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What is *worldbuilding* for?
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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7370776" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>MY understanding and conception of a 'sandbox' includes the idea that it is, ideally, a pre-generated environment. That it is authored specifically without regard to any agenda of or focus on the PCs. The conceit is anything you do, anything you build, any conflict you generate, etc. is all on you. The purest sandbox even lacks any backstory beyond basic reactive kinds of stuff like "the orcs pull up stakes and beat it for the mountain passes during the night. All you find are cold campfires and empty warrens in the morning, and a few broken tools."</p><p></p><p>That might not, in theory, be incompatible with on-the-fly authoring of content, but it is pretty hard to imagine it really being pulled off. How can you even be sure that your content is NOT a story in being as opposed to a simple collection of elements ready to be engaged with (which is what I would say the term 'sandbox' literally implies, a box of sand in which the player can do whatever they wish without regard to anything but the basic 'laws of nature').</p><p></p><p>Now, I tend to believe this concept is an idealization which a) is less interesting in most cases than is fondly imagined, and b) exists mostly as a theoretical construct for practical reasons. In fact I think players find it intriguing for the very reason they play Story Now games, it implies that THEIR agenda will be THE agenda.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7370776, member: 82106"] MY understanding and conception of a 'sandbox' includes the idea that it is, ideally, a pre-generated environment. That it is authored specifically without regard to any agenda of or focus on the PCs. The conceit is anything you do, anything you build, any conflict you generate, etc. is all on you. The purest sandbox even lacks any backstory beyond basic reactive kinds of stuff like "the orcs pull up stakes and beat it for the mountain passes during the night. All you find are cold campfires and empty warrens in the morning, and a few broken tools." That might not, in theory, be incompatible with on-the-fly authoring of content, but it is pretty hard to imagine it really being pulled off. How can you even be sure that your content is NOT a story in being as opposed to a simple collection of elements ready to be engaged with (which is what I would say the term 'sandbox' literally implies, a box of sand in which the player can do whatever they wish without regard to anything but the basic 'laws of nature'). Now, I tend to believe this concept is an idealization which a) is less interesting in most cases than is fondly imagined, and b) exists mostly as a theoretical construct for practical reasons. In fact I think players find it intriguing for the very reason they play Story Now games, it implies that THEIR agenda will be THE agenda. [/QUOTE]
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