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Pippa the Pixie
2018-04-29, 09:04 AM
Another thread keeps talking about a sandbox game, but what is that? I've heard the term used, but not often defined. There is a current vogue in table top rpgs where "sandbox" games are in. Structured plots are often criticized as "railroading", and huge value is place on wide open player choice. Especially that this term is used increasingly often and it seems that it's meaning starts to blur. I guess many feel that any game is Sandbox regardless of what kind of story or gameplay is involved?

Honestly, I don't understand how this is differnt from the DM not doing any prep and just yanking encounters out of thin air. I would be pretty annoyed if I showed up at a game and the DM looked at us and said, "so, what do you want to do?" and then starting thumbing through monster books while I sat there and waited for him to figure out what he was going to use for an encounter. It seems lazy, not "creative" to me.

And from the other side of the table, if I was the DM, and I had designed an adventure around finding the Lost Templeof the Whosawhatists, complete with plot hooks, npcs, encounters areas that can be entered in muliple way in several different ordres, etc, and the players said "no, I don't like the sound of that. Lets go prospecting in the Tinhat Mountains instead!", well, they would be looking for a new DM.

So what am I missing? For those of you who do this "sandbox" thing, what is the appeal, and how do the games actually unfold, and why is this better than a good plotted adventure created by a skilled DM?

hamishspence
2018-04-29, 09:14 AM
"Let the players set and pursue their own goals" is a hallmark of the sandbox genre, in video games:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WideOpenSandbox


In D&D, the idea would be to take a similar approach - helping the players feel like they're in this kind of game.

jayem
2018-04-29, 10:18 AM
So what am I missing? For those of you who do this "sandbox" thing, what is the appeal, and how do the games actually unfold, and why is this better than a good plotted adventure created by a skilled DM?

It's different not better.

So to compare with a more linear plotted adventure.

On the other thread it was suggested that the sequence Rivendell/Moria/Mordor could have formed a linear adventure.
In practice the party tried to avoid Moria and go over mount Caradhras instead. They fail but arguably the only reason they fail, is that Tolkien wanted them to go into Moria.* Note of course that the structured plot is not the railroading, but leads to it.
To some extent Frodo ought to be guessing what the author wanted them to do and not thinking about things his side of the 4th wall (such as their climbing ability or the prophecy about Gandalf). The net effect is it cheapens the consequences of the players decisions.

The DM and the players, to some extent are both aware of this. But for it to not occur the DM and players have to yield the "carefully plotted adventure". If the players attempt to go over the mountains then the players attempt to go over the mountains. If they succeed on their own merits (it may be the case that the mountain route is genuinely impassable, it's slightly harder to argue that in other situations) then they go over the mountains.
Instead of coming down the Celebrant to Lothlorian with a host of orcs after them, they come into the area very cold and wet (and with Gandalf) and so the next bit of the 'plot' even starts off key, and in short order the structure is lost completely.

Having gone for this approach, then, the first thing is that preparation is just as important. It is however different.
In a sense many of the same things that you did for the Lost Temple you do at the wider scale.

And it has some paybacks fairly quickly too:
You no longer have to explain (either beforehand or improvisationally) why they can't climb the mountains/come in the back entrance. You just have to design and occupy both (either beforehand or improvisationally).
Conversely you don't have to design weaknesses to be able to force success along the 'one true path'. It's up to the players to find a solution. The worst that will happen is they leave (or die, but that can happen anyway).
You get to be surprised and play a game.
And if they miss out the Lost Temple, it's still there.

*in practice of course both routes were of course dangerous and a book is not the same thing as a game.

Kaptin Keen
2018-04-29, 10:26 AM
Traditionally, I have a hard time telling players what to do.

Not-sandbox games, to me as a GM, feel like playing Hantsel and Gretel - you need to put out a string of breadcrumbs for them to follow. If they miss one, you need to point to it harder until they find it.

I can't do that. I'm not sure why. It feels like I'm robbing the players of choice, feeding them what I want rather than trying to find what they want.

So instead I paint a picture: Here is a town, these are it's people, these things are going on, it's surroundings are these and hold this and that. Do with it what you will. Things will happen, the players can intervene for or against, or take no part at all - and all choices have consequences. Provided I manage to remember what their choices were and what consequences I had in mind.

Funnily enough, my RL group are sensationally bad at the second type of play.

kyoryu
2018-04-29, 10:46 AM
I define things, perhaps, slightly differently than most people. I think it's fine for there to be an overall goal in the game (ideally one agreed upon before the game starts).

What defines a sandbox, to me, is that you have a game where, the vast majority of the time, the players are determining what the next scene is, and ideally not from a pre-planned set of options.

While this doesn't appear to include dungeons, I would argue it *does*, becuase:

A) dungeons have such a vast array of options that you can't really predict what the players will do
B) in a well run dungeon game, while the locations may be somewhat set, what happens there won't be and will at least partially be a result of previous actions

In non-sandbox gaming, the GM is choosing what happens next. In some cases they may allow players the illusion that they're choosing, but anything other than the designated next scene will either lead back to the designated next scene or accomplish nothing. In some cases, as well, the GM may offer a choice between several pre-planned scenes, but I would argue that this sort of branching structure is still not sandbox play.

gkathellar
2018-04-29, 11:16 AM
Honestly, I don't understand how this is differnt from the DM not doing any prep and just yanking encounters out of thin air.

It's very often just the opposite. Many sandbox GMs do extensive prep, with at the very least working outlines for a variety of options and plot threads, as well as major and minor details such as NPCs, encounters, plot twists, etc. There may also be an overarching plots, factions who respond to the actions of players, or even other groups of PCs if you want to get really old school. All of this requires a fairly broad reflexive knowledge of one's setting, pretty extensive forethought, a feeling for what players might be interested in, a working knowledge of monsters and rules miscellanea that might come up, and some pretty serious improv chops. To draw a comparison, a good sandbox game is like Skyrim (a game I dislike, but I can acknowledge it for what it is): pick a direction, walk in it, and you'll find something. Maybe it's a town being attacked by vampires, or a toxic swamp ruled by an evil wizard, or a demon lord's pet talking dog. And critically, in a proper sandbox, the direction matters, because the GM has different ideas for all of them.

What this means, in practice, is that when you go into the tavern to gather rumors, the DM doesn't give you a story hook: they give you seven.


So what am I missing? For those of you who do this "sandbox" thing, what is the appeal, and how do the games actually unfold, and why is this better than a good plotted adventure created by a skilled DM?

You might as well ask the inverse question. It's not better - it's just a different style of play.

GloatingSwine
2018-04-29, 11:16 AM
In non-sandbox gaming, the GM is choosing what happens next.

The GM always chooses what happens next. It fundamentally can't be any other way because no matter how much you let players decide where they want to go and what they want to do, the GM has to think of something for them to find there and how the world reacts to what they do. Whether they do that by improvising on the spot or by working it out beforehand.

That's what the GM is for, after all.

jayem
2018-04-29, 11:17 AM
I define things, perhaps, slightly differently than most people. I think it's fine for there to be an overall goal in the game (ideally one agreed upon before the game starts).
...

I'd definitely be happy with using the term more or less sandboxy at different scales.
In any case an overall goal being something that would be emergent very quickly (and potentially more or less predictably so). While if the players change their goal anyway you can't really do much about it anyway (after all they don't have to tell you). The more it constrains the actions, the less sandboxy it will be, but that doesn't stop it being very Sandboxy.

Had the OP said "if I had designed an adventure around finding the Lost Templeof the Whosawhatists, complete a dramatic gate encounter, being pushed in the path of a rolling stone and a climactic battle at the end", I would say that was more linear than what they actually said.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-04-29, 02:31 PM
Honestly, I don't understand how this is differnt from the DM not doing any prep and just yanking encounters out of thin air. I would be pretty annoyed if I showed up at a game and the DM looked at us and said, "so, what do you want to do?" and then starting thumbing through monster books while I sat there and waited for him to figure out what he was going to use for an encounter. It seems lazy, not "creative" to me.

You don't start any sort of game with "What do you do?" Regardless of game type the first session should have an introductory burst of action. In a sandbox game a random example could be "Okay you've spent three months traveling with a caravan through the wild lands. In the night, raiders attack and have already dragged some of the caravan people off by the time the alarm was sounded." Cue exciting fight. And then after the fight launch the sandbox with "Do you go after the raiders to rescue the rest of the caravan or continue on to the town on your own?" Immediately throwing the entire setting at the players and asking them what they do is overwhelming, start small and build outwards.


And from the other side of the table, if I was the DM, and I had designed an adventure around finding the Lost Templeof the Whosawhatists, complete with plot hooks, npcs, encounters areas that can be entered in muliple way in several different ordres, etc, and the players said "no, I don't like the sound of that. Lets go prospecting in the Tinhat Mountains instead!", well, they would be looking for a new DM.

Well obviously if you're going to put all your eggs in one basket then you want people to come look at your cool egg basket. But you don't have to do that. The lazy/efficient sandbox GM doesn't prepare much in detail until he knows what the players want to do and then prepares that. The dedicated sandbox GM prepares a whole lot of everything.


So what am I missing? For those of you who do this "sandbox" thing, what is the appeal, and how do the games actually unfold, and why is this better than a good plotted adventure created by a skilled DM?

I couldn't care less about gloriously crafted set pieces. I want the world to react to me and my choices, and I want to do creative things by mixing unrelated pieces of the setting together.

A dwarf has some dirt on us that he's spent the past 50 sessions or so gathering from the various dubious things we've done. He's using it to extort us to get something he wants. Not being an idiot he's first secured the backing of a powerful political figure, withdrawn his clan into a fortress to protect them, and made copies of the information to be released on his death should anything "unfortunate" happen to him. The GM hasn't planned what we're going to do about this because that's our job, not his, he's just played the dwarf as the dwarf should be played and left the rest up to us.

I've settled on assassinating his backer and using the pressure to try to force the dwarf to accept a lesser thing in trade instead, but we didn't have to. Other perfectly viable options that I could see include storming the fortress to try to kill him and everyone else he might have given the information to all at once, caving and giving him what he wants, or ignoring the entire thing and going off to pursue one of the other important goals I'm working on at the moment and dealing with the fallout later. And that sort of hard choice is what makes an RPG fun to me.

Goaty14
2018-04-29, 08:24 PM
<Insert snarky comment about a sadbox being a box that people get sad in>

TL;DR A Sandbox is a campaign without a definite plot. One that doesn't tie the players down to any given task.

Thrudd
2018-04-29, 08:46 PM
This sounds suspiciously like another thread (a lot of threads, actually) and the exact point of view of another poster. It's hard to believe anyone still needs to or wants to talk about this.

Jay R
2018-04-29, 09:05 PM
Originally, many DMs would create a world (or a continent, or archipelago, or wilderness, or just a dungeon). We would know what existed in most places, and you could choose what direction to go.

This had several effects, including:
1. You might go where the high-level encounters were, so running away or staying away had to be among your options. [I remember taking a wide berth around Cockatrice Valley.]
2. There is no single story - no great evil bad guy who had to be stopped, no Ring to be destroyed, no Queen to rescue. It was more like individual short stories, not a novel.
3. Sometimes players weren't sure what to do. The party went to the tavern, not to be hired for a specific quest, but to get information about what was out there.

This is called a sandbox. I haven't seen one in decades.

Then we started building specific quests. This can be loose and unstructured. There is a great evil bad guy who has to be stopped, but no direct quest. You might try to start killing his followers, or sneak around his castle, or research his history, or go elsewhere to gain more experience before even starting.

But such a story can be badly created. In the cliché of the railroad, there is a single allowable path. You must defeat the werewolf Gabriel-Ernest to get through the open window before you can enter the Dungeon of Filboid Studge. You must go the the 14th level to find the Clovis's Sangrail before you can climb the mountain of Sredni Vashtar. You must climb the mountain before you can earn the approval of St. Vespaluus, etc.

In the most extreme cases, it is said that each single move is pre-determined. There are traps that can only be escaped with a specific outcome. You will never get out of the first room without touching the fourteenth brick with a dagger three times.

I have never seen this kind of railroad, or even the one listed above it.

Maybe the true sandbox and the true railroad really exist. I haven't seen a sandbox since the 1970s, and have never seen the most egregious sort of railroad, and I've seen a lot of gaming

Nonetheless, I have heard, and read, an awful lot of writing from people complaining about one or the other.

The sandbox and the railroad appear to me to be the theoretical extreme ends of a long continuum of role-playing experience, and both, in my experience, are vanishingly rare or non-existent.

Who knows? Maybe I've been lucky in my DMs.

In any event, you don't need to know the terms. Play a game, and if it's fun, keep playing it. If it isn't, you don't need to categorize it to decide to stop playing.

kyoryu
2018-04-29, 11:35 PM
The GM always chooses what happens next. It fundamentally can't be any other way because no matter how much you let players decide where they want to go and what they want to do, the GM has to think of something for them to find there and how the world reacts to what they do. Whether they do that by improvising on the spot or by working it out beforehand.

That's what the GM is for, after all.

Disagree.

In many cases, the players decide to go to a place to gain some goal. "We want to go to the Mage's Guild to see if they know anything about this magic."

Okay, great. Now, the GM is going to have to fill in a ton of details - who's at the Guild, what do they know, will they give it willingly, etc. - but it's entirely possible that the GM had zero clue that that was going to be a scene in the night's game.

I use that as an example because it's a specific example from a game I ran.

1of3
2018-04-30, 02:18 AM
Another thread keeps talking about a sandbox game, but what is that?

No one knows. It is just a stupid metaphor. It can mean all and nothing. So you are probably playing a sandbox. No one can tell you otherwise, because there just is no criterium whatsoever. I mean, you say it yourself. You have several different entrance points and motivations for your NPCs. Sandbox for sure!

tl;dr: There certainly are useful attempts to study the structure of play in a group, but the term "sandbox" certainly isn't one of them.

Emperor Demonking
2018-04-30, 03:59 AM
Disagree.

In many cases, the players decide to go to a place to gain some goal. "We want to go to the Mage's Guild to see if they know anything about this magic."

Okay, great. Now, the GM is going to have to fill in a ton of details - who's at the Guild, what do they know, will they give it willingly, etc. - but it's entirely possible that the GM had zero clue that that was going to be a scene in the night's game.

I use that as an example because it's a specific example from a game I ran.

But it is the DM who decides if the Mage Guild is closed or open to intruders, if it is all of the finest users of magic or simply a bunch of hack frauds, whether they offer information freely or want coin or want something more difficult. And that is the point, I believe, Gloating_Swine was making.

Darth Ultron
2018-04-30, 08:00 AM
Disagree.

In many cases, the players decide to go to a place to gain some goal. "We want to go to the Mage's Guild to see if they know anything about this magic."

Okay, great. Now, the GM is going to have to fill in a ton of details - who's at the Guild, what do they know, will they give it willingly, etc. - but it's entirely possible that the GM had zero clue that that was going to be a scene in the night's game.

Ok, but the DM still has to make all that up....so the DM has to think of everything and all about it and all.

Like:

2 PM: Clueless DM has no idea what will happen in the game tonight
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05:DM blinks as they are Clueless
6:15:06:DM makes up the Mage Guild, NPCs, everything else.
6:15)07:Game rolls on....


And for the record I'm not Emperor Demonking, after all I heard he can be ''nice'', so that is so not me....

Scripten
2018-04-30, 09:15 AM
But it is the DM who decides if the Mage Guild is closed or open to intruders, if it is all of the finest users of magic or simply a bunch of hack frauds, whether they offer information freely or want coin or want something more difficult. And that is the point, I believe, Gloating_Swine was making.

The GM always decides the content. That's never been up for debate. (Or, if it was, the post was but one in a sea of others stating otherwise.)

Linearity is generally defined as a spectrum with Linear games on one end and Sandbox games on the other. Games with more linearity involve the DM coming up with goals for the players to accomplish. Games that are more "sandbox-y" have goals determined by the players. That is, a game could be called a "sandbox" if the players choose their goals during gameplay more often than not.

None of that has anything to do with whether the GM is creating the content, whether they have material prepared or are improvising, or whether the GM is engaging in Railroading.


Ok, but the DM still has to make all that up....so the DM has to think of everything and all about it and all.

Like:

2 PM: Clueless DM has no idea what will happen in the game tonight
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05:DM blinks as they are Clueless
6:15:06:DM makes up the Mage Guild, NPCs, everything else.
6:15)07:Game rolls on....


You seriously have no concept of making arguments without attacking other people, do you?

This post is obvious trolling and I recommend that other posters just ignore it so that OP can get a decent answer without the thread devolving into the third/fourth such pile of excrement in the past month or so.

Jay R
2018-04-30, 10:14 AM
Ok, but the DM still has to make all that up....so the DM has to think of everything and all about it and all.

Yes, but not all at once.


2 PM: Clueless DM has no idea what will happen in the game tonight
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05:DM blinks as they are Clueless
6:15:06:DM makes up the Mage Guild, NPCs, everything else.
6:15)07:Game rolls on....


And for the record I'm not Emperor Demonking, after all I heard he can be ''nice'', so that is so not me....

Yes, of course players can try to destroy a sandbox by inventing ideas that aren't there, and yes, DMs can let them and try to design their world on the fly. Pushy players and gullible DMs certainly exist, so you have successfully described an absurd cartoon of the worst way a sandbox can fail.

But this simply does not describe the sandboxes I've actually seen and played in. In general, they went like this:


The DM designs a dungeon or wilderness.
DM invites players to start playing in the wilderness or dungeon. Players go wherever they want in the wilderness or dungeon.
DM designs a town near the wilderness. Players can explore the town.
Players decide to visit the Mages' Guild. DM has not designed a Mage's guild, and tells them that there isn't one in this town. He tells them they would need a bigger city for that, and makes a note to start designing a bigger city with a Mages' Guild.
Players hear about various things happening in the country. Maybe they get excited by one of them. They hear about a bigger city to the north, and decide to head for it looking for the guild..
Away from the game, the DM starts designing the bigger city and the Mages' Guild, knowing how long it will likely take the players to get there.
DM consults notes, sees that north road goes through forest for awhile, until reaching the designed kobold village.
DM rolls random forest encounters, and possibly includes the designed forest elves.
Players reach kobold village. DM uses notes on kobold village.
Players move on to city, through the previously established plains. DM uses a combination of planned encounters and random monsters from his plains table.
Players reach city, and DM has several possible encounters ready, plus the Mages' Guild. Players play through the city encounters as long as they wish.
Players decide to go west. DM states that the mountains are impassable due to a recent avalanche.
Players try to come up with a way to get through anyway. DM says that the avalanche is there because he hasn't designed the mountains to the west yet. therefore, he recommends that they try something else until the spring thaw, at which point he expects to have that part of the world designed. He tells the party that they hear about an elven enclave in the woods to the east, an evil witch in the plains to the southeast, hills with a dragon to the northeast, and a city of giants to the north.
Players decide which of the already mapped out areas to pursue.


This is a sandbox designed well, and played well, with DM and players trying to cooperate.

ImNotTrevor
2018-04-30, 11:05 AM
And for the record I'm not Emperor Demonking, after all I heard he can be ''nice'', so that is so not me....

Wow. This is literally the worst possible thing to do when people think it's a shared account.

Congrats on confirming it for everyone.

I'm also thinking 1of3 is you, too. It's too dang perfect. 1 of 3 alt accounts with the same goal.

I'd need to look at the post history to confirm, though.

kyoryu
2018-04-30, 11:20 AM
But it is the DM who decides if the Mage Guild is closed or open to intruders, if it is all of the finest users of magic or simply a bunch of hack frauds, whether they offer information freely or want coin or want something more difficult. And that is the point, I believe, Gloating_Swine was making.

Well, in most cases, sure. In some cases, players do have some ability to make narrative declarations, but it's a reasonable statement that, in most cases, is going to be 90%-100% true.

But your point is? We're not talking about "the GM can make stuff up". That's obvious. Nobody disputes that, at all.

The question isn't whether the GM is making stuff up. The question is whether or not players have input into the events of the game. Can the GM use that power to be a jerkface? Well, sure. Can they use that power to make a fun game for everyone? Absolutely, and that's what happens the majority of the time.

Emperor Demonking
2018-04-30, 11:24 AM
Well, in most cases, sure. In some cases, players do have some ability to make narrative declarations, but it's a reasonable statement that, in most cases, is going to be 90%-100% true.

But your point is? We're not talking about "the GM can make stuff up". That's obvious. Nobody disputes that, at all.

The question isn't whether the GM is making stuff up. The question is whether or not players have input into the events of the game. Can the GM use that power to be a jerkface? Well, sure. Can they use that power to make a fun game for everyone? Absolutely, and that's what happens the majority of the time.

My point is that you said that you disagreed with Gloating_Swine, but your example did not actually disagree with Gloating_Swine.

Grim Portent
2018-04-30, 11:36 AM
Say I'm GMing a Warhammer Fantasy game, or any game with a well fleshed out setting and plenty of information about places and people really, I have no real need to know beforehand if the players want to seek out a wizard, I already know where the important ones live, what their buildings look like and how they react to people coming in and talking to them. If they want to travel from say the city of Nuln to Altdorf to seek out the College of Light I know where that all is relative to each other and how the College is found. Hell, they could up sticks and decide to travel to Bretonnia with a shipment of fine clothes to sell after stealing it from a merchant, and I know what routes exist from Nuln to Bretonnia and what monsters live along the roads near the mountain passes that may be interested in waylaying travelers and can determine what shows up more or less randomly.

I can plonk myself down and trust the players to decide what they want to do, be it hunting ghouls to earn gratitude from the cult of Morr or trying to steal a Griffon egg to sell for a hefty sum, or even just to try and rear themselves if the mood takes them. They could even travel to the far north to pledge themselves to Chaos or skulk into Sylvania with the hopes of becoming vampires. All up to them.

Similar principles apply to any setting and game, if I have a good idea of what can be found where, or even better maps of different important places and lists of people in a folder then I don't need to have a specific plot in mind provided the players can come up with personal goals without needing an NPC to tell them to go kill giant rats or fetch him a McGuffin. Ideally they have flexible long term goals like surviving without falling into poverty, getting rich and powerful or becoming the greatest knight in the land, because they can pursue those goals in many ways or even change goal based on experiences during play.



The difficult part of running a sandbox is usually the first session unless you have everyone work together to create characters and work out shared goals before the game starts, otherwise you are at risk of getting situations where some characters have little reason to be in the party other than being PCs. But then I've played and ran several non-sandbox games where the PCs had little if any reason to be doing the story the GM was laying out. Playing in one such game right now in fact.

kyoryu
2018-04-30, 11:49 AM
My point is that you said that you disagreed with Gloating_Swine, but your example did not actually disagree with Gloating_Swine.

I disagree with "The GM always chooses what happens next".

There is a huge difference between "the players will now go to this place, where they will have this encounter" and "okay, to solve the general issue I've put before the players, they've decided they want to get information from the Mage's Guild, so I need to fill in some details."

I feel this difference is clear to most people. It's clear, and important (for elf-game levels of importance) to me. If it's not clear to you, and you're looking for understanding, we can continue to discuss this. If you're looking to score points and "prove me wrong", then I see no point in continuing.

Florian
2018-04-30, 11:52 AM
I'm also thinking 1of3 is you, too. It's too dang perfect. 1 of 3 alt accounts with the same goal.

Nah. I´m "knowing" 1of3 now based on shared forum interaction on :T: for some years and I'm well acquainted with people who've met that user in person, like on the annual summer/winter convention.

I´ve crossed verbal swords with goldilocks more than enough in our first language to actually know the differences in style and taste and this is in no way a match up to DU or such.

(@1of3: Slayn says "hi!", improve your english ;)"

Emperor Demonking
2018-04-30, 01:08 PM
I disagree with "The GM always chooses what happens next".

There is a huge difference between "the players will now go to this place, where they will have this encounter" and "okay, to solve the general issue I've put before the players, they've decided they want to get information from the Mage's Guild, so I need to fill in some details."

I feel this difference is clear to most people. It's clear, and important (for elf-game levels of importance) to me. If it's not clear to you, and you're looking for understanding, we can continue to discuss this. If you're looking to score points and "prove me wrong", then I see no point in continuing.

You said you disagreed with him. Your example did not disagree with him. It appeared like you misunderstood him. I endeavoured to help explain his point to you. I did not expect you to take that as a personal affront.

