r/DnDGreentextLong
Why Some Players Need To Be Railroaded
u/SeeShark
Epic fantasy campaign, out to save the world

Old school AD&D, most characters are fighters

Until we get our bearings and learn the rules (fuck THAC0), DMPC is around to get us out of tight spots

Have doubts about the human fighter; he seems like a That Guy and keeps trying to derail the main quest

"It's what my character would do!"

He's the DM's friend, so we roll with it; at least he knows the rules pretty well

A couple of players are just there to play cool characters and don't care about the plot

Whatever, at least they're not actively trying to derail the game

Two guys decided to make the most useless characters ever and troll the party, but they're actually pretty funny and also aren't actively derailing anything

A few weeks in the DM decides we've got a grasp on the system (we'd fought against low-level enemies a few times) and kills off the DMPC so we can keep going on our own

Makes a big heroic sacrifice scene out of it

A bit wanky but whatever, he's entitled to his own fun every once in a while

Railroad over! Time to vigorously pursue the main quest - or so I think

That Guy immediately tries to pull everyone into some retarded backstory quest he just came up with

Party leader humors him so he shuts up ("lol yeah we can totally do your thing")

The two players with the snowflakey characters are having a good time roleplaying with NPCs and each other, so at least that's going okay

The players with the joke characters are finally starting to realize what all such players eventually do: it's only funny for a little while and then you're just fucking useless

A couple of weeks after the DMPC dies we are camping by a crossroads and this is where shit starts to go down bad

Everyone does a bit of roleplaying and gets separated into small groups

That Guy decides NOW is the time for his super special personal quest

Party leader doesn't want to piss off the player but also wants to pursue the main quest

Maybe we can still salvage this

Of course this is when we get attacked by Evil Minions

Pretty sure the DM just wants to force us to actually do something

Useless characters immediately get surrounded by bad guys, but since the DM is just trying to prod us the bad guys are "trying to capture them alive"

GoodDm.jpg

That Guy decides he's going to SAVE THE DAY and charges in to rescue them

Even the DM gets tired of his egocentric play by now

Gets hit 20 times in one round, dies instantly

DM sends him off to reroll

Pretty sure he's going to literally roll up his character's brother or some shit

Nobody can find the snowflakes, because they're roleplaying a couple miles away

Seems like they're building up to an in-character relationship, which is cool but NOW IS NOT THE TIME

Party leader can't decide if he should go help the useless characters or rally the rest of us (clearly they're not going to die any time soon)

At this point I have enough

Party is clearly nonfunctional, the DM can obviously see this

I grab the MacGuffin and start walking away when nobody's watching (am the party rogue)

One of the players, totally metagaming, follows me despite having no idea in-character where I'm going

Whatever, he's like the least obnoxious party member

The DM tries to salvage his game by any means possible, even if it means weeding out the party

Useless characters are kidnapped (their players were tired of playing them anyway)

Party leader, despite being a bit metagamey sometimes, is a good roleplayer to a fault

Decides to rescue these useless pieces of shit instead of following me as the DM suggested

Snowflakes finally show up and follow him because they literally never cared about the main quest

DM finally relents and lets us split the party

Out of a party of eight players, only two are now carrying out the main quest

MFW two halflings are going to try to save the world by themselves