A common reason for DMs railroading their players too much is that they are too well prepared. They put a lot of work into planning the campaign in great detail and now feel that it was all for nothing if the players find some clever way to subvert their plan. They will also fear that any on the spot improvisation will never reach the quality of their pre-planned content, so in order for the player to get the best possible experience, they need to force the player-characters along their planned path.

Improvisation might be the most fun part of roleplaying, but it can also be really scary for a novice GM to go off the book.

A good practice to train a DM to become more comfortable with improvisation is to ask them to run a completely improvised one-shot sandbox adventure. No planning, no preparation, just "You are a bunch of adventurers who meet in a tavern. What do you do?" and go with the flow. No expectation of complex plots or creative worldbuilding, just an environment which responds dynamically to whatever the PCs come up with. You might want to suggest running such a session to them.

A common reason for GMs railroading their players too much is that they are too well prepared. They put a lot of work into planning the campaign in great detail and now feel that it was all for nothing if the players find some clever way to subvert their plan. They will also fear that any on the spot improvisation will never reach the quality of their pre-planned content, so in order for the player to get the best possible experience, they need to force the player-characters along their planned path.

Improvisation might be the most fun part of roleplaying, but it can also be really scary for a novice GM to go off the book.

A good practice to train a GM to become more comfortable with improvisation is to ask them to run a completely improvised one-shot sandbox adventure. No planning, no preparation, just "You are a bunch of adventurers who meet in a tavern. What do you do?" and go with the flow. No expectation of complex plots or creative worldbuilding, just an environment which responds dynamically to whatever the PCs come up with. You might want to suggest running such a session to them.

A common reason for DMs railroading their players too much is that they are too well prepared. They put a lot of work into planning the campaign and now feel that it was all for nothing if the players find some clever way to subvert their plan. They will also fear that any on the spot improvisation will never reach the quality of their pre-planned content, so in order for the player to get the best possible experience, they need to force the player-characters along their planned path.

Improvisation might be the most fun part of roleplaying, but it can also be really scary.

A good practice to train a DM to become more comfortable with improvisation is to ask them to run a completely improvised one-shot sandbox adventure. No planning, no preparation, just "You are a bunch of adventurers who meet in a tavern. What do you do?" and go with the flow. No expectation of complex plots or creative worldbuilding, just an environment which responds dynamically to whatever the PCs come up with. You might want to suggest running such a session to them.

A common reason for DMs railroading their players too much is that they are too well prepared. They put a lot of work into planning the campaign in great detail and now feel that it was all for nothing if the players find some clever way to subvert their plan. They will also fear that any on the spot improvisation will never reach the quality of their pre-planned content, so in order for the player to get the best possible experience, they need to force the player-characters along their planned path.

Improvisation might be the most fun part of roleplaying, but it can also be really scary for a novice GM to go off the book.

A good practice to train a DM to become more comfortable with improvisation is to ask them to run a completely improvised one-shot sandbox adventure. No planning, no preparation, just "You are a bunch of adventurers who meet in a tavern. What do you do?" and go with the flow. No expectation of complex plots or creative worldbuilding, just an environment which responds dynamically to whatever the PCs come up with. You might want to suggest running such a session to them.