RazorChain
2018-04-30, 01:09 PM
Sandbox is the setting you play in. If you allow your players to roam freely and do what they want then you have a sandbox game.

kyoryu
2018-04-30, 01:53 PM
You said you disagreed with him. Your example did not disagree with him. It appeared like you misunderstood him. I endeavoured to help explain his point to you. I did not expect you to take that as a personal affront.

I'm not offended, don't worry.

It's possible I misunderstood him, but if his point was "the GM makes stuff up", then that's kind of silly because, of course they do. In context, his point seems to be "the GM makes stuff up, therefore the GM determines what happens, therefore it's all railroading anyway", which I pretty strongly disagree with.

As I said, there's a difference between the GM saying "you will now go here and have this encounter" (however they hide that) and filling in the details to enable the players to do the things they want to do (get info from the Mage's Guild).

Those are not the same thing. There is a huge difference between the two, to myself and to many people. The players choosing "we will get info from the Mage's Guild", and the GM filling in the details and opposition, is in no way the same thing as the GM choosing "you will now get jumped by abominations at the waterfront".

If you or he do not understand that, I'm still happy to try to explain the difference.

Kaptin Keen
2018-04-30, 02:26 PM
Ok, but the DM still has to make all that up....so the DM has to think of everything and all about it and all.

Like:

2 PM: Clueless DM has no idea what will happen in the game tonight
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05:DM blinks as they are Clueless
6:15:06:DM makes up the Mage Guild, NPCs, everything else.
6:15)07:Game rolls on....


And for the record I'm not Emperor Demonking, after all I heard he can be ''nice'', so that is so not me....

Actually more like:

2 PM: I need to find a way to lead the players to Bazingatown, the heart of the kobold empire.
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05: GM silently exclaims 'Eureka!'
6:15:06: GM explains 'well - there are many mages guilds, but the only one a true mage would visit is the one in Bazingatown, the heart of the kobold empire.

Of course, I'm cheating ever so slightly on the whole Sandbox thing - but I never promised I wouldn't. If the walls of your prison are invisible, are you truly a captive?

=)

OldTrees1
2018-04-30, 02:36 PM
Actually more like:

2 PM: I need to find a way to lead the players to Bazingatown, the heart of the kobold empire.
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05: GM silently exclaims 'Eureka!'
6:15:06: GM explains 'well - there are many mages guilds, but the only one a true mage would visit is the one in Bazingatown, the heart of the kobold empire.

Of course, I'm cheating ever so slightly on the whole Sandbox thing - but I never promised I wouldn't. If the walls of your prison are invisible, are you truly a captive?

=)

Depends on what happens when the players surprise you by wanting to go to the 2nd most prestigious mage guild in order to try to change the status quo.

Opaque Walls: Obviously a prision
"Invisible Walls": Do they block movement when I try to walk in a direction that coincidentally had one of those walls?

Consider having your path just barely intersect a circular valley (your path is almost but not quite a tangent to the valley). When you encounter the slope you will find it easier to lean into a descent into the valley. However you don't have to curve your tread. Such a slope is not a prison but can occur in a sandbox.

Kaptin Keen
2018-04-30, 02:51 PM
Depends on what happens when the players surprise you by wanting to go to the 2nd most prestigious mage guild in order to try to change the status quo.

Opaque Walls: Obviously a prision
"Invisible Walls": Do they block movement when I try to walk in a direction that coincidentally had one of those walls?

Consider having your path just barely intersect a circular valley (your path is almost but not quite a tangent to the valley). When you encounter the slope you will find it easier to lean into a descent into the valley. However you don't have to curve your tread. Such a slope is not a prison but can occur in a sandbox.

It's mostly meant as a joke.

Being slightly more serious - if the players want to go somewhere I haven't fluffed out yet, I will delay them (travel time or whatever) until I have it ready.

My games truly are sandbox games, but not without some leadership. I present paths that are available, problems to solve or ignore, secrets to investigate or ignore, and so on. But if they come up with something entirely unforseen, they can do that. I just might need to delay them a bit.

Quertus
2018-04-30, 03:38 PM
I'm mostly posting just to find this thread more easily, but, IMO, a sandbox is a game that is sufficiently Sandboxy (antonym of "linear") to require no specific interactions from the players, and to not break when the players play with it however they see fit.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-30, 03:46 PM
It's very often just the opposite. Many sandbox GMs do extensive prep, with at the very least working outlines for a variety of options and plot threads, as well as major and minor details such as NPCs, encounters, plot twists, etc. There may also be an overarching plots, factions who respond to the actions of players, or even other groups of PCs if you want to get really old school. All of this requires a fairly broad reflexive knowledge of one's setting, pretty extensive forethought, a feeling for what players might be interested in, a working knowledge of monsters and rules miscellanea that might come up, and some pretty serious improv chops. To draw a comparison, a good sandbox game is like Skyrim (a game I dislike, but I can acknowledge it for what it is): pick a direction, walk in it, and you'll find something. Maybe it's a town being attacked by vampires, or a toxic swamp ruled by an evil wizard, or a demon lord's pet talking dog. And critically, in a proper sandbox, the direction matters, because the GM has different ideas for all of them.

What this means, in practice, is that when you go into the tavern to gather rumors, the DM doesn't give you a story hook: they give you seven.


Indeed, unless a GM is remarkable at improvising coherent, consistent, "continuity friendly" content, it usually takes MORE prep work -- that is, the sandboxier the campaign, the more prep work is likely needed, because the PCs could go to a wider variety of places, interact with a wider variety of NPCs, and affect a wider range of events.



The GM always chooses what happens next. It fundamentally can't be any other way because no matter how much you let players decide where they want to go and what they want to do, the GM has to think of something for them to find there and how the world reacts to what they do. Whether they do that by improvising on the spot or by working it out beforehand.

That's what the GM is for, after all.


In any game I've ever played, the GM and the other players are all making choices that shape what happens next.

The group agrees to play a game with some intrigue/political elements -- collective choice by all involved.

The GM decides that there's an duplicitous duke.

The players decide whether to attack, undermine, work with, or otherwise how to interact with the duplicitous duke.

The GM and/or rules (depending on system, etc) decides if the duplicitous duke finds out, and if so how he reacts, etc.

And so on.

kyoryu
2018-04-30, 04:07 PM
In any game I've ever played, the GM and the other players are all making choices that shape what happens next.

The group agrees to play a game with some intrigue/political elements -- collective choice by all involved.

The GM decides that there's an duplicitous duke.

The players decide whether to attack, undermine, work with, or otherwise how to interact with the duplicitous duke.

The GM and/or rules (depending on system, etc) decides if the duplicitous duke finds out, and if so how he reacts, etc.

And so on.

There are some games where the game does not run that way.

"The players will be attacked by assassins. Then they will flee the attack onto a ship. On board the ship, they will be attacked by mer people. Then they will go down to meet with the queen of the mer people."

The players, meanwhile, have no clue about this, and any attempts to circumvent this plan are quietly (or not-so-quietly) nullified.

I generally avoid games like that, but some people like them. That game is also not a sandbox.

Max_Killjoy
2018-04-30, 04:11 PM
There are some games where the game does not run that way.

"The players will be attacked by assassins. Then they will flee the attack onto a ship. On board the ship, they will be attacked by mer people. Then they will go down to meet with the queen of the mer people."

The players, meanwhile, have no clue about this, and any attempts to circumvent this plan are quietly (or not-so-quietly) nullified.

I generally avoid games like that, but some people like them. That game is also not a sandbox.

Understood.

However, my post was in response to the absolute assertion "The GM always chooses what happens next."

Unless I'm not understanding what the person who said that meant by "always chooses what happens next", it would seem that the absolute assertion of that statement is invalidated by the existence of games where the choices made by the players/PCs do shape and affect what happens.

RazorChain
2018-04-30, 04:14 PM
Honestly, I don't understand how this is differnt from the DM not doing any prep and just yanking encounters out of thin air. I would be pretty annoyed if I showed up at a game and the DM looked at us and said, "so, what do you want to do?" and then starting thumbing through monster books while I sat there and waited for him to figure out what he was going to use for an encounter. It seems lazy, not "creative" to me.

So what am I missing? For those of you who do this "sandbox" thing, what is the appeal, and how do the games actually unfold, and why is this better than a good plotted adventure created by a skilled DM?

The funny thing here is that "sandbox" type of play often needs more preparation. I also think you are seriously underestimating the quality of improvisational play.

GMs that just thumb in the monster manual are both unprepared and not good at improvised play.

Let's take an example of a very small sandbox a friend of mine ran when the term sandbox was still used for a box of sand that children played in.

Everything happened in a barons castle during the wedding of the barons daughter. The feast was for 3 days.

The PC's arrived as guest or in the entourage of a guest. There was no fixed plot, just the exploration of the castle and near vicinity and interacting with the NPC's for 3 days.

Oh boy there was so many things happening. The GM had made ALL the NPCs in the Castle and all of them had their own goals, plots and agendas. Things that happened were for example

A hunt with a hunting "accident"
A tourney
A murder most foul during one night
A rivalry that escalated to a duel
Romance options
A forbidden romance where we found out that the baron's daughter had a secret lover and the PC's helped her escape.

There were so many plots going on at the same time and we only managed to get a small glimpse of what was happening at the castle during these 3 days.

kyoryu
2018-04-30, 05:05 PM
Understood.

However, my post was in response to the absolute assertion "The GM always chooses what happens next."

Unless I'm not understanding what the person who said that meant by "always chooses what happens next", it would seem that the absolute assertion of that statement is invalidated by the existence of games where the choices made by the players/PCs do shape and affect what happens.

Yeah. I'm agreeing with you. I was the one that proposed "how often do the players choose the next scene" as a metric on how sandboxy a game was, after all.


Another thread keeps talking about a sandbox game, but what is that? I've heard the term used, but not often defined. There is a current vogue in table top rpgs where "sandbox" games are in. Structured plots are often criticized as "railroading", and huge value is place on wide open player choice. Especially that this term is used increasingly often and it seems that it's meaning starts to blur. I guess many feel that any game is Sandbox regardless of what kind of story or gameplay is involved?

I think we need to define "structured plot" here.


Honestly, I don't understand how this is differnt from the DM not doing any prep and just yanking encounters out of thin air. I would be pretty annoyed if I showed up at a game and the DM looked at us and said, "so, what do you want to do?" and then starting thumbing through monster books while I sat there and waited for him to figure out what he was going to use for an encounter. It seems lazy, not "creative" to me.

Sandbox does not mean "no prep". It means a different type of prep. It means that instead of saying "the PCs will go through encounter A, then B, then C, then D" that they are presented with a situation, which they can choose how they will approach, and that what happens will be at least partially - and usually significantly - a result of their actions.


And from the other side of the table, if I was the DM, and I had designed an adventure around finding the Lost Templeof the Whosawhatists, complete with plot hooks, npcs, encounters areas that can be entered in muliple way in several different ordres, etc, and the players said "no, I don't like the sound of that. Lets go prospecting in the Tinhat Mountains instead!", well, they would be looking for a new DM.

If you designed that without any idea from your players that they were interested in such a thing, then I'd say that would be rather silly. If they agreed at some level to do that, and then decided not to, then you would be 100% correct.


So what am I missing? For those of you who do this "sandbox" thing, what is the appeal, and how do the games actually unfold, and why is this better than a good plotted adventure created by a skilled DM?

Broadly speaking, there's two types of sandbox:

1) The exploration sandbox. In this case, some geography is laid out with its denizens, and the adventurers will go and explore it. Often times, random charts will be used. Prep can consist of "what type of things might the PCs encounter here" with the randomizer deciding what of the potential things they *do* run across.

2) The story sandbox. In this case, a situation is laid out, and the players at some level are invested in resolving it. However, how the characters approach the story is up to them, and the results of the "story" will be heavily dependent on their actions.

In practice, most times you have some blending between the two.

Nifft
2018-04-30, 10:46 PM
Broadly speaking, there's two types of sandbox:

1) The exploration sandbox. In this case, some geography is laid out with its denizens, and the adventurers will go and explore it. Often times, random charts will be used. Prep can consist of "what type of things might the PCs encounter here" with the randomizer deciding what of the potential things they *do* run across.

2) The story sandbox. In this case, a situation is laid out, and the players at some level are invested in resolving it. However, how the characters approach the story is up to them, and the results of the "story" will be heavily dependent on their actions.

In practice, most times you have some blending between the two.

Good post, and good distinction.

I've heard type (1) called "Hex Crawl" games, perhaps in that they're hack-and-slash exploration games somewhat like a dungeon crawl, except outdoors (which is where older editions used hexes instead of squares).

Is there a well-known name for type (2) games?

Psikerlord
2018-05-01, 12:15 AM
My two cents:

Running a sandbox game requires a different kind of prep to a linear game - and in my view, a much more "fun" kind of prep - making hooks/rumours, making random encounter tables, populating the immediate area the PCs are located in, having a few maps on hand, lists of NPC names, etc.

It may or may not be more work than a linear adventure path. But the important thing (for me) is it is fun prep, not "homework".

It is prepping to improvise, which might sound like an oxymoron, but most definitely is not.

Whether you can play a sandbox depends heavily on the system ime. It needs to be a system that is easily improvised. Not relying on grids, maps and miniatures helps. Combat needs to be relatively quick, and statting up NPCs easy. I would say sandboxing is best achieved in simple or medium crunch games, and heavy crunch games discourage it or make it impossible. Very slow combat games (I'm looking at you 4e) make it impossible, because the system makes side treks and random encounters impossible (before anyone flames in, I like 4e well enough - played it for 4 years - but it is a poor vehicle for sandbox style play). A retreat rule of some kind is essential (imo) because PCs can easily wander into fights that will TPK them.

As for typical sandbox traits, my take is:

Mystery
There needs to be lots of places for the PCs to explore. Commonly the region will be a "points of light" environment with large tracts unmapped/unexplored.

Player Driven
A sandbox campaign gives the players the freedom to explore in any direction they choose. The players might engage with some of the adventure hooks the GM sprinkles around the game world, or they might not. The GM needs to be ready to improvise.

Episodic Adventures
In a sandbox campaign, there is typically no independent, overarching plot for the PCs to engage with. Instead, the primary story is directed by the players and the self contained adventures their PCs instigate. The game tends to proceed from one independent scenario to the next, with little connection between the two (often, not always).

Meaningful Choices
Action, and sometimes inaction, have consequences in the sandbox region. Local NPCs are in action behind the scenes, with goals and agendas to pursue. While the party are adventuring elsewhere, those plots might advance, stagnate, or come to fruition. On the other hand, where the PCs choose to involve themselves, the players have every opportunity to influence the outcome.

Yora
2018-05-01, 02:30 AM
Is there a well-known name for type (2) games?

Fishtank is occasionally used. I believe it's an English translation of a Swedish term.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-01, 08:46 AM
You seriously have no concept of making arguments without attacking other people, do you?


Not sure how you see it attacking anyone? I'm just pointing out how easy it is for a good DM to make up stuff...even stuff the players ''surprise'' the DM with...for like one second.




This is a sandbox designed well, and played well, with DM and players trying to cooperate.

Except your post is describing a normal non-sandbox game....

The players have picked something to do: Go to City X and the mage guild there. They have their characters head that direction--->DM has encounters for them along the way. I guess you can make a big deal if the DM makes an encounter say a day before the game and then does 'badwrongfun' and forces the characters to have the encounter OR the DM randomly makes a random encounter out of thin air and it ''happens'' to the characters no matter what, but it is not ''forced'' as in theory they could have avoided it.

And is not 12. just auto railroading?

And 13? I do so much dislike the wimpy DM idea of begging the players for things...just me though.


Wow. This is literally the worst possible thing to do when people think it's a shared account.


I don't ''share'' :)




There is a huge difference between "the players will now go to this place, where they will have this encounter" and "okay, to solve the general issue I've put before the players, they've decided they want to get information from the Mage's Guild, so I need to fill in some details."

I feel this difference is clear to most people. It's clear, and important (for elf-game levels of importance) to me. If it's not clear to you, and you're looking for understanding, we can continue to discuss this. If you're looking to score points and "prove me wrong", then I see no point in continuing.

It is not clear to me. To me you are saying:

*DM makes an Encounter, or does anything with even the slightest idea or plan: Badwrongfun!
*DM Improvises whatever when reacting to the players only: Best DM 4Ever!




Of course, I'm cheating ever so slightly on the whole Sandbox thing - but I never promised I wouldn't. If the walls of your prison are invisible, are you truly a captive?

Well, I guess a ''sandbox person'' would say this is Badwrongfun as the DM ''wants'' to do something, and that is wrong.

Though I guess ''suddenly'' having a Mage Guild in a city is ok, after all Improv is ''way cool''. Though too lots of sandbox folks will confuse this with the ''notes'' idea: like if the DM makes a note before the game that says there might be a mage guild in the city, then it's ok for the DM to follow their own made note...but oddly somehow wrong to just make something up?


My games truly are sandbox games, but not without some leadership. I present paths that are available, problems to solve or ignore, secrets to investigate or ignore, and so on. But if they come up with something entirely unforseen, they can do that. I just might need to delay them a bit.

It my over all problem. People say ''my game is a sandbox'', and then say ''oh, but I do this or that non-sand box thing in the game''.....so it's NOT a sandbox game anymore...right?



In any game I've ever played, the GM and the other players are all making choices that shape what happens next.



Except it is not equal.

A player can have their character try and do something.

A DM can do anything without trying and controls the whole universe.

Quertus
2018-05-01, 10:12 AM
A player can have their character try and do something.

A DM can do anything without trying and controls the whole universe.

Yes and no. A bad GM controls the whole universe. A good GM populates the universe, then lets the rules control the universe, whenever applicable.

Segev
2018-05-01, 10:27 AM
A DM can do anything without trying and controls the whole universe.

So, are you saying that being a DM requires no effort?

Scripten
2018-05-01, 10:28 AM
Not sure how you see it attacking anyone? I'm just pointing out how easy it is for a good DM to make up stuff...even stuff the players ''surprise'' the DM with...for like one second.


Generally, calling someone "clueless" is considered an insult. Much like your use of "casual", it's not difficult for us to see the derogatory tone. Instead of trying to apply qualifiers to everything, perhaps just state what you're trying to say without flavoring it.

@Thread: Do we really need another thread in which people try to explain concepts to DU? Again? OP has not returned yet, so they likely already have their answer.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-01, 11:59 AM
Yes and no. A bad GM controls the whole universe. A good GM populates the universe, then lets the rules control the universe, whenever applicable.


A bad GM tries to control the whole universe, and fails.

A good GM doesn't try.

GloatingSwine
2018-05-01, 02:03 PM
In any game I've ever played, the GM and the other players are all making choices that shape what happens next.

The group agrees to play a game with some intrigue/political elements -- collective choice by all involved.

The GM decides that there's an duplicitous duke.

The players decide whether to attack, undermine, work with, or otherwise how to interact with the duplicitous duke.

The GM and/or rules (depending on system, etc) decides if the duplicitous duke finds out, and if so how he reacts, etc.

And so on.

The players can decide what their characters do, but the GM has to do everything else. The players can decide to try and work with the duke, but if the GM hasn't thought of any content to go down that path and can't improv it until he has time to plan he's not going to work with them.

Outside of what the GM can make up, either in advance or on the spot, the world is a howling void of nothingness because being the world is what the GM does.

Possibilities are fundamentally constrained by the GM because the GM has to do work to fill in those possibilities.

Nifft
2018-05-01, 02:18 PM
A bad GM tries to control the whole universe, and fails.

A good GM doesn't try.

This thread is about sadbox games, so I think we can assume the GM is not particularly good.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-01, 02:25 PM
This thread is about sadbox games, so I think we can assume the GM is not particularly good.

HA! Good catch.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-01, 08:52 PM
Yes and no. A bad GM controls the whole universe. A good GM populates the universe, then lets the rules control the universe, whenever applicable.

This just makes no sense. No TRPG has billions of rules to cover everything: that is the whole point of having a DM, a real live person, in the game.


So, are you saying that being a DM requires no effort?

No, what I mean is the Dm can just say ''NPC has X" and 'pop' that NPC has X. Players can't do that, they must get things for their character by playing the character in the game.


Generally, calling someone "clueless" is considered an insult.

I try to engage with people that have thicker skins. Not much I can say if random words bother you...

Some people in school need Cry Rooms full of Stuffed Animals for when things ''get bad''.....and some can get by just fine without them.

Pippa the Pixie
2018-05-01, 09:13 PM
Broadly speaking, there's two types of sandbox:


I think that covers it.

Florian
2018-05-02, 02:47 AM
Unless I'm not understanding what the person who said that meant by "always chooses what happens next", it would seem that the absolute assertion of that statement is invalidated by the existence of games where the choices made by the players/PCs do shape and affect what happens.

I think this is mainly about the whole prep phase of building the sandbox, creating the tools and placing them. The whole decision-making process of how the contents will look like will drastically affect how the whole gameplay will develop in the actual game, as well as predetermine some of the reactions and behavior of the game elements once the whole thing gets going for real. And this is mainly controlled by the gm.

Scripten
2018-05-02, 08:45 AM
I try to engage with people that have thicker skins. Not much I can say if random words bother you...

Some people in school need Cry Rooms full of Stuffed Animals for when things ''get bad''.....and some can get by just fine without them.

As usual, you miss the point. Are you unfamiliar with the term "ad hominem"? When you are trying to argue a point, insulting the other position in an attempt to discredit them is poor form. When you use the terms "clueless" or "casual" or "bad", you are not making an argument. You are just engaging in pointless ad hominem and derailing the discussion.

But, when you're a dedicated troll, that's likely the point.

Segev
2018-05-02, 11:33 AM
No, what I mean is the Dm can just say ''NPC has X" and 'pop' that NPC has X. Players can't do that, they must get things for their character by playing the character in the game.

Right. You're saying DMing takes no effort, since they can just somehow say the game world exists and things work however the DM wants them to. Since only bad DMs follow rules that make them into slaves of players, only bad DMs have to put any effort into running games.

kyoryu
2018-05-03, 11:03 AM
I try to engage with people that have thicker skins. Not much I can say if random words bother you...

Some people in school need Cry Rooms full of Stuffed Animals for when things ''get bad''.....and some can get by just fine without them.

This is the most genius thing that has ever been posted on this forum.

Look at the brilliance of it:

A) People should not get offended, if they are, it's their fault for having a thin skin
B) <Deliberately offensive thing>

This is a brilliant trap. If you say something about the offensive thing, then you're just thin-skinned and proving his point. If you don't, then you've normalized the abusive behavior and given him permission to continue being an abusive jerk.

I mean, seriously, this is beautiful. In, you know, an evil and abusive way.

EGplay
2018-05-03, 01:07 PM
This is the most genius thing that has ever been posted on this forum.

Look at the brilliance of it:

A) People should not get offended, if they are, it's their fault for having a thin skin
B) <Deliberately offensive thing>

This is a brilliant trap. If you say something about the offensive thing, then you're just thin-skinned and proving his point. If you don't, then you've normalized the abusive behavior and given him permission to continue being an abusive jerk.

I mean, seriously, this is beautiful. In, you know, an evil and abusive way.

True, apart from the fact that his statement isn't true; he doesn't bow out (at least, not here) when the people he discusses with have, according to him, 'thinner skin'.
So he doesn't, in fact, "try to discuss with people with thicker skin", he'll discuss with people of any skin, thin or thick...

kyoryu
2018-05-03, 01:51 PM
True, apart from the fact that his statement isn't true; he doesn't bow out (at least, not here) when the people he discusses with have, according to him, 'thinner skin'.
So he doesn't, in fact, "try to discuss with people with thicker skin", he'll discuss with people of any skin, thin or thick...

Well, yeah, that's not the point. He's not going to bow out. The point is to control the conversation, not leave it.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-03, 11:22 PM
This is the most genius thing that has ever been posted on this forum.


And it is true too.

Just look at the ''random thing''. People describe a game play like this: The game has no plot, story or structure. The DM has no plan and just reacts to the players. The players just do whatever they want. So the players do something, then the DM does something back.

I say: well that is a random game. The players just randomly do things, and the DM randomly does things in reaction to that.

This offends a lot of people. Somehow, they see the word ''random'' as a bad word.

Nifft
2018-05-03, 11:26 PM
And it is true too.

Just look at the ''random thing''. People describe a game play like this: The game has no plot, story or structure. The DM has no plan and just reacts to the players. The players just do whatever they want. So the players do something, then the DM does something back.

