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<blockquote data-quote="Cadfan" data-source="post: 4736192" data-attributes="member: 40961">While I understand your definition, it is NOT the typical definition used by most people.&nbsp; Scenarios, particularly published ones, are regularly referred to as railroads, analyzed for railroad-i-ness, and generally discussed as if scenario design were a means by which the players can be placed on rails.&nbsp; Which makes sense, to me.&nbsp; If you've got DM A who makes up explanations why you can't do what you want, and DM B who anticipates you trying to do something and makes up explanations in advance for why you can't, which he then writes into the scenario, well, chances are that the player's experience in both situations will be nearly identical.&nbsp; The only difference is that GM B might come up with better explanations, or might accidentally miss something he intended to railroad.&nbsp;Your opinion seems to come down to an acceptance of railroading if the presence of the rails is believably explained in-game (you also seem to add a presumption that the only way to believably explain their presence in game is to do so in advance during setting design, this may or may not be the case for a good impromptu DM, but the overall issue, believability, is core in what you've written so far).&nbsp; &nbsp;Which gets back to my pet issue- railroading is really just restriction on player freedom, plus a negative connotation.&nbsp;Railroading: restrictions on player freedom that the speaker doesn't feel are reasonable.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Cadfan, post: 4736192, member: 40961"] While I understand your definition, it is NOT the typical definition used by most people. Scenarios, particularly published ones, are regularly referred to as railroads, analyzed for railroad-i-ness, and generally discussed as if scenario design were a means by which the players can be placed on rails. Which makes sense, to me. If you've got DM A who makes up explanations why you can't do what you want, and DM B who anticipates you trying to do something and makes up explanations in advance for why you can't, which he then writes into the scenario, well, chances are that the player's experience in both situations will be nearly identical. The only difference is that GM B might come up with better explanations, or might accidentally miss something he intended to railroad. Your opinion seems to come down to an acceptance of railroading if the presence of the rails is believably explained in-game (you also seem to add a presumption that the only way to believably explain their presence in game is to do so in advance during setting design, this may or may not be the case for a good impromptu DM, but the overall issue, believability, is core in what you've written so far). Which gets back to my pet issue- railroading is really just restriction on player freedom, plus a negative connotation. Railroading: restrictions on player freedom that the speaker doesn't feel are reasonable. [/QUOTE]

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