Plot Railroading: How much?

[Darth Ultron]

[Metaphor]
It's like if a vegan came to your dinner party and respectfully requested no meat and so you tried to sneak them meat because if they never get to experience meat they can't have a full culinary lifestyle.

I agree that would be a jerk move. I would not do that(but then too I also would not invite a vegan over to my dinner party anyway)

But here is the metaphor question: As the dinner party host do you provide a special vegan part of the meal just for this person(or worst of all, make the whole meal vegan just as that one person will be there) or do you say to them that they should bring their own food?

guys....you are making progress!
Now Darth Ultron finally accepts

A plot hook

A net

and railroading.


Instead of Railroading or total chaos/empty world

I do like ''the net'' and I have not heard this term before. and it has not come up in other threads. I found it on another forum. I cast a lot of nets. I don't really like ''hooks'' as they just get annoying like ''sigh, ok players plot hook 26'',.

Yeah, no. The whole point of the railroad metaphor is that the game keeps moving along a preplanned path at set pace with or without your input. This very much includes preplanned success and failure and precludes any choice from having meaningfull impact.

Once you start having meaningfull choices and can win or lose by your merit, the game's no longer a railroad. It may still be linear or GM-driven, but those aren't the same as a railroad.

I think this is a good point. Somehow people do jump to if there is any railroading it equals the whole game being a railroad. But that is not true for most games.