I say: well that is a random game. The players just randomly do things, and the DM randomly does things in reaction to that.

This offends a lot of people. Somehow, they see the word ''random'' as a bad word.

I'm trying to imagine a game where the players are not allowed to do what they want, and the DM doesn't react to the players.

I think it would be called a book.

Xuc Xac
2018-05-04, 01:49 AM
And it is true too.

Just look at the ''random thing''. People describe a game play like this: The game has no plot, story or structure. The DM has no plan and just reacts to the players. The players just do whatever they want. So the players do something, then the DM does something back.

I say: well that is a random game. The players just randomly do things, and the DM randomly does things in reaction to that.

This offends a lot of people. Somehow, they see the word ''random'' as a bad word.

It is a bad word. It's not a naughty word that should be caught by the profanity filter. It's just incorrect. The players don't do things at random. They aren't flipping a coin or rolling dice to determine their course of action. They are making decisions in character. The GM isn't "randomly" determining consequences and results of the players' decisions any more than another game. If the PCs decide to attack the goblins, then the GM will ask them to roll to hit and damage. If they decide to try to persuade the duke to do something, they might have to roll some kind of skill check to phrase things diplomatically. That's the "random" bit.

Lorsa
2018-05-04, 04:53 AM
This offends a lot of people. Somehow, they see the word ''random'' as a bad word.

Only idiots fail to understand context.

Words can be good or bad depending on the context.

If talking about the outcome of a roulette game, random is not a bad word.

If talking about the decisions made by a DM in a game of D&D, random is a bad word.

Context matters.

Knaight
2018-05-04, 04:58 AM
Right. You're saying DMing takes no effort, since they can just somehow say the game world exists and things work however the DM wants them to. Since only bad DMs follow rules that make them into slaves of players, only bad DMs have to put any effort into running games.

By this reasoning writing a novel is an effortless task - there's no rules to follow imposed by others, therefore no effort is needed. This doesn't hold, and it doesn't hold for GMing either. Even if a GM can just arbitrarily make stuff in the game world and declare how they function without limits (which they often can) there's still a lot of considerations that go into that, and that's where the effort comes in.

Or, more pithily - a GM still needs to try to meet their own standards.

Segev
2018-05-04, 09:59 AM
By this reasoning writing a novel is an effortless task - there's no rules to follow imposed by others, therefore no effort is needed. This doesn't hold, and it doesn't hold for GMing either. Even if a GM can just arbitrarily make stuff in the game world and declare how they function without limits (which they often can) there's still a lot of considerations that go into that, and that's where the effort comes in.

Or, more pithily - a GM still needs to try to meet their own standards.

Oh, sure, if the author is a slave to a mythical audience that may as well not exist. After all, novels don't require readers to be novels. Unlike games, which at least require players to play them. But in either case, only bad authors or DMs enslave themselves to the whims of the audience/players. It's especially silly in an author, since he's imagining what his audience would want, and having to guess at random the things they want him to do and then randomly come up with the way the story goes because of that.

And that's a lot of work, but since only bad authors do it, that's fine. Good authors don't write hard-to-determine random stuff for an audience that they imagine would whine and scream and throw a tantrum if they don't cater to their random whims. Good authors have full control over their story, so obviously don't have to put in any effort. The story just does what they want it to, and they can do anything, which lets them cram in lots of little details for their intricate plots.

RazorChain
2018-05-04, 06:33 PM
And it is true too.

Just look at the ''random thing''. People describe a game play like this: The game has no plot, story or structure. The DM has no plan and just reacts to the players. The players just do whatever they want. So the players do something, then the DM does something back.

I say: well that is a random game. The players just randomly do things, and the DM randomly does things in reaction to that.

This offends a lot of people. Somehow, they see the word ''random'' as a bad word.

Just a curious question, can you improvise? Can you make a plot, story and structure as you go along?

Can players make a plan by themselves or are they incapable of doing anything but random things without the guidance of the GM?

In your games will players just try to get past obstacles in a random way or will they resort to reasoning and make a plan?

Random isn't a bad word but you realize that doing something randomly is doing without a method or conscious decision

Darth Ultron
2018-05-05, 12:23 AM
Just a curious question, can you improvise? Can you make a plot, story and structure as you go along?

Yes, of course, but I hate the random mess of gameplay.

I much prefer creating everything before the game. And even if the players like ''suddenly turned left'' in the game and I had to make everything from scratch, that would still only take a couple minutes to make an outline and/or at least a ''scene 1'' for the opening of the Adventure.

When most people are saying ''improv'' though...they are talking about the Random Mess. Like the players ''suddenly'' go into the black forest. The DM looks at the notes and sees the forest has trees, so just sits there with a blank look. The players wander and explore and eventually the DM randomly picks a random ''woods'' encounter, randomly having something happen about something random. Then, as each action the players take, the DM just piles more on the random mess. I call this Improv Ogre: the DM just makes the world directly in front of the characters. The players can find or discover or figure out or really do anything, as nothing exists until AFTER they ask about it.



Can players make a plan by themselves or are they incapable of doing anything but random things without the guidance of the GM?

Of course...but I don't oddly separate the ''always awesome player plot'' and the ''badwrongfun DM'' plot the way many others do.

It really does not matter if the DM or the players make the Plot Hook/Plot Idea. In all cases, the DM still makes the plot.



In your games will players just try to get past obstacles in a random way or will they resort to reasoning and make a plan?

Both?

Lorsa
2018-05-05, 01:41 AM
Yes, of course, but I hate the random mess of gameplay.

I much prefer creating everything before the game. And even if the players like ''suddenly turned left'' in the game and I had to make everything from scratch, that would still only take a couple minutes to make an outline and/or at least a ''scene 1'' for the opening of the Adventure.

When most people are saying ''improv'' though...they are talking about the Random Mess. Like the players ''suddenly'' go into the black forest. The DM looks at the notes and sees the forest has trees, so just sits there with a blank look. The players wander and explore and eventually the DM randomly picks a random ''woods'' encounter, randomly having something happen about something random. Then, as each action the players take, the DM just piles more on the random mess. I call this Improv Ogre: the DM just makes the world directly in front of the characters. The players can find or discover or figure out or really do anything, as nothing exists until AFTER they ask about it.

I'm sorry that you can't improvise without it becoming a random mess. It takes a special kind of skill to do good improvisation that creates fun adventures. Something only good DMs have.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-05, 10:05 AM
I'm sorry that you can't improvise without it becoming a random mess. It takes a special kind of skill to do good improvisation that creates fun adventures. Something only good DMs have.

A random mess is a random mess. You take say a bucket of Legos and throw them around a room, you have a random mess...no matter how good of a builder you are.

It does take a special kind of DM to sit there, make a random mess and then say ''this is the best game 4Evers!"

Lorsa
2018-05-05, 10:13 AM
A random mess is a random mess. You take say a bucket of Legos and throw them around a room, you have a random mess...no matter how good of a builder you are.

It does take a special kind of DM to sit there, make a random mess and then say ''this is the best game 4Evers!"

It takes a special kind of person to look at a room full of well-built lego structures, neatly ordered, and say "this is a random mess".

Darth Ultron
2018-05-05, 10:46 AM
It takes a special kind of person to look at a room full of well-built lego structures, neatly ordered, and say "this is a random mess".

Anyone can see a room full of Legos all over the floor is a random mess and nothing more and nothing that is in any way special.

Corneel
2018-05-05, 11:10 AM
Anyone can see a room full of Legos all over the floor is a random mess and nothing more and nothing that is in any way special.
You see a random mess, I see a devious trap for hobbits.

Quertus
2018-05-05, 11:35 AM
I do like the Legos analogy for explaining a sandbox: it's a pile of Legos that the GM believes the players will enjoy building things with to play with, as opposed to pre-built toys with specified play interfaces.

Pleh
2018-05-05, 12:22 PM
I do like the Legos analogy for explaining a sandbox: it's a pile of Legos that the GM believes the players will enjoy building things with to play with, as opposed to pre-built toys with specified play interfaces.

This makes no sense to people who believe the DM makes all the content of a game. DU would first have to accept that player choices (devoid of DM guidance) can create meaningful changes in the game; he would have to accept player agency as being something constructive and good for games.

Nifft
2018-05-05, 12:28 PM
This makes no sense to people who believe the DM makes all the content of a game. DU would first have to accept that player choices (devoid of DM guidance) can create meaningful changes in the game; he would have to accept player agency as being something constructive and good for games.

If we stick to the DUfinition of random = "not pre-planned", then there's a false binary which excludes the possibility of order arising organically or cooperatively.


Sandbox Players: "Look at the thing we built!"

DU: (pointing at lego instructions) "You didn't build the thing I planned, so what you did is identical to just randomly throwing legos around the room."

Sandbox Players: "But look, it's a castle with working lights, and the gate moves with this little motor, and..."

DU: "IDENTICAL TO RANDOM NOISE."

Florian
2018-05-05, 01:09 PM
I do like the Legos analogy for explaining a sandbox: it's a pile of Legos that the GM believes the players will enjoy building things with to play with, as opposed to pre-built toys with specified play interfaces.

That analogy is total ox manure on a level that you can´t seem to comprehend.

A type I sandbox, setting as you seem to understand it, is not a bag of building blocks, that by themselves are useless, but rather a fully fledged-out game world consisting of parts that are already fully "build" and set into place. To pick up a random example from the other thread, it is a conscious decision to include an "evil baron" as a fully formed and build upon playing piece.

Pleh
2018-05-05, 01:17 PM
That analogy is total ox manure on a level that you can´t seem to comprehend.

A type I sandbox, setting as you seem to understand it, is not a bag of building blocks, that by themselves are useless, but rather a fully fledged-out game world consisting of parts that are already fully "build" and set into place. To pick up a random example from the other thread, it is a conscious decision to include an "evil baron" as a fully formed and build upon playing piece.

It's both. It's a fully fledged lego city that the players get to play with, but they can also bring a set of blocks to the table and add things that were never planned, tear down pre made buildings for parts, and generally interact with the city however they want without much regard for how it was intended (because the open endedness is exactly the intent).

Florian
2018-05-05, 01:27 PM
It's both. It's a fully fledged lego city that the players get to play with, but they can also bring a set of blocks to the table and add things that were never planned, tear down pre made buildings for parts, and generally interact with the city however they want without much regard for how it was intended (because the open endedness is exactly the intent).

Not really. Bringing a "set of blocks" to the table actually destroys the game.

Edit: At least when you're going at it from either a Gam or Sim POV.

Nifft
2018-05-05, 01:30 PM
Not really. Bringing a "set of blocks" to the table actually destroys the game.

Contradictory citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dread_(role-playing_game)

Florian
2018-05-05, 01:42 PM
Contradictory citation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dread_(role-playing_game)

See my edit.

Xuc Xac
2018-05-05, 02:06 PM
To pick up a random example from the other thread, it is a conscious decision to include an "evil baron" as a fully formed and build upon playing piece.

Just because the pile of Legos has some pieces that already look like stuff, that doesn't mean they can't be used to make things. Some pieces have decals and some are shaped like little people. They're still building blocks that the players can move around. Maybe that "evil baron" piece is an "enemy lord" like it says on the package. Maybe the players will decide to use it as an "ally with a mutual enemy" or a "toxic friend" or "paladin's pet redemption project" or "Cat's paw to throw against the orcs".

Florian
2018-05-05, 02:37 PM
Just because the pile of Legos has some pieces that already look like stuff, that doesn't mean they can't be used to make things. Some pieces have decals and some are shaped like little people. They're still building blocks that the players can move around. Maybe that "evil baron" piece is an "enemy lord" like it says on the package. Maybe the players will decide to use it as an "ally with a mutual enemy" or a "toxic friend" or "paladin's pet redemption project" or "Cat's paw to throw against the orcs".

They are stuff and they have been created to be that way. Don't overglorify it, when there's no need to.

Pleh
2018-05-05, 03:11 PM
Not really. Bringing a "set of blocks" to the table actually destroys the game.

Edit: At least when you're going at it from either a Gam or Sim POV.

I think you totally misunderstand sandboxes then. At the very least, bringing original PCs to a sandbox is "bringing your own blocks". If your sandboxes only work with pregenerated characters, it's not the average sandbox most people are talking about.

But when I said, "bringing your own blocks" I was more thinking that players can make guilds. Since the ideas are coming from the players rather than the DM, the metaphor can apply that they're "bringing their own blocks."

Minecraft remains one of the gold standards of the genre. You can "bring your own blocks" by adding a game mod that literally programs new blocks into the game. It's not like you suddenly aren't playing minecraft just because you modded the game.

Half the point of a sandbox is that players ARE allowed to alter the game's aspects.

Quertus
2018-05-05, 03:35 PM
One can mod a game whether or not it is a sandbox. One can mod Minecraft, and it's still Minecraft, and still a sandbox. Or one can play Minecraft unmodified, and it's still Minecraft, and still a sandbox. One can play a purely linear series of scenes / fights in... What's popular these days?... unmodified, and it's not at all Sandboxy. Or one could play it modified, with a new texture pack, and it's still just as linear and not a sandbox.

So, unless someone has a really good argument to the contrary, I'll contend that whether or not the players "bring their own blocks" to the extent of modifying the content of the world pre-game is irrelevant to how Sandboxy a game is.

-----

Now, as to the value of the Lego analogy... Hmmm... it works - and fails - from multiple directions simultaneously.

It is not the case that the world in a sandbox is useless pieces - but, rather, that it should feel like blocks that can be put together arbitrarily, that don't have exactly one pre-set right way to play with them. The "evil baron" playing piece shouldn't have one predefined role in the script. In fact, the GM shouldn't have a script at all. A good sandbox GM will be open to having that piece fit into the PCs script however appropriate (or even not at all!). The GM simply provides what he believes is an interesting pile of Legos, and lets the players attempt to build whatever they want. In fact, if the GM knows what the players are going to build with the Legos before the game starts, it's probably a failure as a sandbox.

jayem
2018-05-05, 05:57 PM
I'll contend that whether or not the players "bring their own blocks" to the extent of modifying the content of the world pre-game is irrelevant to how Sandboxy a game is.

I'm going to keep my feeling that the modifying content pre-game is relevant to how 'Sandboxy' the meta-game is, but not the actual game. In that case the Game-Designers can give the Game-Masters a sandbox game-system or not. Which the GM can then use to create/implement either a Sandbox-Game or a Linear-Game for his players (or combinations thereof).

Which is basically agreeing with you, but pre-reserving space for a distinction in scope to be the cause.

(I'd also want to have the abstract potential to distinguish between 'naturally' sandbox/non-sandbox games (game sequences, etc...) and ones that are more 'artificial', although in practice that would merge)

Quertus
2018-05-05, 08:07 PM
I'm going to keep my feeling that the modifying content pre-game is relevant to how 'Sandboxy' the meta-game is, but not the actual game. In that case the Game-Designers can give the Game-Masters a sandbox game-system or not. Which the GM can then use to create/implement either a Sandbox-Game or a Linear-Game for his players (or combinations thereof).

Which is basically agreeing with you, but pre-reserving space for a distinction in scope to be the cause.

(I'd also want to have the abstract potential to distinguish between 'naturally' sandbox/non-sandbox games (game sequences, etc...) and ones that are more 'artificial', although in practice that would merge)

I'm really not sure if I follow you. So... Suppose, through magic, one were to create a detailed history of events, and use that to create a detailed role-playing game for playing in 1947 Paris. There are no "random encounters" - the exact locations of every inhabitant of Paris is mapped out for the entire year. Then, the game play is, you're a sniper team, who needs to assassinate one randomly selected citizen, and inserted at a random date and time.

Would that be an example of a very non-Sandboxy metagame?

I'm not even going to try an example for the natural / artificial distinction - I'll just ask if you can explain what you mean there.

kyoryu
2018-05-05, 08:45 PM
I'm really not sure if I follow you. So... Suppose, through magic, one were to create a detailed history of events, and use that to create a detailed role-playing game for playing in 1947 Paris. There are no "random encounters" - the exact locations of every inhabitant of Paris is mapped out for the entire year. Then, the game play is, you're a sniper team, who needs to assassinate one randomly selected citizen, and inserted at a random date and time.

Would that be an example of a very non-Sandboxy metagame?

I'm not even going to try an example for the natural / artificial distinction - I'll just ask if you can explain what you mean there.

I would say that is still sandboxy.

Prep or lack thereof is not what makes a sandbox. In practice, sandboxes tend to require more improvisation because you cannot predict what players do, but with sufficient magic/technology, it would be unnecessary.

For instance, I could imagine a computer program that would algorithmically generate a world on demand. Each NPC would be derived mathematically, and so not "made up on the fly" - for all practical purposes, they were set when the seed was chosen. That would still be a sandbox.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-05, 09:17 PM
It is not the case that the world in a sandbox is useless pieces - but, rather, that it should feel like blocks that can be put together arbitrarily

As always, a so called sandbox game should feel good, but have no substance.




Prep or lack thereof is not what makes a sandbox. In practice, sandboxes tend to require more improvisation because you cannot predict what players do, but with sufficient magic/technology, it would be unnecessary.

So you are saying a sandbox is when a DM can't or willing does not predict what the players might do?

Xuc Xac
2018-05-05, 11:10 PM
So you are saying a sandbox is when a DM can't or willing does not predict what the players might do?

"So, what are you saying? That a sandbox DM can't predict what players might do?"

"No. I'm saying that, in a sandbox, the DM doesn't have to."

RazorChain
2018-05-05, 11:59 PM
When most people are saying ''improv'' though...they are talking about the Random Mess. Like the players ''suddenly'' go into the black forest. The DM looks at the notes and sees the forest has trees, so just sits there with a blank look. The players wander and explore and eventually the DM randomly picks a random ''woods'' encounter, randomly having something happen about something random. Then, as each action the players take, the DM just piles more on the random mess. I call this Improv Ogre: the DM just makes the world directly in front of the characters. The players can find or discover or figure out or really do anything, as nothing exists until AFTER they ask about it.



If you think improv is a random mess then obviously you aren't good at it. It's like saying "Football is a simple game. Twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win."

Improv as a theater sport has a lot of yes element built into it and focuses on not interrupting the flow. If the players have a good idea or a good theory then utilize that. If their expectations are that there is something spooky about or in the black forest then build on it. I do a lot of improv and I NEVER use random encounters. In fact I hate random encounters as I feel they are nothing more than a waste of time, just like you are describing, a GM floundering to by himself time.

What can we make about the black forest in no time. There is an omnious presence in the forest that seeks to bend the forest to it's will, it takes the shape of a crone and should the PC's meet her she will try to persuade them to do her bidding. She needs the last unicorn in the forest and with it's sacrifice her domination of the forest will be complete.

So you see improvising is not a random mess, a GM's inability to improvise leads to a random mess.

Florian
2018-05-06, 01:34 AM
I think you totally misunderstand sandboxes then

More a failure in communication. What I understand as "from the outside" doesn't have anything to do with the player characters, which should be created as a natural part of the world (unless agreed upon otherwise, naturally), but the players coming up with ideas or goals that do not originate from within the in-universe perspective or interaction.

Examples´d be a game world without dragons or dinosaurs and someone bringing a character that is hell-bent on becoming the biggest dragon/dinosaur hunter on the world. That's a goal that stems directly "from outside" the game world and will lead to hiccups.


I'm really not sure if I follow you. So... Suppose, through magic, one were to create a detailed history of events, and use that to create a detailed role-playing game for playing in 1947 Paris. There are no "random encounters" - the exact locations of every inhabitant of Paris is mapped out for the entire year. Then, the game play is, you're a sniper team, who needs to assassinate one randomly selected citizen, and inserted at a random date and time.

In the sister thread to this one, I tried to explain that this is more or less exactly what I'm doing as a gm when tackling world building: I create a world and history, than determine the trajectory that things will move on their own when unattended or not really interacted with. How things are determines is based on me knowing the cause and the effect that events will have and are not based on what kind of narrative plot it will form.

Like your Paris example, that game world is able to be run on its own, as a solo game for the gm without any player characters and would still work fine.


Prep or lack thereof is not what makes a sandbox. In practice, sandboxes tend to require more improvisation because you cannot predict what players do, but with sufficient magic/technology, it would be unnecessary.

For instance, I could imagine a computer program that would algorithmically generate a world on demand. Each NPC would be derived mathematically, and so not "made up on the fly" - for all practical purposes, they were set when the seed was chosen. That would still be a sandbox.

MG Traveller already has some very powerful tools and those have been ported to an electronic format, including behavior patterns for citizens and polities. So, yes, you could get a whole detailed world including inhabitants with just one click. What it lacks and where machine learning would need to come into it, is actually generating new and self-updating patterns as seed.

jayem
2018-05-06, 03:13 AM
I'm really not sure if I follow you. So... Suppose, through magic, one were to create a detailed history of events, and use that to create a detailed role-playing game for playing in 1947 Paris. There are no "random encounters" - the exact locations of every inhabitant of Paris is mapped out for the entire year. Then, the game play is, you're a sniper team, who needs to assassinate one randomly selected citizen, and inserted at a random date and time.

Would that be an example of a very non-Sandboxy metagame?

Meta-game isn't quite the right word. But I think that would be an example, were of course we to give that to the GM.
We could change the game play so pehaps

...to create a detailed role-playing game for playing in 1947 Paris. There are no "random encounters" - the exact locations of every inhabitant of Paris is mapped out for the entire year. Then, the game play is, you're the resistance with this backstory.

would then be an example of a very non-Sandboxy [thing for the GM]? with a Sandbox game (for the players). However then you get an odd tension. Which is why I think the two things are related.


As to the natural/artificial distinction it more applies to linear games.
But if the players are in prison, the PC's are going to have very little choice or responsibilities. Of course the question as to why the GM decided to set the game in a prison might have to be asked. But the linearity comes from the NPC's. It's naturally linear. To make it very sandboxy you'd have to make the NPC's act unaturally (although even Colditz there was a fair bit of play).

If the players are in normal life, the linearity has to come from the GM acting as some kind of artificial fate. While it's naturally sandboxy.

Florian
2018-05-06, 04:02 AM
@jayem:

It´s basically an example for a full simulation. The game world is not static and each element in it is "alive" and moves on its own set of "rails", indecent of player action or agency.

Edit: We´re only having this discussion because, for an outside observer, it is hard to differentiate between a cause/effect deterministic system and a start/end linear planned plot.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-06, 12:12 PM
"No. I'm saying that, in a sandbox, the DM doesn't have to."

I'm not really sure a DM ''has'' to do anything anyway.

For a DM to just sit there and ''pretend'' that they are beyond dumb and can't predict obvious things is just silly. Like the DM will sit there and be like ''wow, players! You guys opened the door! Wow! I never would have ever thought you would have done that! Wow!"



So you see improvising is not a random mess, a GM's inability to improvise leads to a random mess.

If your just randomly making up random stuff at random times for random reasons....then you get a random mess.

Boci
2018-05-06, 12:17 PM
If your just randomly making up random stuff at random times for random reasons....then you get a random mess.

Its not for random reasons, its in response to the character's actions, so not random. As for it being a random mess, maybe for you, but not for me and numerous other posters on this thread. Unless we're all lying, it seems people can improvise things as the players go and have a cohesive game rather than a random mess. Edit: Its also not entierly random because we have setting notes. Yeah, a sandbox without any setting notes might hard to pull off, but even that a skilled DM can pull off with a bit of luck.

You've been DMing for a while, don't you have a bank of locations and NPCs and events to call upon? It doesn't have to be stuff you've never used before.

RazorChain
2018-05-06, 01:41 PM
If your just randomly making up random stuff at random times for random reasons....then you get a random mess.

This is absolutely true. I'm just trying to help you out here so you can improvise like a champ.

STOP MAKING UP RANDOM STUFF!!!

Your tendency to just making up random stuff when you improvise is to the detriment of the game.

When playing an NPC that you don't have a script for and you have to improvise the conversation you can't just say "jaflfi ifahtgoag aifghaogh aaighfiodg odoghjdl godgjhifg" because that is just random stuff.

You have to lean back and and imagine that you are the NPC and he has goals and a personality. Then you have to utter something else than random stuff so your players understand you.

You see improvising isn't just making up random stuff. Making up randoms stuff is making up randoms stuff. If improvising was making up random stuff we wouldn't call it improvising, we would call it making up random stuff.

