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Does it? I'm surprised to hear that. I certainly think it has meanings--whether denotation or connotation--that mean folks avoid it because it doesn't fit their interests, but that's hardly the same thing. Well, responding to these in order... 1: That just means it was a badly-made sandbox...

All of these actions are a player being a jerk. The first is an example I specifically called out as unreasonable and unwarranted, and thus, it isn't railroading to tell the player "no, you can't do that". I specifically called that out because it is so commonly used as an example. The second...

I don't consider that railroading, no, and I have fairly high standards when it comes to this sort of thing. You did not take away choices. You chose to frame events in such a way that future action was required. You didn't invent entire new concepts just to make sure the players definitely...

I'm not entirely sure what you changed here. Did you...give them a reason to want to talk to these other people and see these other things? I don't really see how that's railroading. Similarly, if it is merely a matter of "I took an adventure where you only need to do one of A, B, C, D, E, or...

I find so often in this sort of thing, a controversial but earnest body of theory has something like a 60/40 or 70/30 ratio of wheat to chaff, but the folks who already had an entrenched view see it as 1/99 when they're feeling generous and thus pick the worst bits of the 30-40 chaff to write...

I never said you could. Alternatively, it's better to actually talk to your players and make sure the group is all on the same page, rather than barking orders.

Because everyone knows that 100% of players would both (a) obey this instruction without question, and (b) be happy that they received such a non-diegetic instruction on what to do. Unfortunately, the preceding sentence is false, and pretty much everyone knows so.

I don't see how that applies. If the action is reasonable, warranted, and within the scope of the rules, how could it "ruin a game for everyone"? I genuinely don't understand how this could apply. No. You are inserting something I never said. I did not say "clueless". I said information hidden...

It's one part. Another is that, even when two people completely agree about what "railroading" means, one will say it is a completely good and wonderful thing, and the other will say it is a horrible awful thing. I tend toward the latter camp myself. It's colloquial, but as a starting point...

I was talking about 5e.

Where do you think people live??? Villages are going to be next to fields. It's where their animals graze. For God's sake, your "wowzers" at something that is so utterly mundane it is NEARLY UNIVERSAL is astounding. We're done here.

Noooope. Don't need to "heavily, heavily stack the odds". It's literally just like a hundred, hundred and fifty peasants with slings. That's all you need. "Perfectly positioned"? Not at all. Literally just don't cluster up and don't stand in a straight line. A semicircular arc is good enough...

No. It is in the actual critical and audience positive response, in people analyzing how this new Superman film fixes an ongoing problem that superhero media has suffered for at least the past decade, and how it in fact broke down specifically the things that people thought they "had" to do...

A bad GM is one that engages in various harmful behaviors, such as: arbitrary and capricious decisions, bad-faith rules interpretation, crapping on others' preferences, refusal to engage in warranted and appropriate discussion (note: not the same as "always let everyone argue for as long as they...

Critical hits always land. An army of 100 peasants is going to hit about 5 critical hits. They won't deal a ton of damage, but the dragon simply cannot do what you describe, if the peasants have even the tiniest bit of self-awareness/preparation. Like, "don't stand in a line"/"don't be in a...

Correct. People say they want a "cool" Superman. But then the thing that actually succeeded was a dorky Superman, a Superman who was comfortable being kinda lame. Directors had been giving people the Superman the public told them they wanted: complicated, gritty, grim, violent, willing to kill...

No. They aren't a threat. That's the problem. The 50 peasants (or 100 peasants, or whatever it was) are functionally guaranteed to kill the dragon. That's the problem with this alleged "solution". It makes the "minions" too powerful.

Given the success of the recent Superman, which specifically used the "dorky", "uncool", unpopular "trunks" outfit for Superman.... No, I don't really accept that popularity even has a guaranteed strong correlation to projected money. Sometimes, the right constellation of things that are of...

Okay. Seeing an argument trotted out only against one specific thing, while not even lifting a finger to talk about, y'know, how goblins and kobolds are specifically designed to become that--to be sapient beings who BECOME nothing but trash to be swept aside by the Great And Powerful Heroes--is...

See: the "50 peasants vs 1 dragon" problem.