Pawsplay, sometimes you make me want to rip my hair out in frustration. Your phrasing swaps back and forth between personal-anecdotal (which is fine) and assertion of how everyone else did things (which is much less fine).
To be clear - unless you've got some nice comprehensive study in your pocket, you know how most of your non-tournament games used to be played.
I'm willing to bank on less than scientific evidence in this case. Simply put, the history of D&D module publication is a series of basically unlinked scenarios, in many cases with little guiding players how to proceed other than an impetus to enter the dungeon/town/etc. Furthermore, the guidelines presented for strongholds and followers clearly indicate support for a player-driven support style. There are no published AD&d modules of which I am aware that involve monsters attacking a PC fighter's stronghold.
Sorry to be frustrating, that's not my intention. I'm not trying to force my views on others through bald assertion. Nonetheless, and I thought it was important to correct a stereotype as well as to offer some observations that suggest something different about gaming culture than was implied by the person I was referring to. I am not traumatized by Darth Railroader, I was raised in the same cradle of episodic, anything-goes play experienced with and by many of my peers between 1983 and the mid 90s, across five schools and one university. Certainly, some people played more saga-style games (in the manner of The Gamers, for instance) but the game books themselves offered little mechanical support or guidance about how to go about such a thing.
Modern RPGs have their roots in "Braunstein," which is essentially a point at which a straightforward wargaming simulation evolved into a situation where the players became embroiled in numerous secondary scenarios. That is gaming history, and I think it's important for people to understand that background.
The accusation being made was that sandboxers are reactionary, when in fact, they are practicing a venerable craft that has its roots in the very first modern RPGs. The programmatic adventure is a descendent of the original form.
Yes, well I find it to be a lousy term. Here's why.
I can hand you a page of paper, with what looks like text characters printed upon it. Very similar to the Latin alphabet, but which some small variations. The characters are in an arrangement that's much like words, physically laid out like verse. It is not in English, or any other language you speak. Could you tell me if that text has meaning? Correct me if I am wrong, but I'm going to guess you'd say, "Not to me, but maybe to someone who could read this."
Maybe I just handed you a copy of the story of a mythical Baltic cultural hero, or maybe I just handed you the equivalent of a "Lorem ipsum" gibberish. You don't really have a way to tell - whether it has meaning to you doesn't tell you what the meaning might be to someone else.
I could hand you an English translation of the story of that cultural hero, and you could say it has meaning. Could you say it has the same meaning as it does to a member of that culture? Probably not.
"Meaning" is subjective.
Necessarily.
Moreover, the term is emotionally loaded.
Of course. The whole point of meaningful choice is that we respond emotionally. Clearly, "meaningless choice" is a term that is easily understood. Meaningful choice is simply it's opposite. Although it is used in a different way than in a common, conversational sense, that is because the subject being discussed is different. The word means what it does in ordinary English. Whether certain situations are "meaningful choices" is a dialectic. It's no more jargony than asking someone if that is a "good" golf club; obviously the discussion hinges on an understanding of golf and a consideration of what makes for a good club, but the word "good" is not being unfairly pressed into service.
In the context of an RPG, is this choice meaningful? Some people might here "meaningful" and think "fulflling," but of course "choice" tells us we are not talking about a specific outcome. If the term "meaningful choice" sounds existential, it's because it is. RPGs, as narratives, as games, as diversions, are an imitation of life and its
logos.
"In sandbox games, player choice has meaning!" implies (and around here, sometimes is followed by an explicit statement that) in non-sandbox games, player choice has no meaning. Hubris. You don't get to say what does or does not have meaning at someone else's table.
I may have missed it, but I don't remember anyone claiming exactly that, and if they have, they aren't on my team. Meaningful choices is a characteristic of an RPG, of any form. Sandbox and programmatic games may differ in the number and degree of meaningful choices at important decision points. If someone asks, "How do you make a good pie crust?" and someone says, "Shortening and inconsistency," that does not imply that a bad pie crust does not have shortening or that a pancake is completely consistent or anything of that. It's just an injuction to look at some things peculiar to pie crusts that deserve special attention. Just as a pie crust needs good beads of oil in the dough, a sandbox game needs good, meaningful choices that allow the PCs to explore the setting largely at-will, though not without natural and logical contours and challenges.
I don't like the word linear. Rather than "tailored" you suggested "directed". But then, I'd not compare "sandbox vs directed". I'd compare "player-directed" vs "GM-directed". After all, isn't the central issue who has control of the direction? This decouples that central question from the details of implementation. Sandbox play is player-directed, sure. But is sandbox play the only way to get player-direction? I am pretty sure it isn't.
No, it's not. Actually, a collaborative, player-driven story campaign is almost the opposite of a sandbox. The basic characteristic of a sandbox is player choice in maneuvering their character through the game environment with less emphasis on direction, plot, GM agenda, and so forth. The meta-game goal of exploration and discovery trumps meta-game goals like plot and cohesion.
If you said, "Sandbox play is strongly player-directed. I find that it gives in-game choices greater meaning for me," I'd be happy as a clam. Because that's a far cry from, "In sandbox games, player choices have meaning!"
Indeed. Would it be especially frustrating at this point if I stated that I usually run hybrid games, rather than purely sandbox?
-----
I now have a bit of an aside that follows on here, though maybe it need to be forked to a different thread.
On EN World, and as I understand it in other gaming venues as well, discussion of theory and analysis of games is typically performed by proponents of a particular style or construction. The activities of advocacy and analysis wind up overlapping, and that is not the best route to doing a really good job at either.
We've seen this most strongly with the 3e/4e conflicts. But it has continued in the New School/Old School discussion, and now in Sandbox vs non-Sandbox. I expect the similarities of dynamic have been visible to those other than me.
It is something for each of us to consider in our individual writings.
That's a good point, and if I've come across as sandbox-good/programmatic-bad, that is not only not my intention, but does not accurately express my views. I'm interested in being clear, not trying to proselytize a particular play style.
