First, in heist stories, having the heist succeed, only for the main characters to lose everything at the end is a classic plot twist. Specially in older movies were delinquents weren't supposed to win in the end for moral reasons And second, and this is specially relevant, if this is really the BIG last job that will allow you to retire, well, afterwards you may as well retire. Otherwise, you may have to come up with convoluted ideas if you want to write a sequel (Ocean's 12, anybody?), or for the players to keep their characters if they want to keep adventuring. In this case, the convoluted idea was presented in the adventure itself

[@nickenquist3788]

@@drillerdev4624 I wasn’t planning on continuing the adventure and everyone else wanted to retire their characters so it felt like the right move at the time. If I were to run another heist, I’ll definitely take this advice for the adventure. Thanks!

[@Sonic_Decay]

So here's a take on railroads. All module campaigns are in themselves a railroad. There's an unwritten contract between the players and GM that you are playing said module. Which is a story that someone has created and populated with adventuring beats. Love to hear opinions on this.

[@davidmorgan6896]

I totally agree, which is why I don't use modules.

[@Sonic_Decay]

@davidmorgan6896 I really like published content. There's some great models. DCC publishes fantastic ones. I really do like running my own stuff thou.

[@davidmorgan6896]

@Sonic_Decay I read some Call of Cthulhu adventures that were interesting - but Cthulhu is all about the Lore. For fantasy and sci-fi I've only ever run my own stuff.

[@chriswilson320]

I know exactly which 4e adventure was the goblin tower. It was explicitly from a book of encounter challenges, it does have some ideas on how to expand the idea further.

[@appleseed8282]

Dungeon Delve, right? Yeah that book is basicly just Filler Dungeons for DMs to slot in when they just need _something_ for the week. Some of those encounters are pretty wild (lvl 8 Elite Brute vs lvl 3 party 😭)

[@KelrynGrey]

Goblin encounter takes a whole session? Sounds like D&D from literally any edition, honestly.

[@aurvay]

My pet peeve is when people call all linear style adventures “railroads”. Sandboxes like Descent into Avernus can be awful railroads while linear adevntures such as Rise of Tiamat could give players full agency. Linear ≠ Railroad. Railroad is when players are deprived of their agency. Has nothing to do with adventure structure.

[@Recontramojado]

Agree. And false "Sandboxes" like 5e Tomb of Annihilation are way more boring, because they are just hex grinding before the adventure actually starts. I have ran Savage tides several times. It is linear and complicated because there's a full mid section that happens on board a ship, but there are so many ways that you can trat that while progressing and giving agency!

[@aurvay]

@@Recontramojado yes! agency is all that matters. doesnt matter if the adventure has a linear structure.

[@WayneBraack]

Player's don't have actual agency. They have an illusion of agency which matters but overall the story arc must still be followed. Static points don't feel like agency. Bullet points which can be inserted provide the illusion and to a great deal give it in the way of the story arc being played out whatever they choose.

[@w.i.t.c.h.q.u.e.e.n]

​@@WayneBraack Players _can_ have agency, depending on play style. While I love semi-linear, scripted stories for tutorial-style introductory adventures, most adventures I run are actually just a bunch of NPCs and places doing their thing until the players interfere. Or sometimes, I will take the Mythic approach and use a variety of GM tools to generate plots and twists on the fly. This makes sandbox adventures structurally very different from railroads. (Sure, you might not be able to tell the difference in a carefully crafted adventure but when you open the book, it's very obvious which is which.) The reason many people say sandbox > railroad is the idea that everyone at the table should be an equal part of the game. This is especially true when you're a group of friends who are playing regularly, and may not so true if you're running an open table or at a convention, and the players are literally just guests at the table.

[@coonhound_pharoah]

@@aurvay Agency is irrelevant. D&D is not an Open World video game.

[@DUNGEONCRAFT1]

Great video. Insightful as always!

[@QuestingBeast]

Thanks professor!

[@LaBlueSkuld]

My friends and I ran Dragon Heist and at one point when this NPC ran off with the McGuffin my Wizard managed to counter every ploy he had to escape (Fire Bolt to snipe his flying minion out of the air, Grease to trip him up so the party could catch up, Prestidigitation to make his clothes neon pink right before he vanished into a crowd and then Minor Illusion to fool his horse into thinking a brick wall was in front of it). I remember being really disappointed when some guards just suddenly showed up to stop our chase. Now I know why.

[@worldforger9225]

Railroads exist until the players decide to blow up the train.

[@davidmorgan6896]

In a true railroad the dynamite wouldn't work or the matches would be wet.

[@Asin24]

Having one solution is fine, you just want to ensure that there are multiple ways to come to that solution ideally ensuring there is some way for players to stumble into the solution.

[@Theadalas]

I usually don't have issues with pre-written adventures because I always change them and make them my own. Never have I ran a module straight from a book. Even ones that are notoriously linear, like Tyranny of Dragons, I was able to completely modify and in fact that was one of our favorite campaigns. But don't look at me; I'm a work titan. I absolutely love prep. I always put a lot of effort into prep, regardless if it is a sandbox campaign (I love making locations and NPCs!) or something more linear and short. This effort resulted in the fact that I still run games for the same group of people I've randomly met online around 15 years ago and none of them dropped out. At this point I know them better than most of my "offline" friends.

