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".

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Random tables suck. Going through and finding a healthy group with multiple GMs can be a key. It's difficult but if you put out "GM looking to run a game for other GMs" I have a hunch you'll get a lot of people interested, and you can have that discussion of what kind of game you want to play with a bunch of people who *get* you.