Railroading and Quantum Ogre are the hallmarks of a terrible DM. Improvisation and sandbox play is pure roleplaying. Never get too attached to the characters and stories you want players to experience. Be prepared to shelve a lot of things you prepared for sessions to possibly never come up in your campaign ever.

Quantum Ogre is actually part of improvisation, with the titular case being exactly the sort of low-lasting-impact mechanical element that's "appropriate" to plop down wherever the party happens to go.

>>95889299
Improv is what you do when players decide not to visit that content you prepared. It's bad form to keep springing the prepared content on them instead of introducing something fresh.

>>95889283 (OP)
>>95889299
Or just stop prepping so much in the first place. A good rules system should provide all you need to run a game all by it self. It takes the human element to make the system come alive.

>>95889283 (OP)
No one asked.

>>95889398
Tiny pecker railroadcaca spotted.

>>95889283 (OP)
Railroading and Quantum Ogre are things that most players understand in concept are terrible, but would choke on their own sputum in confusion if you ever brought up the inverse: An indecisive party and their inability to stick to one ongoing quest at a time even if they're the ones who chose it. Cause I fully respect player autonomy and their ability to decide for themselves where to go in the game world I set up, but if they're going to equally demand I give them a direct path forward littered with all manner of goodies and monsters to fight WHILE doing nothing to impede whatever venture they go on, then I'm going to cheat a little with how I get them where they demand to go and where all the obstacles are going to be. They don't know that one gang of tomb robbers they're facing are just repurposed from the stats of a gang of bandits they purposefully avoided because they thought the bounty wasn't worth it, and if they have fun weeding out the competition so they can get to exploring the tomb properly why should they care if I did a little improv?

>>95889299
Yes, ish.
Having one sole possible encounter which will occur regardless is bad. It nullifies the players' choices and makes the game pointless.
Trying to have the perfect encounter for all possible contingencies is impossible.
The true ideal is to have a curated set of GOOD encounters, and to place the MOST REASONABLE one in front of the players. Allied to that, player choices should change what it is reasonable for them to encounter. This means the players have some actual control over their destiny, but the GM isn't driven insane by the labour of making an entire world from grass to macroeconomics.

>>95889341
> Just be prepared for any eventuality!!
Cool. You GM since you know what is best.

>>95889283 (OP)
so often I go into sessions with only a very vague idea of what the session will be about and I always manage to come up with more and solidify the idea as my players make choices and give me a foundation to build on.
don't go in with preconceived notions of what you want the campaign to be about, mine has gone of the rails in a way that is so wonderful, little lines my players have thrown out have had massive impact on the world building of the setting.

>Worthless blogslop post arguing with thin fucking air
Mod thread.

some GMs can hide the rails better than others but players can always feel them and there is an energy that you can feel as a GM when you let them off the rails and they realize their choices matter, they sit up in their chairs wondering if the GM is really going to let them do this crazy thing.

>Worthless blogslop post arguing with thin fucking air
mod thread

>>95889283 (OP)
>hallmarks of a terrible DM
I don't care.
Learn to be a better player.

>>95889283 (OP)
>OP is an entitled playerfag who has never DM'd in his life but will still complain because his DM isn't Matt Mercer.

How does OP keep managing to be an even more tremendous faggot every time he posts?

>>95889283 (OP)
Hub based railroading is the hallmark of a GM thst can design great stories with the illusion of freedom.

Your players arrive somewhere like a city. Or get lost in a cabin on a mountain. Or get trapped in a mine and setup a basecamp. From there they explore branching paths of the confined story and game from their hub getting both the feeling of a densely packed railroad while also enjoying varying degrees of freedom in their approach.

Even the largest doormats can RP after returning to the security of their hub. It invites to roleplay at the classic campfire. Non combat characters can always engage in non combat activities at their hub eg. a woodworker can build fortifications, a cooking station or make arrows between missions. It feels rewarding as their frequent exploration unlocks more branches and things to do but at bursts and in a manner they can strategize from their hub. It's peak game design. They will rarely ever know they got Hub'd.

>>95889283 (OP)
Everyone who whines about quantum ogres will complain if there isn’t something moderately interesting to clap their hands at like retards every hour

>>95889283 (OP)
As has been said before, the spectrum isn't between railroading and sandbox. Railroading isn't a style of gming, it's a failure of prep.
>>95890127
You're not describing railroading. "Hub based railroading" isn't a thing.

Let's say I designed an encounter with a ship, but my players' choices don't lead them to it. How many aspects of the ship do I have to change before them encountering it wouldn't be considered a Quantum Ogre?

>terrible DM
All DMs are terrible, because they chose to run D&D.

quantum ogres are what you populate a sandbox with, the skill is in making the ogres fit believably into whatever context the players have caused and reskinning them as required.