[@wvanyar1801]

I always modify pre-written adventures. Even Adventure League adventures had my own twist to them. The Adventure League adventures had to be a railroad because you had 2 to 4 hours to finish. You also had a random mix of PCs and players. As for my home game, I always add new elements into the game. I’m running the Saltmarsh series. Just a single mention of an agent of the Scarlet Brotherhood in the series and I was off to do research and expanded on it. After reading the entire series, you learn the big bad baddy at the end is being influenced by the cult of Tharizdun. A little more research and the Sea Barons get taken over by the Scarlet Brotherhood, which get taken over by the cult of Tharizdun. So, I just moved the final fight to the Sea Barons, which are a treat to invade the country of Keoland (where the game is centered around) the entire game, but never materialize. So, the PCs keep running into agents of the Scarlet Brotherhood and Tharizdun cult members. With plot hooks to deviate from the main plot line to deal with one or both of these groups in different locations. Toss in that one player had a back story of a noble who’s parents where removed from the throne by a power mad cousin. So, I put the kingdom as a small island on the edge of the Sea Barons territory. The final battle will be there, where they will have to deal with three different factions fighting for control of the island. None of which the PCs will want in power but they can’t take an entire island kingdom on their own. It should be fun. I always try to work in the PC’s back story into the adventure. It helps encourage the players to come up with a back story. It helps the players feel like they have a part in creating the adventure.

[@ShinGallon]

Our group's first campaign was Tyranny of Dragons (it just wrapped a few months ago after 5 years) and the DM had to add so much stuff to make it interesting, but damn if he didn't deliver: The slums of Waterdeep became a 4-way power struggle between slumlords (who we ended up uniting and getting to work together to make their part of the city stronger/more self sufficient) that tied into the story of a PC that left the group, the storm drains became a kobold warren ran by a DMPC who'd been with the party for a long time (we rescued her from the cult and she bonded with a couple of the party characters, who ended up being essentially adoptive parents to her) that ended up having a deal with the city to keep the sewers/storm drains functioning...there was loads of stuff the DM created for that campaign, including ways to tie a few of the party backstories together that were nothing short of genius. When the campaign finally ended, there were still a couple things left unresolved (like a rakshasa the party defeated but didn't kill) so we can possibly return to those characters for a 1-shot eventually, but everyone loved it and was sad to see it end, because the DM put in the work to make it amazing.

[@Varizen87]

I ran Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and once you get to the Feywild, the book explicitly tells you as the DM that no matter where the players choose to go, you should say the world twists and places move so they have to go on the intended path. On the opposite end, The Dungeon Dude’s Dungeons of Drakkenheim is amazing. Players can do anything in any order and it all makes sense. There are 5 factions and that guides the objectives for players but it’s up to them.

[@jasonnewell7036]

A railroad can be fun if it is a worthwhile journey.

[@Kyky87]

2:22 I also want to point out, while some red herring is fine (mostly if its just a short detour), having a whole chapter be for nothing is just so anti-chatartic

[@arthurmarques6191]

Thanks for featuring my comment and sorry for the typos. I 100% agree. Good layout is a must!

[@MrTabanese]

To the first point, I think "impossible" puzzles can be used. I would say players should understand that the puzzle is part of the world and bypassing it is best. However, only one answer is not bad design in my opinion unless you have a hard boundry limit. The example of the word thing can be an excellent gate to give a dungeon an excellent "I will come back to this later" aspect.

[@QuestingBeast]

I agree, these types of puzzles are fine as long as you can ignore them and come back to them. Some adventures are set up in such a way that you have to solve this puzzle or there's nothing else to do

[@dannik9932]

​@@QuestingBeastI would like to also add at this type of puzzle is fine if the answer can be found elsewhere. The puzzle cube door to tomb of the nine gods I think is a good example. The players are given a cryptic hint, enemies oppose, the statues in the alcove nearby are lined up in a way that shows the answer to the puzzle. Any knowledge of the gods themselves could also provide an answer to the puzzle, which is information the character should have by this point, or can easily get nearby. I know tomb of annihilation has its issues, but that was a good example of a puzzle that players were required to solve in order to continue the adventure

[@stickjohnny]

The power creep in 5e heavily lends itself to railroading. You need to keep providing exponentially increasing challenges to the players as they progress through the story. It's difficult to craft a proper sandbox in this environment without your players accidentally getting themselves into situations they have no chance of overcoming. Icewind Dale did a good job of having two tiers of sandbox adventures for the first 5 or so levels until the railroad through the story begins. When the tier 1 adventures got too easy they were closed and the tier 2 adventures opened up. It was satisfying to have the freedom of a sandbox that provided a very compelling hook for the railroad portion of the adventure.

[@Leivve]

Also the fact that 90% of features in the game are combat focused, so an adventure can only really exist to color the map that takes you to the next combat encounter. If there is no BBEG what's the point of leveling and progressing kind of situation. Now railroading unto itself isn't a problem. Especially if you go into the game knowing you're doing a campaign book, so are socially expected to follow along with it. The problem is when you strip agency from the players. The taking the player's mcguffin away from them if they get it early for example being a prime example. A railroad story might say go get the mcguffin, but it shouldn't say you can also only get it at the designated point.

[@alphachicken9596]

The problem with WOTC books is that difficulty. Its not impossible to make situations tough for powerful characters, Superman ran for 50+ years. But WOTC wants everyone to start with their books, and then writes and formats them in such a way that only really experienced DMs can get anything out of them. but experienced DMs know how to write their own stuff and know where all the good adventures live. So now the only value in official DND books is the art and shelf presence. :/

[@stickjohnny]

@@Leivve Even in the railroad portion of Icewind Dale, it was written in that you could complete the objective of the campaign much earlier. It was very difficult to do so, but the book told you to let it happen if it does.

