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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Oofta" data-source="post: 9559108" data-attributes="member: 6801845">I'd define a railroad as the DM forcing the sequence of play and results without considering the words and deeds of the characters or the desires of the players. That's different from a linear game where the DM can still react to the input from the players (directly or via character), although there may be limitations. In a railroad some things must happen no matter what the choices are.  So a railroad would say that the player decide to execute the spy they have discovered regardless of what the players want.  Even if they attempt to knock the spy unconscious they actually end up killing them.  Perhaps the players set a clever trap or just get lucky and they defeat the BBEG the DM had planned on continuing to use.  At the last possible moment a portal appears and they're yanked to safety or some other Deus Machina.  A railroad DM will use something like the cut scenes in a video game where the DM describes group getting captured despite any and all attempts to counter the attempt by the players because it's an important part of the plotline they have in mind. Meanwhile there may be some illusion of choice now and then in a linear campaign and I think many if not most DMs occasionally fall back on using an encounter they had planned just with a minor cosmetic changes no matter how they would describe their campaign.But I'm saying that in my opinion no DM should set out to run a railroad campaign*.  Whether or not the DM is good enough to hide the railroad isn't really relevant, my advice is totally about the approach the DM takes when running a campaign.  You can run a linear campaign while still having some flexibility.  You can use illusionism sometimes, just don't always rely on it.  Let the players have impact on the ongoing story and remember that while you are part of the story that emerges from play, you're only providing half the story and the players fill in the other half.A linear campaign also requires player buy-in. If I join a game for Tomb of Annihilation, I've implicitly agreed that eventually I'm going to do my best to stop the death curse if I want to play.  I accept that there will be certain factors that I have no control over, that I have to follow the cookie crumbs.  I just want some flexibility with how I follow those crumbs.*If the DM doesn't know what they're thinking that's a whole other issue! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  </blockquote>

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