Player Agency, Railroading, and Making Choices Matter in Dungeons & Dragons 

What's the worst example of railroading you've ever seen? The DM Lair on Twitch ▶▶ www.twitch.tv/thedmlair Free D&D Adventures and DM Resources ▶▶ www.thedmlair.com/ Become a Patron ▶▶ www.patreon.com/thedmlair Become a Channel Member ▶▶ ru-vid.comjoin

"Uhhh, there's a MIST that soaks the wood, leaving it fireproof!" "Okay, then I cast _Destroy Water._ "

This video reminds me of the best DM advice I ever heard. The DM writes the problem, the players find a solution.

Spoiler Alert In Waterdeep: Dragon Heist there's a moment where the PCs rescue a certain noble while tracking down a missing person. The bad guys have taken the missing person by mistake, thinking he was the noble. The module assumes that the PCs will storm the bad guys' lair and rescue the missing person... My PCs decided to propose a trade with the bad guys instead. The noble for their missing person. After a few days of ruminating on this I started the next session with the bad guys agreeing to the trade and sending their missing person back... With an intellect devourer in his brain. This led to some of the best scenes I've ever run.

Gary is sounding more like middle management now

One of my PCs when into a court house for fun and randomly decided to get a mining license. I plan to later have them charged with tax evasion due to not filing tax returns.

For me, as long as the players are having fun on the side-story, and eventually return to the main story, I don't see it as railroading :) (the big part is I trusted them to return to the main story)

When starting out a campaign I usually stack multiple small quests just to see what the players go for. 1: some bandits robbing caravans. 2: a troll stealing livestock. 3: zombies in the nearby swamp. Lets say the players go after the zombies they will eventually face off against a necromancer. They kill the necromancer, loot his crap and return to town to find the trolls head on a pike and the bandits in a jailcell courtesy of the town militia. Now in the necromancer they find a clue that theres another necromancer out there in a neigbouring village. Kill 1 necromancer? fine. Kill 2 necromancers? now you're drawing unpleasant attention. Kill 3 necromancers? every necromancer in a 100 mile radius wants you dead. Had the players gone for the bandits they would have come up against the same spellcaster with a "druidic reskin" and a followup story of peasants unjustly being outlawed for minor crap by the local lord. Now which spellcasters the group kills and loots will have a particularly heavy impact on what books, scrolls and reagents the wizard player has access to. The trolls lair wont stay empty for long, eventually something else will move in. The whole idea is to keep the players constantly aware of 2-4 problems and whichever problem they solve just leads to a new bigger problem. The hooks that doesnt grab their attention just goes away but any rabbithole the player do jump into goes far deeper than expected and will eventually lead to some form of "save the kingdom!" problem. I find that just constantly keeping plot threads open and being reactive to the players actions allows me to roll on with minimal prepwork and create adventures that are much better than any campaign I could come up with on my own.

IMPORTANT DISTINCTION: Railroading and keeping your players informed. The Evermeet map was a cool scenario so don’t take this as a criticism, but I’ll use it as an example. When your elf player, from Evermeet, wants to sell that map? YOU SHOULD TELL THEM IT COULD HAVE REPERCUSSIONS. At least let them roll a (low DC) history check. If they’re from there, their character might know, likely would know, that it will not go over well back home. Then it’s up to them whether they want to take the risk and not just ‘hey this is a trap I’ve laid for you haHA! E: Some PCs/players will take the risks and relish the consequences. Others will absolutely resent the fact - ‘I might not know that, but my character definitely would have. It isn’t fair that I’m now responsible for a war...’ You don’t have to spell it out for them, but give them the option. Goes double for ‘DM suggestions’ like I’ve seen a commenter here say they might make. You’re setting them up to fail through no fault of their own.

First session of my new campaign designed for 10th level characters. Me and my players wanted to try something new(being higher level). They've all got some gear and gold. They go shopping. The merchants are commoners. One of the PCs seeks a bag of holding after several days he finds that a local merchant for cooking utencils has one. He tries to negotiate the price. He fails. Then he makes up a whole scene at the market ending up with the bag of holding for free after stealing it. I accept his stealth, creativity and performance checks. Several casualties for the commoners around after being persuated to fight over gold as one of the players creates a distraction throwing gold pieces all around the marketplace. The guards are on it so it all goes as they've wanted. everyone was happy and joyful. Until 8 sessions later. Almost a month has passed ingame time. Now they get out of this tavern in the middle of nowhere just a small town which name noone remembers. They are going to travel to their next quest. They camp inside a leomonds tiny hut. As two revenants approach them. Their lust for revenge is stronger than the spell that hides them. As they approach the characters in an open confrontation with 2 giant golems and 2 hired assassins. The commoner was just a pawn working daily trying to keep his family in the city. There was someone above him who would let him keep 10% for selling magical items he does not own. After coming back with no gold or bag of holding ... he no longer owned his life. His family was brutally murdered in front of his eyes. His wife was also a part of this dark scheme so they both rise as revenants. Their children had no future for the PCs decided to steal from the poor man. Now as he passed away his thirst for vengence was stronger than death itself.

When i first became a Dungeon Master, my brother gave me a great piece of advice. He told me to try to not get ahead of the players, because you never know what they might do. This has inspired to keep the game world open, and flexible. The overall focus of my current campaign is that the players are hunting down the ancient Planar Gems, each one of which relates to one of the major planes. The players choose what order to hunt each gem in.

"Actually, Human Resources has strickt rules about open flames in the wood place" 🤣🤣🤣 I think the map escalation sounds awesome.

The evolution of DMs and players: DM builds fort out of wood. Players: Burn everything. DM builds fort out of stone. Players: earthglide into the fortress DM builds fort out of magically ensorcelled metals of impenetrable hardness Players: Steal fort materials and retire as billionaires DM builds fort out of wood.

No, this is exactly why Gary has been promoted to middle management.

My players tried to scam the blackmarket with fake +1 weapons using Illusory Script. Well, guess who had to do tasks for the Underground in order to not die?