You see most of your conversation is improvised, you don't plan out in detail everything you are going to say all day. This is because you don't know what other people are going to answer so you improvise your conversation based on the flow and how the other person answers and poses questions.

Some people are good at conversation just like some people are good at improvising. Then there are people that think that conversation is just random syllables. Those people are the proof that language is the sign of intelligence.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-06, 03:14 PM
I guess some people are just really dead-set on hard deterministic causality, such that there's only "predetermined" and "random", no other options. To them, even if you don't know what you're going to say later today, someone with sufficient knowledge and intelligence could tell you what you're going to say later, to the word, because it's already set in stone. In such a worldview, anything that's not already predetermined can only be "random".

Knaight
2018-05-06, 03:24 PM
I guess some people are just really dead-set on hard deterministic causality, such that there's only "predetermined" and "random", no other options. To them, even if you don't know what you're going to say later today, someone with sufficient knowledge and intelligence could tell you what you're going to say later, to the word, because it's already set in stone. In such a worldview, anything that's not already predetermined can only be "random".

On the other hand if you take this view point an improvised game would be deterministic - given enough knowledge about all participants, you could project the entire game from the beginning because you know how everyone would react. It seems more like a viewpoint that fetishizes planning.

At which point it's worth pointing out that even incredibly heavily improvised games are still technically planned. The planning is just usually on a continuum from a few seconds to a few minutes ahead, and capable of shifting rapidly, though plans on a longer time scale can easily be made (particularly when the PCs piss someone off and immediately create a GM plan to the effect of "this new antagonist will strike back in a session or three").

Darth Ultron
2018-05-06, 07:22 PM
Its also not entierly random because we have setting notes. Yeah, a sandbox without any setting notes might hard to pull off, but even that a skilled DM can pull off with a bit of luck.


Right,

A Typical DM has an Adventure that they use as a toolbox for the PCs to run through.
A Other DM has ''setting notes'' that they use as a toolbox for the PCs to run through.

So, it is the same thing.



When playing an NPC that you don't have a script for and you have to improvise the conversation you can't just say "jaflfi ifahtgoag aifghaogh aaighfiodg odoghjdl godgjhifg" because that is just random stuff.

You have to lean back and and imagine that you are the NPC and he has goals and a personality. Then you have to utter something else than random stuff so your players understand you.

The problem is your talking about making up stuff before the player characters encounter it fully. And everyone on the boards goes all loopy saying how wrong that is and how that effect player agency and so on. And it does not matter if the stuff is made up a week before the game or one second after a PC talks to a NPC: It is still all pre made stuff. And it is still the DM forcing things on the poor players.

One week before the game the DM makes dwarf Kal's(an fully detailed NPC) treasure chest in a trapped room. When, and if, the characters go into that room, they will encounter the trap.
One second before the Pcs enter the room the DM makes it the room of 'dwarf bob' and makes him a paranoid greedy dwarf and puts a treasure chest in the trapped room.

So, both are exactly the same...no matter what, the poor players will encounter the poor treasure chest in the trapped room. Though the second ''improv'' one feels a lot more like Railroading.



You see most of your conversation is improvised, you don't plan out in detail everything you are going to say all day. This is because you don't know what other people are going to answer so you improvise your conversation based on the flow and how the other person answers and poses questions.


Of course this is how we separate the Elves from the Goblins. Because, guess what...

Some people, like myself, have a fairly good idea what ''people will say'' in any given situation. So I'm not ''surprised'', it's more like ''ah, so you will use argument defense #3''. And knowing what people will say, does allow a person to pre from thoughts in thier head about it.

This is a real skill you can learn for things like debates and power conversations. For example, often in the workplace you might get a chance to say recommend a new procedure. Now you could walk into the meeting to discuss this like an improv idiot and be all like ''gosh I have no idea what anyone can say ever" OR you can pre prepare answers to the obvious questions like ''how much will it cost'' and ''how long will it take'' and such.

Boci
2018-05-06, 07:30 PM
Right,

A Typical DM has an Adventure that they use as a toolbox for the PCs to run through.
A Other DM has ''setting notes'' that they use as a toolbox for the PCs to run through.

So, it is the same thing.

In that they both provide an game expirience for players yes, but when you look closer there are differences in that the second option isn't a fixed adventure designed beforehand, which is a pretty big difference.

First DM = The adventurers are going to explore the underwater temple, clash with the toa-koa living there and recover the treasure. The specifics are up to them.

Second DM = The players are going to explore the Naratir coast, and either explore one of the sunken ruins, get involved in the succession politics of Port Amber or investigate what happened in the Blackroot Mountains. The specifics are up to them.

Both of those sound like games that couldf be fun, but they are distinct in their pitch.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-06, 08:50 PM
First DM = The adventurers are going to explore the underwater temple, clash with the toa-koa living there and recover the treasure. The specifics are up to them.

Second DM = The players are going to explore the Naratir coast, and either explore one of the sunken ruins, get involved in the succession politics of Port Amber or investigate what happened in the Blackroot Mountains. The specifics are up to them.


Except, yet again your comparing apples and oranges.

Like:

1.The players are going to explore the Naratir coast, and either explore one of the sunken ruins, get involved in the succession politics of Port Amber or investigate what happened in the Blackroot
Mountains.

2.Out of ''all'' the things they can do, the players pick just ONE thing to do: to explore the underwater temple of Nacoldrhsa.

3.The characters clash with the toa-koa living there and recover treasure. The specifics are up to them.

The above is EXACTLY the same , both the Typical game and the ''Sandbox" game.

Unless you can tell me, using the above choice only, how the sandbox game would be any diffrent then the typical adventure.

So: Players pick to explore the the underwater temple of Nacoldrhsa. Period. Both games, for at least the next session, will do nothing but that player picked activity.

Boci
2018-05-06, 09:01 PM
Except, yet again your comparing apples and oranges.

Like:

1.The players are going to explore the Naratir coast, and either explore one of the sunken ruins, get involved in the succession politics of Port Amber or investigate what happened in the Blackroot
Mountains.

2.Out of ''all'' the things they can do, the players pick just ONE thing to do: to explore the underwater temple of Nacoldrhsa.

3.The characters clash with the toa-koa living there and recover treasure. The specifics are up to them.

The above is EXACTLY the same , both the Typical game and the ''Sandbox" game.

Unless you can tell me, using the above choice only, how the sandbox game would be any diffrent then the typical adventure.

So: Players pick to explore the the underwater temple of Nacoldrhsa. Period. Both games, for at least the next session, will do nothing but that player picked activity.

1. How am I comparing apples to oranges if you later in the same post conclude the two things would be exactly the same? That's apples to apples, not apples to oranges. It sounds like you're just saying stuff you've seen used in a debate without understanding how they are meant to work.

2. The difference will be that the players choose to explore the sunken temple out of all those options rather than the DM telling them they would do that. (Plus all the times they don't choose to explore the sunken temple in the second example.)

Darth Ultron
2018-05-06, 11:02 PM
1. How am I comparing apples to oranges if you later in the same post conclude the two things would be exactly the same? That's apples to apples, not apples to oranges. It sounds like you're just saying stuff you've seen used in a debate without understanding how they are meant to work.

2. The difference will be that the players choose to explore the sunken temple out of all those options rather than the DM telling them they would do that. (Plus all the times they don't choose to explore the sunken temple in the second example.)

Your comparison is:

1.The game is about this one narrow thing: the sunken temple.

2.Wow, the players can do lots in this game, just look at the things you listed.

Do you see the difference?

And then what your really saying is:

1.The DM picks the sunken temple adventure and forces the players to run through it no matter what.

2.The DM sits back and lets the players pick and adventure...and then runs them through it.

So your big thing about a sandbox is ''who picks the adventure?"

RazorChain
2018-05-06, 11:03 PM
The problem is your talking about making up stuff before the player characters encounter it fully. And everyone on the boards goes all loopy saying how wrong that is and how that effect player agency and so on. And it does not matter if the stuff is made up a week before the game or one second after a PC talks to a NPC: It is still all pre made stuff. And it is still the DM forcing things on the poor players.

One week before the game the DM makes dwarf Kal's(an fully detailed NPC) treasure chest in a trapped room. When, and if, the characters go into that room, they will encounter the trap.
One second before the Pcs enter the room the DM makes it the room of 'dwarf bob' and makes him a paranoid greedy dwarf and puts a treasure chest in the trapped room.

So, both are exactly the same...no matter what, the poor players will encounter the poor treasure chest in the trapped room. Though the second ''improv'' one feels a lot more like Railroading.


Yes you are finally getting it! Improvisation is just that making non-random things up with shorter notice than preplanned things. It doesn't imply railroading UNLESS you using it to force your players into preplanned things. It's very hard to railroad when you don't know where you are going.



Of course this is how we separate the Elves from the Goblins. Because, guess what...

Some people, like myself, have a fairly good idea what ''people will say'' in any given situation. So I'm not ''surprised'', it's more like ''ah, so you will use argument defense #3''. And knowing what people will say, does allow a person to pre from thoughts in thier head about it.

This is a real skill you can learn for things like debates and power conversations. For example, often in the workplace you might get a chance to say recommend a new procedure. Now you could walk into the meeting to discuss this like an improv idiot and be all like ''gosh I have no idea what anyone can say ever" OR you can pre prepare answers to the obvious questions like ''how much will it cost'' and ''how long will it take'' and such.

Well not everybody is as smart as you, most people can't predict what other people are going to say to them throughout the day. When I arrived at work I didn't know that a colleagues football team would win it's match and he'd be blathering non stop about football because his team is leading in the league. I can certainly respond to him and either just smile and hope he goes away to bother someone else or tell him for the umpteenth time that I have negative interest in football.

Most people plan for fixed meetings, this is to both utilise time in a good manner and be prepared with answers or the knowledge you need to have to answer specific questions.

Boci
2018-05-06, 11:46 PM
And then what your really saying is:

1.The DM picks the sunken temple adventure and forces the players to run through it no matter what.

2.The DM sits back and lets the players pick and adventure...and then runs them through it.

So your big thing about a sandbox is ''who picks the adventure?"

You cannot just ignore that there were other options (the Blackroot Mountains, the succession, and its also possible the players choose to explore another detail of the setting). The majority of the time the players are not going to pick the sunken temple, and it will matter a lot more than just who picked the adventure (but even that is significant for players). Its also important to remember that when the DM makes a sandboc setting in example 2, example 1 didn't exist, we only reacted them both side by side to make a comparison.

Mordaedil
2018-05-07, 01:56 AM
For the Giant's sake you guys. Why do you keep nipping the bait, thinking "he's finally getting it!"

He's not. You are not making any progress. Stop it already. Good lord you are baited into trolls so easily.

STOP EATING THE BAIT!

Florian
2018-05-07, 02:57 AM
I guess some people are just really dead-set on hard deterministic causality, such that there's only "predetermined" and "random", no other options. To them, even if you don't know what you're going to say later today, someone with sufficient knowledge and intelligence could tell you what you're going to say later, to the word, because it's already set in stone. In such a worldview, anything that's not already predetermined can only be "random".

Ah, I think you're misunderstanding something there. It´s not about hard deterministic causality per se, more about the difference between a passive setting and an active simulation of the game world.
Of the possible tools you can use to do that, using determination as a method is honestly just the simplest approach, because you can skip interim steps like creating random charts.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-07, 11:11 AM
Ah, I think you're misunderstanding something there. It´s not about hard deterministic causality per se, more about the difference between a passive setting and an active simulation of the game world.
Of the possible tools you can use to do that, using determination as a method is honestly just the simplest approach, because you can skip interim steps like creating random charts.


My comment wasn't directed you, it was directed at the bizarro false dichotomy that a certain troll keeps asserting.

However... you seem to be asserting that in order to avoid determinism, one needs to use something like "random" tables. I prefer to just do what reality does, and have the course of events play out as they occur. People have plans, people try to make certain events occur... "the world" does not. There is no "this is what will happen in a week if the PCs don't intervene", the PCs aren't special, all those other "people"/characters involved, and they're all competing and intervening and pushing to make what they want to happen, happen.

Nothing happens until it happens.

Pelle
2018-05-07, 12:40 PM
However... you seem to be asserting that in order to avoid determinism, one needs to use something like "random" tables. I prefer to just do what reality does, and have the course of events play out as they occur. People have plans, people try to make certain events occur... "the world" does not. There is no "this is what will happen in a week if the PCs don't intervene", the PCs aren't special, all those other "people"/characters involved, and they're all competing and intervening and pushing to make what they want to happen, happen.

Nothing happens until it happens.

Sorry to be nitpicking, but "this is what will happen in a week if the PCs don't intervene" is exactly due to all those other "people"/characters involved, competing and intervening and pushing to make what they want to happen, happen.

If your PCs decides to spend a week in a pocket dimension, resting and twiddling their thumbs, you have to figure out what has happened in the rest of the world in between. That is what people mean when they talk about what will happen. And if the PCs haven't done anything, that happens. If they do something, of course it can change. Though agreed, if you try not to predict/simulate anything but real-time, then it doesn't matter that everything is deterministic.

jayem
2018-05-07, 01:46 PM
Sorry to be nitpicking, but "this is what will happen in a week if the PCs don't intervene" is exactly due to all those other "people"/characters involved, competing and intervening and pushing to make what they want to happen, happen.

Yes for some characters, you have all the valid information factors you/they will have now. There shouldn't be in theory a magic virtue in doing things in one order except where they interact.

The same would also apply to sufficiently separated Solo-adventures. Except then you also need the relevant player.
Which is one way where the PC's do differ, you as DM don't enact their decisions.

You could of course ring them up, appraise them of the situation, find their decision and then react to it. But if you take that as the authoritative decision that's basically having an impromptu session.
Whereas if you then replay it in the 'real session', and the player is in a different mood (hungry) then you have to take that hunger influenced result as the real one and it might be different. How does that compare? Firstly I guess the DM could always over-ride his planned pattern based on his current mood. Second the coupling between him and the NPC's is meant to be weaker than the player-PC link (and arguably the player-PC link has flaws).

In practice of course things are not quite so simple.
By doing it early:
you get more time to think things through
you know you're not reacting inappropriately to PC actions (or NPC actions you've not considered yet)
But...
you can't react 'appropriately' to PC actions without wasting your investment
it's easier to get transaction order wrong with the NPC's too, and not notice an interaction you should have waited for.

Segev
2018-05-07, 01:59 PM
I am running an adventure called "Assault on Muppet Castle." Cookie Monster is guarding a vault full of weapons. I have stats planned out for the party to fight him, facing his fearsome bite attack and ability to literally chew the scenery. As a bit of flavor, I have a massive plate of cookies next to him that he munches constantly.

The players decide to use stealth to steal cookies one by one from the plate, interspersed with Cookie Monster eating them, so they deplete faster than planned. They then take those cookies and lay out a trail leading away from the door.

Is it "a random mess" if I decide that, yes, they can reduce his cookie count fast enough that he runs out before his shift ends, and that, yes, Cookie Monster is distracted by the trail of cookies and follows it away from the door? I didn't plan any of this; the players came up with this plan on their own, not wanting to fight one of their favorite muppets and feeling quite clever for exploiting his known foibles.

Florian
2018-05-08, 12:55 AM
My comment wasn't directed you, it was directed at the bizarro false dichotomy that a certain troll keeps asserting.

However... you seem to be asserting that in order to avoid determinism, one needs to use something like "random" tables. I prefer to just do what reality does, and have the course of events play out as they occur. People have plans, people try to make certain events occur... "the world" does not. There is no "this is what will happen in a week if the PCs don't intervene", the PCs aren't special, all those other "people"/characters involved, and they're all competing and intervening and pushing to make what they want to happen, happen.

Nothing happens until it happens.

"This will happen in a week" is exactly the result of all "those other people" "pushing to make what they want to happen".

If you are inclined to work with that level of detail, you could, for example, create a random table to simulate NPC behavior and potentially also include personalized tables for "movers and shakers" or clump together polities, then run the whole thing, making the rolls in intervals that suit you.

To use the Paris example, you'll get mad when trying to do it without some serious coding and backing it with a database to automate the process, so you use the deterministic method to simply set most things on a path without checking and rechecking it.

ImNotTrevor
2018-05-08, 07:31 AM
"This will happen in a week" is exactly the result of all "those other people" "pushing to make what they want to happen".

If you are inclined to work with that level of detail, you could, for example, create a random table to simulate NPC behavior and potentially also include personalized tables for "movers and shakers" or clump together polities, then run the whole thing, making the rolls in intervals that suit you.

To use the Paris example, you'll get mad when trying to do it without some serious coding and backing it with a database to automate the process, so you use the deterministic method to simply set most things on a path without checking and rechecking it.

I actually like Stars Without Number on this one. The Faction Turn is a pretty nice way to roll for the general movements of hypercorporations and planetwide governments, while still involving the GM deciding the low-level nitty gritty.

So for instance, in my faction turn the criminal syndicate The Three Pillars and the Pure Doctrine of Rites are in conflict. They literally make rolls to damage one another's cohesion as groups.

Lets say that last week the Three Pillars set up a successful drug dealing hub in the middle of Rites territory, damaging their hold on the people's hearts.

Well, this now translates to the players having potential jobs from both sides. "Protect our foothold" or "help us kill off these heretics," as well as creating NPCs to represent this minor conflict and something the PCs can do to affect the larger-scale conflict. And from there, a million smaller-scale NPC conflicts emerge. The broad strokes will be determined by the dice next time it feels right to roll. (For instance, don't touch the large conflict while the PCs are still in the drug house, because that could go wrong)

So now I've got Don Julio, who's working at securing another location and setting up some of his guys inside the local government to screw with elections, and maybe to put some of these Rites chuckleheads on the payroll to throw the scent further off, and I personally determine how that stuff is playing out while the PCs are here.

Meanwhile Purest Barjonah is striving to drive out the impurity from her flock, and is ready to call upon the believers to act violently against any deemed Filthy in the eyes of the Rites, to hopefully scare people away from the drugs and starve the Three Pillars out of the money they need to remain in business. I personally handle these lower-scale actions while the PCs are here.

It's a good blend. Though I agree that countdown clocks should automatically assume NPC interactions and desires.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-08, 09:12 AM
"This will happen in a week" is exactly the result of all "those other people" "pushing to make what they want to happen".

If you are inclined to work with that level of detail, you could, for example, create a random table to simulate NPC behavior and potentially also include personalized tables for "movers and shakers" or clump together polities, then run the whole thing, making the rolls in intervals that suit you.

To use the Paris example, you'll get mad when trying to do it without some serious coding and backing it with a database to automate the process, so you use the deterministic method to simply set most things on a path without checking and rechecking it.

We're probably getting into some real-world stuff here, because when you say that I think "what if one of those characters catches a cold, or gets caught in traffic, or is angry because their cat puked in their shoe this morning, or..." things go strange in the real world in a hurry, and predicting what will happen next week is more often than not futile.

Pleh
2018-05-08, 09:19 AM
We're probably getting into some real-world stuff here, because when you say that I think "what if one of those characters catches a cold, or gets caught in traffic, or is angry because their cat puked in their shoe this morning, or..." things go strange in the real world in a hurry, and predicting what will happen next week is more often than not futile.

I would say it's not like any of this never happens in D&D story, rather that we just skip over those parts because they have no bearing or relevance on the story.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-08, 01:01 PM
You cannot just ignore that there were other options (the Blackroot Mountains, the succession, and its also possible the players choose to explore another detail of the setting). The majority of the time the players are not going to pick the sunken temple, and it will matter a lot more than just who picked the adventure (but even that is significant for players). Its also important to remember that when the DM makes a sandboc setting in example 2, example 1 didn't exist, we only reacted them both side by side to make a comparison.

I'm not ignoring anything, i'm just saying you need to be on the same number.

1.Game starts with players doing the wander and explore. Maybe only a couple minutes, but sometimes for hours or more.
2.Eventually though, most players do pick something to do: an adventure.
3.DM runs the players through the adventure.

It utterly does not matter what the players pick: The DM still makes that adventure.

If the players are just being jerks and not wanting to go on any adventure the DM has or will make....well, that is a group problem. And really that group might just be better breaking up. The DM can go and find good players that do want to play the game, and the jerk players can sit home and do whatever that want to do.


Is it "a random mess" if I decide that, yes, they can reduce his cookie count fast enough that he runs out before his shift ends, and that, yes, Cookie Monster is distracted by the trail of cookies and follows it away from the door? I didn't plan any of this; the players came up with this plan on their own, not wanting to fight one of their favorite muppets and feeling quite clever for exploiting his known foibles.

If your running an adventure with a ton of set information, then your not doing anything random.

The ''hungry guard'' of the castle is pre made by the DM. The players can ''do'' whatever they want to try to do to try to do whatever they want to do.

You are describing a typical game here, not a random game or an improv game or a sandbox game.

hamishspence
2018-05-08, 01:05 PM
2.Eventually though, most players do pick something to do: an adventure.
3.DM runs the players through the adventure.


Anything the players do is an adventure:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0206.html

the interaction between the players and the DM, is what makes the difference between a "more sandboxy" adventure" and a "more structured/linear" adventure.

kyoryu
2018-05-08, 01:15 PM
Anything the players do is an adventure:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0206.html

the interaction between the players and the DM, is what makes the difference between a "more sandboxy" adventure" and a "more structured/linear" adventure.

The fundamental error is assuming that once players start "an adventure" that they must give up all agency.

That's basically the "amusement park" model, and while it's a workable model, it's not really a sandbox, and is certainly not the only model besides "totally linear" and "random stuff".

Segev
2018-05-08, 01:19 PM
If your running an adventure with a ton of set information, then your not doing anything random.

The ''hungry guard'' of the castle is pre made by the DM. The players can ''do'' whatever they want to try to do to try to do whatever they want to do.

You are describing a typical game here, not a random game or an improv game or a sandbox game.

A sandbox game has a ton of set information.

It is a typical game.

The fact that you keep trying to deny this definition reveals that your motive isn't understanding, but to demonize the term "sandbox."

Scripten
2018-05-08, 01:21 PM
A sandbox game has a ton of set information.

It is a typical game.

The fact that you keep trying to deny this definition reveals that your motive isn't understanding, but to demonize the term "sandbox."

Which is obviously why we should continue to engage him and allow him to derail every single thread he comes into contact with. :smalltongue:

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-08, 01:23 PM
A sandbox game has a ton of set information.

It is a typical game.

The fact that you keep trying to deny this definition reveals that your motive isn't understanding, but to demonize the term "sandbox."



Which is obviously why we should continue to engage him and allow him to derail every single thread he comes into contact with. :smalltongue:


Indeed.

Segev, I have a ton of respect for you as a poster, so I say this with zero disrespect... but please, please, please, for the love of all that is good, stop feeding that troll.

Nifft
2018-05-08, 02:45 PM
A sandbox game has a ton of set information.

It is a typical game.

The fact that you keep trying to deny this definition reveals that your motive isn't understanding, but to demonize the term "sandbox."

It's almost like he has sand in his ... box.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-05-08, 03:12 PM
To answer the OP, I was recently reading the (free) PDF of Stars Without Number and here's what it has to say about sandboxes.


Sandbox Gaming and You

Stars Without Number is designed to accommodate a particular style of play known most commonly as “sandbox gaming”. Sandbox gaming relies on two things; a group of players willing to take initiative in seeking adventure and a GM willing to make a world large and interesting enough to be worth the exploration. In modern day RPG circles, sandbox gaming has sometimes acquired a reputation as being burdensome for a group. Players can have a hard time deciding what to do with their characters without the clear guidance of an obvious story line, and GMs can grow frustrated by the sheer volume of content they need to create for a sandbox game.

To some extent, these criticisms are justified. These problems of aimlessness and overwork are the ones most likely to be an issue for sandbox gamers because the setup of the game naturally tends towards them if they aren’t nipped in the bud. If the players or the GM fail to understand or embrace the point of sandbox gaming, the play is likely to degenerate in short order. Still, with an understanding and cooperative group, sandbox gaming can produce some fun and interesting outcomes.

First, sandbox gaming creates emergent stories. With many other gaming styles, play is assumed to follow a specific narrative arc that is tightly bound to a preexisting story. There’s a beginning, middle, climax, and denouement, and the player characters have their roles. The GM has a clear idea at all times of how the story might progress. Player actions might alter the ultimate outcome, but they aren’t expected to go completely “off the rails” and charge off in a direction unrelated to the plot line.

