D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[The Firebird]

If you already know the contents of every hex well before players enter it, how is the world not nailed down?

It's your theme park. They just get to choose what they see in it.

It seems to me that your dividing line between 'theme park' and 'sandbox' is whether or not the GM filled in the world first. Which doesn't make sense to me. Why is there more agency in going somewhere if the GM hasn't decided what to put there yet?

Follow up-is the real world a sandbox or a theme park?

 

[AlViking]

If you already know the contents of every hex well before players enter it, how is the world not nailed down?

It's your theme park. They just get to choose what they see in it.

So if I'm going out to dinner and can choose Mexican, Chinese, Italian or American style food I have no autonomy because the restaurants are already there? I know roughly what type of food they serve, the flavors and options are significantly different and even when I get to the restaurant I have a wide variety of choices from their menu. But that's somehow linear?

 

[Umbran]

The GM provides the rails. The agency is in where you look while you're riding them.

Again, in the classic railroad, the GM has one particular end that they drive you to. Railroading is linear. Walking where you want, and doing whatever you want, and coming to nobody knows what end, within a populated space is not a railroad.

We can argue over whether looking out the windows is really the only thing you can do on a train another time.

 

[Faolyn]

It is if only having a limited number of directions to choose from is constraining. Randomness just means that the option chosen is dependent on the randomizer. If my choice of going left or right is based on a coin toss I have no autonomy.

Well, that's not what I meant by randomizers.

And anyway, you have to have some constraints, because otherwise you end up with situations like this:

The Game: The PCs come across some scruffy-looking bandits. The leader points their sword at you and demands you surrender your money.

You: I transform into my God Form and set my tactical nuke-dragons on them! <rolls dice> The bandits take 15,000 damage. They can save for half.

Back to randomizers:

Take the Mythic system, which is designed for solo (or GMless) play in addition to your game system of choice. (There may be similar systems out there, but I don't know them--I do know of specific GMless games, though) I have not yet played it, since I've been busy. But anyway, the way it works is it combines two elements. The first is the Chaos Factor, which starts at a specific number and goes up and down based on how "well" you're doing (things like, if rolls are succeeding, you can lower to CF; if they're failing, you can raise it). The higher the CF, the more likely for a Yes answer. Because Yes answers lead to chaos.

The Yes answer comes because the core of the game is asking Yes/No answers (Is the chest full of treasure? Do the guards attack me? Is there a monster in the next room). There are actually four possible answers Yes, Exceptional Yes, No, and Exceptional No. You then set the odds of how likely a Yes is, which can range from very low to very high. And then you roll the dice.

So it's a lot more than just a coin toss.

There's also Interrupts, which happen when you roll certain numbers and cause things outside your control to happen. This is a series of lengthy random tables that can cause things to happen to you, to an NPC, to cause various events to occur, to introduce new NPCs or events, etc.

These are all just prompts, so you might roll New NPC, decide that its a creature, and then roll on the Animal table to get hungry and mistrust. Which then have to interpret.

Of course, it's a bit more detailed than that (the book is quite large, although I was able to condense it down quite a bit for when I start using it). But that's what I meant. Not just a 50/50 chance.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It seems to me that your dividing line between 'theme park' and 'sandbox' is whether or not the GM filled in the world first. Which doesn't make sense to me. Why is there more agency in going somewhere if the GM hasn't decided what to put there yet?

Follow up-is the real world a sandbox or a theme park?

It is neither. Unless you think God is your Dungeon Master. Which, well. I certainly think some folks act like they think God is their Dungeon Master...and not in a good way.

You (and others) are the one(s) pushing binaries here. I recognize a spectrum; I explicitly said so, and I recognized that just as how there are degrees of railroad, there are degrees of sandbox. I think D&D struggles with the fullest extent of what a sandbox should be (and I gave Minecraft as an example of that fullest extent, or Ironsworn as a TTRPG example in case a video game offends anyone's sensibilities). That doesn't mean you can't do a relatively lighter, closer to middle of the road kind of thing. But the sheer supremacy of the DM in D&D, alongside other rules structures, really gets in the way of the sort of thing "sandbox" points toward.

