Cloud Cities

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Astromancer

I like the idea of the PCs being stuck. Try this, the PCs are lost in the mountains being chased by nasty mysterious humanoids and, not knowing the city is mobile, seek cover/shelter in a fortress and trigger the end of a spell that anchored the city in place.

Do you think the set up is fair-ish or too railroad-y?

I would generally either start further back (giving the PCs the opportunity to not become lost, or be clever about the pursuit) or further forward (just declare the above happened, game starts already on the fortress). Exact amount of railroading that's acceptable depends on your players.

The usual standard for dungeon crawl games is that you either have a railroad or really blatant clues pointing to the dungeon, because preparing a dungeon and having the players go 'nah' is an enormous waste of time for the GM, but once inside the dungeon it switches over to sandbox mode.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I would generally either start further back (giving the PCs the opportunity to not become lost, or be clever about the pursuit) or further forward (just declare the above happened, game starts already on the fortress). Exact amount of railroading that's acceptable depends on your players.

The usual standard for dungeon crawl games is that you either have a railroad or really blatant clues pointing to the dungeon, because preparing a dungeon and having the players go 'nah' is an enormous waste of time for the GM, but once inside the dungeon it switches over to sandbox mode.

I tend to prepare the clues and not worry about the dungeon until the PCs are committed, that way they can decide to not do a dungeon.

In this particular case they were only "stuck" until they found the gnomes, who had a flying boat ferry service. Eventually they restored control of the city to the winged elves, so it wasn't even drifting.