Thought Experiment - "Is your game a railroad" test

[Ariosto]

The relevant feature of a sandbox is that one gets to play freely in it, as opposed, say, to a gridiron.

 

[nedjer]

The relevant feature of a sandbox is that one gets to play freely in it, as opposed, say, to a gridiron.

The relevant features are the sand (safe) and the box (containing) The term was defined in child development, then software development to describe a safe place to secure a kid or test alpha software.

So this hokey-cokey, post-modern RPG revisionism must be some kind of ironic statement about recognising attitudes towards player choice within the hobby in terms of a place that's stuck with limited outcomes and impenetrable boundaries.

That's way

 

[Ariosto]

The term was defined in child development ...

Some of us back in the '70s did not especially like borrowing the term "role-playing" either, but so it goes. The real "hokey-cokey, post-modern RPG revisionism" I see is coming from your quarter.

I will say this yet again: PLEASE make up your freaking minds already, you whatever-bashers! What the hell are we allowed to call the game we play without y'all -- who not only do not but will not play it -- insisting that we are using the term wrong?

Where you get off dictating from the outside like that in the first place is beyond me, but the practical problem remains.

Unless, that is, you really have no intent of allowing us to talk about our game in any terms. In that case, your endless objections are made in bad faith and deserve to be nugatory.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Really? I consider myself one of the least sandboxy people around. How interesting.

Especially interesting because I would have done D) also, and I consider myself one of the more sandboxy people around. Just because the PCs are playing in the sandbox over here doesn't mean I don't get to play in the sandbox over there, so to speak.

Goes to show how interpretations differ, I guess.

 

[Ariosto]

Do it up by the book. 1-100 creatures of random power levels appear right next to the caster.

Which book is that?

It is not the 1st ed. Advanced D&D Players Handbook, in any case. That reads:

There is a 10% chance that 1 to 100 other creatures will be freed from imprisonment at the same time if the magic-user does not perfectly get the name and background of the creature to be freed.

There's no business about "intonation", much less the (potentially useful) effect you describe above.

The Dungeon Masters Guide indicates how to generate the number freed (using a curve of d% x d100, so the actual chance of 100 is only 1 in 10,000 and the average about 26). It also states

For each such creature freed there is only a 10% chance that it will be in the area of the spell caster.

The level of monster is weighted by turning to Table IX (the penultimate) for 60% -- and level X not at all (so no solars, liches or yagnodaemons).

Even by an interpretation of the word "these" in the DMG commentary as indicating all freed creatures (rather than only those in the caster's area), and strict adherence to rolls for type ... One could still fill slots a la your option (b) (just not with that being the sole determinant)!

The idea, though, that the random encounter tables should indicate the likelihood that particular, known entities should (or should not) be among those freed does not quite satisfy me.

I mean, if one has established that (say) Leroy Brown (a human of class x and level y) is among the encysted -- in fact, that he is one of a certain assortment of creatures stuck in the locale -- then one might not be dealing with an absolute imponderable. Just how, in detail, the magic functions or malfunctions is not a subject the book treats.

I would not call it "railroading" if a DM, possessed of such established facts (which indeed seems likely come PCs of such level) came up with some basis more reasonable to her or his own sensibility. Enough consistency for players to have the potential to inform their choices in general terms (an admittedly fuzzy standard) is desirable.

Still, I would agree that letting the probabilities play out is another step away from imposing a personal bias.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

{lots of rules}

Egad. I was just going for color! That was my memory there; sorry that I used the phrase "by the book."

My point, without the color, is:

a) Let random powerful NPCs and monsters into your campaign

b) Pick and choose which powerful NPCs and monsters come out

c) Ignore the die result; no monsters or NPCs come out

Happy New Year!

 

[Ariosto]

a) Let random powerful NPCs and monsters into your campaign

That is put poorly, I think, whereas the previous version merely misrepresented details of fact (but what's an order of magnitude among DMs?).

What I mean is that I think it is perfectly in keeping with a free game for a designer -- which a DM effectively is -- to establish what is or is not in it. If there are no nilbogs, flumphs or whatever to have been imprisoned in the first place, then they cannot be freed.

It might even be the case that there in fact are no creatures imprisoned. That might be an extremely unusual circumstance, or a very common one, depending on how wide-spread use of the spell is and has been.

 

[Stormonu]

Hmm. Guessing one of the pieces of information I need to be getting on this is what "types" of DMs are there?

 

[Ycore Rixle]

That is put poorly, I think.

No, I meant what I said.

Of course the DM has the ability, without impacting his Sandbox Rating (TM), to decide what's in his world. His Sandbox Rating (TM) starts to decline when he ignores the rules that he has adopted in favor of a pre-ordained plot.

 

[Ariosto]

I gotcha, Y.R. -- It was just that the words to me didn't mean what you mean.

I just don't squeak your linguish, I guess.