The emergent stories created in a sandbox game are different. The GM does not have a single prearranged story on hand that he expects to fit the players into; he has many potential stories, for many potential places, all of them locales that the players may or may not visit. He might have a general idea of the goals that the players wish to accomplish, or offer them particular plot hooks to catch their interest and focus their efforts, but he largely sits back and facilitates the stories that the players grow themselves. The players might decide one evening to start building up support for an assault on the slaving rings of the Scordian Rim worlds, and the next to detour briefly to investigate the shrines of alien amberglass they’ve discovered on a remote jungle world. Their story is ultimately a recounting of what the players have decided to accomplish or attempt.

Emergent stories can lack the polish and artistic proportion to be found in play styles that presume a particular context and story line for players to participate in, but they are very much the stories of the players. They get the satisfaction of knowing that they really can play the heroes and freebooters of the cosmic spacelanes, free to accomplish anything within the compass of their courage, prowess, and luck.

Second, sandbox gaming is unforgiving. In most other styles of gaming, it’s implicitly assumed that the challenges the players face will always be calibrated appropriately to the abilities of their characters. They won’t ever find themselves in no-win situations or facing overwhelming odds without making willfully stupid choices and insistently fighting against the story line of the adventure. In many cases, this is a good thing. Not many people play role-playing games so they can experience the joy of being stomped flat by an insurmountable obstacle.

Sandbox games work differently. The world is not carefully gated for character ability, and groups that charge off into the lion’s den can expect to be eaten in short order. In many modern games, players are trained by genre conventions to assume that any obvious obstacle or enemy put before them is one they are intended to be able to overcome through cunning, strength, or diplomacy. There is an assumption that the GM won’t let the group stumble into overwhelming danger unless they intentionally set out against clearly-labeled impossible odds.

Th is assumption is not safe in sandbox gaming. If the GM has arranged for some ravening alien abomination to stalk the corridors of an abandoned orbital station, there is no promise that the players will be able to overcome it if they decide to claim the station for their own. If the group’s shuttle pilot reports a hot war zone over their landing site, then there is every likelihood that they’ll be blown out of the sky if they attempt to land anyway. The world is set up the way the GM has arranged it, and it does not change to accommodate the capabilities of the group.

In consequence, sandbox groups need to pay serious attention to advance reconnaissance, scouting, information gathering, and lines of retreat. They need to be able to identify a no-win situation before they get into it, and be ready and able to bug out if the situation gets to be more than they can handle. Failure is always an option in a sandbox game, and it’s up to the players to respond to threats without assuming that the GM is going to get them out of a bind. By the same token, the GM has to be ready to let dangers be discovered before the group is neck-deep in trouble. Effort spent to investigate and scout a situation should be repaid with a relatively clear warning if it’s more than the group can be expected to overcome.

Third, sandbox games rely heavily on the idea of a living world. The universe continues to move as the characters go about their adventures. Empires clash, scheming villains progress in their plans, lost worlds are discovered and expeditions vanish. Th e players shouldn’t be left to feel that the rest of the cosmos goes into stasis when they’re not around.

Many modern adventures can end up a little bit mechanistic, as important plot points and revelations can’t happen out of sequence without spoiling the progress of the story. Th e GM may be willing to fudge a few things, or may have the improvisational talent to let things unfold without disrupting the story arc, but most GMs find it easiest to simply let the important NPCs hold off acting until the dramatic moment is right.

This isn’t how a conventional sandbox game works. NPCs will act when they are ready and events will unfold when it’s time without reference to what the players are doing or have done. Because the only story is emergent, there’s no master narrative to control events. If all-consuming disaster visits a world due to the players’ carelessness or indifference, well, there’s always the rest of the galaxy for them to explore.

The guidelines given in the Factions chapter give a method for creating a steady supply of “off -screen” events for a GM, but it can’t be a substitute for a GM’s careful consideration of cause and effect. If the players wipe out the secret maltech laboratories of the Brotherhood of the New Day, the impending Brotherhood assault on the nearby frontier world of Argus IV might be set back for months or years. By the same token, if any Brotherhood cultists escaped to tell of the
culprits or any security footage survived, the cult may well vent its displeasure on the group.

In either case, the group needs to be aware of these causes and effects, so as to give them the proper feeling of being in a world which reacts to their actions and is affected by the choices they make. A sandbox world that is perpetually impervious to the players’ mark isn’t so much a world as it is an exceptionally large backdrop. Players will engage more deeply with the setting when they feel as if their actions matter to it.

Now that three major elements of a sandbox world have been described, it’s important to point out the things that the players and GM need to bring to the table. Sandbox games can fall flat in a hurry if the group or the GM isn’t prepared to deal with certain important factors, and these things need to be understood up front.

Players need to understand that it’s ultimately their job to motivate their characters. They need to have a goal and work toward it, even if it’s something as simple as “Become fabulously wealthy and renowned.” The GM will do his best to provide interesting hooks and places for the characters to be, but ultimately, the players need to have their own motivation and act accordingly. They should be ready to get out into the cosmos and do something.

Players also need to understand that the universe is not organized around their capabilities. The world is full of situations and opponents that will get the group killed if they are careless or foolhardy. The GM will respect attempts at scouting and investigation and will clue properly careful adventurers about potential death-trap situations, but he won’t save the group if they insist on plunging ahead into certain doom. Players need to know the limitations of their characters and choose challenges they’ve got a fighting chance of surviving.

For players that are new to Stars Without Number, it may be necessary for the GM to be a little more explicit than usual about letting them know when a situation is too much for them. They may not have the experience with the gaming system to realize that a quartet of freshly generated adventurers hasn’t got much of a chance fighting against a dozen pistol-wielding thugs. GMs shouldn’t hesitate to give new players like this an explicit take on their odds of success before the group chooses a course of action. Once the players get more familiar with the way skill checks and combats play out, they’ll be able to make their own estimation of their chances.

On the GM’s side, it needs to be understood that a sandbox game world requires a lot more preparation than many contemporary story line-based games. It’s not sufficient to plan out one particular narrative arc on the assumption that players can be steered back onto it if they go astray. The GM needs to have at least a basic idea about the contents of an entire interstellar sector, because the players could theoretically end up on any of those planets, to say nothing of the adventures to be had in deep space around abandoned asteroids and derelict void stations.

It’s this kind of heavy preparatory burden that might well have contributed to the decline of sandbox gaming in favor of smaller, more tightly-plotted story lines for games. Stars Without Number is designed to ease this burden by giving the GM a number of tools for the quick generation of a roughed-out interstellar sector with plot hooks, places of interest, and adventure frameworks ready for elaboration.

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/230009/Stars-Without-Number-Revised-Edition-Free-Version

Darth Ultron
2018-05-08, 07:16 PM
Anything the players do is an adventure:


That is a bit much...


The fundamental error is assuming that once players start "an adventure" that they must give up all agency.



Well, sure player agency is just a silly thing players say...but what do you even mean here? Once an adventure starts the players can't just do a random mess? Ok, well, that is a good thing.


A sandbox game has a ton of set information.

It is a typical game.

The fact that you keep trying to deny this definition reveals that your motive isn't understanding, but to demonize the term "sandbox."

Well, no, as always, I am trying to separate the so called and different sandbox game from the common, typical game and the jerk railroad game. I'm not demonizing, I'm keeping things separate.

Scripten
2018-05-08, 07:38 PM
-snip-

Just don't reply to what he says and he'll no longer have anything to feed the trolling.

Florian
2018-05-09, 12:45 AM
@ImNotTrevor:

Agreed. SWN offers a great and easy to use tool that you can basically use with any system. I really like it, along with MG Trav 15: Powers and Principalities.

@Max:

I'm saying that it´s futile to try to simulate that depth in detail on a grand scale, because you've massive diminishing returns on your investment there (again, unless you manage to automate the whole process).

Let´s say you play a game of V:tM set in Berlin, ok? It makes sense to simulate what the Camarilla and Sabat are doing as a whole, it´s also feasible to do it for the individual vampires, but it makes no sense to try it on every citizen (unless they could be considered to be included in the "movers and shakers" list), because they just don't matter for an TTRPG.

EGplay
2018-05-09, 07:08 AM
Well, no, as always, I am trying to separate the so called and different sandbox game from the common, typical game and the jerk railroad game. I'm not demonizing, I'm keeping things separate.

Oh, that's easy:
In your 'typical' game, the motive forces that drive the game (by requiring responses) lie mostly with the challenges/bbeg's, controlled by the DM.
This dynamic can be reversed, so that they lie with the characters, controlled by the players.

If the DM wants this reversal of his/her own volition, you get our sandbox game.

If the DM really doesn't but it happens anyway, you get your 'jerk player railroad' game.

Some DM's (and players) like the change in challenge this can bring.
This you will just have to accept.

Segev
2018-05-09, 11:06 AM
Which is obviously why we should continue to engage him and allow him to derail every single thread he comes into contact with. :smalltongue:


Indeed.

Segev, I have a ton of respect for you as a poster, so I say this with zero disrespect... but please, please, please, for the love of all that is good, stop feeding that troll.

Points taken.

I really wish I could nail down his argumentative style and turn it around on him, but I can't maintain it for more than a sentence or two. There is a surrealist beauty to his almost-logic, from an aesthetic standpoint. You can see, nearly, how he can justify in his own mind what he's saying, and it takes genuine effort to prize apart the misconceptions and misrepresentations from what you actually said in what he is arguing against.

But yeah, he's just repeating himself at this point, which has me repeating myself. I'll stop responding. ...hopefully I can keep up that promise this time. >_<

Darth Ultron
2018-05-09, 12:47 PM
Oh, that's easy:
In your 'typical' game, the motive forces that drive the game (by requiring responses) lie mostly with the challenges/bbeg's, controlled by the DM.
This dynamic can be reversed, so that they lie with the characters, controlled by the players.

Except what you are describing here makes no sense. OK, so the game does not have a normal DM, and the players do and control everything. Like a no DM Storytelling game. Except your still playing a game with game rules made for a normal DM and players? So...guess the players make the adventure...and then sort of pretend to run though it? And control all the foes...and sort of have the foes atack and such the characters, and then the players ''judge'' everything in their favor. And, well, really, you don't even have a game...it's just the people once known as players doing wish fulfillment.



But yeah, he's just repeating himself at this point, which has me repeating myself. I'll stop responding. ...hopefully I can keep up that promise this time. >_<

But we are making progress...and are so close...just a couple more details to work out.

WindStruck
2018-05-09, 04:15 PM
My opinion on the difference between a sandbox and a more traditional game.

The sandbox successfully gives you the illusion that you can go anywhere and do anything, and your actions will have meaningful consequences.

When you have a linear story, it can be hard or even impossible to do anything but what is expected. For instance, the world might end if you don't stop the big bad... Or for more aggressive railroading DMs, a series of more forced and contrived situations that move the character in the "right" direction.

A successful sandbox will ultimately depend on how the players perceive it. Even if the DM is using 90% prewritten modules, with good improvisation skills and a bit of planning, a player who is unaware of those modules might think it was all original content, and as long as it doesn't feel like they are expected to be doing something specific, it should pass.

Segev
2018-05-09, 05:14 PM
My opinion on the difference between a sandbox and a more traditional game.

The sandbox successfully gives you the illusion that you can go anywhere and do anything, and your actions will have meaningful consequences.

When you have a linear story, it can be hard or even impossible to do anything but what is expected. For instance, the world might end if you don't stop the big bad... Or for more aggressive railroading DMs, a series of more forced and contrived situations that move the character in the "right" direction.

A successful sandbox will ultimately depend on how the players perceive it. Even if the DM is using 90% prewritten modules, with good improvisation skills and a bit of planning, a player who is unaware of those modules might think it was all original content, and as long as it doesn't feel like they are expected to be doing something specific, it should pass.
Sandboxes aren't about the content being "original." They're about that "illusion" you mention in the second paragraph not being illusory.

The GM can use modules to build his world, but if he's running a sandbox, he can't rely on plot-heavy modules working the way the modules lay out the plot.

WindStruck
2018-05-09, 09:10 PM
Sandboxes aren't about the content being "original." They're about that "illusion" you mention in the second paragraph not being illusory.

The GM can use modules to build his world, but if he's running a sandbox, he can't rely on plot-heavy modules working the way the modules lay out the plot.

The problem is, if you are exploring a brand new world, and then the DM decides to throw in a module that you just happened to have done before, not only do you know what is going to happen and be at quite the risk for metagaming, but that whole experience is jarring. Regardless of any illusion of freedom you might feel, that experience will kick you out of it.

Speaking of modules, you could of course, let players do any random thing they wished, with consequences even. But again, if they were to fly off the rails and the DM has to make something up, some people wouldn't be that great at improvisation and keeping track of everything, and the transition would be noticeable and full of plot holes.

The difference in this case is simply the mindframe of the DM. Comedians who frequently improv will still be very hillarious, script or no script, in any sort of random situations. But now imagine you're a comedian that writes your routine and practices it, and suddenly halfway through, you can't use the latter half and have to make the rest up. I just think it's a lot harder going from a script to non-script, rather than always considering the possibility that things could deviate at any moment.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-05-09, 09:29 PM
The difference in this case is simply the mindframe of the DM. Comedians who frequently improv will still be very hillarious, script or no script, in any sort of random situations. But now imagine you're a comedian that writes your routine and practices it, and suddenly halfway through, you can't use the latter half and have to make the rest up. I just think it's a lot harder going from a script to non-script, rather than always considering the possibility that things could deviate at any moment.

Is your point just that sandbox gaming is harder? Because that's not a very insightful point.

WindStruck
2018-05-09, 10:18 PM
Is your point just that sandbox gaming is harder? Because that's not a very insightful point.

Feel free to prove otherwise.

Boci
2018-05-09, 10:21 PM
Feel free to prove otherwise.

They didn't say it was wrong, they said it was obvious. Ofcourse sandboxes are harder than preplanned adventures.

WindStruck
2018-05-09, 10:48 PM
My point was that this illusion of meaningful choice is something very fragile, so using a module might disrupt that feeling. So might being caught off guard and having to come up with something quickly... which could make the events happening seem contrived and unbelievable, or not thought out.

If a player even suspects there is maybe something they were "meant" to do, then the game can seem like less of a sand box.

It's my two cents and it probably doesn't matter, but it's pretty rude to quote a portion of what someone wrote, take it out of context, and then call it not insightful.

Boci
2018-05-09, 10:51 PM
My point was that this illusion of meaningful choice is something very fragile, so using a module might disrupt that feeling. So might being caught off guard and having to come up with something quickly... which could make the events happening seem contrived and unbelievable, or not thought out.

If a player even suspects there is maybe something they were "meant" to do, then the game can seem like less of a sand box.

It's my two cents and it probably doesn't matter, but it's pretty rude to quote a portion of what someone wrote, take it out of context, and then call it not insightful.

Yes, so probably idea is to either run a real sandbox, or run a module/pre-planned adventure and be open to the players about this fact. Running an illusionary sandbox just sounds like bad DMing.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-05-09, 10:58 PM
If a player even suspects there is maybe something they were "meant" to do, then the game can seem like less of a sand box.

It doesn't "seem" like less of a sandbox. It is less of a sandbox. What you're saying is that sandboxes are too hard so you should pretend to do one instead.

Yes, sandboxes are hard. Either do them right or don't do them at all.

Nifft
2018-05-10, 12:09 AM
Running a sandbox is more work.

However, that hard work doesn't need to fall on the DM alone. It's possible to get the players to do a lot of the work, with the DM acting as more of an editor / coordinator and less of a one-person content production team.

Segev
2018-05-10, 02:43 PM
Indeed. The point people are arguing right now isn't that sandboxes aren't a lot of work/difficult to run, but rather that the choices sandboxes empower the players/PCs to make are illusory.

The key to a sandbox is that those choices aren't illusory. They really exist, and really matter.

Nifft
2018-05-10, 03:29 PM
Indeed. The point people are arguing right now isn't that sandboxes aren't a lot of work/difficult to run, but rather that the choices sandboxes empower the players/PCs to make are illusory.

The key to a sandbox is that those choices aren't illusory. They really exist, and really matter.

Yes.

Getting the players to do some (or most) of the work is a great way to structurally ensure that this illusion of choice isn't just an illusion, and as a side effect it can help to augment & improve their buy-in to the world in general.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-10, 03:52 PM
Indeed. The point people are arguing right now isn't that sandboxes aren't a lot of work/difficult to run, but rather that the choices sandboxes empower the players/PCs to make are illusory.

The key to a sandbox is that those choices aren't illusory. They really exist, and really matter.

Exactly.

Which has been explained to a series of "but isn't it fake?" posters in excruciating detail for weeks on end across multiple threads at this point.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-10, 07:30 PM
The sandbox successfully gives you the illusion that you can go anywhere and do anything, and your actions will have meaningful consequences.



Yes, this is it. I even go one step more and say it's Reality Gaming: Everyone, while full well knowing that is just a game and it's all an illusion...they pretend it is 'real'.

Nifft
2018-05-10, 07:34 PM
Yes, this is it. I even go one step more and say it's Reality Gaming: Everyone, while full well knowing that is just a game and it's all an illusion...they pretend it is 'real'.

We call that a role-playing game.

Sandbox games are indeed role-playing games.

But not all role-playing games are sandbox games, of course.

Psikerlord
2018-05-10, 08:10 PM
Running a sandbox is more work.

However, that hard work doesn't need to fall on the DM alone. It's possible to get the players to do a lot of the work, with the DM acting as more of an editor / coordinator and less of a one-person content production team.

I'm not convinced sandboxes are more work. It is a different kind of prep - you are prepping to improvise - lots of random tables, lists of names/brief npcs, some sketch maps, a handful of half constructed adventure skeletons at your beck and call, good grasp of the immediate area the PCs are in. Then you wing it from there, maybe the PCs follow a hook into a published module, maybe they go off on a completely wacky side trek which the GM adlibs (wiht teh assistance of his improv tools and tables). But this isnt necessarily more work than reading, for example, a 250 page adventure path cover to cover, just to ensure you know how it all hangs together before you run it. And even then you'll still need your name lists and most of the other tools etc anyway.

The main difference is the sandbox doesnt need a bunch of material beyond the next session. You just need to be prepared for what's about to happen in this session, and that's all. If you have a pre-made sandbox in particular, and just tweak it, it will be less work than an AP.

But I certainly agree players can do part of the work by coming up with side treks they want to pursue, etc, and the GM just runs with it.

Quertus
2018-05-12, 12:59 PM
My comment wasn't directed you, it was directed at the bizarro false dichotomy that a certain troll keeps asserting.

However... you seem to be asserting that in order to avoid determinism, one needs to use something like "random" tables. I prefer to just do what reality does, and have the course of events play out as they occur. People have plans, people try to make certain events occur... "the world" does not. There is no "this is what will happen in a week if the PCs don't intervene", the PCs aren't special, all those other "people"/characters involved, and they're all competing and intervening and pushing to make what they want to happen, happen.

Nothing happens until it happens.

You've put forth sentiment against precalculation before.

I've run the same module with multiple groups. I know what will happen if the PCs do the same thing as one of the last groups. How does that differ from knowing what will happen if the PCs weren't there?


The sandbox successfully gives you the illusion that you can go anywhere and do anything, and your actions will have meaningful consequences.


Regardless of any illusion of freedom you might feel, that experience will kick you out of it.


My point was that this illusion of meaningful choice is something very fragile

What is it with you and illusions? Yes, illusions are fragile - so don't use illusions. Let the players make actual meaningful choices, with actual consequences. Why is that so hard to acknowledge?


Yes, so probably idea is to either run a real sandbox, or run a module/pre-planned adventure and be open to the players about this fact. Running an illusionary sandbox just sounds like bad DMing.

Agreed.

However, I believe that the idea was to include certain content from modules in a sandbox. So, there's this Tomb of Horrors. Oh, so you're gonna kill everyone who lives on top, add their bodies to your undead army, spread rumors about the tomb, and either waylay adventurers who come to raid the tomb, or search their bodies after the tomb kills them? Cool. Oh, when the Dragon kidnaps the princess, you'll give the Dragon the Tomb's riches, along with spices to make the princess tastier, as part of your bid to befriend the Dragon? Cool.


It doesn't "seem" like less of a sandbox. It is less of a sandbox. What you're saying is that sandboxes are too hard so you should pretend to do one instead.

Yes, sandboxes are hard. Either do them right or don't do them at all.

I'm on the "more work" side here, but it's, IMO, better if its a labor of love than "work".


The key to a sandbox is that those choices aren't illusory. They really exist, and really matter.

Do we need more of a definition of a sandbox than this?

Darth Ultron
2018-05-12, 03:42 PM
What is it with you and illusions? Yes, illusions are fragile - so don't use illusions. Let the players make actual meaningful choices, with actual consequences. Why is that so hard to acknowledge?


The game itself is Fiction: it is not real. You can even say the gameplay is an illusion.

So when your playing a fictional, not real character in a fictional, not real game, doing fictional, not real things in a fictional, not real world.....you can't make actual, real, meaningful choices, with actual real consequences. Because it is all not real.

Like some fictional not real orc guards (that are really DM NPCs) are guarding a door. The player has their character attack the orc guards. Then the player just sits back all amazed at the actual meaningful choice, with actual consequence, as the orc guards ''fought back for real''. The player just gets lost in the thought that the fictional, not real orcs ''fought back for real''....when in reality it was, of course, just the DM saying what happened and what the fictional not real DM npcs do. Though, true, some DMs also think the orc guards are real too, and even as they as the DM have the orc guards do something they think they are ''not doing anything'' and...somehow...the orc guards are doing something ''for real''.

WindStruck
2018-05-12, 04:09 PM
The reason I say there is an illusion of meaningful choice is because as someone rightly pointed out, it is the DM that decides the outcome of every action.

And to those who claim running a sandbox is less work.. I submit that when a player is trying to get past a door that is locked, it is far easier to simply say, 'the door is unpickable' or 'the door is indestructible' or 'there's no other possible way around' than actually simulating some of their crazy decisions.

Nifft
2018-05-12, 04:47 PM
Do we need more of a definition of a sandbox than this?

Non-sandbox games can also have meaningful choices, so no -- what you quoted is not sufficient as a definition.

It's one of the central features of a sandbox game, but not a feature exclusive to sandbox games.

Xuc Xac
2018-05-12, 04:55 PM
The game itself is Fiction: it is not real. You can even say the gameplay is an illusion.

So when your playing a fictional, not real character in a fictional, not real game, doing fictional, not real things in a fictional, not real world.....you can't make actual, real, meaningful choices, with actual real consequences. Because it is all not real.


I suppose if you make a bad move in chess and your king is checkmated, you claim "I didn't really lose! It's just a game! It's not even a real king!"

Darth Ultron
2018-05-12, 05:29 PM
. I submit that when a player is trying to get past a door that is locked, it is far easier to simply say, 'the door is unpickable' or 'the door is indestructible' or 'there's no other possible way around' than actually simulating some of their crazy decisions.

This is more of just DM style.

A lot of classic DMs do the Narration Style: This is the DM telling the Players things Outside the Gameplay. It's a lot like the author of a novel telling a reader that something ''is'' or ''is not'' something. It gives the feeling that the DM and players are detached and just ''watching'' the gameplay. This DM would say something like ''the door is locked and no craft of man or magic can open it!" or more simply ''the door is indestructible".

A lot of other DMs do Immersion Style: The players only know the information their characters do, mostly based on the DMs descriptions of things. It gives the feeling of a living, breathing world. This DM will just describe the door physically, but won't add anything else about it.


I suppose if you make a bad move in chess and your king is checkmated, you claim "I didn't really lose! It's just a game! It's not even a real king!"

Well...yes? Chess IS just a game.

Why....when you play Chess to you ''fear for your kingdom"? Do you hold a funeral for your 'checked' king?

OldTrees1
2018-05-12, 05:37 PM
The reason I say there is an illusion of meaningful choice is because as someone rightly pointed out, it is the DM that decides the outcome of every action.

You are right that by default, the specific imbalance in power between the players and the DM results in the DM having complete control over whether they will include player agency or choose to not include player agency. The DM decides the outcome of every action and have the literal power to choose to use that power in any way the wish.

However, the DM can choose to make real meaningful choices rather than just illusions by choosing how they will and will not use the power they have. This act by the DM is what creates player agency and creates meaningful choices. These are no longer illusions but rather are just as real as the language you speak with.