Poor Gary. He's just trying to make sure everyone follows company rules and stays out of trouble.

the DM Lair: "Dungeon masters, you control the entire game world!" Bards rolling seduction: "We all think that at first. We are all wrong."

I played in a game where he didn't even give an ingame reason for why what we wanted to do wouldnt work. He literally just said no

Although I agree in principle, I have had groups, typically newer players, totally want to be railroaded. Too many choices just confuses them and they lose track of plot lines because it seems to overwhelming. It is a tightrope for sure.

I'm just imagining a Barbarian saying something along the lines of: "If there are no easy ways to climb it i'll rage and punch holes for my companions to climb with using the strength given to me by my belt of giant kind"

Think I'm going to suggest to my player playing an Elf in Waterdeep: Dragon Heist that his character could be from Evermeet.

What I expect from players: to respect the world and story the DM creates What I expect from DMs: to create a world and story interesting enough that the players want to play along with it Players will go off and do dumb random stuff a lot less if they're engaged.

to gary: You were the chosen one! you supposed to bring balance to the workforce not manage it into darkness!

The monster manual and other books provide tons of great ways to insert consequences into your game. Revenants are no joke with the right power behind them.

I'm DM-ing PotA now and this is my favorite, spontaneous player agency with consequences: during an encounter with bandits, my players decided to capture the bandit captain alive. If you read the NPC description of a Bandit Captain it states that he choose this profession for the recognition, not the money. So, as they go to integrate him, he introduces himself: “I am Captain Jerle. You have no doubt heard of me”. One of my players immediately responded with “never heard of you”. Feeling disrespected, he refuses to answer any of their questions. They eventually just kill him. Several days later, they return to town to find a celebration in honor of Phineas, a local old-time prospector, that has claimed the bounty of the valley’s villainy scourge, Captain Jerle. Most people found it hard to believe that an old man like Phineas could have defeated that bandit captain but he brought the head of Jerle into town as proof. (He found the body on the side of the road where the party left him). The bounty was 1500gp. Annoyed that Phineas received the bounty for the work that they did, they ask around where they can find Phineas. It turns out that he left earlier and headed back into the hills to continue prospecting. No one knows where exactly he is because prospectors don’t typically advertise where they are mining. As time goes on, statues are erected and roads are renamed in Phineas’ honor all over the valley. It’s a sore spot for them to this day but so fun to bring it up!

I have found the one way to avoid getting derailed is to have no rails. My adventures are generally a map and a list of bad guys , their locations on the map, their loot and collection of notes about how I would like things to go in each area of the map.

My players routinely, without necessarily meaning to, bypass the entire adventure I had planned by tackling pivotal encounters in a way I hadn't anticipated. In one, I had an evil wizard prepared to send them into the Feywild via a portal he had built himself. Preferably to help his cause, but at worst to get those meddlers out of his way. To facilitate this, I designed an arena with platforms above the party, from which he could taunt them. I gave him several spells to defend against the magical attacks that would invariably come. I put the ladders to the platforms a sufficient distance from the party. All I needed was 2 rounds to get him across a catwalk, through a door, and out of harms way to lure them into the portal. My players took exactly one round to trap him instead. Our Genasi cast Wall Climb on the gnome. He then climbed the wall and used Magical Lock on the door my wizard needed to get through. Uh-oh. My wizard deflected Moonbeam like I planned, but then got trapped on the catwalk with vines. "What is the catwalk made of?" the next player asked. "Uh, wood I suppose, with ropes to hold onto." "I cast fireball on the catwalk!" It didn't collapse immediately. Not until one of the Goliaths, running at full tilt, got onto the platform and jumped onto the catwalk with all his considerable weight. Snap. Before I knew it, the party had my wizard subdued, with a rope around his neck, and the other Goliath angrily threatening to kick him off the very platform I had crafted, then watch him swing. The wizard rather pragmatically capitulated at that point and meekly taught them the secrets to the trap he was baiting, in exchange for his life, which they then proceeded to use in later encounters. And you know what? They had an absolute blast with that whole situation. It's meant a lot more work for me, but it also energized me to put in that effort. :)

I'm in love with sandbox-style games where I homebrew a full world and just play reactionary to their own goals and interests. To me, the drive the players have create the story and it's fun to me to mold the world around them and their actions.

Excellent video. Matt Colville’s video on this subject was good but I found yours more interesting to watch and you gave some great examples. Thanks, Luke.

This is the first video I've seen on this channel, and I offer a big thank you for explaining player agency! That scratched many psychological itches I've been having lately, and now I can put words as to why (lack of agency) irks me so!

Thank you for this video, Luke. I have often wondered if I railroad my players and question my DMing constantly. Our biggest adventure to date was a treasure hunt (which was basically a National Treasure reference plus about ten other "treasure movies" in one). I loved the adventure but also feared that it was possibly railroading since treasure hunts tend to follow a formula. Hearing your definition has eased my mind though. It actually reminded me of something that I did (as a bit of a joke, honestly) that reflects the idea of consequences. In our first session (my first time DMing *ever*, mind you), one player had his character introduced by having the others walk in to find him having won a bar brawl with seven guys. They hired him immediately due to his obvious strength (plus the meta of getting the player in). They then proceeded to do something that I had not planned for: they looted all the guys. When I say looted, what I really mean is that they took everything except their undergarments. About 4-5 sessions later, the players are passing through a narrow mountain trail. They suddenly find themselves surrounded by seven thugs. The thugs soon recognise the players and reveal that they are the group from the bar. They had been forced to turn to banditry after the players robbed them. They hadn't exactly been "nice guys" before, but they weren't actually criminals. They blamed the players for their situation (and the players were genuinely shocked that they had shown back up). Instead of killing them, the players talked things through and sent them on their way. The "bandits" listened to the advice and turned their lives around; they are actually monks now and are grateful for the players actions as they believe that it helped them find their true calling. I often felt like having the players follow the adventure I planned on was railroading. This has made me feel a bit better though. As long as they have options to solve the quest that we agreed to play, things should be fine. "Yes, but..." is a powerful and fun DM tool indeed.