[@DoinItforNewCommTech]

@@alphachicken9596 Thank you! I'm glad someone finally said it. Wild Beyond the Witchlight is my favourite example of this. It was HEAVILY marketed as perfect for beginner DMs, but it's so railroady that unless you prep alternate encounters (which the book does not offer advice on), you're basically screwed. Hither for example, is presented as a sandbox, but the story only progresses once you reach Downfall, and the only reason you'd go to Downfall is if you pass through the Brigand's Tollway and peacefully talk to the Harengon, and the only reason you'd pass through the Brigand's Tollway is if you see "Brigands" on the map and think "oh cool, let's go FIGHT some bandits for no reason", because these Harengon bandits have no presence anywhere else in Hither and don't seem to be causing trouble for anybody at all.

[@andrewmiller407]

Icewind Dale is one of the few 5e adventures that I actually enjoyed playing. The other one was Tomb of Annihilation. They're the only two I can think of where I as a player felt like I had agency and that the stakes were real and actually salient to the players. So many of the 5e railroads feel like, "Why are we doing this? The BBEG's plan doesn't affect me or even the city my character comes from. The loot isn't even very good." Descent into Avernus was really bad in this regard: the first part with the cults was fine because all our characters were Baldurans and were saving the city, but after that it was like, "Why are we going to hell? What do we care about this other city full of chumps?"

[@vitalitymirth]

Hate the most in an adventure: a difficult puzzle which if unsolved means nothing else can happen in the game.

[@davidburns9766]

I don’t believe in a no win scenario

[@AeciusthePhilosopher]

4:50 basically how I’ve been looking at my session prep for the last few years. I don’t create stories, I create situations. It’s a lot less work (since all I have to know is what’s there, who’s there and what these whos want, and how the players can figure all of that out) and everything else will emerge organically during play.

[@krkngd-wn6xj]

Oh I am so lucky to have caught the game jam in time to join. I have just the thing I wanted to work on this month, and this is the perfect way to motivate myself!

[@boota2474]

Ive always found railroads fine ONLY if the flexibility to resolve problems in different ways is afforded to the players. For example, early in the HxH series the characters/"Party" are working their way through a gauntlet/tower of challenges, which is VERY linear. At one point, theyre confronted with a difficult choice where only 2 of the 5 can proceed to the end of a challenge by a certain hallway that will only allow 2 to pass. They are expected to take up weapons and fight to the death until only 2 are left standing. Their solution? Use the weapons to destroy the wall of the hallway and all leave that way, circumventing the door that won't allow them all through. Thats the essence of dnd, and the only way railroading can be engaging.

[@RPG_Bliss]

I’m excited to see what comes out of your game jam!

[@nateshandy2070]

The best adventure I think I've ever run was pretty reccent, actually: "Horror at Headstone HIll" for Deadlands: the Weird West. It's a 'sandboxy' investigation in a frontier town with all sorts of shady dealings going on under the table. The town itself is detailed pretty thoroughly, and there's a wider view of the county it sits in contained in the book as well, along with some random encounters and side adventures if you need them. Plus Deadlands is a great background, and there's lots of other stuff you can bring in, if you're of a mind to. The plot progression changes up, sometimes things happen "when the players go here or talk to this person", sometimes it's when a certain amount of time has passed, other times it's just whenever you feel like it. I really enjoyed it, and my players did too!

[@TheMotleyGM-ij6rq]

Spot on once again! I like the "what to avoid" approach!

[@KamiRecca]

So there are 3 kinds of adventures i feel. The first is the Dungeonbasher, it gives the DM a map, and what inhabits the map, and then the players can freely run around it. The second is a Dungeonfree Dungeonbasher. As in you have a place, with different locations, and the players may rather freely run around and do what they please, following a red thread. And then there is the "Lets recreate the epic adventure we had at Our table" kinda adventure, and many many of todays adventures feels like this. I love the concept of Dragonheist, but its written as a Play Along Song to mimic what other adventurers did on their journey.

[@gilwenlive]

great video! woudl love a longer form one analyzing the data you've collected on what people like and dislike about adventures!

[@QuestingBeast]

It was just a lot of anecdotes, really. If you go to the community tab for my channel you can read them.

[@angelocano6041]

Rewritten campaigns or homebrew narrative campaigns will always have a degree of railroading. If you don’t want any railroading, just do a sandbox where everything is more or less unrelated and each point of light is its own thing. To compare to video game RPGs, if you play Skyrim, don’t complain it’s not a well done story with action and consequence like dragon age. And if you’re playing dragon age, don’t complain you can just tell the story go bugger off so you can do whatever. Each method has merits. And each is valid. OSR can have there do anything sandbox with no overarching. Narrative. Som love that. Other players are actually hoping for a story beyond what treasure is in that cave.

[@leothi2]

One of the best examples of a well-written scenario i ran was in the gm guide for call of cthulhu 7e. The first one was a path with a simple objective, while still having several endings and bad choices to make. Still very fun and didn't feel very railroady, since it made sense for the characters to progress down that path. The second one though started with an explanation of the situation at the beginning of the game, then presented the characters the players would meet. Each of them had a reason to be present, and motivations linked to the mystery. After that, we had maps of the areas to explore and the list of the clues to find there. Finally, we had a list of events that could be started if the time was right or the adventure was getting stale. It was extremely fun to run, i had the chance to even improvise a climactic ending based on what the players had done before, i liked that a lot. Now that's a blueprint i try to keep in mind, offering a clear objective to the players while having opposing forces with motivations explicit enough to adapt their reactions to what the players are doing.

[@tabletoppdx]

Tyranny of Dragons, just trash it and run Red Hand of Doom

[@TheTerrainWizard]

Agreed, I tried running Tyranny of Dragons and both the players and I decided to switch to something else.

