The Nature of Railroading

[Florian]

It doesn't matter the reason, if the GM is ignoring game physics or facts to force or prevent an outcome, it's railroading.

That will need a lot of variables to clarify. For example, I work under the assumption that the fictional reality of the setting (aka fluff) is what matters, with the rules system only being the interface to interact with that (and a communication tool to settle disputes). So even while spells, magic items and such are completely transparent on the rules side of things, its actual function, roots and whether there is an underlying magic theory/explanation are completely unknown at the level of the in-game reality.

One other factor is the power level we talk about for what is needed to actually enact certain changes. One system I regularly use, Splittermond, is at the same time high magic and low power, as in even the least commoner knows some helpful spells and even what we generally consider to be mundane classes will learn magic to raise their ceiling above what is possible for the unenhanced, but overall, what is possible sticks to what is physically possible, only enhanced a bit. So Fly? Yes. Teleport? No. Locate Portal? Yes. Plane Shift? No. And because I know your special Schtick with Quertus, creating tailor-made spells to self certain situations is definitely out.

Going back to the setting I mentioned because how magic works, the last example is how the gods functions, because I know you love that topic. The lowest rung are something like "Hero Deities" or "Spirits", the first being regular humans/whatever that managed to obtain a divine spark and grant a bit of spells to followers. That could be some Ranger 5, living in a temple. Go over and knock him out, no one cares. Spirits are the spiritual embodiment of places and such. Kill the spirit of the river Rhine and slowly but surely, this river fill decline and vanish over time, because you destroyed the concept of it. This is an example for mystical reality overwriting laws of physics. The highest deities on the rungs just... are. Pharasma is death, fate and life, Groetus is the inevitable end of the multiverse, Asmodeus is the unyielding law of Hell. Unlike something like an Empyreal Lord, Duke of Hell or Great Old One, those do not have a physical form, personal realm, direct interaction with anything (beyond allegories), need for worship, because they are the direct embodiment of the reality. When it comes to them, no matter what you want or do, no matter how high you level or how many Mythic ranks you amass, it doesn't matter, like, at all.

I think the reason why I worry if this is railroading is that I set up for an epic confrontation between the players and the enemy god, and when a player found a way to bend the rules to autowin it, instead of letting the player have a permanent win, I rescheduled it for later in the campaign. The player did save their base, so their actions weren't wasted (I give a 50/50 chance of them winning if the fight had progressed normally), but I did make it so they will have to have a proper confrontation with the god later.

Basically, you created what we commonly know as a "set-piece battle". In a way, that's the combination of a regular combat encounter with a puzzle, because there are additional variables beyond regular combat/tactical abilities to keep in mind. Your player requested to "game the rules" to circumvent that, your counter-proposal was to make this a two-sided affair and delay for a re-match. Fair deal, no railroading here.

Except your defination is: Unless the DM rolls over and lets the players do whatever they want: it's railroading.

Or, to put this a bit into perspective: Quertus seems to often work under the assumption that RAW is the game, all participants needs to know the RAW by heart/rote and whoever knows the RAW best for a given situation, or can find the most favorable interpretation of the RAW "wins". As in, the sheer existence of a spell like "Teleport Thru Time" enables you to invalidate anything that happened, especially in one of the rare cases of a shared game world.