Pathfinder 1E Sandboxes? Forked from Paizo reinvents hexcrawling

[Desdichado]

Fair enough. I'm getting a vibe that you're just trolling the forum by making up wacky, incendiary claims out of thin air.

Yeah, I already addressed that. But carry on.

And yet you claim that your campaign walks like a sandbox, quacks like a sandbox, and plays like a sandbox.

No, I didn't claim that. I claimed that it has a number of sandbox like elements and a few key points of differentiation.

Now I can pedantically accurately claim that you're putting words in my mouth as opposed to before where you were just making up positions to attribute to me, while pedantically speaking, you weren't literally putting words in my mouth.

Oh, I'm sorry. There's some unspecified "paradigm" which you "deviate" from. You've specified what that "paradigm" is and how you "deviate" from it somewhere else... but I'm guessing you won't actually cite that, either.

Dude! First, we get sandboxers who are talking about how lazy some players are that can't be motivated to find adventure on their own. Now we have sandboxers who are themselves so lazy that they keep asking me to cite my own posts in the very thread that they're posting in.

Read the thread. I've repeated myself ad nauseum in here already; I'm not going to do it again just because you came late to the party. The beauty of the internet is that everything that's been posted in the thread so far is, believe it or not, still right here to be read.

Lemme know which of these options is the truth.

Again, if you would read the thread I wouldn't have to cover this ground yet again.

Until then, I'm afraid I'm going to have to go back to assuming you're acting in bad faith in this thread. You are to be congratulated for a highly successful trolling.

You're free to assume whatever you like. You've certainly demonstrated that you have a knack for making up unwarranted assumptions and then running with them already, so it would be familiar territory for you, at least.

And if you're going to not even bother to read the thread that you're posting in I'm afraid I'll have to conclude (note: not assume, but actually conclude based on strong and compelling evidence at hand) that you are acting in bad faith in this thread and actually have no intention of talking reasonably about the issue.

 

[Ariosto]

Catsclaw227, you repeated and seconded Umbran's claim that

There is no "game" in that area - at that point it drifts off into collaborative storytelling.

How that even makes sense to you if you take the terms as interchangeable is perhaps even more a puzzle than how you figure that I should take them as interchangeable (any more than Umbran so presented them).

You elaborated upon the claim at such length as to seem unaware that you were probably defending a position so truly unbelievable that Umbran himself was just being intentionally provocative.

When informed (because you inquired) that I don't call players role-playing (as the PHB tells them to expect), and DMs doing what the DMG instructs them to do, "just collaborative storytelling" -- but, in fact, call it "playing the game in accordance with how the game was designed to be played" -- you responded with

I don't really know if there is a single "how the game was designed to be played".

You went on to cite other, related, gaps in your knowledge, mixed with irrelevant references to "various ways people have played", along with your "disagreement" with something that you made up by arbitrarily putting together words from different sentences.

Taken altogether, your rhetoric sure looks like an attempt to argue (by irrational appeals to utterly moot sentiments) that there is not a way the game was designed to be played, therefore I am wrong when I claim to be playing in accordance with any such design.

Let's try this one more time. When the designer writes (just for instance)

While it is possible to play a single game, unrelated to any other game events past or future, it is the campaign for which these rules are designed.

do you think that he is lying about his intent?

 

[catsclaw227]

Catsclaw227, you repeated and seconded Umbran's claim that

There is no "game" in that area - at that point it drifts off into collaborative storytelling.

How that even makes sense to you if you take the terms as interchangeable is perhaps even more a puzzle than how you figure that I should take them as interchangeable (any more than Umbran so presented them).

You elaborated upon the claim at such length as to seem unaware that you were probably defending a position so truly unbelievable that Umbran himself was just being intentionally provocative.