Dude I'm really loving how far you're pushing Gary

Every time there is an upload is when I am awake at an ungodly time due to me getting sidetracked with something where I am up even later watching these videos. It’s amazing

Great video! As a side note, people didn't only use wooden fortification before the discovery of fire. It's exceedingly difficult to set big logs on fire even if they are dry which they usually aren't. Fireball is far more likely to just destroy a wooden fortification (after repeated use) than set it on fire. The successful siege of Sion castle which had a wooden gatehouse is historically attributed to the gatehouse being burned down over a several month-long siege with fire arrows. Of course, it also depends whether you rule flammable in the Fireball text as well, flammable, or literally anything theoretically combustible that instantly goes to max temperature and spreads. In other words - feel free to use wooden fortifications in your D&D games. They are not just a pile of tinder. But granted - the ultimate goal is for the players to have fun and if you let it happen to facilitate that, it's all in the name of fun.

Not a DM long, but there was this one time the group (newbie bard, warrior and a few NPCs hired by the bard's mentor to protect her for 6 months) camped out under her cart in a torrential downpour. A good perception check from one of the PCs that was standing guard netted them a loud rumbling sound in the middle of the night in the rain. In a "you see a warehouse. Is that a man that turns into a house? It is now." moment, he thought it was a dragon. The next day, after the rain had stopped, they had run into the fact that the rain had washed the bridge out. Perception check to notice the glints of gold on both sides of the river bank. Next town, they did their usual song-dance-feed-pass messages thing, and of the hooks, they chose the off-the-cuff one. Too bad the group dissolved due to RL stuff while they were still in the water-logged ruin/dragon lair. So much fun planed.

The example of the wooden palisade at the beginning did actually happen similarly to me, however, I had been a bit of a Nerd on the Roman legions and their battle strategies (the camp the players were attacking was actually based on Roman standards). So I had the Wizard give me a low DC Intelligence roll and told him "You remember you didn't invent the Fireball or fire in general. The people building palisades know about it and build them intentionally to be hard to burn. Unless you build up a lot of kindling against the wall or get something like alchemical fire to stick to the wood you won't be able to generate enough fire to really get the palisade burning." Game mechanic wise I decided that they needed a critical hit for the palisade to catch fire dealing normal d6 fire damage per round, with a chance that on rolling a one for damage that round the fire would sputter out. With the number of hit points, the palisade had (based on trees hit points) and the guards actually standing watch burning their way in just isn't a feasible plan.

One time I DMed a one shot where my players were at one point supposed to investigate the entire mansion they were in to get through a strong magic seal. What does our regular DM do? She creates a minor illusion of herself, flies to where the seal leads and blinks into the mansion, spoiling the reveal of the whole story (aside everything, this made the actual opening of the seal much more fun because it was less sneaking and more interrogating after that).

I try to set up the job board with miniquests that can build up the players reputation where they are. this can give more time to rebuild scenarios that they could have taken to match more to their current character play styles. afterwards it will still have an effect when they go through the same area, visiting old camp fires to rest, seeing how the bullywugs have changed with outside influence. there was even a temple they could revisit later on that was just to be a partially underwater place that needed excavation. They detected magic on the front statue and broke it though, which was keeping it stable for long term making excavation tougher later.

I was running a multiverse game where basically all universes from any media you can think of exist and are connected in various ways, allowing travel between them for people with sufficient know-how, power, specific abilities or items to do so. There was an evil multidimensional, megacorporation pulling the strings of the biggest problems occurring across the campaign since the very beginning, and the idea was that the PCs would, in time, become more and more heroic, um heroes, and eventually gather forces to stand against said megacorporation to save the multiverse. They did, actually, do that. However, it's how they actually did it that was awesome. Namely, they formed a rock band with all the main PCs and some NPCs, and organized an interdimensional concert, transmitted over all universes, to embolden and rally all the people who opposed the megacorporation into a monstrously massive uprising spamming all dimensions where they had a hold, followed by the epic final war with the heroes taking on the heads of the organization. In other words... the day was won with charisma, excellent planning, and the power of Rock 'n' Roll. EDIT: By the way, that's a very 'long story short' description. We're talking about a more or less six years long campaign here.

Way back when I was in high school, I used to run the game from session zero with things like "You have gathered to hunt down the dragons of the northern mountains." - It took me about 6-8 years for me to change it to "Your characters live in and around Starting City that has put out a call for adventurers. There are three jobs available, what do you want to do?"

that intro was your greatest skit ever. your quarantine hair is on point.

Cool shirt! High five from Grand Rapids. I try to build agency by running a fairly sand-boxy setting while keeping it reactive to the players. A great way to do this is to keep a list of major characters or 'elements' and what the next things are that they will be doing. A as the players interact with setting, the plans of these elements change in reaction to the impact the PCs are having. The players can often even spot the changes in direction and enjoy becoming a part of the story that way.

What Luke describes - choices between adventure hooks but an expectation that once chosen the players will see it through - is something I describe as “the switchyard”. Not a railroad, plenty of choice of courses of actions, but an understanding that choosing an adventure hook represents a form of commitment. This is pretty obviously my own philosophy:) I also am convinced that the Internet “railroad vs open world” thing is more about creating opportunities for comment wars than actual gameplay.

Great video man... I agreed with every word. I will say, that learning how to roll with it and let the story flow organically simply comes with time, and most new DMs are going to make these mistakes dozens of times before they figure it out.

In that one campaign with that skyship I ran my players straight up told me that they would go to the maproom of the ship (the ship was supposed to be ancient technology with some kind of magical computer map of the entire world - and yes I was silly enough to give them access to that early on despite knowing they had a tendency of running off in random directions), look for the closest dessert and travel there next no matter what. I luckily had already established that there is no dessert on that continent by priniting out a map of it (I guess that was partially why they wanted a dessert) so to gain some time I told them that the dessert is on a different continent and even with the skyship they would need 3 weeks of traveltime to get there. They then decided to first go to the closest city on the continent they were on and we made the rest of the session being preparations and shopping. And by the next session I had a dessert style city and adventure prepared (that was largely inspired by that sinking city in final fantasy 6 - that city sunk down with them because of some danger they had to resolve and before that they couldn't get back to their skyship so they couldn't have ran off again like they did from the other adventures I had prepared... IDK if that was railroading, but at least nobody complained about it.

