That is very passionately argued. But I hope you realize while making that argument that all you are arguing for is the superiority of railroads over other forms of play.
Nope. I'd argue Railroads are a necessary part of dramatic complicated game play.
Your argument is essentially that railroads make better games because GM understand what players want
Well, change that to: A good GM understands what the players want.
and good players don't try to ruin the game by thwarting the GMs plans for them,
Well, change that to: A good player never tries to ruin any game.
and that GMs should take advantage of the fact that no game is a perfect simulation (and indeed in your argument no game should be) to manipulate events such that they come out in the way that the GM desires.
True enough. Though remember the GM desires to have a good/fun/exciting/etc game for everyone. It's really a big part of the GMs job.
And then you reason that GMs should protect the ignorant self-defeating players from themselves.
Yes, very much so.
And I can't help but think that the path you outline has a lot of dangers in it and that is not as likely to result in everyone having fun as you think it does.
Walking a Path of Danger is part of the fun. Any player lost in their character won't notice. And the self insert players are only focused on themselves. That is a good bulk of the players right there. And you can't make anyone "have fun". You can lead them to the fun, but if they want to sit there playing the "vs the GM metagaming mini game" and pout as they "think they saw railroadng" or something an hour ago, then that player won't have fun.
I would personally argue that more games get into trouble when "This is where the GM really needs to toss around some Power and stop the one player("sorry, rocks fell on your character, you can't ruin the adventure")." than are fixed by those sorts of applications of GM power.
Story Time: So new player joins the group, I know they are trouble but they are related to another player or "everyone's best friend". So no chance to get rid of them.
Example 1- the group comes to a small way inn and meets the npc owner with a problem. Joe wastes no time murderhbobing the NPC and looting the inn. The group just shrugs. They stay the night at the inn...and find NPC owner alive and well the next morning. Joe is supper mad. He throws a tantrum, has his character kill the NPC...again. The rest of the group heads off to do the 'problem' anyway. Joe can't do much disruptive in the wild, but he does get three of his characters killed. The group takes care of the problem and heads back to the inn. Of course, NPC owner is alive and well...again. Joe gets really mad has his character kill the NPC, again. Then the same NPC comes in another door. Joe gets even madder, kills the NPC again. It only took five times for Joe to leave the game screaming he would never play with me again.
Example 2- Spoony- The game starts off with dinner at the kings castle...and problem player Mike. All the character sit down for a meal and about a minute into the game Mike tries to steal the kings golden soup spoon. Except the spoon animates and gets away from the character. For the next couple minutes Mikes character runs all through the dinning hall, kitchens, and other nearby rooms trying to catch the spoon. The spoon knocks tapestries down on him, throws knives, knocks over furniture and more endless slapstick. All the while the king pulls out his silver spoon ("I was born with this one") and calmly talks to the other players. I keep the side with the good players nice and clam, as they talk to the king. At first the good players ignore Mikes Mess, even with the king slyly making comments every so often "I thought I hear something break in the kitchen". When Mikes mess moves back into the dining hall and the spoon starts dropping hanging shields on poor Mikes character.....Marcy looses it a bit. She turns to Mike, near screaming, "what are you doing your destroying the castle to get a spoon?". Mike just gets even more crazed. This goes on for a couple more minutes...until the spoon knocks out Mikes character with a halberd. The good players then accept the kings quest, and head off, dragging Mikes unconscious character with them. Once in the Wild, Mike can't do much to disrupt or ruin the game...other then getting his character killed over and over again. Though...best of all....the SPOON kept poping up everywhere to mess with Mikes character when they did try to disrupt something...making noise when he was sneaking around, cutting his rope when he was climbing, and so forth.