OK fair enough. I assumed that when he quoted the word "game" that he was be being a bit facetious, but the intent of his statement is that the game, as described by the rules as written (not by the house rules, or assumed other sources of information), doesn't have mechanics for many things, so the DM and player collaborate and decide how to advance the story, or as you like to call it, play the game. And this part - the point I assume he was trying to make (confirmed by his own post) - isn't so truly unbelievable.

Maybe we are getting in a debate, when the only issue between us is the terminology used. But again, semantics aside, I assumed you knew what I was trying to say. Obviously, I was wrong.

You went on to cite other, related, gaps in your knowledge, mixed with irrelevant references to "various ways people have played", along with your "disagreement" with something that you made up by arbitrarily putting together words from different sentences.

Taken altogether, your rhetoric sure looks like an attempt to argue (by irrational appeals to utterly moot sentiments) that there is not a way the game was designed to be played, therefore I am wrong when I claim to be playing in accordance with any such design.

Gaps in my knowledge? Why do you insist on implying that I don't understand the game enough? That's not very conducive to a gentleman's discussion.

I don't "attempt to argue" anything. The way the "game was designed to be played" changed quite a bit from OD&D through AD&D and BECMI. The rules changed, the playstyles changed, and even in posts written by Gary himself, on these very boards, he says that the game is much bigger than he intended and there are many ways to play the game.

Let's try this one more time. When the designer writes (just for instance)

While it is possible to play a single game, unrelated to any other game events past or future, it is the campaign for which these rules are designed.

do you think that he is lying about his intent?

Of course not. When was that quote? 1978? 1979? I wish I could find the post in one of the many great "Ask Gary" threads on EnWorld where he said that he realized after attending a GenCon that the game is no longer as he originally intended it, and he is very happy for it.

With all due respect to the great one, the game is much bigger than Gary Gygax, and the game was always played in a multitude of ways.

 

[FireLance]

Any AP or linear scenario can be broken down, and contains material usable for a sandbox. All that must be done is remove those pesky expectations about what the story will be, and what the PCs will do.

At least for me, this is starting to get fairly close to a working definition of a sandbox game. I personally would not use the word "expectations", however. To me, having some idea of how the events in an adventure are likely to play out in order to ensure the smooth running of the most probable scenarios during the game (including mutually exclusive options, e.g. the PCs fight, ignore or ally with the NPC) is simply part and parcel of preparing to run a game session.

For me, the critical factor is whether the DM acts on those expectations and takes action to force or influence certain player choices or story outcomes. (You know, this is getting dangerously close to that other hot button topic, railroading. ) The less direct action taken by the DM to do so, the closer the game is to a sandbox. Even indirect action, such as adding elements to or otherwise changing the game world, can be suspect if it occurs close to when the players are interacting with that element of the game world. For example, deciding before the campaign starts that the road through the Dire Swamp is more dangerous than the King's Highway because a black dragon raids there occasionally seems more sandboxy to me than deciding that there is a black dragon in the Dire Swamp when the players are deciding which road to take.

 

[pemerton]

You don't need a plot (or as Ariosto says, the plot), you just need some NPCs who are doing things. NPCs with goals who are able to act on those goals.

You need 3 things so far as I can tell. A setting, PCs with goals, and NPCs with goals. Maybe 4 - there needs to be some source of tension between these elements.

I think the two most common ways to achieve number 4 are (i) for the GM to tell the players about the world, and then invite them to make PCs with goals that will generate tension relative to that world, or (ii) for the GM to tweak the world in order to introduce tensions relative to the PCs that the players have made.

My impression is that at least some sandbox proponents would regard (i) as too railroady, and (ii) as not fully sandboxing, because the GM is changing the world based on a metagame rather than an ingame consideration.

In my own game I tend to use a mixture of both (i) and (ii), and I therefore wouldn't normally describe my game as a sandbox.

 

[Ariosto]

Gaps in my knowledge?

I am not going to look it up again. You can mighty well read your own posts. Does "What long tradition?" ring a bell?

