As a Game Master for over twenty years I’ve made every mistake imaginable. I’ve had games grind to a halt and get out of control. I’ve enabled bad characters and held back great ones. I’ve put my own story points ahead of player experiences. If it can be done wrong I’ve done it really wrong. I believe making mistakes is part of learning over the years I’ve learned a lot (hopefully!).

I could list a hundred mistakes GM can make I still wouldn’t capture them all, but from my experience many problems begin by violating a few major points.

Its Everyone’s Story but through the Eyes of the PC’s

The GM shoulders a lot of creative responsibility. They are expected to come to the table with a living, breathing, and reactive world for players to experience. This is a lot of work and it is easy to get caught up in creating. Sharing this world may be a big part of what the GM wants to experience.

Remember that no matter what lore you have penned, or location you have shaped, everything you create is a tool to tell the story through the experiences and interactions of the PCs. If a GM focuses too much on their creation, showing it off at the expense of the PCs, the following can happen:

• Railroading – Telling a story at the cost of player agency.
  Not allowing the players to explore on their terms in order to preserve a vision. Railroading is not limiting the options of a player, it is limiting their ability to decide what choices matter in their story. The term railroading gets tossed around a lot so I’ll explore it a bit more in depth later.
  
• Vital DMPC – NPC characters that are vital to the story taking the spot light from the rightful star’s of the show.
  PC’s want to succeed, not be saved. If the story being told requires solutions and interactions from characters outside of the PC’s it has stopped being a story about them. This can extend to villains as well. A GM can easily get caught up in what they consider to be a worthy rival to the players and easily allow that character to take more of a spotlight than the players.
  
• Information Overload – Exploring the world with information and not experience.
  PC’s can lose interest if every NPC has a detailed backstory that forces them to listen to long exposition instead of playing the game. Information is important, and delivering it in an enjoyable and entertaining way is appreciated. A small folk story giving the hint to solve a riddle is a great immersion, but making PC’s listen to an hour long story for the same clue can be tedious.

Players don’t want to be railroaded, but they want goals to lead them. They don’t need to be second fiddle to an NPC, but they want memorable encounters with fantastic characters. They don’t need hours of well written history lessons, but they want a world with substance. Each group will need a different balance. Some may enjoy more linear play or deep lore so being flexible in how you present it is all part of telling the PC’s story.

The GM and the PCs are on the Same Team

No player should come to the table feeling their goal is to oppose the other side. A GM is not out to beat his players, and those players goal should not be defeating the GM.

• Removing Player Agency – Telling a player “No” is a powerful tool, and can be abused. When players solves an encounter in an unexpected way but are told no because it does not “fit” the original plan they have lost their agency. Railroading may have forced the players to follow a path, but removing player agency limits how the game itself can be played. When to say Yes and No are important parts of running a game and I will discuss them later.
• Arms Race – The GM should not throw overwhelming odds at unprepared players. Trying to break a party by designing an overpowered monster, or scaring them with the meanest creature available is not good story telling. This gets worse when paired with some Vital DMPC who only exists to solve challenges for your players, taking from them the satisfaction of success.
• Secret Keeping – The GM will have knowledge well outside the scope of the PCs. Every bit of in game knowledge a GM has should be accessible by the PCs in some way. If the name of an NPC’s commanding officer is important, PCs need a way to find this information out. Never keep information hidden, or so unintuitively accessible, that it sets up players to fail.

TTRPGs are often complex. It can be easy to overlook a detail, or forget a mechanic, and if allowed an encounter can spiral quickly out of control. Playing as a team doesn’t mean simply avoiding these issues. A player does not want their agency stripped from them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fail. Player’s don’t want to be crushed by unwinnable odds, but they are anxious to rise to a challenge. Player’s don’t like having information withheld from them, but they want to figure out hidden secrets.

Stop Railroading Me!

Railroading is often used as a blanket term for not allowing players to do something. Above I described it as not limiting player options, but limiting the impact their choices have on a story. A planned adventure does not necessarily indicate rail roading, however if you limit the players choices in such a way that the planned goal is the only outcome, then we are railroading.

Not allowing characters to do something, or them failing to do something, does not necessarily indicate railroading. When your player asks to suddenly gain the ability to fly up a tower, when there is no established means for them to, then telling them no is not railroading. If they attempt to climb the outside and fail, legitimately, that is not railroading. If they are prohibited from any action that allows them to avoid entering in the front door, including enforcing failure on them by extreme checks or creating impossible odds, that is railroading.

Railroading can be done in front of the screen or behind it.

but that is not universal by any means. What I do think helps is looking at railroading as two separate things. Expectations and Consequences. Lets look at some story options and see if you think they are railroaded

• The PCs make their way to a haunted lighthouse. Upon arriving a violent storm picks up flooding the only road in or out. Until the storm settles the players will be stranded at the lighthouse.
• The PCs agree on a destination and board a train. In the middle of the trip the train is held up and an important passenger kidnapped. The conductor begs the PCs for help.
• The PCs solve a small towns trouble in a swamp, but soon find the surrounding area hunted by a deadly beast too powerful for them to face alone. Unless they appease the local witch they may never leave alive.

I’ve played with players who would vote yes or no mixed across all three of those scenarios. In the first the players get where they chose to go, but are prohibited from leaving. In the second, they make a choice on their next direction but are forced to handle a situation not of their choosing. In the third they don’t even get a choice in the matter. I believe a

Let’s examine them through the lens of expectations first. In all three examples players lose the ability to make a choice. However what are they expecting? Did the players agree to help an old friend out and investigate the haunted lighthouse? Do they expect to have an adventure there and solve a mystery perhaps?

Learning to Say Yes

Players come up with unexpected ways to solve a problem. They discover new ways to use a skill, clever applications of a spell, or weirdly logical answers to a riddle. Don’t be afraid to allow it. As a GM you will often have to say “No” to a player so if an idea is even slightly feasible allowing it is more likely to create a memorable moment, even if the idea fails. Designing a situation that can only be overcome by a predetermined solution can frustrate everyone at the table. Boundaries frame how we play the game, but players are a wild bunch and will look to push them often. You don’t need to reward foolish choices or allow impossible feats, but always be open to allowing players to dictate a resolution you may not have thought about

Theres more than just yes and no

Many systems have additional options built in to determining success or failure. This may be listed as “Yes, but” or “success with conditions.” I have played with these additional options for many years and feel it helps to both drive sessions onward and reduce the chances of players falling flat to bad skills. An easy example would be a thief attempting to pick a lock to allow entrance into a tower. Under normal circumstances you may allow a simple pass or fail check to see if the lock can be picked. With a few small changes you can allow for some variance. Maybe if the thief fails just a little you allow the door to open, but with such a loud ring that nearby guards will be alerted. Maybe they manage to get through but the door is compromised and will no longer latch shut, once found patrols will increase making further incursion even more difficult. In either case you have allow the players access and effectively have told them Yes instead of No.