I think people have lots of definitions for what constitutes railroading. I personally don’t think anything in the meme constitutes going off the rails.

In my view, if you build or plan the next session based on where you think they’re gonna go next and what they seem like they want to do as players, and then someone goes “Well can I actually just make a 90-degree turn off the road to the city that we’re talked about going to last week into these random woods instead of engaging with the hours of content you made for us,” you aren’t railroading them for going “sure, but I’ll have to pause the session here so I can put the time and prep into this that you deserve as players, or we play Dnd today.”

Matt Colville has a great vid on this, but I can’t remember its title. I think he’s done a few videos that talked about railroading.

Not pictured: O’brien

keep it all inside and one day, die

There is absolutely a segment of Mastodon users who behave like they do, and tbh I think there should always be small instances, but i also think this will be a great improvement.