21 votes

If a campaign gets fully derailed, how should the DM/players handle it?

In the latest DnD 5e session, we basically invalidated about 10 sessions of prep, due to jumping over a lot of plot points.

Should the DM have railroaded us a bit, or was it a good decision to just let us say fuck it, and do what we want?

18 comments

  1. [7]
    Celeo
    Link
    The same thing has happened to me. I ended up collapsing under the weight of the shift and dropping the campaign, so hopefully it goes better for you than it did me! I can't really help with this...

    The same thing has happened to me. I ended up collapsing under the weight of the shift and dropping the campaign, so hopefully it goes better for you than it did me!

    I can't really help with this now that it's happened, but I'll share what I learned in the event it'll help someone.

    I later learned about soft walls and hard walls from some friends: soft walls for suggesting to the players that they're going off course / ignoring plot / jumping too far ahead, and guiding them back towards where you want them to be, and hard walls for pushing them back.

    In my example, I kicked off the campaign with the players in a port town about to be an active part of a war between two rival siblings. The invading force (of which the PCs were an advanced part of) came by sea. Instead of participating in the battle like I intended (as my group loves us some combat), they got into one of the ships that the invaders had brought to the inlet, manned it, and sailed off to another port city up the coast a ways.

    There were a number of opportunities that I could taken to guide the party to the pages and pages of notes I had. Every time the PCs interact with the environment, the DM's environment really, I could have put up a soft or hard wall. They want to take a rowboat? They're being watched. They want to row off of the beach back to the ships? You're deserting. They want to man a ship/boat meant to be crewed by 10? Well, you have 5, so find 5 more who all know how to sail. You want to go away from the war? The defending royal house has summoned a huge storm and trying to set sail now would surely result in your death.

    Soft walls, more soft walls, some deep sighs, and then a hard wall. The PCs can past the soft walls, but a good group should see that you're trying to steer them away without trying to railroad. Eventually, sometimes things go too far off course and the campaign has to be corrected.

    Again, I don't really have any advice for you, just sympathy. Good luck!

    16 votes
    1. [4]
      Kom
      Link Parent
      That was a completely different derail I was thinking of, our group gets distracted easily and we end up on a tangent about crap we did when we were all in primary school or high school. I guess...

      That was a completely different derail I was thinking of, our group gets distracted easily and we end up on a tangent about crap we did when we were all in primary school or high school.
      I guess that is the pros and cons all in one of playing with people you've known all your life.

      The soft walls thing I have noticed our DM do that a bit. Only he is about as subtle as a stiffy in track pants and often will tell us outright if we aren't picking up on the soft walls

      6 votes
      1. [3]
        Celeo
        Link Parent
        Absolutely - we derail the conversation all the time; we've had to institute various techniques over the years to keep us focused like putting all of our phones in a tower off to the side,...

        Absolutely - we derail the conversation all the time; we've had to institute various techniques over the years to keep us focused like putting all of our phones in a tower off to the side, limiting side conversation, etc. Sometimes it works, sometimes the group is just too wound up to play a game and need to just hang out and chat.

        Haha, I've seen some of those too. Sometimes the DM just can't think of something subtle, and sometimes it's just not their style.

        5 votes
        1. [2]
          RandoCore
          Link Parent
          I haven't played D&D in a long, long time. However, our DM would be subtle. He would start rolling dice checking for fandom encounters. It always got our attention.

          I haven't played D&D in a long, long time. However, our DM would be subtle. He would start rolling dice checking for fandom encounters. It always got our attention.

          3 votes
          1. Celeo
            Link Parent
            Ha, perfect! One of our DMs will sit back, smile a bit, as if to himself, and then call for perception rolls from everyone. The person with the highest roll will usually notice something entirely...

            Ha, perfect! One of our DMs will sit back, smile a bit, as if to himself, and then call for perception rolls from everyone. The person with the highest roll will usually notice something entirely incoulous, like a small animal or a random tree or something, but it gets the players focused back in.

            2 votes
    2. [2]
      Akronymus
      Link Parent
      I think our DM can adapt to it if we work with him. We talked between sessions, and came to the conclusion that we are gonna try to not go as much off the rails.

      I think our DM can adapt to it if we work with him. We talked between sessions, and came to the conclusion that we are gonna try to not go as much off the rails.

      3 votes
      1. Celeo
        Link Parent
        Nice! That's really the key - communicating expectations from the group and the DM.

        Nice! That's really the key - communicating expectations from the group and the DM.

        2 votes
  2. [2]
    Kraetos
    Link
    If your DM prepped ten sessions in advance and you all ignored his hook, then there was a gross miscommunication about what kind of game your group is playing. Even if "fuck it, do what you want"...

    Should the DM have railroaded us a bit, or was it a good decision to just let us say fuck it, and do what we want?

    If your DM prepped ten sessions in advance and you all ignored his hook, then there was a gross miscommunication about what kind of game your group is playing. Even if "fuck it, do what you want" was the right call, your DM still screwed up by doing that much prep for a bunch of plot points that you invalidated so quickly.

    I dislike the sandbox/railroad dichotomy because the right answer lies in the middle. The DM should give PCs a few hooks with a few potential outcomes. An "open sandbox" is bad for the players and for the DM: the players are likely to fall prey to the paradox of choice, and the DM is likely to over-prep. On the other hand, railroading is no fun either because the players lose their sense of agency.

