Railroading, once more
Once upon a time I wrote about railroading: https://thanuir.wordpress.com/2007/12/02/defining-railroading/ and https://thanuir.wordpress.com/2007/12/05/24/ and even https://thanuir.wordpress.com/2007/12/07/to-not-railroad/ . Jonne Arjoranta responded http://users.jyu.fi/~joolarjo/forge/role-playing/theory/by-train-for-a-change/ , but I learned of it only recently. Jonne did not link to any of my posts and so there was no pingback or other notification.
Jonne states the definition of railroading as someone restricting the diegetic (fictional) contributions of others, and concludes that this is too broad, since it is necessary for choices to have consequences, or for any roleplaying to coherence. Jonne would rather use the language of Markus Montola http://ropecon.fi/brap/ch14.pdf (in Beyond role play http://ropecon.fi/brap/practice.html ), involving integrative and dissipative actions in play.
My definition of railroading had three conditions: That someone restricted choices of others, that the others assumed they could make the removed choices, and that the action had no fictional (diegetic) reason. As such, the criticism of Jonne does not apply to the definition I stated, since my definition is much more specific than the one Jonne criticises, and the criticism is based on the large scope of the definition.
I should mention that my definition is meaningful when one consider making decisions and observing the consequences to be the central to play. If one think of something else as central to play – for example, causing a particular experience to the players as in Fastaval games http://alexandria.dk/english I read in Unelma keltaisesta kuninkaasta http://pelilauta.fi/index.php/topic,2184.0.html (forum thread in Finnish), then this definition might not be as meaningful.
This is also the reason why Will Hindmarch’s recent texts have not had much of an effect on me ( https://medium.com/gameplaywright-presents/sword-fighting-on-a-roller-coaster-railroading-for-the-best-in-rpg-play-547333c80359 , https://medium.com/gameplaywright-presents/the-illusionists-lament-dramaturgy-and-illusion-for-the-best-in-rpg-play-97d348bcb16 ). Based on a quick read (please correct me if I have interpreted them inaccurately) Will consider the game master as an artist or entertainer more than the facilitator of play who lets other participants make decisions and enforces their consequences.
Cogito, ergo ludo. 
Jonne A. said,
8 December, 2014 at 6:58 am
The comments were lost in migration, but I believe you have already commented on the issue in the original post: http://ludosofy.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/by-train-for-a-change/
Tommi Brander said,
8 December, 2014 at 8:45 am
That is very possible. It has been, what, 7 years?
Rickard Elimää said,
13 December, 2014 at 2:48 pm
I play everything from collaborative storytelling, fish tanks, sandboxes and sequential play. When it comes to the last one, which is what your point of view about railroading is about, I think this video is very relevant when it comes to understanding what player can find interesting in railroading:
Rickard Elimää said,
14 December, 2014 at 4:28 pm
Eh, that was the wrong video.
Rickard Elimää said,
14 December, 2014 at 4:29 pm
Why, oh why is this comment system linking to the wrong video? Trying with another link:
http://tinyurl.com/playeragency