I’m new to tabletop games in general nd DMing in particular, just started running a group a few weeks ago. I planned an overarching plot in which the players would align with the king of the nation of Arhabbon and help defend the country against the evil Colossi that roamed the outskirts of the world. The players, though, had other plans. Turns out they didn’t like the king, and after fighting him and embarrassing him in front of his soldiers, they went to every other country’s kings and convinced them to start a world war to divide up the country of Arhabbon between them. Cut to me writing notes for several hours, trying to figure out how to adjust the plot to fit their actions

Railroading is actually a leading cause of murderhoboism. Box your players in too tightly and they can go berserk doing crazy stuff trying to break out of the box. There's nothing wrong with a linear adventure design; that's not a railroad. Railroading is when the players try to get off the path and find they can't. Oh, and love the "illegal map" subplot. I would drop my players hints regarding the fact that the Evermeet map was supposed to be secret, but if they ignored those hints ...

Love your video!!

What about when a player gets upset cause the NPC’s didn’t react in a way they expected to something they did? Had a player play a psion, use his psychic powers to implant truths into some npc’s minds, and expected other npc’s that are companions or coworkers of that effected npc to accept that the NPC’s change in personality and doing something that they would usually not do, as normal. Also, got called out for railroading for making it where the only quest available to them was an investigation request for the guild they belong to, I told them about the town and the route to it, but they could of gone anyway they wanted to get to the town. They consistently did things that while yes pissed me off, were things that would and should have consequences, such as psychically probing the glowing crystal walls surrounding them three times, with the first two times causing otherworldly sounds to emit from all around them and rumbling as small crystal shards fall around them, on the third time, they all got crushed as they woke up the giant mountain titan they were inside after probing it’s mind. I allow for choices, I will give you the info you are given in character, which will have the suggested route, but they can go where they please and use the route they want. But actions can and will have consequences.

Really need this cause I’ve no idea how to continue the campaign without a tpk. Cleric straight told the warlord that him and the entire party might me under the control of the enemy and might be forced to open the gate when the enemy comes. Mind you this was their first time speaking with the warlord

I was having a conversation with some friends who also DM & the subject of Player Agency came up. One of them said that Player Agency gets in the way of telling a good story & that Player Agency is one of the first things a DM should eliminate at their table.

There's been a campaign that I've been brewing for maybe half a year now, give or take a month. There are macguffins in the game that the group (should) want to gather and protect from the BBEG, which are orbs that the gods are bound to that, once broken, the breaker gains the power and dominions of that god. The BBEG basically wants to be the overlord to change the world in the way he wants. I realized that the rules I established for these orbs can easily be taken advantage of by the players. So now there's the hero path, the villain path, and the neutral path a la Undertale.

Question: Hi Luke! I’ve made a couple of mistakes as DM and want to improve more. Let’s say you have a scenario in D&D, and the players decide to do something that catches you off-guard and something you didn’t plan for. What would you do? Improvise?

In my first campaign ever, the players had started getting pretty powerful, but because one was a Pelor cleric, they had gotten all their quests from the church of Pelor. I figured I wanted to see what they would do if left to their own devices. High Priest "Thank you so much for the help against the necromancer, here is your promised reward", Party Cleric: "What next?", High Priest "we don't require any help at the moment." My Idea was, now that they knew the world a little, I would see if they wanted to explore something on their own. I figured if it didn't work out, I could start dropping quests again. Party Cleric: "You must have a problem with something!" High Priest "No, well the new taxes are making people donate less, but nothing that requires your attention" (The king was secretly possessed by a demon, and raising money for his upcoming surprise attack on their peaceful neighbors , I just wanted to sow that seed). Party Cleric "To the King!!! We Must Complain!" They traveled across the country, the demon possessed king didn't want to see peasants, so he had set up a bureaucracy designed to keep people out. They got a hold of the kings representative (a wizard). Pelor Cleric: "I demand to speak with the king!" Wizard: "You can speak with me, or fill out the paperwork and wait for about 4 weeks". Pelor Cleric "Outrages! you must have a representative of the church here in the castle let me speak to him!" Wizard: "We do, that is me" A blatant lie, but he was getting tired of the clerics bullshit at this point (I cut out a good part of the conversation). The Cleric thought it over for a moment, and came up with a brilliant plan. "psst... guys, if we attack them, they will have to take us to the king for judgement, and then we can complain." Dragonborn. "I don't think that is a good idea". Pelor cleric: "ATTACK!!!" he charged at the wizard, and the guards that outnumbered them. Inside the castle that had been established to have over a hundred elite soldiers. Later in the prison. (No they didn't get to see the king). The cleric murdered a guard they had taken hostage in an escape attempt, lost his powers from Pelor, prayed to several other gods, before being accepted by Vecna. Staging a new, this time successful, escape. Starting a rebellion against the king, and turning the first town they ever saved into a thriving Vecna cult. 10/10 campaign would DM again. Anyway, I highly recommend seeing what happens if the players have a little while of not knowing what to do next (after they know your world a little). What NPCs or places do they go to, when left to their own devices? If they can't come up with anything, just drop in another plot hook.

