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I think the answer to your question is very straightforward: such a change is not compatible with everyone's preferences. For players for whom the downside of knowing about a "secret retcon" would outweigh any gain in excitement, making the change would not be a net improvement. Thus, making the...

That's cool. My preferences run the other way: I'd be disappointed if the DM didn't change things in order to run with a new, more-exciting idea, and instead insisted on running things with the less-exciting original solution. Communication-wise, in the moment I'd prefer the DM not draw...

Out of curiosity, what if the player's flash of insight was wrong according to the DM's notes, but was both better-supported by the clues thus far and made for a better, more entertaining story? Specifically, let's say the player suddenly realizes that the Princess is framing the Baron, and...

I addressed that earlier when I said: To rephrase to more directly address your question: a strategic decision that would count as constrained by options presented by the DM would be one where the DM has laid out specific options for the players to select among for this particular decision, and...

I specified (multiple times) that the spectrum I'm referring to is measured in percentages, from 0 percent to 100 percent. Since we're dealing with rational numbers, that's a continuous, well-ordered domain. The particular characteristic used to place a campaign along this spectrum was specified...

Thanks for clarifying! Apparently we see the discussion so far quite differently. From my perspective, no one has tried to discard your argument based on disagreeing with your word choice. Instead, as I see it some posters have disagreed with the points they saw you as making based on the...

In conjunction with previous posts, you appear to be arguing here that, because you have a rhetorical purpose for using the phrase "win conditions", those who think that a different term or terms might be more useful in highlighting conceptual differences (or the lack thereof) are necessarily...

I think it is worth going to the dictionary here, as you appear to be arguing that I am using the word "spectrum" improperly. Here's Merriam-Webster's definition. Definition 1b is the relevant technical definition, and definition 2a as the relevant colloquial definition. My usage of the term...

I have a broader question--how do people feel about the techniques in the OP when they are used to effect player agency rather than stymie it? For example, if the fed-up PCs decide to give up on their quest and decide to go do something else, is it reasonable for the DM to have whatever option...

The purpose of my question and hypothetical was to increase my understanding of how @Maxperson defines the term "railroad" in practice. Based on what I understand of their views on railroading so far, I don't think their answer to my question is going to be variable based on campaign style...

Question for you: Let's say the only thing the PCs know is that there are two doors, and they plan to open both of them to find out what is behind each door. The DM has notes on what is behind the doors, but didn't actually specify which door is which. If the players arbitrarily choose to...

In my original post where I specifically defined the spectrum, I'm using the phrase "options presented by the GM" to mean options laid out for the PCs at the time of the players' decision. The spectrum runs from campaigns where players are always expected to always choose from among the options...

I've tried (evidently unsuccessfully) to avoid any such implication. I specified the 0% sandbox end of the spectrum as campaigns where under the social contract players are expected to make strategy-level decisions exclusively from among the choices presented by the GM. This contrasted with the...

That's a large part of it. More broadly I'm trying to point out that the degree to which a campaign supports open-ended strategic choices is a useful parameter to consider rather than useless and misleading, as pemerton contended. In this discussion it's useful specifically because degree of...

Many editions of D&D are flexible enough to be run in a wide variety of styles. In several such styles commonly discussed on these forums, the only constraint on players' strategy-level choices is an expectation that at least some of those choices are made among the options the DM has presented...

With regards to placing an ogre, I personally would consider it railroading to place the ogre in the PCs' path only if by doing so the DM is thwarting the actions the players have declared in furtherance of their characters' goals. So if the PCs have taken action to avoid the ogre, or to avoid...

I suspect it's because, while the negative emotions people react with to a perceived denial of agency are quite consistent, the details of the situations that lead to such perceived denial of agency are incredibly idiosyncratic. So we can talk about the emotional outcome of railroading...

As I acknowledged in the second of the posts you quoted, campaigns with certain styles of play may not fit on the spectrum I am promoting. Given that AW and BW campaigns are frequently (always?) run in such styles, those campaigns don't fit on the spectrum, and thus can't and don't contradict my...

That's one of the reasons I defined the spectrum I'm promoting on a sandbox to non-sandbox range, rather than sandbox to linear. But yes, there are certainly styles of play that cannot be easily mapped to that spectrum. The existence of such styles, however, doesn't make the spectrum less useful...

I disagree--I think viewing sandboxiness on a spectrum is extremely helpful to understanding how authority is distributed between the GM and players concerning the direction of the campaign. For specificity, I'm defining the spectrum by the percentage* of strategy-level character decisions...