[@searchforsecretdoors]

Tyranny was actually my favorite campaign I've ever run. But I started by telling my table, "Hey everyone, the reviews say the first part of this campaign is pretty railroady. Looks like I'm going to need you guys to follow the breadcrumbs laid out for you for the first seven levels or so. Are you okay with that?" That made my life a million times easier. I still never figured out why the bad guys were making a long trek that the players were following in the first place. They traveled half the Sword Coast only to end up at a flying castle, which could have just traveled the distance in a few days' time. And then they buried the ultimate destination for the castle somewhere in the dense text, I remember having no actual idea where the flying castle was headed once we actually got there. All that said, once we got to part two, it introduces major NPCs from the Forgotten Realms, all with their own agendas, and creates a nice sandbox for the players. Once we finally broke through to that part, we had so much fun. Plus, I was able to introduce some side quests related to the characters' back stories.

[@johnmickey5017]

Tyranny of Dragons was also the first campaign length adventure written for 5e. A more straightforward adventure is better when the entire community is first learning the system.

[@IngeRasch-cc9id]

Interesting video Ben. For the last two comments I would have put those on "poor/unclear adventure hooks". If the players are asking "wait, why are we doing this?", in my opinion, that's often a symptom of unclear hooks, which leads to low stakes since the players are unaware of or have forgotten what's actually at risk. As a result, it's just combat after combat without stakes, and that can be a recipe for boredom.

[@chavesa5]

I spent 3 miserable years learning how to GM proper on a 5e adventure, I won't say which one. My players were champions for putting up with me. The book was the worst blend of episodic, sandbox, and railroad with so little in-between. I didn't realize when I started, and the players were invested enough that I had to figure out how to staple it all together. I'm grateful for the crucible it gave me in teaching me what to do/not to do, but I will never run another WotC made adventure after that. I looked into Paizo and OSE and yes, Knave, and the difference is so stark it's comical.

[@michaeljonesmedia]

A series of set pieces isnt inherently a railroad, just when there is only one correct way to progress through it and the players choices don't influence that progression.

[@lukec6721]

Highly recommend the Alexandrian reworks of Dragon Heist and Descent into Avernus to remove the rails.

[@kgeo2686]

I thought that from the very first adventure module I bought in 5e. I was shocked that I was supposed to sort through the endless walls of text and figure out an outline for the adventure...

[@k9ine999]

You can't have a consistant narrative flow with good pacing and foreshadowing without some idea of where you are going in a campaign. Going Northwest in a hex crawl, or going down the corridor that smells strange as opposed to the corridor that has an echo isn't really a very dramatic choice. In my games I would rather have less choices with more significant consiquences that more choices that are mundane.

[@ghandiwon]

​@manicpixiedreambuoy he is fully OSR but personally having run 5E campaigns the problems are not unique to old style. The problem is not a linear adventures, many people enjoy those. The problem is the set pieces themselves being railroads. You *must* solve this puzzle or the game cannot continue. You have to convince this NPC to work with you or the game cannot continue. The campaigns present challenges but then don't write the failure half (or worse, don't even realize they can fail). This puts a lot of work on to the DM. Made worse when book layout (frequently) fails to indicate how important specific things/NPCs in Chapter 1 are in Chapter 6.

[@tyrrollins]

​@manicpixiedreambuoy OSR fanbois think save or die = emergent story telling.

[@jeremytitus9519]

In a perfect world, men like the Alexandrian would not need to exist… But this is not a perfect world 😔

[@leam1978]

as someone who recently ran 5e WDH, i am in full agreement about the railroad problem, which was severely compounded by having notes all over the place. on occasion, because i didn't infer something from the errata, i had to retcon part of the adventure.

[@theenoogie]

Tried running WD:DH again for the second time this year and it was just, if not even harder this time around. The first time was difficult and exciting, I picked up the torch and ran with it, but ultimately the game fell through. The second time I ran it I was using my mostly unused prep from the first game, but it felt like I was drowning trying to fit the party into the campaign while keeping the written pacing, and in hindsight it I’d make a billion changes. Like I’d cut out the rebuilding of the tavern, as neither party gave a damn about that part and just wanted to speed past it. They liked a base but didn’t care about a tavern or any renovations and guild negotiation. I’d have Renaer stick around and point the party straight at chapter 3 and skip the faction stuff entirely. Really I’d start the party in a faction already too, because the recruiting was fun for some and not for others and it ended up being something inspiring for half the table but boring and wasting time for the other half. Long story short, I dont think I’ll ever run a WotC book adventure again. One shots or 3rd party only for me. Because frankly the WotC books don’t respect your time or efforts. They force you into a corner and give you a sentence for how they want you to play it out, leaving you to fill every gap in their thin plot. It’s just so much work to get it to work at the table you might as well just write an adventure from scratch.

[@dimesonhiseyes9134]

I ran WDDH with a great group. And the campaign turned out ok but it took a TON of work on my part. For one, I selected the bad guy faction. I was not going to run 4 bad guy factions and try to get the players to care. I gave them one to focus on. Second I gave them a reason to rebuild the tavern. The most idiotic thing they did in that stupid book was make a big deal about troll skull tavern...and then do absolutely nothing with it. After they get the tavern we ran through a mini adventure where they take over the tavern from a hag and meet Leif. They actually loved that and it was something they earned. They had a reason for it to matter. I made some good side missions, completely changed the chase scene which included creating new rules and completely rewrote the cultists lair portion to not be such a let down.

[@Pneumanon]

My GM, who is not at all new to TTRPGs is so hooked on railroading, he has more than once turned up to a game session telling us (not asking) that we’re playing a completely different game that session because he just read the rules & now wants to run that instead of the game we were in the middle of.

