Being Railroaded (Advice)

Question

So, I'm in a Pathfinder campaign with my friends. However, some of us are not enjoying the campaign. This is mostly in part by the lack of player agency. The world is well developed but we're left the choice of follow a person who is obviously suspicious and is probably leading to a trap or get no EXP. This wouldn't be much of a problem except there is no reason to follow this person other than OOC reasons of EXP. Whenever a player tries to do something out of the main story its rushed over and ignored.

At one point one of the players slaughtered a town square because the townspeople were heretics to that PC's religion. The GM straight up reversed time to stop it. At this point, I've gone through about 4 characters just trying to fit into the campaign but the main objective keeps one changing and it's becoming extremely dull. My current character (a soldier) is currently repairing our only mode of transportation. and the GM told me it doesn't matter what I do since it will be fixed when we finish the main quest for this area. However, I'm left with no reason to follow the quest as there has been 0 reasons to get invested in following a stranger who randomly showed up and the quest is more than 3 weeks travel to get to the location without our transport. This puts even more investment on repairing the transport even though OOC I know it's pointless. I don't know what to do as my character has no investment in the story, and I don't want to change characters again to try to get involved again.

So I'm looking for advice on how to solve this issue so I can enjoy this campaign. As this is a campaign severely lacking in combat, there won't be any TPK anytime soon that will allow a change of GMs.

Answer 1

One option is to decide that your character wants to follow the main quest.

Roleplaying is a tool for having fun; if your roleplaying is causing you to not have fun, don't do it. (Or don't do it in that way). You've told us that you're having trouble because your character keeps not wanting to do the quest. Consider making up a reason why your character would want to do the quest the way the DM expects. Maybe your character is curious and wants to see where this adventure leads; maybe your character is a helpful person and wants to help out; maybe your character is just tagging along with their friends. (A link to our My Guy Syndrome page is appropriate here.)

Something that can be helpful is to ask your DM to help you motivate your character. The DM knows a lot more about what's going on than you do, and they might be able to give you an objective that would work longer-term. For example, the DM could narrate that somebody is going to pay you all to do the quest, or they could narrate that something you'll get from the quest will solve some other problem you have. Worst case, the DM could narrate that someone from your character's background has asked your character to do this quest as a favor for them.

Another option is to leave the game.

There are many types of D&D campaigns. Some are very sandboxy, where you do whatever you feel like and the DM tells you what happens. Other campaigns are more structured, where there's a specific problem you need to solve. You've told us that you find the main objective really dull, even when other players are enjoying it. It might be that you're looking for a more sandboxy game.

There's a standard way to handle this: you politely let the group know that you're not having fun in the game, and you tell them you're dropping out. You can add that they should let you know if there's a DM change, because that might make you want to come back. When I have to say something like this to a group, I usually use email because it's a little less awkward.

It usually is necessary to meet the DM halfway on plot.

I'm not sure how many campaigns you've played in. I'll note that most campaigns do expect the player to come up with some reason to want to do the plot. You've written:

At one point one of the players slaughtered a town square because the townspeople were heretics to that PC's religion

and, uh: this does not give the DM a lot of good choices. If the DM lets a character do something like that and reacts appropriately in-game, the rest of the campaign becomes your group's attempt to flee from the forces of justice, and you probably all get hunted down and slaughtered, and nobody has any fun for the rest of the campaign. Most DMs don't like taking away player agency, but in a situation like this, many DMs will feel that it's necessary to preserve the campaign.