30 Day D&D - Favorite Playable Class

Magic-User.

I actually like all the classes and look forward to playing each one, but if I could only play one forever after, it would be the magic-user. The sheer variety of tricks they can bring to the table is what I like the best. You can burn groups of the enemy with fireballs. You can cross that chasm with a fly, a teleport, dimension door or a wall crawl spell. You get a friend with your familiar. You get to change the world through the spells; earthquake and create magic item.

Magic-users are the one class that is truly limitless. Magic-users have the widest range of possibilities and that is what draws me to them.

30 Day D&D - Favorite Playable Race

Elf.

I always loved the elves of Tolkien and the D&D elf was a pretty good facsimile of that. They are alien but still retain some human qualities. They are also beings of grace, style and mystery. I have always liked the more cerebral characters, those given to logic over raw emotion (such as Sherlock Holmes), and I feel as if elves fit that concept, certainly more so than the hard-drinking dwarves and the "flighty" halflings.

30 Day D&D - How you got started

The Holmes edition of D&D was the first one I personally bought. However, I was playing before then with some friends and I can only assume they were using the same edition.

I started out as a player. I was part of the usual clique of "nerds" in high school; we liked fantasy, science-fiction and computers. We would hang out during our free time at school talking about books, comparing which ones were the best, etc. We'd share computer code as we wrote various games (despite the fact games were disallowed on the school computer system).

A friend, one grade ahead of me, was friends with a person, one grade ahead of him. This friend had D&D. One day a couple of us were invited over his house after school to play some D&D. Needless to say we loved it. Thereafter you would see us playing during lunch and after school. During "senior skip-day" instead of heading out and getting drunk, we went to the local park and played D&D all day long.

From there I learned where we could find the books and anytime my mother was shopping in the same shop plaza, I'd spend my time at the shop (a camera and hobby shop) looking at the new books. I'd talk my mother into getting me selected rpg books which she did (though she had no idea what they were). I started with the Holmes edition and then the hardbound AD&D books. And then onto other rpg games.

My mother was a tax preparer on the side and she had a copy machine as part of that occupation. I remember making copies of all the books for my friends and we would share the books that way since we were too young to have much money ourselves. Fresh copies still reminds me of D&D to this day.

When a Railroad is a Good Thing

Last week I talked about the two forms of the 'railroad' and how dangerous one of them can be. Railroads, in general, are looked down upon as an inherently bad thing. However, as with most things in life, there are times when railroads are a good and positive thing for a game. Similar to how a game table has snacks other than Doritos and Mountain Dew, there are circumstances when a railroad is exactly what a gaming group needs.

Here are a couple of times when a railroad is advised... 

Poor Group Initiative
Some players simply don't have good self-motivation when it comes to a campaign. They hem and haw and wander aimlessly for far too long. They begin to get upset by the lack of direction. Some groups need a strong lead and the best way to do this is with a railroad. A railroad gives clear goals and an avenue to accomplish those goals. It is better to run a railroad than to let the players flounder. 

It's the Journey That is Important
For some groups the ends are not as important as the journey to get there. For those groups the plot is irrelevant and nothing but the "excuse" to go on an adventure. They don't care how they get to an adventure, just that they are in it. Often these groups enjoy the challenges of the encounters, seeking to overcome them as a purely mental contest. Some only care about the vistas of an encounter; how they get there is less important than fighting titans in cloud castles. For these sorts of groups providing a non-linear setting could actually get in the way of their goals. If the choices in a campaign's direction is left up to them they may wander too much, not reaching the exciting encounters they are looking for. For these groups a railroad of encounters provides enough of a framework to provide incentive to the encounters but also keeps the encounters coming for the group in a timely manner.

To sum up, for some tables, it's okay to run a railroad. Sometimes it's the right thing to do.

The Forms of a Railroad

In my mind there are two forms of the "railroad". The first is fairly common and not always a horrific thing, the second is insidious and can destroy a campaign without anyone even knowing why.

The first is the plot railroad. In this the characters are driven to follow the main plotline that the DM has set up. They are characterized by the fact there is series of events that need to happen in order to move the plot along. Depending on the DM, sometimes the characters will be allowed to wander off and do their own things, but eventually the characters will be drawn back into the plot. There have been numerous articles throughout the years giving details on how to do just that - how to get the characters back into the plot after they have gone astray.

The second is the character railroad. This is similar to the plot railroad, but in this one the characters have little choice but to follow the plotline. Whereas the plot railroad is fairly obvious, this one can be hidden by an experienced DM which makes it all the more dangerous. For example, in a pulp adventure I was reading recently, the characters give chase in cars after an adversary who is carrying a briefcase that the characters need to continue the plotline. There are rules for describing the chase, including the fact that the GM should ignore any result that allows for the adversary to escape. Basically, the players can not fail; it is preordained that no matter what die rolls they make or what happens, they will succeed. They have to succeed or the plot will derail. As another example, we have the classic 'the bad guy got away but left behind a slip of paper leading to the next encounter'. In this case there is no penalty for failure.

This is a far more dangerous form of railroad. On one hand because it so subtle (the GM can move things along from behind the scenes) it often feels as if there is no railroad. However, this form of railroad requires that no matter what the characters always succeed. Over time, the players will begin to feel as if their choices have no meaning. They will begin to resent the game, and will have no idea why they feel this way. A campaign can come to a crashing end and no one will know why.

Sometimes a DM has to have some form of a railroad in order to provide an interesting story, but a good DM will avoid the character railroad. Failure must remain an option. If the characters fail, it is still possible to remain on plot, but the next stage of the plot must be reached through an avenue outside of what the characters just failed at. In effect, instead of a character railroad, you would be implementing a plot railroad. Going back to the 'the bad guy got away but left behind a slip of paper leading to the next encounter' example. Instead of leaving behind a slip of paper, allow the characters to fail. Introduce a new element to the story to move the players to the next encounter. But never allow for plot advancement to come out of the character's failures.