Month: August 2011

Pixedragon asked (in the suggestion pot) about several things that often tangle together into a big knot: mysteries, clues, and the GM’s spotlight versus the player’s flashlights.

One thing that a good railroaded adventure (or module) has going for it is coherence. Because the players don’t have many options, the GM can spend a lot of effort working on the scenes that they know will happen. Even in a less structured game, the GM is still (usually) the arbiter of scene setting. There are at least two paths a GM can take when the game starts grinding gears.