[@jessclark9725]

One of the best puzzles I ever ran was a non sequitur trip to a haunted house pocket dimension. There were TONS of puzzles to progress through the plot, but they were flexible, fudge-able and even potentially fully skippable. The *real* puzzle *did* only have one solution, they had to work together *outside their normal party dynamic* in order for me to allow meaningful progress in escaping the house. If they succeeded at a puzzle, but only in a way typical of their characters, they would receive some sort of hint or reward, but not actually make their way along. They solved it on their own, and only a couple players actually saw the meta-puzzle before I pulled back the curtain. Really glad it was so well-received, cause the whole time I was near certain I’d have to cheat them through it, apologize, and promise not to do it again

[@Dantprime]

I actually really like this puzzle idea and tbh I think it's a great way to make party bonds more significant I hope you publish it someday

[@venalleader2909]

The reason the adventures railroad is because the module writers see themselves as authors. They envision a narrative, a story, that they want players to participate in. So instead of creating a proper sandbox (e.g. Keep on the Borderlands) they write an linear adventure that funnels them through that story.

[@cammychoate]

I completely forgot the comment on the post, but as a DM it was AN1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God. It starts out interesting but the whole back half was a nightmare and I had to completely rewrite it The adventure presents a BBEG that is WAY more powerful that 1st level PC in any edition can handle. The design requires the PC meet and recruit an NPC wizard to join the, There is no connective tissue to lead the party to the NPC. It was the single worst classic adventure I have run and I've run a ton. I ran it as a followup to H1 Keep on the Shadowfell which, while to required some tweaks to be less linear, was still a super fun adventure to run

[@martabachynsky8545]

That was the first adventure I ever played way back in '84, and I have fond memories of it. Luckily, the DM (my brother) hinted that we should "ask around town for clues", so we found the elderly illusionist by going around town talking to people and found out about a crazy old hermit living outside of the village (was it at the edge of a swamp?). That BBEG at the end was indeed way more powerful than anything we should have met, but we still had fun.

[@Blerdy_Disposition]

Definitely having a focus on player exploration is necessary and important for sure!

[@Samsminis]

Lmao my players loved Waterdeep. And I enjoyed running that campaign. They loved running that tavern and wrote tons of fiction and lore about it.

[@paladinsorcerer67]

I ran a 2nd Edition AD&D module that contained a puzzle that wasn't skippable. It involved arranging vases in a circle in such a way that each vase had a hint on its surface or inside the vase that indicated one of the schools of magic, so that vases with opposing schools were situated across from each other. However, we were using the Pathfinder 1E rules, so schools of magic weren't a thing there that I can remember. My players were stumped for a short time, but randomly one of my players took out the 2nd Edition AD&D PHB down from their bookshelf and started flipping through its pages. The player found the page describing schools of magic, and inspired managed to piece together the information and solve the puzzle. When arranged correctly, a door was opened and the players could continue on in the dungeon. We all thought it was a rather epic solve. I was sweating bullets the whole time because I figured that I would likely have to give away the answer and that would surely disappoint the players and maybe ruin the session. Luckily that didnt happen. When I asked the players if they liked the puzzle they indicated that it was an awesome solve, but that they didnt really want more puzzles per se, that it was kind of a one-off event that they weren't expecting to see more of. I ended up buying a book containing logic puzzles with answers to use sparingly in the future anyway. But this taught me that going forward, I would use the technique of "fail forward" and make puzzles easy, optional, or to have alternative paths to avoid getting stuck.

[@ohsohologramic]

Currently running my group through Call from the Deep, which for the most part is a pretty solid adventure with a fun plot and interesting twists. The biggest issue I have with it however is the random encounters table, which by the rules of the book would require TWO encounter rolls per day of travel. In a campaign where the players are zipping all over the sword coast, and a short trip can easily be 6-8 days of travel, this can mean entire sessions dedicated to just travel. While there are plenty of interesting encounters on the table, the vast majority of encounters are just monster fights. I started running the campaign by the book but immediately found that the random encounters had to be tailored almost every time. After the second fight against randomly generated trolls, I decided never again. The solution I've come up with is basically abstracting travel to short, medium, and long trips and getting rid of the random encounters entirely. Instead, I take some of the encounters from the table and sprinkle them into the travel when they seem relevant or like they'd be interesting for the players. A short trip might have 1 encounter, a medium trip might have 2, and a long trip might have 3.

[@DillioGherkin]

I like to set up problems, and let them find solutions. I myself don't make any solutions, but I do have potential pools of rewards and troubles based on how well they get through the problem. I also play in the sense of no stalling the game. So even if they roll poorly they get closer to getting out of the situation. The reason I do this is solving problems is fun, and coming up with interesting ideas should be a reward. Like if the door is locked maybe there is a open window. Roll poorly and you don't find a open window, but there is a chimney on the roof. That is how I like to lead the story to help the players get to where they are wanting to go. I also only run sandboxes, there can be a main event happening, but that doesn't require the players to ever get involved. in fact each time they don't get involved the other story still continues on. but it handled with a B team that might end up being the heroes at the end of the day. But the players got what they wanted out of the game. They went on adventures they where interested in. And I feel that is more important then forcing odd puzzles and rail roading them into something they are bored with 4 sessions in.

[@avengingblowfish9653]

I disagree with the premise that railroads are always bad. Players like different things. I know OSR players tend to prefer agency above all else, but I’ve come across many players who are paralyzed by indecision if given too many choices. Some people prefer chess, others prefer the simpler options of checkers, and there are some people who prefer Chutes and Ladders where they just roll dice and do what the dice tell them.

[@niichimera1344]

Paralysis by choices is something I've seen in almost all games I played, and it sucks. Having well motivated PCs for whatever's the center of the story (and letting them find alternate paths to it) seems more important.

