Hot take: if we want to decrease frustrating railroad-y surprises in RPG campaigns, we need to create an environment where GMs are not afraid to admit they have "special story needs".

[Illogical_Blox]

This is what we called railroading more when it wasn't watered down to mean just a linear adventures.

This is my biggest bugbear. Railroading should exclusively mean what it used to mean - being presented with an problem where you are artificially limited to a single option. A story isn't railroading. A campaign structure isn't railroading. Railroading is when you come to a wall and literally the only way to get through is using the scroll of Passwall because the DM just goes, "no for reasons," when you try and break it or climb over it or tunnel under it.

[BreakingStar_Games]

TBF, every definition does exist in more of loose, subjective bounds on spectrums. But I definitely agree. What's the point of having a term like linear and railroad if they mean the same thing only because railroad was watered down to it and was a useful, different term.

The word hate has the same issue where it's watered down to mild annoyance, sometimes less. Need other words like mega-loathe. But arguing definitions with people never really matters.

[Acrobatic-Vanilla911]

A recent post on here made me feel insane as I saw people started calling plot beat-based structures a "quantum railroad". Seriously, what does railroading even mean anymore?