This is why you are being chastised for calling it illusions. Calling it illusions either fails to communicate your understanding or betrays your failure to understand that the DM chose for them to not be illusions and in so doing made them real rather than illusionary.

It is sort of like if I promised you your choice of a penny or a dollar. You getting that penny or dollar is an illusion because I could decide to not give you the one you choose or even not give you either of them. But what if I, the person in control of the situation, decided not to have it be illusionary? What if I decided that I would give you the penny or dollar you chose no matter what? In that case you are absolutely getting the penny or dollar you chose because I already decide to honor your decision. By doing so I, the one in control of the situation, chose to let you really be in control of the situation by merit of the choice I had made to honor your, previously powerless but now meaningful, choice.


And to those who claim running a sandbox is less work.. I submit that when a player is trying to get past a door that is locked, it is far easier to simply say, 'the door is unpickable' or 'the door is indestructible' or 'there's no other possible way around' than actually simulating some of their crazy decisions.

While a boring answer, the actual answer to whether a sandbox is more/less work is: "It depends".

If there is a locked door (the door is a metaphor) that the players want to get past and you did not plan for them getting past that door. The ease of running the content beyond the door vs the ease of getting the players to stop trying is not a universal A is harder than B.

If the players are constantly finding doors that you did not plan on, then running with one of those diversions would be less work than hours of you coming up with excuses for why the players can't get through any of the doors.

On the other hand if the players are rarely finding such doors, then coming up with an excuse takes much less work than generating all the content that would be on the other side of the door.

So I will say that I consider running a sandbox to be more difficult than running a linear game, but at the same time I find running a sandbox to be easier than running a linear game.

Xuc Xac
2018-05-12, 05:47 PM
Well...yes? Chess IS just a game.

Why....when you play Chess to you ''fear for your kingdom"? Do you hold a funeral for your 'checked' king?

When I play chess, I try to win by making moves that are allowed by the rules. If I lose, I don't claim that I didn't lose because the king's not really a king with actual authority over anyone.

dascarletm
2018-05-12, 06:41 PM
The characters are fictional and the setting is fictional, but the game is as real as any other game that exists. There is gameplay, because that was designed (unless this is just a completely free form role-play, but I assume we are all playing some sort of published RPG.

Pleh
2018-05-12, 07:28 PM
The reason I say there is an illusion of meaningful choice is because as someone rightly pointed out, it is the DM that decides the outcome of every action.

The fact that the DM decides the outcome of every action makes a choice illusory IF and ONLY IF the DM has decided to provide the players with the same outcome regardless of their choice.

Just because the game is ficticious doesn't mean that elements of the game aren't real.

If the DM provides a set of choices for the players and the selection between these choices causes the DM to move the story along a path unique to that choice (and distinct from the consequences of the alternative choices), then the choice itself was real no matter how fictitious the scenario was.

Do not conflate an illusory scenario with an illusory choice. They are mutually exclusive properties.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-12, 11:12 PM
The fact that the DM decides the outcome of every action makes a choice illusory IF and ONLY IF the DM has decided to provide the players with the same outcome regardless of their choice.

Just because the game is ficticious doesn't mean that elements of the game aren't real.

If the DM provides a set of choices for the players and the selection between these choices causes the DM to move the story along a path unique to that choice (and distinct from the consequences of the alternative choices), then the choice itself was real no matter how fictitious the scenario was.

Do not conflate an illusory scenario with an illusory choice. They are mutually exclusive properties.

The point is: whatever happens is what the DM says happens. The players have no power, or ability to make any choice.

Sure everyone gets so caught up on the ''if the DM just follows their planned path, and no matter what the players do, that planned path happens'' is Badwrongfun! And endlessly complains. But, it's no different from the careless, clueless DM that simply does things on a whim. Or any other case where the DM decides what happens. And at the extreme the clueless DM can just let the players have control of the game and alter the game reality to whatever the players want: but, of course, this is not making choices...this is altering game reality.

A crafty DM can make it ''look and feel'' to the players that their actions matter...but they don't. After all, the DM will always make the final call. I lot like Railroading, it all depends on the players believing the illusion.

Pleh
2018-05-12, 11:34 PM
The point is: whatever happens is what the DM says happens. The players have no power, or ability to make any choice.

You have demonstrated an inability to argue honestly and this is the perfect example of it.

Players have power to choose when the DM gives them the power to choose, which is exactly the definition of sandbox.

Bear in mind that the players granted the DM power over the game when they allowed the DM to run the game for them. They can revoke that allowance by leaving the game at any time.

So clearly, the DM doesn't actually have any power, just the illusion of control.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-13, 12:03 AM
Players have power to choose when the DM gives them the power to choose, which is exactly the definition of sandbox.

Bear in mind that the players granted the DM power over the game when they allowed the DM to run the game for them. They can revoke that allowance by leaving the game at any time.

So clearly, the DM doesn't actually have any power, just the illusion of control.


The above makes no sense though. Sure the players can leave...but as long as they are in the game they are powerless.

How do the players ''choose'' to give the DM power when the DM has all the power always?

WindStruck
2018-05-13, 12:24 AM
Players have exactly as much power in a D&D game as they do in a S&M dungeon: the safe word.

That threat of leaving entirely is the only leverage they have. I wouldn't say that's a lot of power. It's a small bargaining tool, to try and get an experience you want while still staying in the game.

On a few occasions, I have had to actually leave a game, for putting up with some things that were too ridiculous. Even after wielding that "power" I had, every experience leading up to it wasn't pleasant, and I still do not look back fondly on the events that unfolded. When things get to that point and you just have to bail, I think it's a bad experience for everyone involved.

Florian
2018-05-13, 01:15 AM
@Illusion:

I think that is very dependent on what one personally perceives as an illusion. For example, when the gm prepares and populates the whole game world, what's decided on that level will have a huge influence on the choices the players can make in the actual game. This will also probably set the mark for what could be considered to be "meaningful choices". For example, including a "rebellious" CG city in an otherwise LE Empire will set the tone for what could develop, while having a good feeling for what scope of endeavor it would take to make that city actually succeed at seceding, whiteout pre-planning how that should be done, will affect what is "meaningful".

So, it could be argued that the more detailed the sites/NPC that are used as building blocks for the sandbox are, the more the whole thing starts to turn into a module.

OldTrees1
2018-05-13, 02:29 AM
Players have exactly as much power in a D&D game as they do in a S&M dungeon: the safe word.

That threat of leaving entirely is the only leverage they have. I wouldn't say that's a lot of power. It's a small bargaining tool, to try and get an experience you want while still staying in the game.

I do not know how to discuss it in depth in a PG manner so I will be brief:
The threat to leave is entirely unilateral. You are not tied down and thus you can just walk out regardless of the DM's opinion on the matter. The invocation of a safeword is only unilateral if the dom can be trusted to honor the safeword regardless of their opinion on the matter. In other words, it is a power that only exists because the dom granted that power to the sub by the dom deciding to honor the safeword no matter what. Of course it is for this reason that subs look for doms they can trust to honor the safeword. Obviously the DM betraying the players is nowhere near as heinous.

So the safeword, on a mechanical level looking at power, is more akin to player agency (a power given to the players by the DM and made real by the DM deciding to make it real) than it is akin to the threat to leave (a completely unilateral power unless the DM is locking you inside the room or otherwise being necessary for your exit).

Florian
2018-05-13, 03:58 AM
@OldTrees1:

In short, that's more or less the "standard problem" we´re facing in several systems: The burden of being at once neutral judge/referee, at the same time being the antagonist.

Pleh
2018-05-13, 04:43 AM
The above makes no sense though. Sure the players can leave...but as long as they are in the game they are powerless.

How do the players ''choose'' to give the DM power when the DM has all the power always?

The above makes no sense.

The DM never has all the power always. They only get the power when the other players allow them to run the game.

Florian
2018-05-13, 04:46 AM
The above makes no sense.

The DM never has all the power always. They only get the power when the other players allow them to run the game.

Don't try to deceive yourself. Even the basic Players/Referee structure, more so the basic Creator/Consumer structure, is based on an imbalance of roles and power structure.

Pleh
2018-05-13, 04:52 AM
Don't try to deceive yourself. Even the basic Players/Referee structure, more so the basic Creator/Consumer structure, is based on an imbalance of roles and power structure.

Let me put it this way then:

The DM pushes too hard, the players leave, the game is over (even if the DM "continues" in some irrelevant narrative in their own mind, it's just a novel, not a game), the power is gone.

They never had power. They had permission.

Florian
2018-05-13, 05:24 AM
Let me put it this way then:

The DM pushes too hard, the players leave, the game is over (even if the DM "continues" in some irrelevant narrative in their own mind, it's just a novel, not a game), the power is gone.

They never had power. They had permission.

So, and? As long as we have a very "traditional" workload distribution of Provider/Consumer, that will not change and eff "consumer rights" when they won't accept a more balanced model.

Pleh
2018-05-13, 07:40 AM
So, and? As long as we have a very "traditional" workload distribution of Provider/Consumer, that will not change and eff "consumer rights" when they won't accept a more balanced model.

So you're not disagreeing that DM power is an illusion.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-13, 08:13 AM
Someone trying to claim that the "GM - other players" relationship is the same as a "dom - sub" relationship...

...tells us everyone we need to know about their broken view of gaming.

WindStruck
2018-05-13, 08:21 AM
Someone trying to claim that the "GM - other players" relationship is the same as a "dom - sub" relationship...

...tells us everyone we need to know about their broken view of gaming.

It's called an analogy. And it's a remarkably good one.

Please keep your assumptions to yourself. I'm sure they're completely wrong.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-13, 08:50 AM
Anyone else find it odd that we've had yet another account suddenly pop-up in the general RP forum to make arrogant, denigrating, statements about "sandbox games" while promoting a view of GMing that's based on power and abuse?

Seems like there's a pattern developing here.

Boci
2018-05-13, 09:18 AM
Players have exactly as much power in a D&D game as they do in a S&M dungeon: the safe word.

That threat of leaving entirely is the only leverage they have. I wouldn't say that's a lot of power. It's a small bargaining tool, to try and get an experience you want while still staying in the game.

You are seriously overestimating the power of a GM. Without player co-operation they are nothing.

DM: The goblin deals 23 points of damage. You're dead.
Player: No they don't. We're level one, we are not facing goblins capable of dealing that much damage. It dealt 5, leaving me aliv-
DM: No, I said you were dead, you cannot act.
Players: Well, we're not going to play in a game where goblins who can deal 23 damage at level 1

Standstill. The DM doesn't have any power to break this. And its probably easier for a group to find a new DM than it is for a DM to find a new group, they are likely in a stronger position bargainingwise. Often in a group of 4 players, one of them could become a DM. They can cut the DM out of the picture and continue playing with little problem, and option the DM doesn't have.

OldTrees1
2018-05-13, 09:20 AM
@OldTrees1:

In short, that's more or less the "standard problem" we´re facing in several systems: The burden of being at once neutral judge/referee, at the same time being the antagonist.

Huh? I was not talking about a problem? I was talking about how the DM can grant the Players non illusionary power just like the Players granted the DM non illusionary power. Aka a basic understanding of one of the primitive concepts that allow someone to understand what a sandbox is.


Anyone else find it odd that we've had yet another account suddenly pop-up in the general RP forum to make arrogant, denigrating, statements about "sandbox games" while promoting a view of GMing that's based on power and abuse?

Seems like there's a pattern developing here.

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the analogy Windstruck and I were using to discuss/debate the various power exchanges involved in RPGs including the power exchange (power exchange =/= "power and abuse") that is the DM creating a meaningful choice rather than the illusion of a meaningful choice. Rather than try to correct some of you background assumptions, let me translate:

In chronological order
Windscar: The Players only have the power to leave. All other actions happen after the players have granted the DM control over the game. So while the Players get choices, the DM is technically in a position where they have the power to decide what happens. (Sidenote: This was a descriptive statement not a judgement/advocating statement)
OldTrees: That is initially true, but the DM can decide to give the players a choice and decide to respect their decision. As a result the DM is giving the players control over the outcome of that choice.
...

Of course you, Max Killjoy, understand the consequences and benefits that arise from this as evidenced by your comments in other threads. So I am not too worried if you don't zoom in far enough it as the various power exchanges rather than seeing it on the high level as player agency.

WindStruck
2018-05-13, 10:00 AM
Anyone else find it odd that we've had yet another account suddenly pop-up in the general RP forum to make arrogant, denigrating, statements about "sandbox games" while promoting a view of GMing that's based on power and abuse?

Seems like there's a pattern developing here.

aaaah, right. You totally got me. I'm just another sock puppet. My ruse didn't work.

I guess it wasn't believable enough that I suddenly made this account back in 2012, and posted so much in other games and topics that it got the title "titan in the playground"

Well played, detective. Next time, I might try using a slightly different stance, or only posting in riddles.

Koo Rehtorb
2018-05-13, 10:08 AM
A GM does not have absolute power to decide anything they want and I am not shy about pointing out when a GM is doing a thing that breaks the rules and I expect them to stop doing the thing that's breaking the rules.

ImNotTrevor
2018-05-13, 01:58 PM
A GM does not have absolute power to decide anything they want and I am not shy about pointing out when a GM is doing a thing that breaks the rules and I expect them to stop doing the thing that's breaking the rules.

Something something consent of the governed something something.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-13, 02:21 PM
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of the analogy Windstruck and I were using to discuss/debate the various power exchanges involved in RPGs including the power exchange (power exchange =/= "power and abuse") that is the DM creating a meaningful choice rather than the illusion of a meaningful choice. Rather than try to correct some of you background assumptions, let me translate:

In chronological order
Windscar: The Players only have the power to leave. All other actions happen after the players have granted the DM control over the game. So while the Players get choices, the DM is technically in a position where they have the power to decide what happens. (Sidenote: This was a descriptive statement not a judgement/advocating statement)
OldTrees: That is initially true, but the DM can decide to give the players a choice and decide to respect their decision. As a result the DM is giving the players control over the outcome of that choice.
...

Of course you, Max Killjoy, understand the consequences and benefits that arise from this as evidenced by your comments in other threads. So I am not too worried if you don't zoom in far enough it as the various power exchanges rather than seeing it on the high level as player agency.

I'd say it's wrong to view / approach it as a matter of power and dominance in the first place.

All human relationships based on power are, IMO, halfway to toxic just by being about power.


E: what makes me suspicious is that every time several people give up on DU's nonsense, another poster "just happens" to enter the thread with exactly the same insulting, dismissive attitude, and exactly the same view of total DM dominance and power. The combination of timing and similarity is... quite the coincidence. Some old saying about a duck...

137beth
2018-05-13, 02:21 PM
The GM always chooses what happens next. It fundamentally can't be any other way because no matter how much you let players decide where they want to go and what they want to do, the GM has to think of something for them to find there and how the world reacts to what they do. Whether they do that by improvising on the spot or by working it out beforehand.

That's what the GM is for, after all.

You don't need a "GM" to do that at all (http://www.wordmillgames.com/mythic-rpg.html).

Pleh
2018-05-13, 02:25 PM
I'd say it's wrong to view / approach it as a matter of power and dominance in the first place.

All human relationships based on power are, IMO, halfway to toxic just by being about power.

Agree 110%.

Where I think many get confused is that the game itself tends to be focused on power fantasy.

The characters can relate to their world through power and its fine. When players relate to each othee that way, it's unhealthy.

Nifft
2018-05-13, 02:29 PM
Something something consent of the governed something something.

In my magical dominance fantasy, consent is banned.


A GM does not have absolute power to decide anything they want and I am not shy about pointing out when a GM is doing a thing that breaks the rules and I expect them to stop doing the thing that's breaking the rules.

It must be tough for your DM to surprise your character with something that doesn't adhere to whatever you as a player already know.

OldTrees1
2018-05-13, 04:15 PM
I'd say it's wrong to view / approach it as a matter of power and dominance in the first place.

All human relationships based on power are, IMO, halfway to toxic just by being about power.

I can see the faulty communication just got worse. Any objections you have to the field of game theory are better pursued separate from your views about relationships. If that sentence seemed like a non sequitur, then consider how your statements appear.

So, starting again, trying to give you the context you need to understand the dialogue you butted into:

In a game with a DM, the DM presents the PCs with a choice.
(reserved for later)
The Players have their PCs make a choice.
The DM then decides what will happen.


In step 4 the DM has the capability to exercise their ability to decide what will happen in a manner that negates the relevance of steps 1 and 3 by deciding what will happen without regard for the choice the PCs made.

Do you agree that the above capability does exist even if we both frequently criticize it? (congrats you understand the first post)

Now watch as the DM does 1 extra thing and the consequences thereof:

In a game with a DM, the DM presents the PCs with a choice.
The DM decides to have the PC's choice determine what will happen no matter what.
The Players have their PCs make a choice.
The DM then enacts what the PC's choice determined will happen.


Can you see how the addition of step 2 changed the nature of step 4? If step 2 exists then the DM does not have the capability to negate steps 1 and 3 because the DM intentionally sacrificed that capability in order to make the choice in 1 & 3 a meaningful choice.

Do you agree that such meaningful choices exist and are not illusions? (congrats you understand the second post)

Edit:
After this post Windstruck made a 3rd post that repeated the content of the 1st post. Namely that prima facie, the DM is the final arbiter of what happens.

Did that help clear things up for you about the dialogue to jumped into? It was not about calling DMs Doms or about advocating or approaching either as being about power/abuse. Rather it is taking the lessons of game theory and applying them rigorously to see the primitive components of the multiple person interaction that leads to the difference between the illusion of choice vs the reality of choice in a discussion about whether choices can be real (spoiler: they can).

Quertus
2018-05-13, 07:44 PM
The reason I say there is an illusion of meaningful choice is because as someone rightly pointed out, it is the DM that decides the outcome of every action.

And to those who claim running a sandbox is less work.. I submit that when a player is trying to get past a door that is locked, it is far easier to simply say, 'the door is unpickable' or 'the door is indestructible' or 'there's no other possible way around' than actually simulating some of their crazy decisions.

Eh, no. The Banker doesn't determine how much money I owe for landing on Park Place, the rules do.


Players have exactly as much power in a D&D game as they do in a S&M dungeon: the safe word.

That threat of leaving entirely is the only leverage they have.


The above makes no sense.

The DM never has all the power always. They only get the power when the other players allow them to run the game.


Let me put it this way then:

The DM pushes too hard, the players leave, the game is over (even if the DM "continues" in some irrelevant narrative in their own mind, it's just a novel, not a game), the power is gone.

They never had power. They had permission.


A GM does not have absolute power to decide anything they want and I am not shy about pointing out when a GM is doing a thing that breaks the rules and I expect them to stop doing the thing that's breaking the rules.

I've seen players - individually or collectively - completely override bad GMs. I've seen players kick bad GMs out, and elect someone else to continue the campaign. I haven't seen more than two GMs get beaten up in the parking lot for this kind of thing.

GMs have no more power than they are given. Which, at my tables, is generally petty close to "follow the rules or GTFO".


@Illusion:

I think that is very dependent on what one personally perceives as an illusion. For example, when the gm prepares and populates the whole game world, what's decided on that level will have a huge influence on the choices the players can make in the actual game. This will also probably set the mark for what could be considered to be "meaningful choices". For example, including a "rebellious" CG city in an otherwise LE Empire will set the tone for what could develop, while having a good feeling for what scope of endeavor it would take to make that city actually succeed at seceding, whiteout pre-planning how that should be done, will affect what is "meaningful".

So, it could be argued that the more detailed the sites/NPC that are used as building blocks for the sandbox are, the more the whole thing starts to turn into a module.

That's nice. I'll let you know if I decide to leverage that city in my creation of an undead army atop the horrible tomb, or in befriending the Dragon that kidnapped and threatened to eat the princess.

These elements only shape the narrative to the extent that the PCs interact with them. Which, in a proper sandbox, should almost always have the option to be "not at all".


It must be tough for your DM to surprise your character with something that doesn't adhere to whatever you as a player already know.

For me, the GM either has to have established trust, or explain themselves.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-13, 08:31 PM
The above makes no sense.

The DM never has all the power always. They only get the power when the other players allow them to run the game.

Right...

Step one: the players give the DM all the power.

Step two: the DM has all the power.


You are seriously overestimating the power of a GM. Without player co-operation they are nothing.


Except in a complicated game like D&D with a lot of moving parts, you can't do that sort of thing after 1st level or so. It get really hard at say 5th level or so to say ''how much'' damage a single attack can do.

And this does not even touch on optimization...

WindStruck
2018-05-13, 08:51 PM
I'm not even talking about adhering to the standard D&D rules, guys. I am talking about scenarios where there could be anything of the DM's choosing behind a door. Monsters, traps, treasure, a fair maiden. They can choose how to have their NPCs respond, short of diplomancer abuse. They can either let you buy that diamond to resurrect your friend, or perhaps some thief happened to steal the last one. What monsters you encounter on a journey, if they bother using a random encounter table, if they even bother throwing an encounter at you at all is all up to the DM.

Now, what if the DM was doing their best to be fair and make the most logical outcomes from some players' actions, but they still thought something was unfair, like events were being manipulated? This could arise from a number of factors they simply don't know.. because they simply aren't the all-knowing DM, or it could just be paranoia.

Now consider a DM that is pretty deadset on manipulating the party into taking a certain set of actions... and that party is totally oblivious to that manipulation, thinking it's the best sandbox ever?

As I said, it's the illusion of meaningful choice that makes a sandbox. Not that games don't exist, or players don't exist, or the concept of choices don't exist.

Xuc Xac
2018-05-13, 09:29 PM
As I said, it's the illusion of meaningful choice that makes a sandbox. Not that games don't exist, or players don't exist, or the concept of choices don't exist.

Why should it be an illusion? Couldn't it be a real choice? For example:

Normal sandbox : The DM designs a Dungeon in advance (or places a pre-written module on the map) with the note "In room F, there are two doors on the west wall. Behind the left door, there's a 10x10 room with an angry ogre with a big club who wants to smash some skulls. Behind the right door, there's a 10x10 room with an orc guarding a delicious pie." If the PCs open the left door, they face the ogre. If they open the right door, they have a chance at some orc pie. If they don't bother with either door and go somewhere else, it doesn't matter. The ogre will still be angry and the orc will probably eat the pie by himself.

Illusory sandbox: Same as the normal sandbox, but the ogre is behind the first door the PCs open--whether right or left--and the pie orc is behind the second one, because the DM wants them to face that ogre first (to really earn that pie) but wants it to look like the PCs "chose" it and just weren't "lucky" enough to skip straight to the pie orc on the first guess.

Railroad : Like the illusory sandbox, but if the PCs try to leave room F without opening one of the western doors, they'll find that the entrance to the room has magically locked behind them so they have to try another door to get out.

OldTrees1
2018-05-13, 10:31 PM
I'm not even talking about adhering to the standard D&D rules, guys. I am talking about scenarios where there could be anything of the DM's choosing behind a door. Monsters, traps, treasure, a fair maiden. They can choose how to have their NPCs respond, short of diplomancer abuse. They can either let you buy that diamond to resurrect your friend, or perhaps some thief happened to steal the last one. What monsters you encounter on a journey, if they bother using a random encounter table, if they even bother throwing an encounter at you at all is all up to the DM.

Now, what if the DM was doing their best to be fair and make the most logical outcomes from some players' actions, but they still thought something was unfair, like events were being manipulated? This could arise from a number of factors they simply don't know.. because they simply aren't the all-knowing DM, or it could just be paranoia.

Now consider a DM that is pretty deadset on manipulating the party into taking a certain set of actions... and that party is totally oblivious to that manipulation, thinking it's the best sandbox ever?

As I said, it's the illusion of meaningful choice that makes a sandbox. Not that games don't exist, or players don't exist, or the concept of choices don't exist.

Again, if it is still an illusion then the DM has not created a sandbox yet. Instead the DM has to exercise their own power over themselves to grant the PCs the non illusionary choices that make up the foundation of a sandbox.

If the DM has the power to make an illusionary choice, they also have the power to make a non illusionary choice (aka a real choice which is a prerequisite for a choice to be meaningful) because they are the only obstacle between a choice being illusionary or meaningful.

I know this is DMing 101 but:
When I DM I do this really simple thing. Before the Players respond to a choice I gave them, I decide to respect and run with their choice. *ABRA KADABRA ALAKAZAM* Suddenly when the Players make their choice, the outcomes flow from that choice rather than me having absolute control over the outcome.

