Ex., the "Tiny World". Just how do you know that World A is "Tiny"? How much larger does World B have to be to not be a railroad? Etc., etc.
I clearly misnamed the trope, because you are focusing on the size of the world as it's distinguishing feature. I named the trope from the through the small door world of Neil Gaimen's Coraline because it seemed to me that the effect that a RPG Tiny World has on a player when he discover's its nature is similar to that of Coraline when she discovers the real nature of the Other World.
The Tiny World is defined not so much by its size, but by it being deceptive in its size and impossible to leave. There is some concealed edge or wall to the universe which is presented. I dare not point out more examples from literature and cinema because the existance of the Tiny World is often a twist or the twist in a story, but fun as it may be for the viewer to learn of the twist, it's seldom as much fun for the character.
If a setting is a Tiny World, it's not subjective. Either the hidden edge exists or it doesn't. Either the setting traps those within or it doesn't. That the setting is tiny isn't the point. If the setting is tiny and known by its inhabitents at its true size (even if they believe it in ignorance to be the whole of the universe) and is escapable then its not a Tiny World. Now, it might be a cool scenario to escape from a Tiny World, but such a scenario is a railroad cool or uncool and especially so if there is only one way to escape.
It would be comforting to think that you can objectively look at games and say, "This is a railroad; that is not", but the distinction would rely perforce on your own valuations, and would be useless if someone within the game felt differently.
This is why I openned up a separate thread on the very subject. If anyone disagreed and thought that the situations I described were not railroads, well they could argue for them. And if anyone thought there were other situations not covered by my definitions, they could argue that as well. I recognize that there exists no authoritarian resource by which the meaning of the word 'railroad' can be pinned down. So, yes, anyone is free to suggest that the meaning that I have given is not authoritarian and may if they wish suggest a contrary definition. If you believe that the definition of railroad is wholly subjective, then feel free to try to prove that. However, for my part, I see far too much agreement in recognizing a railroad to believe its a matter wholly of opinion. The disagreement I'm seeing seems largely a product of extrapolating from shaky and unsuitable definitions, and the flaws in that extrapolation are too me quite readily demonstrated. If the claim were true that, "We cannot objectively identify a railroad...", then it would follow that a railroad could be anything and nothing and we could do no better than to stop bothering to talk about it because the discussion would be pointless. My definition however doesn't depend on the experience of being railroaded or thinking it good or bad, but on objective qualities of the scenario. We can then use this as a launching off point for discussing whether and when to use these techniques. But if there are not objective techniques that can be labelled 'railroading', then we may as well leave off all discussion of whether and when to railroad since there is no way to even describe what it is we are talking about much less when or how to employ it.