Great topic today and the beginning skit was funny

My players rescued some children from a coven of hags and returned them to town, which resulted in a large celebration. One of them hooked up for a one night stand. After the session, I rolled percentiles with my husband as witness and now he's going to be a daddy! The players also don't seem to realize that rescued girls from covens are fated to become hags. That will be popping up way down the road /snicker. The last session, they were in a lair of black dragons, killed the sister, than instead of resting while half dead, continued on and found the treasure room. After rolling to see if mamma was with the eggs or the treasure, she was with the eggs. Instead of resting when they really needed it now they were in a dead end, they touched the treasure, alerting mamma. I had predetermined the loot and one was, lucky for them, a bag of seeds. They picked five, planted them, and I rolled on the table. One roll was for a tree ent, that fortunately rolled neutral. The final roll I fake rolled for a bullet to appear(mamma would have murdered them all), but did roll to see who it would attack, and it target the tree ent. The players were able to escape down the hole and than I was off the rails, lol. This resulted in a side adventure where they rescued a baby bronze dragon (Keele quickly became a favorite NPC) being attacked by displacer beasts who's parents were killed by the black dragons. Priest used divination and discovered one other member of the family was still alive and they had to go rescue Keele's sister from a group of Chitines and Choldriths. All unplanned, but they all seemed to really enjoy it. Now it seems like Keele might be sticking around.

Hey man. Love the content! In on The DM lairs Stream and am wondering if theres anyway to watch the guys from hill giants campaign from.the beginning? From the players starting those characters at lvl 1 is what I mean.

LOL, your skits are funny as usual. This skit reminded me of the G1 "The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief" (which I did a review of :-) ...and I could not stop laughing. In order to prevent PCs from burning the Steading down, Gary Gygax said the wood was water logged, and the weather is very damp. My solution to this particular problem is to have the Steading mortared and whitewashed, which makes it fireproof and makes it look like it was made of stone.

This was so helpful thanks Luke!!

I rarely get a party which completes the objective in the way I intend. For example. they always try to capture the guys who are fanatically loyal until death, and murderhobo the ones who would be perfectly happy surrendering.

I will say this about gary, at least he's a rule follower.

I ran a game a while ago where some of the party went to stealth into a fortress. The guys who were outside noticed a routine patrol heading in their direction and decided to ambush them. And used one of those spells which makes a lot of noise, like thunderous smite. The game got a lot more........interesting after that.

Excellent video!!!

A wall that can't be climbed? *Trump would like to know your location*

At first I thought I read Planar Agency and Railroading, and thought I was about to hear an adventuring module about multi-dimensional hardboiled adventurers touring the planes with a Magic Coal and steam powered Train.

What can I say? A very clear, informative, and brilliant explanation of this critical issue

Currently, when ever I am next time DM in campaign I'm running... (One of the players is now my DM so I get to play once as I have never gotten to play in campaign until now.) ... I have party of 3 to 4 players level 6 and they start on the forge of fury campaign's city where they will get information about great evil. They will get information of following "You find out that the Evil kindom is going to launch attacks in 3 cities, you must choose which one you go defend." noting that I assume they are willing to try defeating the evil king -> they can if they want to attack the king now who is demigod (not immortal but strong as hell) ruling past +100years who stopped aging and is tyrant . . . not kinda lich but more like true lvl 20 wizard who has mastered over the art of level 10 spells and is giving random people on the world information how to achieve certain things without telling them that they are casting level 10 spells. My Rules are for lvl 10 spell 1) you need at least 2 people casting the spell as ritual. 2) Ritual will take 1 week where you must cast 8h a day the spell. Casting is 24/7 makes the spell be casted 3 times faster but that is not told by the tyrant king. 3) You will lose a level after the casting is finished, not before. 4) You will 100% fail every time 5) The spell has change to fail, the DC save is 30. 5.2) Ever caster in ritual lowers the DC by 1 5.3) When casting one of the players throws D20 using their spell casting modifier without profiency so max +5 bonus. If you get 30 in some how as wizard your bonus is +10. 6) You have to be able to cast lvl 9 spells -> You can up cast 1 spell level higher what you are able to using this method. You will use level in process because of the strength of magic. 7) Cost of spell is 100 times more expensive if something cost 10 000 lvl9 now it is 10 000 000 lvl10 8) Casting 10th level spell gives you with 4 exhaustion (one more is speed 0 and one more is death) thous should be all rules I use. Players are trying to stop tyrant CE king and might cover they can cast boosted spells if needed :D wish at lvl 10th will be able to alter reality :3

I try to do what you said, take my players actions into account and make that effect the world. The other thing I do to give my players agency is have the world work on it own. 1. If I tell the players that their are rumers in the west of entire towns being turned to ice, everyone frozen like statues. 2. The theif of the parties, main rival has been spotted in the crystal kinddom at the kings side. 3. The fighter gets a vision of there long dead love in pain. 4. GiMme the blacksmith wants some oar for a very special gift. If they choice GiMmes task then they will find the oar is to make a wedding ring and he will propose and get married because of them. However while they where doing that 3 more towns have been frozen solid, and had they gone straight to the third town they would have seen the yetis doing it, not the ice dragon that rumors in they area say. The theifs rival will have stolen the kings most prized possessions and increased their fame as the best theif alive. The fighters dead loves soul will revisit the fighter an even paler reflection. Of themselves and should the party put it off again the lover will be destroyed, devoured by a demon eating the souls of the dead to gain enough strength to breach into the world. Because player ablities charge on a time frame I find by adding important time elements into the story it creates tension. And by haveing not only the characters actions but also lack of action effect the world gives them more agency. They are powerful people and should they be their they may be able to turn the tides of fate, but if they aren't then the world still moves on. This Speers them to find faster routes to take bigger risk, scale the monster infested cliffs to save a day or go by boat safer but far slower. To make sure the world dosent seem over cluttered I usally have two quest set up for each player weaving their back story into each. Sometimes interviews the players quest togther. Then I have one big over arching quest. Something that effects the world as the players know it. They never have to deal with the overarching quest but it will have constant massive effects on the world. Their personal quest might not have as big of an impact on the world but I try to make it really meaningful to each player, so that they are personally invested. (this works best when the players create detailed backgrounds, and have a few goals)

"What kind of bullcrap is this?" The kind of bullcrap that will be in play until you let me finish describing the map that I worked so hard on and you do a little exploring and strategizing beyond "We just set it on fire, lul." You can still set it on fire afterward but come on, guys. Every time you do this it never goes as you planned because you never plan past setting it on fire.