[@ghandiwon]

There's a big difference between the two sides of this analogy. In checkers, you look at the board and the rules and know exactly the set of limited options you have to progress. The problem with most 5E railroads is they're written like video games but then don't provide the list of choices. The combat sections work because players know the three choices (attempt negotiate, defeat, run), it's everything else that tends to fall apart. A good railroad makes obvious to the player what choices they have and when they don't have a choice. The conflict happens when the players have agency but the adventure doesn't account for it. For example, the difference between a vital NPC just living in the town with an option to go meet him and said NPC going to meet the players instead.

[@AGrumpyPanda]

Thing is, there's linear play, and then there's railroading. I'm running an Only War campaign right now, which by the very nature of the game is linear- their commanding officer gives them their orders, and the players have to figure out how to complete the objective. The important part there, is that the players have freedom as to how to complete the mission within the mission's parameters. The problem arises when you start telling players exactly what choices they can or cannot take within those parameters.

[@alexh1687]

I'm loving this new 4:3 camera look

[@kingdedede933]

Alas Kingmaker from Pathfinder is written like a sandbox; yes there is a railroad in the first chapter but when you get passed the beginning, it’s up to the players on what they wanna do.. if they go somewhere they’re not ready for, they’ll know with higher levels monsters or skill checks and they could always press forward.

[@kaden7443]

Yep. I call Story or Railed situations 'landing the plane' and it's difficult and stress-inducing. I liked how you said players will do what comes naturally to them and want their choices to matter.

[@inkibusss]

I just read through the Abomination Vaults adventure path for PF2E, and I found myself for the first time finishing a chapter and going "I can't wait to see what happens next!"

[@etherprime]

Railroad adventure are often the result of a lack of playtesting. Playtesting helps a designer to broaden encounters to allow for different responses (ones they never would have thought of on their own).

[@Hexphile]

Running Curse of Strahd was an absolute nightmare. There were points where the plot just kind of wanders off in favor of a gazateer style and then just WHAM! here's that person you thought was now out of the plot just magically transported here for no reason.

[@douglasbaiense]

Puzzles are really stupid most of the times anyway. It makes no sense to create a puzzle so people can figure out how to enter somewhere you don't want anyone but you to enter. Unless it is some kind of "trial of the worthy" trope, it makes no sense. Actually, villains should start creating puzzles that are impossible to figure out and lead to nowhere, so that raiders waste time and resources on them instead of pillaging the good stuff.

[@scottlurker991]

A masterclass example of how to present a location-based adventure is Rotblack Sludge from the Mörk Borg rulebook.

[@ThisProgram]

Can we use monster stat blocks from Knave 2e verbatim?

[@ivanandreevich2780]

The best way to run a game is to prepare just one session, run it, and then move on to the next session knowing what choices the players have made and what they want to do in the next session. This is the only way to make a game where the players' choices really matter. Of course, pre-written adventures won't do the trick, but that's the real beauty of tabletop RPGs - creating in the moment, and when the script is prepared for 10 sessions in advance, you will always remain just an executor of the scriptwriter's will.

[@peterrasmussen4428]

I quite like using puzzles that only have one solution, and you will get to it by just trial and error, but every time you error, you take damage. If you understand the puzzle well, you get out with much less errors. Eg. in the moon goddesses temple you need to cross some tiles with symbols on the floor. Some tiles deal you damage, others are safe. The trick is to follow the moons phaces, jump from a symbol of the new moon, to waxing crecent, to waxing Gibbous to full moon to wanning etc. Combined with a little riddle about the moons phases, and you are good to go. The thing is, the damage is not so much that you couldn't just literally charge across all the squares, last time I used it, the damage also came in the form of magic missiles, so the wizard chose to cast the shield spell to protect himself. I think last time I ran it, players ended up taking 3 or 4 magic missiles before they had figured out a safe path.

[@kevinwilson5332]

I think the player may have confused "Q1: Queen of the Demonweb Pits" with some other module. Q1 has multilevel maps with a variety of ways the PCs can go and there are many different types of encounters from frozen wildernesses to dwarven strongholds to vampire castles to a mechanical walking fortress. There are also many different types of opponents. Or, perhaps it was a case of the DM adding on an extra area onto the map and not taking the time to make it interesting.

[@Incab]

Recently? Saltmarsh lacked so much material to actually run it we had to merge it with another adventure. In general the lack of paragraph indents and line breaks in new books. I can't do the walls of text and just don't use them.

[@tingle2958]

I played with a DM for a year. This DM was not the best, but we made it work. But one time we as a party spent literally 3 hours attempting to open an impressive looking door to a dungeon. We tried everything we could think of, and it wouldn't budge. The gimmick was that it was a sliding door. That's it. We wasted 3 hours, and the DM WOULD NOT BUDGE until the exact solution was realised. Our paladin's strength rolls revealed nothing (it wasn't built to be pushed open), our rogue's lockpicking attempts revealed nothing (it wasn't locked), our wizard's magic detection revealed nothing (it wasn't magic), etc. An absolutely horrendous session.

[@marks7037]

THAT IS SO COOL. Many prolific writers in the scene started out as adventure designers, I think this is a real opportunitiy for all of TTRPG and I really appreciate the effort that you put in as an "influencer" (not meant in a derogatory way haha) The hashtag SoME (Sommer of Math Exposition) started a real movement of new math channels here on youtube and I hope that this will be similar in both reach and success. Hyped!

[@synthetic240]

I play Dragonheist and it's mostly accurate. The McGuffin is a sentient artifact, so it has a high DC to simply do what it wants which is... to be found at the appropriate time in the story. Apparently. And it was definitely frustrating having boss dungeons that are optional so they're essentially unwinnable. My party didn't want to do the last dungeon to find the stolen treasure; they left that up to the government. They wanted to go after the BBEG who had been targeting them. Trouble is, all the BBEGs you can use for this game that goes to Level 5 are all CR 13 encounters. So they lost all the Rare magic items they got as reward for hanging over the McGuffin and the BBEG turned one of them to stone.

