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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Maxperson" data-source="post: 9758800" data-attributes="member: 23751">That's not relevant.  It's not the end point that important.  It's whether they can stop or go somewhere else while on the way. If yes, no railroad is possible.  If no, there's a railroad.  In my game the answer is always yes, so even if they don't choose to go somewhere else or stop, the fact that they could means no rails are there.  Nothing is forcing them to go anywhere.No. I think railroading is only railroading if it's actually railroading.  Railroading require force, either obvious("no you can't do that") or illusion(they end up where I want even if they think they are choosing).  Absent force making the group go where I want, there can  be no railroad.Your extremely overly broad personal definition doesn't apply anywhere else.  The definition I'm using is the one most people use when referring to RPGs.This is not relevant.  There doesn't need to be any sign of a reason to say no.  The DM either says yes(no railroad) or no(yes railroad).  The reason for a no can be obvious or completely unfathomable to the players.I don't need to prove it.  I am telling you that I have no rails, whether I time skip or not, because the players are free to interrupt a time skip to do something they want to do, even if it's to go a completely new direction and not go to Monomonomp at all.  That's all I need to say or do for there to be no railroading going on in my game.  A DM who doesn't railroad doesn't need to prove the negative.Only if the rails were there in the first place.  If there are no rails there, the player still can't see them because they don't exist.  Your assertion that time skips always involve force and are therefore all railroads is provably wrong.  I've proved it in several posts and again in this one.  If the players can interrupt to stop the time skip and alter what is happening or going to happen, it's not a railroad even if they don't bother to interrupt.That's not true, either.  You have agency as long as you have choices.  The more information you have the greater that agency, but you don't need information to have agency.If there are two doors in front of you in the dungeon and the left one leads out, and the right to a trap, so long as you have a real choice, you have agency.  You don't need to know which is which so long as the left will always lead out and the right to the trap.  If you do know somehow, you have greater agency, but it's only a lack of agency if your choice doesn't matter or is invalidated.This is a different issue and why I rarely time skip straight to entering a city.  Usually I start narrating again as they get closer to the city.  They can't wait and only decide to back things up when they discover something that affects the situation.  That's not a railroading situation at all..  That's the players trying to game the system, which thankfully my players don't try to do.</blockquote>

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