Honestly for me, I hate having to intervene if I feel like a player's agency is being taken too liberally. It's especially difficult when you are dealing with a mixed party with two experienced players and four new players. The experienced players are all about wanting to do something interesting while perhaps the newer players are still finding their voice. This evening was especially frustrating in my campaign because one of my players decided tonight would be a good night to pvp one of the new players because it's what their character would have done in that situation. Then you have to deal with the newer player feeling frustrated because their character who isn't "as" combative as the other character is being perceived as bullying them ICly simply because "they can." I know there's a lot of missing variables, i just figured i'd share my own experience of frustrations from the GM side of things when dealing with a mixed group like this. I eventually had to make the call to hit a soft reset on the situation by detaining the group for the commotion. I tried my best to keep it sensible and IC but this is a rare moment where I feel that sometimes you do have to mildly police player agency to a degree.

I saw in comments about if the player character with the map of Evermeet (assuming they were an Elf) would know from their character that the elves would not like this and got me wondering about things characters would know that a player wouldn't at first. Also managing and meticulating every aspect of a game world as a DM is I will go as for to say impossible, while a DM could make a sweeping statement like "no flying races in my campaign" the sheer fact that the Forest Gnome Knowledge Cleric picked up fisherman from GoSM for their background means now somewhere in the world is a fishing city full of gnomes, something as a DM that was never planned for which may or may never be visited, but to me it's more of to show how many hands are in the pot and that while the DM does have the most control minor world building details the players contribute simply by being part of that game. Personally I would see no issue with a player being a gnome from a fishing village, but I can't help but think some DMs could be "extra" retentive over control of the world even to those details that goes as far on this spectrum as out right dictating a characters actions to the player. So sidenote on how you define railroading: I would make the attempt of the puzzle a choice in of itself because by definition a puzzle while having many ways to solve it always leads to the same solution and not degrees of success or failure and different outcomes. Basically puzzles are a type of railroading so I would give players options A-Z + 1 option with a puzzle so that way if they want to try and solve it they can or could just bypass and not feel it forced on them and spend a session trying to wrap their brain around what their supposed to do with this cup and this flute (instrument not champagne kind) From what I understand for players to have agency they need to be able to act and influence the world. "I throw a rock" "You do that and it scares some birds" Actions need to have appropriate consequences. "I cast suggestion on the prince." "A guard sees you and you find yourself encircled by weapons, they 'suggest' you break the spell immediately." Consequences need to be unique "...well we don't want to run into a beholder.... We decide to go left instead of right" "The left path is clear of any beholder, but it is full of creatures, monsters that were afraid of the beholder like you were but are not in the least afraid of you. You spot a group of Yuan-Ti, at least one of them appears to be a Yuan-Ti mind whisperer or nightmare speaker. What do you all do?" And in some cases are built up from the world's react and response to a characters action. "A procession of armed humanoids wearing bird masks surrounds you. 'We know what you did? You killed an Opal Finch; we do not understand why you would do such a cruel misdeed, but we can never forgive you for it. You will be taken to be judged by our priests."

I had a very similiar situation in my last campaign. Had this awesome tower planned out, not huge but with some tricks and a couple of combat encounters with a planned epic Bossfight with the evil Wizard at the top. One of my players (a druid) just summoned a Monster that could burrow through stone and had it attack the foundations. Half the tower collapsed, the Wizard lost all his forces bar the one big undead Monster and clung to the top of leftovers of the tower, his ritual disrupted and destroyed. Undead Monster came out of the rubbel, a quick turn undead send it runnign into the forrest and the party killed the Wizard with a couple of ranged attacks. One of the best DnD moments I had. :)

I got a story I'm the dm, i am still very new to being a dm, but i feel i am pretty good at improve. I was playing a homebrewed campaign with my younger cousins, in the campaign the players have been hired by a powerful wizard to track down and retrieve 5 ancient gems, that contain immense magical energies, but as they knew, they were not the only ones searching for these gems.( The gems are powerful enough to wear even while wearing gloves of anti magic, you can still feel its pulse, and the gems must be place in a bad of holding or else they will emit a powerful magic aura, that can be easily sensed from great distances, if ever were they to make contact with another gem its energy would release a massive shock-wave, and absorb all the magic in the local area). Our rogue, after getting the first gem within the ancient crypt, thought "lets try and sell this gem to a to one of the lords of the land, and then steal it from them", i allowed them the opportunity to try, and they managed to persuade the guy into buying the gem but only after they had to remove it from the bag of holding, and reveal it to him. Now this man had hold of the gem, now remember i mentioned that they were not the only ones searching for the gem, well that night when they went to go steal the gem back, they noticed something was off at the mansion they had gone to earlier to make the sale. The guards were not stationed outside the nobles fenced yard, in fact the gates were fully open. They begin to look around try to see if maybe the guards were making rounds around the inside walls, what they found was to guards bloodied and mauled, dump in some bushes. They sneak into the mansion, finding that the door had already been busted open. Then rogue, managed to here some commotion up stairs as well as talking (in abyssal), they try to sneak through the house, to which are paladin does not do the greatest job of sneaking. then they find themselves surrounded by gnolls, they manage to defeat the gnolls and retrieve the gem, but burned the mansion down in the process. The wizard whom had hired them was made aware of their actions, and for that as a consequence deducted a majority of their payment.

Just ran into something similar last session, lol. Ruined city in the center of a huge sandstorm that stretches higher than the airship my party is in can safely reach. I detail, via the airship captain, that he's pretty sure the only way to get through will be on foot as the airship would risk getting obliterated. Player: "I say we try the airship anyway." Captain looking at sandstorm, looking at party, back to sandstorm, and back to party: "I really don't think we can make that." Player: "DM...are you railroading us...?" Me: "The captain starts handing you railroad ties and wooden slats saying, "I don't know what you're talking about."" They all had a good laugh at that, lol. I asked them if they really wanted to go the airship route, but they agreed to go the on-foot route. The truth was that I was prepared to adhoc it, but I didn't want the airship they literally cheered about getting to get demolished right after we'd just gotten back on track with some good session consistency after a bunch of real-life issues and dropping players had wiped morale practically off the board.