[@nicholascarter9158]

As counter intuitive as it may be, I'd say the majority of players I've discussed this with actually prefer a highly curated, rigidly structured narrative experience, with elements of the medium other than player agency being what they like about rpgs.

[@SurmaSampo]

That is because it is the target audience of modern games, failed drama students who have difficulty with problem solving and any form of complexity. I don't run games for those players because they expect me to craft a movie experience for them in which they contribute boring dialogue and occasional dice rolls.

[@nicholascarter9158]

@@SurmaSampo see interestingly I find it's the opposite: the more someone cares about the game as a *game* as a sequence of problem solving exercises, the less they care about the narrative events, which are just a framing device for the individual problems. The drama kids I know are more interested in their character Making A Statement, and thus are far less happy if they have to fit into a preconceived arc that undercuts said statement.

[@kazebaret]

For me, Out of the Abyss was a blast. The structure of the adventure is there, and I really liked to add up on the madness that was spreading through the underworld. There are tons of characters and tons of directions that the PCs can take, and as a DM I tried to create the sense of desesperation that the adventure tries to convey. Buindling on all the possible threads and with some house rules, I believe you can simulate the old hardcore feeling of the first editions. I tried to read other adventures like Tiranny of Dragons but they were... well, not my cup of tea.

[@kevinsongxin2551]

The funnest part about WotC adventures is when it inevitably goes off the rails and you just reference it for random set pieces

[@jonothanthrace1530]

#1 feels like a failure on the DM's part, either to properly establish the puzzle's answer as something important and memorable for the players, or to change the answer to something they would already be familiar with.

[@Bryon1187]

I picked up a mechanic on adventure ideas form DMs Block using MtG cards. chose three cards - between the text and the picture define, who what and where. I've used this method via a 9-card tarot reading to design my RQG campaigns. I'm on my third.

[@DeltaDemon1]

In the case of the classes challenge modules, the fact that it was one solution to "pass" was the point since it was just a series of challenges with a pass fail and then you moved on to the next challenge (it was like a contest, dealing with non lethals and illusions, so no on got hurt). So if it's that "adventure" then it was perfectly acceptable. However, the solution for the Cleric seems odd. I think you were supposed to get the clue from the area (if I remember correctly), so the word did not matter, the investigation did.

[@claude-alexandretrudeau1830]

And that's why I've only played homebrew campaigns. We don't see the DM as an authority, but as a friend. That means that if there is a problem, the answer isn't "shut up and suck it up". We all participate in solving it. Everyone's viewpoint is valid. All the good ideas we have, we pitch among ourselves, right up until one of us is inspired. In that moment, that friend becomes the DM of our next campaign.

[@RPG_Bliss]

I think they sell bc they are official 5e products! The market is conditioned to buy anything they publish. Until I discovered the OSR movement I was into collecting them too. Now I am into collecting indie games 😅.

[@Merdragoon]

I reallly enjoyed the Goodman Games DCC adventures which are extreamly small so they can be run as a oneshot, or strung together to create a campaign. Even the long ones aren't very railroady (Sailors of the Starless sea is insanely indepth of a lot of things you can do). It's why I wanted to get the Goodman Game 5e adventures because they seem to have the same mindset to give players freedom to explore and enough freedom for the dm to play around with the setting the way you want it, while also being *short*. They also give very fun extras such as a new race to play, or a Class, or even fun magical items the *players* can use even if they're the mcGuffins, giving more agency to the players.

[@jeffmacdonald9863]

This is part of the issue though. It's relatively easy to make very short adventures that don't seem railroady, but much harder to create larger scale published adventures that are the same. The consequences of taking different paths multiply with each new choice. In an adventure that's only a couple of sessions, that doesn't get too wild. In one that's months of play, that gets out of control. For a home-brew campaign, GMs can adjust going forward, creating new material (or bringing in and adapting more short published adventures) as they need to. For a published adventure, it all needs to be written up front. You can't go to the author and say "My players did this weird thing, rewrite the rest of the module for me." Ideally, even a large published module will allow different approaches. Different paths to reach the same areas, with differing consequences based on which approach you take. Options to work with or betray different factions. But in the end, there's a page count and you want most of it to be usable content, not "what ifs".

[@CountryBwoy]

8:22 WHOOT! Just bought the Knave 2e PDF! Time to JAM!

[@Crasuk]

I would say railroading isn't always bad. It's the way it's done that often sucks. A good railroad has a fixed start and ending but allows the players to choose how to get to the ending. That makes it easy for the DM to run while also allowing player freedom.

[@DustyLeeSledge]

Don't confuse linear gameplay for railroading. If you are running a premade module it is going to be very linear. *A railroad is done by the GM because he or she wants the PCs to do things the GMs way and that's it.*

[@kaemonbonet4931]

Princes of the apocalypse has some cool parts, and a really cool section at the beginning where they try to get your players to make some relationships with the adversaries in their backstory. But then you have to wander around a huge area with not great direction and the first place you go ends up being the entire end game dungeon so... I love the idea of princes but it's not easy to run or easy to understand from the players perspective.

[@sirguy6678]

Great video and advice! Ben- have you ever asked DMs how many actual commercially printed modules they bought/ played / ran without making any changes? I stopped buying modules- I love the themes but the maps, encounters, and dungeons are usually so poorly done it became easier for me to home brew my games

[@QuestingBeast]

That would be an interesting question. I'm guessing most OSR DMs change things

[@joelbethell6879]

I gave up on DragonHeist when the initial incident that kicks up the main plot invovles a henchman hired by another henchman hired by ANOTHER henchman to do something. Needlessly complex.

