And this is pure bullshit. If they're aiming at an important NPC and they roll the right dice for the right TN, then that NPC "deserves" to die. That's why it's a game. If you can't stat and control (by spending CP, KP, etc) your NPCs in a fashion that handles the innate dangers of being an NPC that opposes a group of players, to the extent you're constantly just deciding who lives and who dies by GM fiat instead of dice rolls and th rules of the game, you're a shitty GM, plain and simple.

So its better to do something lame within the rules, then something interesting against the rules?

That suddenly my character whos only great skill is in rifles has been reduced to nothing because you don't want your character to die.

I mean I knew you were thinking it but I didn't actually think you would say it. This is the essence of the very worst story telling imaginable. If

Well you could say they hit him, but not necessarily kill him (give him lots of armor or something) but just to not let them even try because you think the character is important to the story.

I think (and again my opinion) is that maybe you should read a few books on storytelling, perhaps pick up the BBB and read the section on GM'ing. It is a collaborative effort. Not a one man show with the characters as muppets.

Moan quietly? You must have some pretty tame players in your group, I've seen game sessions, and roleplaying groups, disintegrate as a result of GM heavy handedness. I myself was on the verge of leaping across the table and knocking the GM's lights out on one occassion. It's why I try my absolute hardest never to force the players into anything.

My question is what happens after this climactic sniping effort at the invisible Mr Evil? Does Mr Evil reappear the same as before showing no signs whatsoever that the players interferred with his plans or even endangered his life? Or do the players next see Mr Evil on a vid screen beamed from his hospital bed, hooked up to life support, breathing though an iron lung, and glaring at them with his one working eye?

Keeping an interesting villain alive despite the odds is not necessarily railroading, keeping the players from altering your plot in any major way is. That is what makes railroading a bad thing in RPGs.

Thats not what I am saying at all. I am the first one to say ignore the rules or modify them if it will tell a better story. But your not doing that. You are changing the rules of the universe by suddenly not allowing people to do things they otherwise could for no better reason than you don't want that character to die.

Thats railroading and its wrong. Let me give you an example.

A long time ago I was playing a AD&D game. There were four of us in the party. The gm got it into his head that my friend the bard was the main character and therefore none of us could hurt the main villain except him, nor could we have any consequential effect on the story.

How would you feel if nothing you do effects anything? Take the shot, don't take the shot, doesn't matter. The outcome is the same. Sure your telling a great story, but the players aren't participating in it, they are just listening to it.

Back to my story, the endgame comes.

2 of our party (including the main character) are strung up by their necks and are being hung. I am 100 feet away on a roof with my bow. I take the shot to do the Robin Hood thing. The GM says... roll. I say what do I need to get, he refuses to answer and just says roll. This is a SURE sign that railroading is about to take place.

I rolled a 20. In D&D (as I am sure you know) that is always a hit. This entire character was built up around being an archer. So this was a huge deal. The GM says you hit but don't do enough damage to sever the rope.

I packed up my books and never played with him again. And someday your players will have enough of your one man show and do the same.

Yes. There are places where the rules are not absolute—for example, prototype weapons and soforth, or weird magical effects, etc. etc. etc.—but if it gets to the point where it comes down to a success roll and that roll is made, it is better to do something lame within the rules than something interesting against the rules.

I'll draw an example from a session I played in a month or two back (though the end result wasn't lame): we'd been fighting the undead minions of a follower of Baron Samedi with powers we still don't have a clear idea of. The GM makes his plan, draws out the timeframe during which the Bokor will be building his defenses, comes up with how long each step will take.

We come back and get to him half an hour before he would have made his grand escape. This is a character who was intended to be recurring, possibly even a campaign focus. Through some good rolls, coordinated maneuvering, good Body rolls, and the expenditure of a fair amount of ammunition, we down his bodyguards and he starts trying to bargain with us, using the life of another party member as the chip. As it turns out, this other party member was indeed very close to death, though we didn't know it at the time, and I (the team Rigger, above ground in the van) was under spirit attack. The Bokor offers to trade our lives for his.

Blake slams him face-first into a pile of burning thermite. The intended-to-be-recurring NPC dies, his story ends. And we were satisfied. Sure it would have been fun to play through his machinations if he'd gotten away, but it was another reminder that sometimes people, PCs or NPCs, just don't get away. It's like that for us as well. No one died in this epic battle, but we lost a teammate in a run earlier that ought to have been comparatively easy for us (though with quite a bit of unfamiliarity factor for various reasons). People die on both sides, and sometimes it's not at the dramatically appropriate moment. Sometimes you bleed out in the gutter from that ganger instead of sacrificing your life to keep the grenade from killing your team or whatever. That's the way it goes, and it makes the game so much better.

And when I said we'd have had fun if he'd gotten away? That wouldn't have been true if he'd upped and vanished just because we came back earlier, or if he'd somehow slipped Blake's grasp, or miraculously survived having the front of his skull burned through. Hell, even a body double wouldn't be fun unless there's a good reason for the double to exist, more so if the double uses any sort of powers or whatever unique to the NPC.

But my eyes are starting to force themselves closed, so I'm ending this before I get any less coherent.

~J

And he would be fine with that. What he wouldn't be fine with is that you never gave him the chance.

So give him the chance, what is the worse that can happen? Evil Albert takes a bullet to the brain falls 500 feet to his death. The PC's celebrate becasue they won the day... right?

Well it turns out Evil A was really influenced by Evil Alberta who has now stepped into take the reigns.

That's not railroading, never letting them try cause you don't think your character should die yet is. And it is wrong.

Don't put words in my mouth to make it sound like I condone your meta-GMing, and don't try to use three lines of sarcasm to argue against a dozen paragraphs of honest, correct, criticism from multiple posters.

You cannot be the judge of that. I'm sorry you can't. I made the same mistake when I was new to GM'ing. I thought there should be a recurring uber villian in my campaign, and it would 'tell a better story' if no matter what the PC's did he lived to the end. And yes the story was good, and yes they were very happy when he finally died. But it could have been better, cause they knew they were railroaded. And yours know it to.

Like Kage said, let the chips fall where they may, it's your job to keep making new ones. Not telling the current ones where to fall.

I don't see where he said that.

My definition of railroading is taking away the characters ability to influence the game. If Evil Albert plummets to his certain death and yet shows up again later the players need to know that what they did at least had an impact. If there is no indication that his near death experience changed his plans the players will feel cheated, the same as if the sniper makes a spectacular dice roll and you tell him that he hits the helicopter instead.

Railroading is about forcing the story to go in a particular direction despite both the players wishes and their dice rolls. When the players cannot even hit the main villain except when the GM decides the time has come for that NPC to die they will feel cheated. When the players blast the main villain to pieces but he shows up again without a scratch and all his plans intact they will feel cheated.

When the players do something unexpected or pull off a miraculous success test your main villain may not need to die but the story should change, otherwise it is railroading.

yes. but best of all is to do something cool within the rules.

edit: shaping events != railroading. railroading is when you break the rules to force the characters to do what you want.

Its listed in a side bar called "the 10 commandments"

Now, I mean, thats just one book's opinion, and it obvisouly doesn't apply to every situation.