My lamest experience as a player would have to be my friends and I's first-ever session without me as the DM. We were in a market full of swindlers and shopkeepers we all figured were trying to overcharge us. Given how my character and another PC had a criminal history, we both began threatening and using intimidation to get a better deal. At three different points, the DM had the shopkeepers literally teleport out before we could inflict any harm onto his precious NPCs. See how annoyed we were, the DM broke character and told us the shopkeeper didn't teleport too far. Our ranger proceeded to role Nat 20 and was told the shopkeeper (who was described as looking poor and needy) actually had a horse who she took of on after she teleported off. The ranger made another role and got a second Nat 20 to which the DM simply said, "She appears long gone at this point." Even though that had only been about 30 in-game seconds. Then about 3/4ths way through the session, we were introduced to a guide who all of us found annoying and kinda just wanted to continue without. The guide tried to prove her usefulness and it became pretty clear the "guide" was a DMPC. We tried to tell the guide for a full hour that we didn't want her to join our group but finally, our rouge got so annoyed and bored that he agreed to let her join if she simply came for free. The session immediately ended afterward and none of the players were really eager for session two.

I simply removed most teleport type spells (and my version of the Ethereal realm is incredibly dangerous) from my game, and it seemed to fix all of the problems that come from forgetting that players can just go wherever they want. It limited them to more realistic routes.

I completely agree with everything you said. However, you can railroad players without them ever knowing. For example, they come across three paths, and as the DM, you can make sure that whatever path they choose, it leads to the location you want them to go. From the players perspective, they've made their own choice... But in the situation you mentioned where the DM says "no" to every idea you come up with, yes that can be very frustrating. Question - Do you ever give your players little hints that their actions may not be the best idea?

I agree with player agency, although sometimes the DM has to intervene because of the player's ignorance, for example the elf selling a map of Evermeet, I would make sure the player is aware of the "mistake" before dealing harsh consequences, otherwise (if the player was unaware) it seems as if the DM is only there to catch players off guard and ruins the fun. About not railroading, if you start a campaign and the players don't follow your adventure because they aren't interested, well..., they can and they will, as a matter of fact they should. If you want your players to follow the adventure you made all you have to do is tell the players in advance that this is the theme of the campaign, or even include the adventure hook in the players' backgrounds, example, a team of worshipers (the players) tasked to retrieve a sacred relic (adventure). The possible interactions the players have with the game world isn't limited to the adventure you have prepared, for this reason they can and should interact keeping in consideration all possibilities, players who only follow an adventure discarding all other interactions only to do the DM a favour are, in my opinion, not playing at 100%, if in the end you end up with some unused possibilities which would never have been used because the party wouldn't leave the DM's plot, then just quit the farce and clear all misunderstandings once and for all. Also, a party shouldn't be middle fingering your adventures, in such a case you should talk to the players and see that a solution is found. If the party still middle fingers your adventures, then the guys just aren't adapt to a social game like D&D.

One thing for new DMs to consider...goblins, kobolds, and many other common monsters are small. They should be using 1/2 inch minis. Ogres, trolls and many more monsters are large and should use 2 inch minis. Some creatures are even smaller and larger than that, too. This is a still great video that gets me thinking how all that could work.

I like having pre-established goals and working towards those goals. Give me too much choice and I freeze up. Can't make a decision. I don't like eating at restaurants for that reason. Too many choices.

The best tools a DM has to keep the players in the play pen are the players themselves. Alignments and backstories can help you anticipate how a character *should* behave in a given situation. Good characters love bait tailored with pleas and and rooting out the plights of your hapless NPC populations. Neutrals take to baits of wealth like candy. The real crack in the mix is if you lace the plot with even the tiniest hint of a backstory tie-in. It also helps to routinely discuss with the players what the characters' goals are at various points, at which point, they'll tell you exactly how to lure them into various adventures. Looking for a stronghold to call your own? Why, this very adventure may provide the opportunity you're looking for! Sprinkle in a red herring every now and again just to temper expectations that you're not just 'giving' this stuff away like it's written on a Christmas list. Sleighting the players is another great way to motivate them down an adventure. They HATE being one-upped or stolen from with an obsessively violent passion.

The timing on this is incredible. I'm a newer DM and I just lost a player after a bad railroading session. Half the players didn't show up to a dungeon and the other half wanted to keep playing. In retrospect, I should have just canceled it and made everyone wait, but I thought I had a cool idea for an uprising that would reduce the enemies the players had to fight in half. It ended up with them having to take one path and do one thing or basically die. I knew it was kinda bad once it finished, but I didn't think about how bad it must've felt to play it that way until that one player dropped out.

It's funny. From my first time DMing in the 90s the first thing from my players is "I cast Fireball" Also in my campaign one of the BBEG (there are 2 who are also against each other) has 3 Boneclaws attached to them. The characters don't know what a boneclaw is (Actually I think 3.5 (The .5 is because one of my players saw them in a 3x game I ran but seemed to have forgotten about them.) players don't know what they are on RL). They defeated 2 of the 3 earlier (the third got away). They got to one of the bases of the BBEG (Though at the time they didn't know it because they were on a quest that didn't seem related) several days later and they defeated them and one said "Not again. Next time I will capture you" as he died and disappeared. (Only one of my players caught it) and they defeated the third one later who said something similar (Another player caught on realizing that these were the exact same ones they killed earlier) So they now have evil creatures that hate them My players don't know this, but this BBEG is an ancient general turned necromancer turned Lich who only want to protect the kingdom and was exiled because of his views on the issue of kingdom security. A threat (The other BBEG) has recently popped up on his radar so he is creating a army. Right now he is attacking the kingdom's mercenary companies giving most them a choice, join his army willingly or be conscripted. If they don't join conscription is killed and raised as some sort of undead. If you willingly join you will either stay as yourself, or transformed into some sort of more powerful and intelligent undead. He offered the players a choice. They chose not to join, he tried to have his minions kill him (1 boneclaw, 2 skeletons in full plate armor w/Halbards and the Polearm master feat, and 1 deathlock). He was behind a wall of force. He had a meeting to go to (Yes I actually planned a timer for how many rounds till he left (6)). So now he believes them to be an enemy to the kingdom and will be hunting them specifically. If they said yes (all but one could. 1 couldn't) they would have been given the choice of staying alive or become undead

