Speaking of connotations, I get the sense that 'railroad' is pretty negative compared to 'sandbox,' yet there are circumstances in which a tightly scripted or directive 'railroad' style is a very good approach.
I've definitely experienced negative styles of "sandbox" play, where the game world was uninteresting so players start to instigate petty crimes, often escalating to full on conflict with the alleged "good guys".
I'm not sure if DMs that touted this kind of laissez-faire "so boring, we burninated everything" style ever got a suitable derogatory term? Edit: I am pretty certain the term would apply to me on every aborted attempt I made to run Traveller . . .
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