    At any given time the players should have two or three defined paths in front of them and the DM should only have each path prepped a session or two in advance. It sounds like your DM only bothered with one path and massively overprepped it.

    11 votes
    1. Akronymus
      Link Parent
      Talked with him, apparantly most of it comes from sword coast anyways. So I guess, not THAT much lost. And he said he can reuse a lot of the prep anyways. Guess talking to the DM was the right...

      Talked with him, apparantly most of it comes from sword coast anyways. So I guess, not THAT much lost. And he said he can reuse a lot of the prep anyways. Guess talking to the DM was the right thing to do.

      4 votes
  3. [3]
    Amarok
    Link
    You might have skipped the pre-game prep. During that first session of character generation, make sure to talk to the group about what kind of campaign you want to run. The generic do-gooder group...

    You might have skipped the pre-game prep. During that first session of character generation, make sure to talk to the group about what kind of campaign you want to run. The generic do-gooder group working for a grateful king? A band of rogues and assassins in an evil campaign, robbing villages blind, burning down orphanages, and selling the children into slavery? A collection of treasure seekers and archaeologists out to uncover lost ruins and ancient secrets? A group of battle-hardened warriors fighting for their tribe or for a long lost cause? A secretive society of sorcerers plotting to overthrow a kingdom and seize power? A group of weary survivors trying to eke out a life in a post-apocalyptic hellscape?

    Get everyone on the same page with regard to what kind of game they want to play, and it's a lot harder to derail it in the long run. Best way I've found to avoid this sort of thing.

    Also, this is why I never do more than one session's worth of planning in advance, the rest is rough ideas for where the story can go. It's impossible to predict the long-term behavior of a group, so stick to short term for the prep, and long term ideas that aren't fully fleshed out until you're closer to putting them into play.

    6 votes
    1. Akronymus
      Link Parent
      Yeah, talked with the DM about it. We are now gonna try to meet in the middle, with him reigning us in a bit.

      Yeah, talked with the DM about it. We are now gonna try to meet in the middle, with him reigning us in a bit.

      3 votes
    2. MimicSquid
      Link Parent
      One of the things that I love about Invisible Sun is how the first session of the campaign is handled. It's specifically there to turn the character sheets into people, and the small group of...

      One of the things that I love about Invisible Sun is how the first session of the campaign is handled. It's specifically there to turn the character sheets into people, and the small group of people into a party: Why are we individually here? What is our group's goal? What are the basic interactions between the party members? Where do we live? What's that like?

      Spending that collaborative narrative time fleshing that out really connects the players together so that they've all agreed which way the story is going before the GM starts having to plan too far out, and it also provides a wealth of plot hooks for future adventures. Even when I don't run in that system, I'm always going to use that concept for the first session.

      1 vote
  4. [4]
    spctrvl
    Link
    I'm a little curious: what did you do that was so bad that it derailed the campaign that hard? My players aren't the easiest bunch, they're pretty distractable and can miss plot hooks like...

    I'm a little curious: what did you do that was so bad that it derailed the campaign that hard? My players aren't the easiest bunch, they're pretty distractable and can miss plot hooks like nobody's business, but I've never been put in a situation that I can't either improvise a way back to planned content or adapt the content to the new scenario.

    2 votes
    1. [3]
      Akronymus
      Link Parent
      We basically were anchored near a shipwreck while the captain was diving down to search for something. Then a monster appeared, which spoke in abyssal about a kraken and implied that the captain...

      We basically were anchored near a shipwreck while the captain was diving down to search for something.

      Then a monster appeared, which spoke in abyssal about a kraken and implied that the captain is somehow involvde, which we took as a clue to gtfo. So we basically went back ashore, and went our own way.

      This is pretty abridged. If you want to, I can send you a link to the whole recording.

      1 vote
      1. [2]
        spctrvl
        Link Parent
        Yeah, that is pretty bad as leaving plot hooks lying goes.

        Yeah, that is pretty bad as leaving plot hooks lying goes.

        1. Akronymus
          Link Parent
          Well, the captain is probably going to be back with a vengeance. Btw: Link to the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvpJLs3ErIM I am laucian in it. (As you can probably tell, we are all...

          Well, the captain is probably going to be back with a vengeance.

          Btw: Link to the recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvpJLs3ErIM I am laucian in it. (As you can probably tell, we are all inexperienced)

          1 vote
  5. cablecing
    Link
    While sometimes the derail occurs and can be extremely challenge to get them back on it might be better to save what you have planned for a new campaign and try to work this one out.

    While sometimes the derail occurs and can be extremely challenge to get them back on it might be better to save what you have planned for a new campaign and try to work this one out.

    2 votes
  6. dances-with-shills
    Link
    This is 100% the DM's fault for expecting the players to be railroaded to even begin with. Rookie mistake: using book/movie/video game plot design that players will break in some minor way (or...

    This is 100% the DM's fault for expecting the players to be railroaded to even begin with. Rookie mistake: using book/movie/video game plot design that players will break in some minor way (or major as we see in the OP) every-single-time guaranteed.

    Sandboxing is the only way to write campaigns, modules and adventures in general, really.

    2 votes