Mr Beer
2018-05-13, 11:52 PM
Players have exactly as much power in a D&D game as they do in a S&M dungeon: the safe word.

That threat of leaving entirely is the only leverage they have. I wouldn't say that's a lot of power. It's a small bargaining tool, to try and get an experience you want while still staying in the game.

With normal people involved, they have the leverage of talking to the DM, adult to adult.

If one of my players wants something, I will try to accommodate them. If the group as a whole doesn't like what I'm doing, I'm definitely going to make changes. Kind of ruins the whole point, if I, metaphorically speaking, keep whipping them until they scream out the safe word.

Boci
2018-05-14, 02:35 AM
Right...

Step one: the players give the DM all the power.

Step two: the DM has all the power.

If power was given to you, you don't have absolute power. What was given can be taken away.


Except in a complicated game like D&D with a lot of moving parts, you can't do that sort of thing after 1st level or so. It get really hard at say 5th level or so to say ''how much'' damage a single attack can do.

And this does not even touch on optimization...

Regardless of level and optimization, players can still say "no, that's BS, we're not playing along," to the DM.

Florian
2018-05-14, 03:37 AM
@OldTrees1:

Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my reply to you. What I was trying to say is that in a traditional game, the gm continually wears three different hats as part of the exchange of power:

1 - Creator: The power to create the game world is really absolute and is completely independent of the players.
2 - Judge/Arbiter: The power to deal with, handle and resolve to mechanics/rules level of a game is important and will most likely be centralized on the gm by default.
3 - Storyteller/Facilitator: This is the contested point we're all talking about here and whether shifting that hat over to the players will be the defining factor of a sandbox.

The thing with the "illusion" mainly stems the passive influence (1) will have on (3) when it comes to facilitating emergent play. For example, the choice to heavily borrow some Lovecraft stuff and include that in your basic fantasy game world, will basically pre-set the course of interaction when the players encounter it.

@Pleh:

Whether or not depends on what exactly we're talking about. More traditional game with the clear split between players/characters and gm/world are based on a vastly different power exchange and accompanying workload and responsibility than, say, systems that are aimed towards being gm-less.

Pleh
2018-05-14, 05:15 AM
Right...

Step one: the players give the DM all the power.

Step two: the DM has all the power.

More like

Step one: the players give the DM permission.

Step two: the DM acts under the authority granted by the players

Optional, Step three: the players revoke the permission granted to the DM if they overstep their bounds.

The DM never has power, only permission and the illusion of control.

Florian
2018-05-14, 06:09 AM
More like:

Step 1: Everyone understands the nature of what a game is and to participate means to accept to play by the rules of the game.

Step 2: The rules of the game are (most often, see stuff like house rules) codified in a manual and may form a system. This includes distribution and transfer of power, duties, privileges and so on.

Step 3: The nature of (most, traditional) TTRPGs means that the mechanics are by default incomplete and need at least one participant to act as part of the system, with a special role and function that is vastly different from those of the other participants.

Step 4: Understanding this means to accept that this one participant acts as an agent of the rules of the game, something that all participants opted to be voluntarily bound by.

Nifft
2018-05-14, 06:34 AM
A sandbox game is a role-playing game, and all RPGs are illusions.

In this illusion of a game, the game master and the other players have the illusion of a conversation.

The illusory rules of this illusory game serve as a guide for the illusion of a conversation, giving the illusion of mutual expectations and shared terminology.

Pleh
2018-05-14, 08:36 AM
More like:

Step 1: Everyone understands the nature of what a game is and to participate means to accept to play by the rules of the game.

Step 2: The rules of the game are (most often, see stuff like house rules) codified in a manual and may form a system. This includes distribution and transfer of power, duties, privileges and so on.

Step 3: The nature of (most, traditional) TTRPGs means that the mechanics are by default incomplete and need at least one participant to act as part of the system, with a special role and function that is vastly different from those of the other participants.

Step 4: Understanding this means to accept that this one participant acts as an agent of the rules of the game, something that all participants opted to be voluntarily bound by.

This still says that DMs only have as much power as the rule system gives them. The rule system is given power by the players opting to participate.

The power comes from player permission.

Any sense of DM control is delusional as it is merely a product of player permission and the limits of what the rules allow a DM to do.

Segev
2018-05-14, 10:40 AM
An illusory choice is one where the choice itself is an illusion. There really never was a choice; there was just a chance for the person being presented a choice to express one. The consequences will be the same no matter what, with (at best) a slightly different justification for how it got there.

A real choice is one where the consequences actually differ based on the choice, and do so in a meaningful way. The person presented the choice really does determine what the outcome will be by making the choice. Or at least, heavily influences it.

A meaningful choice first has to be real, and then has to provide the choice-maker enough information about each option that he can make some prediction about the consequences. Maybe not a perfect one, but it should have at least some clue. "I don't want to fight ogres, so I won't take Ogre Trail," for example, would at a minimum let him avoid the multiple ogre encounters on Ogre Trail. The adventurer who wants to face ogres and chooses Ogre Trail, though, should definitely get to face ogres, even if he also winds up facing their Hill Giant enforcer and his pet green dragon.


Whether the choice is illusory or real has nothing to do with whether the events are fictional or not.

You can have an illusory choice in real life: a jerk cop pulls you over and offers you a choice of getting arrested for the cocaine he just dropped into your car, or of giving him the cocaine back and bribing him to leave you alone. If you take option 1, you get arrested and he loots your wallet of all your cash and now you have have his-word-against-yours and he impounds your car in civil asset forfeiture. If you take option 2, he demands all the money in your wallet as the bribe, then arrests you for attempting to bribe an officer and seizes your car in civil asset forfeiture for the cocaine he "found" in it.

This is something that could happen in real life, and if it did, it would be non-fiction. But the choice would still be illusory.


So, stop conflating illusory choices and fictional scenarios; they are not the same thing. A fictional scenario can have non-illusory choices.

Knaight
2018-05-14, 11:54 AM
This is something that could happen in real life, and if it did, it would be non-fiction. But the choice would still be illusory.

Where "could happen" translates to "happens pretty routinely", and "if it did" translates to "when it does", with "would be" becoming "is".

Segev
2018-05-14, 12:23 PM
Where "could happen" translates to "happens pretty routinely", and "if it did" translates to "when it does", with "would be" becoming "is".

Perhaps, but I'd rather not argue one way or t'other on the commonality of it happening IRL, as that can get into politics. I think we can all agree that it's an egregious, illusory choice, which is all I was trying to get across.

Quertus
2018-05-14, 03:14 PM
As I said, it's the illusion of meaningful choice that makes a sandbox. Not that games don't exist, or players don't exist, or the concept of choices don't exist.

No. The actual meaningful choice makes a sandbox. The illusion makes something else.

Imagine if the content writer can write all the content, hand it to the rules arbiter - along with copies in sealed envelopes to all the players - and the rules arbiter runs the game according to the content and the rules. Afterwards, the players open the envelopes. If the players do not agree that the world as presented matches the contents of their envelopes, then it's probably not a sandbox.

Imagine further that there's a video camera recording the GM's rolls. Every time that the GM makes a ruling, he has to record that ruling, like "there's a 50% chance that all the diamonds have been stolen when the party decides to resurrect their fallen ally", so that every die roll and every choice are accounted for. If these rulings are egregiously unrealistic or inconsistent, you probably don't have a sandbox.


More like

Step one: the players give the DM permission.

Step two: the DM acts under the authority granted by the players

Optional, Step three: the players revoke the permission granted to the DM if they overstep their bounds.

The DM never has power, only permission and the illusion of control.

So much this. One of the secrets of leadership is that one does not have power, only permission.


More like:

Step 1: Everyone understands the nature of what a game is and to participate means to accept to play by the rules of the game.

Step 2: The rules of the game are (most often, see stuff like house rules) codified in a manual and may form a system. This includes distribution and transfer of power, duties, privileges and so on.

Step 3: The nature of (most, traditional) TTRPGs means that the mechanics are by default incomplete and need at least one participant to act as part of the system, with a special role and function that is vastly different from those of the other participants.

Step 4: Understanding this means to accept that this one participant acts as an agent of the rules of the game, something that all participants opted to be voluntarily bound by.

So long as the banker is following the rules, and letting the game decide how much I owe for landing on Park Place. If they overstep their bounds, and try to control things outside their designated preview, then they have failed to abide by the agreed upon rules.


A sandbox game is a role-playing game, and all RPGs are illusions.

In this illusion of a game, the game master and the other players have the illusion of a conversation.

The illusory rules of this illusory game serve as a guide for the illusion of a conversation, giving the illusion of mutual expectations and shared terminology.

Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. As to that which I perceive? It may all be an illusion. But my experiences are real.

Further, just as it is possible that I am a brain in a jar, it is also technically possible that some sufficiently powerful being ("God") is creating the worlds of my imagination. Thus, it is technically possible that the game is more real than "reality", in a very real sense. :smalltongue:

KorvinStarmast
2018-05-14, 03:37 PM
Only idiots fail to understand context.

Words can be good or bad depending on the context.

If talking about the outcome of a roulette game, random is not a bad word.

If talking about the decisions made by a DM in a game of D&D, random is a bad word.

Context matters. That's overly broad, and missing some context.

If talking about the decisions made by a DM in a game of D&D, random can become a bad word.

WindStruck
2018-05-14, 05:09 PM
An illusory choice is one where the choice itself is an illusion. There really never was a choice; there was just a chance for the person being presented a choice to express one. The consequences will be the same no matter what, with (at best) a slightly different justification for how it got there.

A real choice is one where the consequences actually differ based on the choice, and do so in a meaningful way. The person presented the choice really does determine what the outcome will be by making the choice. Or at least, heavily influences it.

A meaningful choice first has to be real, and then has to provide the choice-maker enough information about each option that he can make some prediction about the consequences. Maybe not a perfect one, but it should have at least some clue. "I don't want to fight ogres, so I won't take Ogre Trail," for example, would at a minimum let him avoid the multiple ogre encounters on Ogre Trail. The adventurer who wants to face ogres and chooses Ogre Trail, though, should definitely get to face ogres, even if he also winds up facing their Hill Giant enforcer and his pet green dragon.


Whether the choice is illusory or real has nothing to do with whether the events are fictional or not.

You can have an illusory choice in real life: a jerk cop pulls you over and offers you a choice of getting arrested for the cocaine he just dropped into your car, or of giving him the cocaine back and bribing him to leave you alone. If you take option 1, you get arrested and he loots your wallet of all your cash and now you have have his-word-against-yours and he impounds your car in civil asset forfeiture. If you take option 2, he demands all the money in your wallet as the bribe, then arrests you for attempting to bribe an officer and seizes your car in civil asset forfeiture for the cocaine he "found" in it.

This is something that could happen in real life, and if it did, it would be non-fiction. But the choice would still be illusory.


So, stop conflating illusory choices and fictional scenarios; they are not the same thing. A fictional scenario can have non-illusory choices.


No. The actual meaningful choice makes a sandbox. The illusion makes something else.

Imagine if the content writer can write all the content, hand it to the rules arbiter - along with copies in sealed envelopes to all the players - and the rules arbiter runs the game according to the content and the rules. Afterwards, the players open the envelopes. If the players do not agree that the world as presented matches the contents of their envelopes, then it's probably not a sandbox.

Imagine further that there's a video camera recording the GM's rolls. Every time that the GM makes a ruling, he has to record that ruling, like "there's a 50% chance that all the diamonds have been stolen when the party decides to resurrect their fallen ally", so that every die roll and every choice are accounted for. If these rulings are egregiously unrealistic or inconsistent, you probably don't have a sandbox.



So much this. One of the secrets of leadership is that one does not have power, only permission.



So long as the banker is following the rules, and letting the game decide how much I owe for landing on Park Place. If they overstep their bounds, and try to control things outside their designated preview, then they have failed to abide by the agreed upon rules.



Cogito ergo sum. I think, therefore I am. As to that which I perceive? It may all be an illusion. But my experiences are real.

Further, just as it is possible that I am a brain in a jar, it is also technically possible that some sufficiently powerful being ("God") is creating the worlds of my imagination. Thus, it is technically possible that the game is more real than "reality", in a very real sense. :smalltongue:

Ok, just want to quote you guys, thus clogging up the space on this page more, and say I think you're right.

That's one idiot on the internet whose mind you managed to change. Congratulations.

kyoryu
2018-05-14, 05:58 PM
...

I just wanted to say I really admired your .sig. It's almost as correct and good-looking as 2D8HP.

2D8HP
2018-05-14, 11:00 PM
...almost as correct and good-looking as 2D8HP.


2D8HP isn't feeling very correct right now (I'm sure it will pass), as 2D8HP is realizing that he can't long sustain role-playing a PC that's has inclinations that are too different from my own.

Strangely, as a DM portraying diverse NPC's is dead easy, I'm guessing that the difference is how long I have to stay in-character.

As a DM I can do a vile evil NPC, but I tried an evil PC in an "evil campaign", and I can't keep it up, and no matter what my PC is supposed to be they usually turn into a sterotypical Dwarf (because that's closer to me) no matter what I'm playing.

I just didn't identify with NPC's as much as I do with PC's, and that thought brings to mind the thread topic:

Players feel invested in their PC's decisions, and they want those decisions to matter.

I just don't care about "illusionism" or "quantum ogres", but I do care about feeling "Locked into Lameness"


...Locked into Lameness "Your forced to fight a conga-line of antagonists in an arena for an audience, and healing between bouts is provided to drive home the utter pointlesssness of your battles.", is a "railroad"...


Remember when Roy and Belkar were captured and made into gladiators?

Don't do that.

Ever.

I don't care if it's a "Trope", players will suicide their PC's before submitting to capture (or they'll just quit the game) most every time.

"But The Gamesters of Triskelion episode of Star Trek was really cool".

No it wasn't.

"But Gladiator..."

No.

Don't do it.

Learn from The Cage:

CAPTAIN PIKE: Make contact, Number One.

NUMBER ONE: They kept us from seeing this, too. We cut through and never knew it. Captain.
(The communicator isn't working)

MAGISTRATE: As you see, your attempt to escape accomplished nothing.

PIKE: I want to contact our ship.

MAGISTRATE: You are now on the surface where we wished you to be. With the female of your choice, you will now begin carefully guided lives.

PIKE: And start by burying you?

MAGISTRATE: That is your choice. To help you reclaim the planet's surface, our zoological gardens will furnish a variety of plant life.

PIKE: Look, I'll make a deal with you. You and your life for the lives of these two Earth women.

MAGISTRATE: Since our lifespan is many times yours, we have time to evolve you into a society trained to serve as artisans, technicians.

PIKE: Do you understand what I'm saying? You give me proof that our ship is all right, send these two back, and I'll stay with Vina.
(Number One sets her laser pistol to overload)

ONE: It's wrong to create a whole race of humans to live as slaves.

MAGISTRATE: Is this a deception? Do you intend to destroy yourselves?

VINA: What is that?

PIKE: The weapon is building up an overload. A force chamber explosion. You still have time to get underground. Well, go on! (pushes Vina away) Just to show you how primitive humans are, Talosian, you go with her.

VINA: If, if you all think it's this important, then I can't go either. I suppose if they have one human being, they might try again.
(More Talosians arrive)

PIKE: Wait.
(Number One turns off the pistol)

TALOSIAN: Their method of storing records is crude and consumed much time. Are you prepared to assimilate it?
(The Magistrate nods, and the veins on his head throb)

MAGISTRATE: We had not believed this possible. The customs and history of your race show a unique hatred of captivity. Even when it's pleasant and benevolent, you prefer death. This makes you too violent and dangerous a species for our needs.

VINA: He means that they can't use you. You're free to go back to the ship.

PIKE: And that's it? No apologies? You captured one of us, threatened all of us.

TALOSIAN: Your unsuitability has condemned the Talosian race to eventual death. Is this not sufficient?

MAGISTRATE: No other specimen has shown your adaptability. You were our last hope.

PIKE: But wouldn't some form of trade, mutual co-operation?

MAGISTRATE: Your race would learn our power of illusion and destroy itself too.

ONE: Captain, we have transporter control now.

PIKE: Let's get back to the ship.


No "forced to fight" scenarios.

EVER!!!

Boci
2018-05-15, 03:10 AM
I don't care if it's a "Trope", players will suicide their PC's before submitting to capture (or they'll just quit the game) most every time.

Not in my expirience. Players may not like being captured, but they won't suicide and they certainly won't quit the game over it. Depending on the circamstance they may even enjoy being captured, understanding that part of being in a living world not custom designed for them is that they will sometimes be outmatched.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-15, 07:41 PM
If power was given to you, you don't have absolute power. What was given can be taken away.

Regardless of level and optimization, players can still say "no, that's BS, we're not playing along," to the DM.

True, but I did not use the word ''absolute''...

Also True: players can always be Jerks and idiots. Like player Bob has his character cast charm person on an npc, and it does not work. Bob flips out and demands the spell work...but there are plenty of ways in the rules for it not to work.


More like:


Sounds good to me.


The power comes from player permission.

Any sense of DM control is delusional as it is merely a product of player permission and the limits of what the rules allow a DM to do.

The players give up all their power...except the ''take their toys and go home'' power.


Not in my expirience. Players may not like being captured, but they won't suicide and they certainly won't quit the game over it. Depending on the circamstance they may even enjoy being captured, understanding that part of being in a living world not custom designed for them is that they will sometimes be outmatched.

I find it common enough.

A Jerk player will have their character get captured then they will just kill the character and leave the game.

JNAProductions
2018-05-15, 08:04 PM
DU, most of us play with people that aren't enormous tools. And if every single player you encounter is such... There may be another factor at play.

Pleh
2018-05-15, 10:57 PM
The players give up all their power...except the ''take their toys and go home'' power.

Only proves the DM never really had any power to begin with.

RazorChain
2018-05-16, 12:02 AM
Only proves the DM never really had any power to begin with.

This is just starting to be silly. The Goverment has no power because it receives it's power from it's citizens.

Power, authority and status are a little more complex than you can just walk away or take it back.

The only times I've decided not to participate in games is when I was bored with the game or didn't have the time. The instance when I got bored and didn't come back was because nothing was happening...nothing fun that it because the Keeper (CoC) had forgotten to hand out THE VITAL CLUE, which meant the whole game just floundered.

When it comes to all the players just walking away from a game then we are talking about serious abuse of power. I've known GM's who were guiding their uber munchkin GMPC through a pure power fantasy of their own making and still they had players.

So, yes when GM's have reeled in players and the players are participating then the GM has all the power within the game. That power even transfers outside of the game and gives them a certain status or authority withi the group outside of the game.

Im most systems it's acknowledged that the GM creates and controls the game world. He creates or decides upon content to play through. He adjucates and interprets the rules and decides upon the results of dice rolls. He controls everything within the game except the PC's and even then he decides upon what the players can or cannot play.

The Game Master has all the power within the game. Yes he can lose that power, just like a goverments can be toppled

Boci
2018-05-16, 12:05 AM
This is just starting to be silly. The Goverment has no power because it receives it's power from it's citizens.

Power, authority and status are a little more complex than you can just walk away or take it back.

Not really. Part of governments power is an ability to stay in charge in the face of resistance. I can say

"No government, I refuse to listen to you and will not cooperate with any efforts you try"

And the government has options. A DM doesn't. If the players say no, that's the end, they can't call in the cavalry to maintain order.

RazorChain
2018-05-16, 03:07 AM
Not really. Part of governments power is an ability to stay in charge in the face of resistance. I can say

"No government, I refuse to listen to you and will not cooperate with any efforts you try"

And the government has options. A DM doesn't. If the players say no, that's the end, they can't call in the cavalry to maintain order.

Ok...I live in western society. The people of my country have toppled the government twice in the last 10 years because they were unhappy. No shots were fired, only new elections and different people were chosen to lead the government.

The Social Contract means that we surrender some of our freedoms and submit to the authority of the ruler. This is one of the basis of government, democratic government is based on election and decisions of the majority.


What has this do do with the GM? The GM rules, the players submit to his authority during the game. If they aren't happy they can replace him, just like the people can replace the government and elect someone else. If you don't like the government you can leave the country and live somewhere else, just like you can change group if you don't like your current GM. A player leaving the group doesn't remove the GM from power, all he does is submit to the power of a new GM.

Nifft
2018-05-16, 03:34 AM
Not really. Part of governments power is an ability to stay in charge in the face of resistance. I can say

"No government, I refuse to listen to you and will not cooperate with any efforts you try"

And the government has options. A DM doesn't. If the players say no, that's the end, they can't call in the cavalry to maintain order.

If ONE player objects to something in the game, the DM has the power granted by all the other players to coerce that one player to adhere to the rules, or to get out.

If SOME FEW citizens object to something in the state, the government has the power granted by all the other citizens to coerce those few citizens to adhere to the laws, or to get out.


If ALL the players object, they can end the game.

If ALL the citizens object, they can end the government.

Florian
2018-05-16, 06:44 AM
So basically, da blaß mir doch einer nen Schuh auf, DU was spot on from the beginning when differentiating players that understand the roles of the GM as either "agent of the system we agreed to" or "agent of entitlement/wish fulfillment" and pointing out the difference. Well... duh!

Pleh
2018-05-16, 06:46 AM
This is just starting to be silly.

The anti sandbox crowd have been silly about the whole thing for quite some time now. Telling me that I'm not allowed to do that now is just special pleading.


Ok...I live in western society. The people of my country have toppled the government twice in the last 10 years because they were unhappy. No shots were fired, only new elections and different people were chosen to lead the government.

We should be careful to not let this stray into real world politics. Unbefits the forum.

Florian
2018-05-16, 07:03 AM
The anti sandbox crowd have been silly about the whole thing for quite some time now. Telling me that I'm not allowed to do that now is just special pleading.

We should be careful to not let this stray into real world politics. Unbefits the forum.

There is no "anti sandbox crowd". The lines here are drawn between theory and praxis of what a sandbox is, and how you actually go dealing with one and how a GM fits into this.

Pleh
2018-05-16, 07:17 AM
There is no "anti sandbox crowd". The lines here are drawn between theory and praxis of what a sandbox is, and how you actually go dealing with one and how a GM fits into this.

And a GM fits exactly where the players and the rules tell them to.

Quertus
2018-05-16, 08:15 AM
If ONE player objects to something in the game, the DM has the power granted by all the other players to coerce that one player to adhere to the rules, or to get out.

If ALL the players object, they can end the game.

Yup. Or replace the GM. Or browbeat the GM to play by the ****ing rules or GTFO. All of which I've seen happen.


So basically, da blaß mir doch einer nen Schuh auf, DU was spot on from the beginning when differentiating players that understand the roles of the GM as either "agent of the system we agreed to" or "agent of entitlement/wish fulfillment" and pointing out the difference. Well... duh!

You seem to be confusing "agent of the rules vs agent of their own wish fulfillment power trip" with "agent of the system we agreed on vs agent of player entitlement".

The Banker does not get to choose how much I owe for landing on Park Place. It's not "player entitlement" for the players to want to follow the rules of the game.


And a GM fits exactly where the players and the rules tell them to.

Agreed.

Boci
2018-05-16, 08:18 AM
If ALL the players object, they can end the game.

If ALL the citizens object, they can end the government.

Yes, and the first one is 5 people, the second one is...minimum a million. Not a good comparison.

Firthermore, tt doesn't need to be all players. If all but one player objects, that likely enough to. Depending on the group size, losing one player could be a big deal too. Even in a large group, say 6 players, that's still 17% of the group gone over one thing. A sensible DM is going to at least consider just how important this feature is to them, when a player doesn't want to be in a game with it. "Hmmm, do I really need to explore rascism in depth if its going to lose me a player? Would I rather have one less theme to explore in a game and keep the current party?"


If they aren't happy they can replace him, just like the people can replace the government and elect someone else.

As I mentioned above, one of those things involves a single digit number of people agreeing on something. The other involves way way more. Its not a good comparison.

RazorChain
2018-05-16, 01:31 PM
Yes, and the first one is 5 people, the second one is...minimum a million. Not a good comparison.

Firthermore, tt doesn't need to be all players. If all but one player objects, that likely enough to. Depending on the group size, losing one player could be a big deal too. Even in a large group, say 6 players, that's still 17% of the group gone over one thing. A sensible DM is going to at least consider just how important this feature is to them, when a player doesn't want to be in a game with it. "Hmmm, do I really need to explore rascism in depth if its going to lose me a player? Would I rather have one less theme to explore in a game and keep the current party?"



