The Nature of Railroading

[Max_Killjoy]

Apples and oranges. Reserving some space or already introducing some stubs to build upon later is good practice.

Being endlessly boring about details that bring nothing to the game is quite different.

How do you know for certain which details will "bring something to the game", and which won't, if you're running something that's not linear?

And then there's the fact that those details that some people think "bring nothing to the game" or "nothing to the story" are often more interesting or important to me than the details that they think are the only important details under some misbegotten version of Chekhov's gun.

Frankly there are some game products and works of fiction that I find more interesting for the setting itself than for the campaigns that might be run there, or the stories that have been told about people there and things happening there.