>>95889283 (OP)
Yami Bakura is a playkiller GM. His story is deliberately extremely unfair, but not "technically" impossible. But he's not trying to cultivate a good game, he's trying to capture peoples' souls and seal them inside miniatures. In that specific case, he was also trying to seize the Millennium Puzzle, but he didn't count on there being a second soul for one body.

Anyway, there is a difference between playing any game with rules and "pure roleplaying." In the latter case, anything that is determined by the mechanics affects the outcome. It doesn't matter how good or bad your character is at something, because you can get the reverse outcome based entirely on luck, rather than playing into expectations on how you interpret your own character.

Sandbox vs structure is a whole discussion unto itself, and it's too reductive to point out examples like railroading or quantum ogre without considering a whole spectrum between "the adventure is fixed" and "you can do whatever you want." These things make for a good topic, but it seems to me like this is just a bait post.

>>95890127
that's just a regular-ass game, not railroading.
you're not even forcing them down a line, they're just pulling plot threads you've dangled around the hub area.

>>95891988
Former case*

Still though. But anyway, my point is that pure roleplaying is "pure" roleplaying. As in, anything where the results of a player's actions are mechanically determined is not that. Roleplaying is not necessarily the same as Roleplaying Games.

>>95891996
>>95891686
How is presenting linear story progression not railroading? They can't go out of their way to make meaningful progress without pulling at the strings that I give them.

>>95891996
People on this site think anything less that some sort of mythical freeform sandbox is railroading. It's an ongoing problem.

>>95892044
https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/36900/roleplaying-games/the-railroading-manifesto

Justin has summed this up far better than I can. What you are describing isn't railroading.

>>95889283 (OP)
Every improvisation campaign is just a series of pointless hallways between pointless, unengaging fights. Either that, or your story won't make any sense.

>it's another "my DM was a meanie poopoohead and now I'm crying" thread

>>95892060
If you can't bother summarizing how can you expect me to bother reading it?

>>95892073
If you aren't going to read a well written short article that answers your question, why would I care what you think at all? You're obviously dedicated to being dumb, far be it from me to get in your way.

>>95889283 (OP)
You don't run games.
You likely don't even play many games.
Your opinions are not congruent with the attitudes of people who run games.

>>95889360
This is more like it. Prepare only in so far as the foreseeable future, one maybe two sessions ahead. Nothing else is needed unless you have a group you know very well and can predict their long term decision making.

>>95889549
>It nullifies the players' choices and makes the game pointless.
Wrong to the point of abject stupidity.
Letting your players know that the players only have the illusion of choice is what makes the game pointless.

>>95892112
I run games so I can see what kind of crazy shit my players come up with. I don't want to put on a stage play where their actions and reactions are all predetermined, that sounds like shit.

>>95891988
It's honestly funny re-reading the Monster World arc beyond the fact it was a preview of the Millennium World arc later in the story. You get the impression that the spirit of the Ring is in fact a very terrible game master and gamer in general since he's only got the advantage over Yugi's party due to their lack of knowledge, lack of ability to grind due to the constant threat on their lives, and his constant attempts to cheat. Not to mention that if you go by the actual Monster World rules provided at the end of the first couple chapters, dude intentionally gimped all their characters just to make his job easier...and he still lost.

>>95892198
If there was no additional fuckery on the part of Yami Yugi or the soul of the regular Bakura, he would have won outright. It's really more of a confrontation between who can cheat and manipulate the game to success than anything else.

>>95892100
Yep didn't read, don't care. Eat a dick faggot. Try using words.

>>95892715
>try using words
>no I won’t read these other words
You should be shot.

>>95891839
>I designed an encounter with a ship
I feel if you design an encounter you'll eventually be tempted to force it upon the players. I'd much rather design goals, resources and plausible locations for a variety of actors (a merchant ship, a sea monster, pirates, ...), then put together a random table of minor encounters (1. A drowned corpse, 2. Message in a bottle, 3. ...).

>>95892726
>fell for one of the most prolific trolls in recent threads
Nothing to be ashamed of, but do be wary in the future.

>>95892198
I don't think many of the evil plots ever really hold up to too much scrutiny, they're either kind of poorly planned or blatantly unwinnable. It just makes it even more fun when yami just starts cheating too though.
Both players just trying to cheat each other is more enjoyable than the more refined and longer card duels the anime focused on.

Makes me wonder if someone might make a sorta concept then submit it to Konami.

...and then bundle it with a gatchapon system which... ..oh wait...

...if it Helps, Capsule Monster GB is a sorts combo of both Capsule Monster and Monster World in terms of the in-series games, and it's part of the recently released early days collection.