As I mentioned above, one of those things involves a single digit number of people agreeing on something. The other involves way way more. Its not a good comparison.


I think it's a pretty good comparison of democracy in action, we rarely see a GM being a dictator that forces people to play the game against their will :smallbiggrin:

But mostly my response was to that the GM has no power because the players can always chose to leave. If it was so then the only power that counts is force. I mean my boss has no authority over my because I can always chose to leave.....and lose my job. The same thing applies most everything unless force is being use then you can chose not to submit at the cost of your health.

Either the GM finds people to play what he intends to run or with an already established group, gets elected to run a game after a successful pitch.

Now the GM has the power to run the game, make up house rules, veto characters, decide upon content, adjucate, interpret dicerolls and rules. It even extends to deciding when to play as without the GM this particular game isn't taking place.

This hasn't anything to do with being anti sandbox, I think sandbox is a pretty valid term for a gamestyle. The GM has the same power in sandbox game, he has already chosen the content of his sandbox, his players now have the choice to interact with it or not.

Quertus
2018-05-16, 01:32 PM
Yes, and the first one is 5 people, the second one is...minimum a million. Not a good comparison.

As I mentioned above, one of those things involves a single digit number of people agreeing on something. The other involves way way more. Its not a good comparison.

By which you mean, it's far easier to replace the GM, right?

Florian
2018-05-16, 03:40 PM
By which you mean, it's far easier to replace the GM, right?

.... and we're back to square one....

Corneel
2018-05-16, 03:53 PM
.... and we're back to square one....
So we all get $200?

Scripten
2018-05-16, 03:57 PM
So we all get $200?

That depends on who's DMing.

Florian
2018-05-16, 04:01 PM
So we all get $200?

Depends. Ask your gm.

Corneel
2018-05-16, 05:28 PM
Depends. Ask your gm.
Nah, I'm not that old yet. Unless there's an XP penalty for going to the toilet.

Boci
2018-05-16, 06:26 PM
By which you mean, it's far easier to replace the GM, right?

Yes. Its happens and we don't even know about it. A government being replaced is invariable significant enough to be recorded in the history books.


I think it's a pretty good comparison of democracy in action, we rarely see a GM being a dictator that forces people to play the game against their will :smallbiggrin:

But mostly my response was to that the GM has no power because the players can always chose to leave. If it was so then the only power that counts is force. I mean my boss has no authority over my because I can always chose to leave.....and lose my job.

Which tends to have significant finiancial consequences, leaving a gaming group does not. Still not a good comparison.

A better example would be a party I am host of. Do I have power there? That comparison is far more accurate to the role of DM than government or jobs you earn your living from.

If it takes a signifanct portion of an entire nation rising up against you, you probably have power. If it takes 5 people at a table saying, "Dude, not cool," that probably not power.

Darth Ultron
2018-05-16, 07:05 PM
DU, most of us play with people that aren't enormous tools. And if every single player you encounter is such... There may be another factor at play.

I live in a Tool Box?




And the government has options. A DM doesn't. If the players say no, that's the end, they can't call in the cavalry to maintain order.

Well...the Dm can not DM, for example.

Boci
2018-05-16, 07:18 PM
Well...the Dm can not DM, for example.

Yes, that would be the the ''take their toys and go home'' power you mentioned earlier.

Quertus
2018-05-16, 09:59 PM
Nothing to add, just wanted to collectively thank the various posters who have made page 8 of this thread such a hoot!

RazorChain
2018-05-16, 10:15 PM
Yes. Its happens and we don't even know about it. A government being replaced is invariable significant enough to be recorded in the history books.



Which tends to have significant finiancial consequences, leaving a gaming group does not. Still not a good comparison.

A better example would be a party I am host of. Do I have power there? That comparison is far more accurate to the role of DM than government or jobs you earn your living from.

If it takes a signifanct portion of an entire nation rising up against you, you probably have power. If it takes 5 people at a table saying, "Dude, not cool," that probably not power.

Now you are just talking scale and severity of consequences. It takes a certain proportion of the populace to replace the goverment, usually majority, the same may be said for a gaming group. If only 2 out of 6 players want a new GM and the other 4 are super happy about him then probably not much is going to change. If 33% wants A as a president and 66% want B as a president then B is probably going to stay as the President. The same is in the gaming group, if 33% want A as a GM and 66% want B as a GM who do you think will the GM?

The same can be said for you job. If you don't like to be bossed around you can always walk away, but there will be consequences. The same is if you walk away from a game, the consequences are no gaming for you until you find yourself a new group. Here it's only the severity of the consequences that differ. You can always chose not to submit to power, just expect there will be consequences.

Power is granular, it's not just an on and off switch where you either have power or not.

Let's have some checkboxes.

Can the GM create, add to and modify the Game World?
Can the GM make create, add and modify the rules?
Can the GM veto or put limits on what kind of character the players are allowed to use in the game?
Does the GM adjucate and interpret the rules and decide upon the results of die rolls?
Within the game does the GM control everything except the Player Characters?

Are the other players allowed to do any of the above without the GM's permission?


So who has the most power within the game?

If this isn't power what should we call it? Control over the game? Authority within the game? Or just responsibilty for the game? Privilege or influence maybe?

I am not talking about outside the game, but within the game.

RazorChain
2018-05-16, 10:21 PM
By which you mean, it's far easier to replace the GM, right?

That is questionable, I've seen more goverments toppled than GM's replaced. The only time I've tried to replace my GM was during a solo game and that didn't work out so well.

Pleh
2018-05-16, 11:04 PM
Can the GM create, add to and modify the Game World?
Can the GM make create, add and modify the rules?
Can the GM veto or put limits on what kind of character the players are allowed to use in the game?
Does the GM adjucate and interpret the rules and decide upon the results of die rolls?
Within the game does the GM control everything except the Player Characters?

Are the other players allowed to do any of the above without the GM's permission?


So who has the most power within the game?

Flaw: the GM is not allowed to change any of these things in the game without permission from the players. Therefore, the GM has at most equal power as the players and certainly not any more.

And it is still predicated by permission.

Boci
2018-05-17, 05:10 AM
That is questionable, I've seen more goverments toppled than GM's replaced. The only time I've tried to replace my GM was during a solo game and that didn't work out so well.

Could that maybe be because governments toppling makes the news and GMs replaced doesn't?

I've heard about more people winning the lottery than getting the wrong order at a restaurant, but I still assume the later happens more often.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-17, 06:47 AM
As a side note, keep in mind that the concept of "changing governments" can mean something very different depending on who's using the terms.

In parliamentary countries, "the current government" often refers to whoever last won elections and either took a majority or formed a coalition, thus gaining control of parliament and the executive.

In American parlance, we've had one government since the late 1700s when the Constitution was ratified and came into effect. The idea of the elections as "toppling the government" sounds very strange to most Americans.

Not sure if that gap in parlance is involved here, but thought I'd mention it just in case.


(Not to create any political discussion, please, just hoping to shed some light.)

Corneel
2018-05-17, 08:35 AM
As a side note, keep in mind that the concept of "changing governments" can mean something very different depending on who's using the terms.

In parliamentary countries, "the current government" often refers to whoever last won elections and either took a majority or formed a coalition, thus gaining control of parliament and the executive.

In American parlance, we've had one government since the late 1700s when the Constitution was ratified and came into effect. The idea of the elections as "toppling the government" sounds very strange to most Americans.

Not sure if that gap in parlance is involved here, but thought I'd mention it just in case.


(Not to create any political discussion, please, just hoping to shed some light.)
Basically you keep your government but change your administration, while we (parliamentarians) change our government and keep our administration, and all the while neither of us change regimes.

Max_Killjoy
2018-05-17, 08:44 AM
Basically you keep your government but change your administration, while we (parliamentarians) change our government and keep our administration, and all the while neither of us change regimes.

That's not a bad way of putting it.

Just wanted to make sure there wasn't a disconnect in the ongoing conversation based on that usage. Even knowing what is meant, it's always a bit strange as an American to hear or read European news sources talking about the "fall of the _______ government" because of an election...

(Again, not trying to start a debate or make real-world politics a point of discussion.)

Segev
2018-05-17, 09:58 AM
The parliamentary way of looking at it seems more analogous to the GM/player power dynamic, however. It is extremely rare for players to say, "We want a new GM," and get their wish, and it remain the same game. It can happen, but usually it instead results in a totally different game.

When I was in college, nearly all of my friends formed one large group of gamers, and we had a number of RPGs running at any point in time. Some had the exact same circle of people around the table, just changing GM and game (usually different systems, though occasionally there were two of the same system running) depending on which game was running that evening. (We even had schedules to make sure we could fit in the games we all wanted with the players who wanted into them.)

If a game wasn't any fun, we'd discuss it, and it would usually die, and another would take its place, often with the same group. Sometimes the same GM (not every game was a winning idea), sometimes with a different one (the GM didn't have other ideas or needed a break).

But the change of one GM for another almost invariably resulted in a different game. Even when one GM actively took over for another with the intent of continuing it, it felt different. It had to, since if it remained the same, it probably would still have broken up.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-05-17, 10:50 AM
But the change of one GM for another almost invariably resulted in a different game. Even when one GM actively took over for another with the intent of continuing it, it felt different. It had to, since if it remained the same, it probably would still have broken up.

The thought of taking over for someone and keeping the same game is...ugh. No. I can't even imagine how that would work.

I took over one once, but immediately ret-conned everything except the characters as a bad dream due to starvation.

RazorChain
2018-05-17, 11:12 AM
Flaw: the GM is not allowed to change any of these things in the game without permission from the players. Therefore, the GM has at most equal power as the players and certainly not any more.

And it is still predicated by permission.

Ok maybe in your case. But I as a GM run my own worlds, so I create the world, modify and add to it as I see fit.
Before the game I'll tell the players about what rules are in place and what house rules we are using.
I will inform the players what they can play, points limits etc. No dinosaur riding knights in my old western game or being of pure thoughts in a game of dungeon crawling.
I will adjucate, intrepret the rules and tell them the results of their die rolls.

I do not ask permission for these things. I do not know what kind of game you run but do you ask your players permission before you add content to your sandbox? Do you ask them if you may tell them if their die roll was enough to hit their enemy?

Is everything decided upon democratically? Let's vote if that dungeon gets added into the sandbox? Please raise your hands!
If so then you play your RPG different than I do and more power to you. I'm a autocrat, once I'm in power I decide upon everything and control everything except the PCs.

RazorChain
2018-05-17, 11:16 AM
That's not a bad way of putting it.

Just wanted to make sure there wasn't a disconnect in the ongoing conversation based on that usage. Even knowing what is meant, it's always a bit strange as an American to hear or read European news sources talking about the "fall of the _______ government" because of an election...

(Again, not trying to start a debate or make real-world politics a point of discussion.)

When I was talking about toppling the government I was actually talking about people taking to the streets, protesting and the government not serving their term and new elections being held.

But yes governments fall when the parties involved fail to get the election results they need to continue governing.

Nifft
2018-05-17, 11:47 AM
When I was talking about toppling the government I was actually talking about people taking to the streets, protesting and the government not serving their term and new elections being held.

But yes governments fall when the parties involved fail to get the election results they need to continue governing.

The thing is, if every single citizen decided to reject the government, the government would immediately cease to exist because the government is made of people.

(Note that this post has an expiration date, which is when the robots take over.)

Quertus
2018-05-17, 03:14 PM
It is extremely rare for players to say, "We want a new GM," and get their wish, and it remain the same game. It can happen, but usually it instead results in a totally different game.

But the change of one GM for another almost invariably resulted in a different game. Even when one GM actively took over for another with the intent of continuing it, it felt different. It had to, since if it remained the same, it probably would still have broken up.

I am, unfortunately, too senile to successfully count the number of times I've seen it happen, that one GM was ousted, and another continued the campaign. Or that a "peaceful takeover" occurred, usually when one GM became too busy / moved away / whatever, and another player took up the mantle and continued the campaign.

But feel? Why would that be important to your definition of the continuity of a campaign?


The thought of taking over for someone and keeping the same game is...ugh. No. I can't even imagine how that would work.

Have you ever ran a module?


No dinosaur riding knights in my old western game or being of pure thoughts in a game of dungeon crawling.

How about a being of impure thoughts? :smalltongue:

EDIT:
Before the game I'll tell the players about what rules are in place and what house rules we are using.


So, if you've agreed to a system, and presented your house rules, but it turns out that you misread a rule, and a player conclusively proves, to you and the group, that the actual RAW on the rule is different from how you thought it was, how would you respond?

For example, back when 3e first came out, I had to prove to a group that applying metamagic feats to spells raises their level, and, no, the 5th level Wizard can't cast Maximized Empowered Fireball out of their 3rd level spell slot.

Pleh
2018-05-17, 09:51 PM
Ok maybe in your case. But I as a GM run my own worlds, so I create the world, modify and add to it as I see fit.
Before the game I'll tell the players about what rules are in place and what house rules we are using.
I will inform the players what they can play, points limits etc. No dinosaur riding knights in my old western game or being of pure thoughts in a game of dungeon crawling.
I will adjucate, intrepret the rules and tell them the results of their die rolls.

I do not ask permission for these things. I do not know what kind of game you run but do you ask your players permission before you add content to your sandbox? Do you ask them if you may tell them if their die roll was enough to hit their enemy?

Is everything decided upon democratically? Let's vote if that dungeon gets added into the sandbox? Please raise your hands!
If so then you play your RPG different than I do and more power to you. I'm a autocrat, once I'm in power I decide upon everything and control everything except the PCs.

Your players grant you permission to make the limitations to the game which you proposed to them. They could have countermanded one or all of these limitations by insisting different limits. If you didn't concede these changes, they refuse to play and your game is over. You still have only permission, not power.

Asking permission to add content: the proposal to run a game implictly requests permission to generate and add content without supervision. If your content goes beyond what was permitted (like promising a medeival fantasy and delivering futuristic sci fi) the players are within their right to strip your power by revoking your permissions.

You still have permission rather than power.

Florian
2018-05-18, 12:41 AM
Flaw: the GM is not allowed to change any of these things in the game without permission from the players. Therefore, the GM has at most equal power as the players and certainly not any more.

And it is still predicated by permission.

Ah, how I love me some fresh rule zero in the morning.

Pleh, you can argue all that you want, it won't change anything until we stop talking about traditional RPGs. To use an analogy, same situation as with cars: car, driver, passengers. The driver is the necessary component and as such has power. You can talk about the destination or driving style before the drive and you can always call for a stop to get out, but the driver is still the one doing the driving.


Have you ever ran a module?

Hundreds. Never by the book, never without modifications and tailoring to my and the groups style.

Drakevarg
2018-05-18, 01:04 AM
Your players grant you permission to make the limitations to the game which you proposed to them. They could have countermanded one or all of these limitations by insisting different limits. If you didn't concede these changes, they refuse to play and your game is over. You still have only permission, not power.

Asking permission to add content: the proposal to run a game implictly requests permission to generate and add content without supervision. If your content goes beyond what was permitted (like promising a medeival fantasy and delivering futuristic sci fi) the players are within their right to strip your power by revoking your permissions.

You still have permission rather than power.

Can't speak to your games, but I don't ask my players for permission before I impose things. Now yes, of course players retain the power to simply walk out if they don't like the way I run things, but such matters are the exception rather than the rule. My "permission" is to do whatever the heck I want without question unless otherwise noted. The rules are treated as nothing but an underlying framework to build off of, not the root authority.

RazorChain
2018-05-18, 03:07 AM
Your players grant you permission to make the limitations to the game which you proposed to them. They could have countermanded one or all of these limitations by insisting different limits. If you didn't concede these changes, they refuse to play and your game is over. You still have only permission, not power.

Asking permission to add content: the proposal to run a game implictly requests permission to generate and add content without supervision. If your content goes beyond what was permitted (like promising a medeival fantasy and delivering futuristic sci fi) the players are within their right to strip your power by revoking your permissions.

You still have permission rather than power.

No....I make demands. When the players have acquiesced to my demands then we can start to play. But usually I won't start games until a certain amount of groveling has taken place, I will accept begging as well.


Seriously though, the players ask me to be their GM, I do not ask them permission of running a game for them, like "Hey RazorChain cant you run a game?". And me being a selfish prick I'll run exactly the game I want to run. Sometimes I pitch a game and if somebody else in the group pitches a more interesting idea...see these are elections, not that this happens often but hey I'm happy if it does because then I'll get to play. We elect a game and a game master, after that the GM of that game is in control, he'll have all the authority he needs to get the game running. He'll lay down the rules, accept or veto characters. He is the director, the creator, the head honcho, the boss, the game MASTER!!!

The second thing is that Game Masters are precious commodity. I'm lucky in one of the groups I play in we have 4 people who can run games but even then I run the majority of the games. I usually get a break when I am tired of running games. Then somebody steps up and runs something so I wont suffer from a GM burnout.

In my second group (the new group) I can literally run anything I want, I could probably run Bunnies and Burrows and my players would get on board because they are afraid of losing their spot at the table. Just the lack of decent Game Master that run something else than AP hands power to the GM. If good GM's were in abundance an they were fighting for players then the players would have much more control over the game. "Oh I can't play a half-dragon vampire drow? Then I'll just keep playing with GM Joe, he really strokes my power fantasy!"

Pleh
2018-05-18, 05:42 AM
No....I make demands. When the players have acquiesced to my demands then we can start to play. But usually I won't start games until a certain amount of groveling has taken place, I will accept begging as well.


Seriously though, the players ask me to be their GM, I do not ask them permission of running a game for them, like "Hey RazorChain cant you run a game?". And me being a selfish prick I'll run exactly the game I want to run. Sometimes I pitch a game and if somebody else in the group pitches a more interesting idea...see these are elections, not that this happens often but hey I'm happy if it does because then I'll get to play. We elect a game and a game master, after that the GM of that game is in control, he'll have all the authority he needs to get the game running. He'll lay down the rules, accept or veto characters. He is the director, the creator, the head honcho, the boss, the game MASTER!!!

The second thing is that Game Masters are precious commodity. I'm lucky in one of the groups I play in we have 4 people who can run games but even then I run the majority of the games. I usually get a break when I am tired of running games. Then somebody steps up and runs something so I wont suffer from a GM burnout.

In my second group (the new group) I can literally run anything I want, I could probably run Bunnies and Burrows and my players would get on board because they are afraid of losing their spot at the table. Just the lack of decent Game Master that run something else than AP hands power to the GM. If good GM's were in abundance an they were fighting for players then the players would have much more control over the game. "Oh I can't play a half-dragon vampire drow? Then I'll just keep playing with GM Joe, he really strokes my power fantasy!"

Just because there is a presence of supply and demand which incentivizes your players to grant you special permissions doesn't change the fact that all this power is predicated on having those permissions.

If you believe this grants you power over the players, that makes you a manipulative and borderline toxic playmate. It grants you power over their game characters, to be sure, but only so far as the players allow. They can always revoke that power.

To be sure, you have the same power to refuse to run the game, granting them permission to have power in your game through their characters, but this is a far cry from having all power.

Nifft
2018-05-18, 06:45 AM
This sort of power-permission ambiguity is exactly why I only game with captives in my basement.

It rolls to attack or else it gets the hose.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-05-18, 07:04 AM
Discussing things in terms of power or rights seems less than useful to me. Maybe it's better to talk about table norms and procedures for making changes/choices?

I see two different categories of decisions:

Pre-game decisions:
What are we going to play?
Who will be the DM (if one is needed)?
What will the setting be? What is the tone/purpose/goal?
What are the restrictions on character building? What are the major house-rules?

At this point, everyone's pretty much equal and discussion/debate/etc are normal. The proposed DM can say "I'm not comfortable running <system X, style Y>, can we do <system A, style B> instead?", but the others can say "no, we'd rather someone else DM so we can play <X,Y>."

If only one person is willing to DM, then supply and demand says that that person's desires have larger weight. Because no one can force a DM to run a style he doesn't want to, nor would that be successful even if you could. On the other hand, the players can get up and walk if the proposed DM makes demands they're not willing to buy in to. But no one has formal power or rights.

Successful games require buy-in at this stage, from everybody.

In-game decisions:
At this point, once the game is in play, traditional games delegate a lot of decision-making power to the DM, especially when it comes to content creation, action resolution (this one varies by system), and scenario description. At this point, the norm (for that style of game) is that the DM has the final say. This doesn't mean that he should run roughshod over people, but that, in the end, he's the one who says what happens.

Outright player "revolt" (saying "no, we won't accept that outcome" or "this is what happens instead") is a sign that the game at that table is badly sick. It could be that the DM is tyrannical and making decisions that badly damage the fun for the majority. It could be that the players are being spoiled brats who can't accept not getting their way. Or lots of other things on either side. Like an Exception in most programming languages, these sorts of things should be very rare; they're expensive to handle and often are unrecoverable. Trust is frayed, if not lost, by this point.

A table at which the players routinely overruled my good-faith attempts to adjudicate the game is one I wouldn't stay at long. A table at which the DM routinely overruled my good-faith attempts to play the game is one I wouldn't stay at long.

Quertus
2018-05-18, 01:19 PM
A table at which the players routinely overruled my good-faith attempts to adjudicate the game is one I wouldn't stay at long.

IME, the healthiest games have been the ones where the GM puts no attachment, no stake in their interpretation of the rules. If they learn that metamagic isn't free, it doesn't phase them, they just roll with the correction. Where the GM is willing to ask the players if they know offhand a particular rule. Where the focus is the game, not the GM's ego.

Probably the healthiest (rules-wise) group I've been in, 3 of us GM, and we routinely ask for and bow to the superior knowledge of our players. Although, one of those GMs, I've only ever corrected his rules once. He really knows his stuff - better than I do, to be sure.

RazorChain
2018-05-18, 01:38 PM
IME, the healthiest games have been the ones where the GM puts no attachment, no stake in their interpretation of the rules. If they learn that metamagic isn't free, it doesn't phase them, they just roll with the correction. Where the GM is willing to ask the players if they know offhand a particular rule. Where the focus is the game, not the GM's ego.

Probably the healthiest (rules-wise) group I've been in, 3 of us GM, and we routinely ask for and bow to the superior knowledge of our players. Although, one of those GMs, I've only ever corrected his rules once. He really knows his stuff - better than I do, to be sure.


Most GM's don't have a stake in the rules unless they have written the system themselves. I think most realize that the rules are there to faciliate the game and the only GM's I've met who had problem with this had a problem admitting they were wrong.

I'm getting pretty tired of the power discussion though and I've never tried to claim that the GM has power over the players, he has more power than the players over the game. Marking a difference of in the game and outside of the game is important here because I'm not a fireball tossing sorcerer who owns his own real estate in the form of a tower outside of the game.

Segev
2018-05-18, 01:58 PM
This sort of power-permission ambiguity is exactly why I only game with captives in my basement.

It rolls to attack or else it gets the hose.

You have a basement!? Lucky.

I live in Texas; we don't apparently "do" basements, here. :(

ImNotTrevor
2018-05-18, 02:08 PM
You have a basement!? Lucky.

I live in Texas; we don't apparently "do" basements, here. :(

Not in Houston we don't.

To much clay in the soil. Wrecks up basements.
Also, flooding is more common than tornadoes. So no basements.

PhoenixPhyre
2018-05-18, 02:22 PM
IME, the healthiest games have been the ones where the GM puts no attachment, no stake in their interpretation of the rules. If they learn that metamagic isn't free, it doesn't phase them, they just roll with the correction. Where the GM is willing to ask the players if they know offhand a particular rule. Where the focus is the game, not the GM's ego.

Probably the healthiest (rules-wise) group I've been in, 3 of us GM, and we routinely ask for and bow to the superior knowledge of our players. Although, one of those GMs, I've only ever corrected his rules once. He really knows his stuff - better than I do, to be sure.

Rules are one thing. But if the group and I can't agree on whether the rules apply (or which rule applies), then there's a mismatch. Or if there's constant arguing about what the rule is. If there's a rule disagreement, bring it up quickly. The DM (whoever it is) makes a decision for that case and the game moves on. Later, after the game, you can hash things out.

I have a problem with people who argue about rules, especially for mechanical advantage. The flow of the game is much more important. Accept the ruling and move on. The only exception is for things that could result in the loss of a character--that requires more scrutiny.