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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9566395" data-attributes="member: 42582">What you describe - a certain level of assumed goals and expected story beats, a pre-written story outline - is what I am calling a railroad. Because the pattern of events is pre-written (ie pre-determined).I personally have found other ways of using pre-written material. For instance, what is pre-written might be a framing but not a resolution. I've posted about this in other threads - eg [urk=[URL]https://www.enworld.org/threads/rpging-and-imagination-a-fundamental-point.701162/post-9230692]here[/url[/URL]].I'm not sure how you reconcile the  players saying "F this" with the players "buying in" - I often see posers who are into module/AP-style RPGing describe that sort of thing as bad play done by problem players.But anyway, if there is a pre-scripted chain of events there must, by definition, be fairly strict limits on the outcomes of the earlier events, or otherwise the later events won't follow.These are not episodes of RPGing, so the concept of "railroading" doesn't really apply.Let's put it another way: who gets to decide that the main concern of a PC will be resolving a cursed heirloom? And who gets to decide what the resolution might consist in? If the GM is deciding all this stuff, then the game to me looks like a railroad.</blockquote>