With all due respect to the great one, the game is much bigger than Gary Gygax, and the game was always played in a multitude of ways.

I have not claimed otherwise. It is not relevant at all to anything against which you keep recycling it as an argument.

More to the point, you keep choosing to judge things that are not at all in your bailiwick.

I see no reason to acknowledge any more such posts from you, so you may "have the last word" to your heart's content.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I've been following this rather long and partisan thread, and I'm bound to concur that it's a thinly-veiled edition war.

Considering that I don't play D&D of any edition regularly, then I'd have to call bollocks on that.

See? You're getting all stressed out. I'm not targeting you, or anybody, in fact: I am commenting on the tenor of the thread. You need to relax. I'm relaxed and much more objective.

 

[The Shaman]

See? You're getting all stressed out. I'm not targeting you, or anybody, in fact: I am commenting on the tenor of the thread. You need to relax.

I'm so chill I can take a sip of water and spit out an ice cube. I'm so relaxed you could measure my pulse in beats per hour.

I'm relaxed and much more objective.

Well, on this particular point at least, I agree, because you're objectively wrong.

My reply is simply to note that not everyone in this discussion is a D&D player.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I'm so relaxed you could measure my pulse in beats per hour.

As long as it's not more than 6,000 you should be ok.

More seriously - and rather ironically - my own preference is actually for a wide open game. Plus, I've also been playing LBB Traveller a lot recently, having found my way back there again after dabbling with T20.

The Third Imperium is arguably the ultimate sandbox (God, how I hate that term already), or at least every game I've played in seems to be 'wide open.' To execute effectively, it takes a different skill set than a game which is tactically-focused, maybe simply because tactical actions can be governed by hard-and-fast rules more effectively.

But I remember my sense of **PANIC** when I first played it at 12 years old, largely due to the ineptitude of my GM. I came to it from AD&D (sandbox-style), and it was like walking into the Sahara. But the game just emerges when you get into the swing of it; it's quite remarkable.

It's not just a generational thing; it's not just a question of having time (or having had time) on your hands, or of which ruleset you use, or your experience of certain kinds of literature, or the influence of certain movies, or computer games, or CCGs, or any number of other factors.

But lots of arguments on these boards seem to polarize in a predictable fashion based on people's perceptions and experiences of these phenomena.

 

[Ariosto]

For example, deciding before the campaign starts that the road through the Dire Swamp is more dangerous than the King's Highway because a black dragon raids there occasionally seems more sandboxy to me than deciding that there is a black dragon in the Dire Swamp when the players are deciding which road to take.

I can dig the feeling. To me the significance lies first in a fair game and second in an aesthetic of internal consistency.

(The latter can get into a feeling at least of unfairness if there's anything that might suggest a need for "retroactive continuity").

If this is the first time the question of what critters might frequent the place has come up, then it may be reasonably enough the first time the answer comes up. There's a question of how widely known it should be, how far in advance the players ought to get information (and of what sorts).

Road+Dragon = a road less traveled, in my view. Dragons in my game are not likely ever to keep themselves secret, if only because they tend to be such big secrets! If they're not highly visible in the sky, they're leaving big footprints and other spoor all over the place. If they're not noshing on sacrificial virgins, they're hunting big game. I don't picture them much as collecting gold, silver, gems and jewelry like gigantic magpies. Smaug reclining on a pile of the Dwarves' former treasure is my touchstone, and treasures lost to dragons tend not to be forgotten.

Setting aside well-trodden roads, and getting into wilderness: If dragons are a standard risk in the wilderness, but fairly infrequent, and twice as likely on the plains as in a swamp, then that might not be too costly to learn from a sage. But if a dragon slaughters a party in the wilderness, is there anyone to hear the screams? That's a Bad Place, and all normal men need to know about going deep into it is that people who do tend not to come back. People who do take their chances, and if the dice indicate a dragon sighting in swampland, then so be it.