Do u have a persfic activity or place to think of ideas for each group. Like shower sword cost gard and brushing teeth ur curse of strad and so on

Another thing about dungeons I learned the hard way: when making an underground dungeon, GIVE IT ADEQUATE VENTILATION. If not, they can block it all off and suffocate everyone in the dungeon. Or put captives in it

My group fought 20 frost giants once who were attacking the town of Fireshear. After half were dead I would have had them retreat...but my players concocted a scheme and burned down the boat they came in. An epic battle ensued which almost resulted in a TPK

1 thing I do, is purposely leave certain openings for them to possibly start new sidequests

Burning is a little a much but can be easily organically countered, the guards discover the fire spreading and rally around it to put them out blocking the new entrance that burned down, civilians make a water brigade to bring water to the guards

My solution to the burning wooden fortress; "The owner returned; to find the fortress burned to ashes, & all treasure within & then sent a mahunt after the people responsible." "Meanwhile, the Characters find crudely drawn wanted posters, resembling them, whilst the Party realized: they're all smudged with stains from burning the fortress down, covered in blood, & reeking of battle & arson." "There's also a bounty on their heads." "And the loot within the wooden fortress was well... toast."

Player agency is fine but as a player I ensure that there is motivation and reason behind my character's decisions. People when they have little motivation generally don't do much at all so when a character after being on the road for 3 days turns down the comfort of a bed, the the sustenance of a warm (well made) meal, a bath and possible companionship in a known nearby town, to go down a road of which they know nothing of, at least have a motivation for it. If your character is sitting on pretty penny, why would you have them steal something of little value unless they are a kleptomaniac or it's a requirement from your warlock patron?

When something gets completly out of hand. I will make use of it as I didn't see it coming and flip the tables on that character...sometimes

One form of rail roading I do from time to time and I really want opinion on if it is _okay_ to do so, is giving players a chance to retcon actions with consequences their _characters_ would know of. For instance, in the area they are right now at our current campaign, non-divine magic is considered demonic and heavily shunned; the players knew of this and specifically wanted to make a party of arcane and natural casters for shits and giggles, which I was 100% okay with. They all gave me backstories covering how they either hid their illegal powers or had just received them, explaining why they are still running around instead of rotting in the prison, great... First session rolls in and one of the players, probably having been busy IRL and having forgotten about that, casually asked to cast a spell in the middle of town without any attempt of hiding it. So instead of saying "well you do it; by the way, people all around you are screaming and scurrying away and you hear them calling for the guards" and immediately turning it into a full blown war, I just told the player: "your character _knows_ doing this here so brazenly would likely end up with him on trial for witchcraft, are you sure about that?"; the player realized he was unintentionally doing a dumb move and instead found a way to disguise his spell. I think at the end of the day players can end up forgetting about in universe rules, costumes and consequences that their _characters_ would never forget about, is it okay for the DM to give them a headsup when they start to do something that just goes entirely against what the character would rationally do? Not that I dislike players taking their characters in new directions... I just feel that it should be conscious of it. If a player's character clearly knows that the local lord is insecure about his height and has executed everyone who mocked him for it and the player says they call him a "minuscule halfling for dwarves" to their face, I want the story to move forward with the consequences of this act _known_ to them, instead of pretending I didn't notice they forgot some lore and later going "aha! You are now under attack by fifty soldiers, shouldn't have insulted the lord muahaha".

There's a war in my world right now. I had the players witness insurgents within a border town smuggling weapons. I whispers warning war might start soon. I expected them to stop this but instead they quickly crossed the boarder while they still could and a rebellion sparked a war days later.

The starting town in my next adventure will now be Morchmore. Thank you.

I think the focus of this video is largely on the DM and how to not railroad -- but recently in my group we had a player have a huge blowup with our main point of contact NPC, and he wanted to ditch an entire quest plotline. Our DM was pretty distraught, and it almost killed our group. I think talking more about that social contract and how we as PLAYERS can do better would be a really cool video.

I often have ways players can circumvent dungeons, from taking the fastest path by accident in a dungeon, to last week they've scaled a 40 foot wall of the dungeon keep. The week before they beat the necromancer by hiding in his lair and setting up a bunch of gun powder in a chest to blow up on him. Its fun, though it requires i improve more

I never had to deal with railroading really I feel bad for those who had to.

I enjoyed the section where he mentioned that the enemies are smart enough to run out of a burning building, because something similar happened not too long ago in a session of mine: Our rogue is being chased by a soldier and is able to out pace him, but he wanted to juke him and run back the other way somehow. So he pulls out some ball bearings and says he throws them out in a small patch directly between him and the soldier. Not a wide spread or arc. A small 5ft patch of ball bearings. Then I had to explain to him why a soldier who was 30ft away when he laid them down, had enough time to react and walk around them...

i am having trouble to see the difference between railroading and a linear adventure as a new DM. They got ambushed by goblins, captured one of the goblins, who told them everything about a surten cave, altough i never told them to go there, i did however might have slightly adjusted the intimidation check on the goblin so he would indeed tell everything, it did cost my Cleric healing spell though as the goblin wouldn't just tell everything when badly wounded. Do you reckon this counts as railroading?

I was a dm in a game and they went into the exact opposite direction that my story went then I had to make a new village and a mountian and tons of encounters in that same capain they killed the boss who was fake helping them on level one when it was supposed to be on like level 5