[@utkarshgaur1942]

Waterdeep Dragon Heist truly did require a full rework. It literally had no actual heists in the main story! That said, I was really impressed with Wilds Beyond the Witchlight. It nicely balances GM prep work against player agency in sandboxes. I haven't seen any other official 5e adventure do this though.

[@crankysmurf]

I think the biggest problem is WotC's 5E design philosophy of "rulings over rules" to keep the ruleset simple. This means there's less concrete rules (aka answers) written in the books which means the DMs have to adjudicate and interpret what's in the adventures. Add on top that WotC/Hasbro has been trying to increase profits by reducing costs, which would translate lower page counts. A prime example of this is the recent Vecna: Eve of Ruins where each campaign setting chapter of the campaign only has a few pages dedicated to it. This means there isn't much background for DMs not familiar with the classic settings, the motivation of why the PCs are there, and what to do if the PCs fail to meet goals (Brian of GameMasters did a video on how very lacking that adventure is and what he suggests to fix the gaping holes).

[@tocadohawke]

Descent into Avernus is the worst adventure I ever ran in 5E. I had to ramake it from scratch to give my players some freedom, because even THE BOOK SAYS YOU SHOULD KILL THEM if they stray from the main plot.

[@vbywrde]

Been a homebrewer since 1978. Couldn't agree more with your points there. Fact is, homebrew is great because it gives you the best chance to actually surprise your players. With most modules, aside from being dull and/or confusing... players all too often have read them already. Not my modules, bro! :)

[@TheAurgelmir]

I'm reminded of an adventure I played that was linked to the release of Tortles for 5E on D&D Beyond. The adventure itself wasn't bad - but lacked coherency. It had a hex crawl on an island - but it was unclear what the points of the map were really there for. That said this was early in my GM career so it might also be that I simply didn't understand the value of Hex Crawls. I still made it work though. The issue with the adventure - that I owned digitally on the webside - was that the adventure had a dungeon. Which was a fun dungeon I thought. But... the damned digital adventure didn't really have propper bookmarks for the dungeon itself. It had book marks for other locations - but finding the dungeon was a pain. Layout issue deluxe.

[@powerunder9000]

You just have to railroad your players without them knowing they are being railroaded.

[@danjamin905]

Great video! Thanks for the great prompts too!!

[@synthetic240]

Another problem I see in a lot of WoTC published modules is that NPCs are often little more than a stat block and a description of their motivations. There's no physical description of the NPC beyond their ethnicity (which I then have to google because it's all made up names) and there's usually very little about their personality beyond their motivations or goals. I guess it frees the DM to make the NPC their own, but the whole point of buying a module is to get some direction. Worse are the ones where, even though the important NPCs are described in one section they don't provide references for where the NPC appears in the rest of the module. You'll have something where their initial description says they're helping the party and providing hints but in their last appearance in the module they reveal their secret motives to manipulate the party. Hope I didn't forget that detail when I'm writing my DM notes.

[@krinkrin5982]

A railroad has multiple degrees and could be fun, as long as it's in the form of events that happen, and the characters can influence their outcome and who is affected, but not necessarily if they happen. For example, if there are multiple people that could be targeted by the villain, depending on what the characters did, but they will target someone regardless. My favourite adventures were all location-based with a properly Jaquayed dungeon. When I run a sandbox, I prefer to sprinkle in adventure hooks in the form of rumors, quests on the town notice board, and npc interactions. I also make sure all of them somehow relate to what the characters are doing right now. For example, you have to defend this town from orks. Here are a bunch of things that could potentially help with that, which ones do you want to focus on? The clock is ticking.

[@brianpembrook9164]

First question in the video: Curse of Stradh.

[@thenerdlog1602]

SKT was so hard to be a good player for. From the title I assumed we'd be in the north and fighting giants. So I made a giant slayer ranger. Session one we fight mephits on a mountain. Session two and three we fight goblins near waterdeep. We're told to go north and I'm hyped, but once we get there we're told to go do fetch quests around the sword coast. We didnt fight giants until session 16, almost 4 months after the start of the giant campaign and 2 months after the death of the ranger who only wanted to kill giants

[@whiskeyvictor5703]

I would use a geometrical or dissection puzzle with many possible solutions, each solution leading to a different event, or outcome, or surprise. E.g. the Ostomachion (Loculus of Archimedes) puzzle with 536 possible combinations: this can be keyed to a large table, or set of tables, with many possibilities. A 3D pentomino puzzle has a very large number of possible solution formats. However, in my experience, most players HATE in-game puzzles.

[@dietrichknauth9305]

Waterdeep is bad/weird on so many levels that the "railroad" is the least offensive part of it. It's not remotely a "heist" (the title refers to a past embezzlement that sets the stage for the scavenger hunt adventure), it includes so many unconnected elements (city stuff, running a tavern, "optional" lairs that are too high-level for the PCs, alternate villains) that are simultaneously take up too much space and are not sufficiently fleshed out. That said, my players had so much fun with a modified version of this adventure, and really keyed off some random NPCs - like, Floon Blagmar was such a silly name that they demanded more of him, and one of the characters even eventually ended up marrying him for his money. But i feel like I used about 20% of the book and had to make up the rest as I went along.

[@WayneBraack]

This is why I prefer bullet points and a soft flow chart. Doesn't matter what directions the PC's take, a DM can always spin a story element into whatever they're doing wherever they are. No need to force players into a specific direction. The overall story arc stays in place, it's just fluid instead of static.