Building a Campaign from the Ground Up Part 1

Forgive me if i'm wrong, as i am just a lowly novice at this whole DMing thing. However, using this method, are you not building a frame? Let's use his example. Yes, your PCs will be slaves, but he's not dictating what they do as slaves. Yes, he's setting a course of action; traverse the shards and put them back together. But he isn't saying how or when PCs will have to accomplish it. Yes, it is a railroad as far as if the story was to stop the forces of evil from doing something bad but instead the players decided to make their own kingdom or whatever. But really, isn't every story some sort of frame. I am all for letting my players dictate how, what, where, or when, but as a DM aren't we responsible for creating the situation that the characters find themselves in. It's their job to find ways to complete whatever goal they wish, and its our job to be flexible to allow it. I could see myself running people through this campaign. Having a group of different PCs tell their stories of what they did before the big event (world being broken). Each having reasons they want the world back together. Either seeking a loved one, seeking answers, seeking revenge for breaking the world, etc. In summation, i can see where you'd say this form of writing is a railroad, but from my perspective, being that i just used this method to give a little more structure to a completely home-brew campaign, i can safely say that this method shouldn't be branded as blatantly as you said and IMO should not be called " Module Writing".

TL;DR I could see this being used, as i did, to help give a little well needed structure to a home-brew campaign that keeps PCs in the driver's seat.

/r/DnDBehindTheScreen Thread Parent