The sandboxiest you can get with (not-heavily-modified) D&D is not as sandboxy as other systems just innately are, by design. That's not a criticism. It's just the truth as I see it. There are things D&D does very well and things it just doesn't do well. I don't think any edition of D&D is particularly good at political intrigue, for example, since the exact same mechanical experience governs intrigue, tomb-raiding, and library research, and said mechanical experience is pretty light on rising and falling action (as compared to its combat mechanics, I mean, where much arises from the changing mechanical state.) There are other things I think D&D does very well. As an example, D&D has always understood that class fantasy is extremely important, something that I think many freeform games lose sight of. Not everyone wants strongly supported class fantasies, but I'm pretty sure a majority of people do want that. Likewise, not everyone wants intrigue-heavy mechanics; I'm less sure about where the majority lies there.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So if I'm going out to dinner and can choose Mexican, Chinese, Italian or American style food I have no autonomy because the restaurants are already there? I know roughly what type of food they serve, the flavors and options are significantly different and even when I get to the restaurant I have a wide variety of choices from their menu. But that's somehow linear?

When did I say none? When did I say that?

Please argue against the posts I'm actually making, rather than whatever you have mistaken for my posts.

 

[The Firebird]

It is neither.

Which is it more like, given that the world is already defined? It seems to me it has to be theme park, based on your definitions. Is that wrong?

You (and others) are the one(s) pushing binaries here. I recognize a spectrum; I explicitly said so, and I recognized that just as how there are degrees of railroad, there are degrees of sandbox.

I don't think what I said implies there has to be a binary. Just that the DM deciding what is in Hex 10.25 before or after the players start traveling there doesn't make a difference.

 

[AlViking]

Well, that's not what I meant by randomizers.

And anyway, you have to have some constraints, because otherwise you end up with situations like this:

The Game: The PCs come across some scruffy-looking bandits. The leader points their sword at you and demands you surrender your money.

You: I transform into my God Form and set my tactical nuke-dragons on them! <rolls dice> The bandits take 15,000 damage. They can save for half.

I agree, but based on what some people seem to think, this is the only true sandbox. Do whatever you want.

Back to randomizers:

Take the Mythic system, which is designed for solo (or GMless) play in addition to your game system of choice. (There may be similar systems out there, but I don't know them--I do know of specific GMless games, though) I have not yet played it, since I've been busy. But anyway, the way it works is it combines two elements. The first is the Chaos Factor, which starts at a specific number and goes up and down based on how "well" you're doing (things like, if rolls are succeeding, you can lower to CF; if they're failing, you can raise it). The higher the CF, the more likely for a Yes answer. Because Yes answers lead to chaos.

The Yes answer comes because the core of the game is asking Yes/No answers (Is the chest full of treasure? Do the guards attack me? Is there a monster in the next room). There are actually four possible answers Yes, Exceptional Yes, No, and Exceptional No. You then set the odds of how likely a Yes is, which can range from very low to very high. And then you roll the dice.

So it's a lot more than just a coin toss.

There's also Interrupts, which happen when you roll certain numbers and cause things outside your control to happen. This is a series of lengthy random tables that can cause things to happen to you, to an NPC, to cause various events to occur, to introduce new NPCs or events, etc.

These are all just prompts, so you might roll New NPC, decide that its a creature, and then roll on the Animal table to get hungry and mistrust. Which then have to interpret.

Of course, it's a bit more detailed than that (the book is quite large, although I was able to condense it down quite a bit for when I start using it). But that's what I meant. Not just a 50/50 chance.

Then you are just leaving the results of every decision up to a roll of the die. I don't see how it matter how it's decided what the contents of a chest (or whatever randomized result you want) is, whether it's a person or a random result, the only autonomy you had was whether to open the chest or not.

 

[AlViking]

When did I say none? When did I say that?

Please argue against the posts I'm actually making, rather than whatever you have mistaken for my posts.

You were the one saying that having anything predefined means everything is nailed down. To me if I have multiple meaningful choices and the autonomy to choose options (or even asking if I can get a custom order) I have autonomy. If I have that level of autonomy in a game I'm playing a sandbox. I will never have infinite options to choose from in a game or in real life, that doesn't mean a game or real life is linear.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Which is it more like, given that the world is already defined? It seems to me it has to be theme park, based on your definitions. Is that wrong?

It is not like either. I cannot say it is more or less like either thing. Of 7, blue, and red, 7 is no more like blue than it is like red, nor is it more like red than blue. It is like neither.

I don't think what I said implies there has to be a binary.

It quite clearly implied that either there is agency or there isn't, when the real situation is dramatically more complicated (as I have explicitly said, repeatedly).

Just that the DM deciding what is in Hex 10.25 before or after the players start traveling there doesn't make a difference.

It doesn't.

But everything in that hex will be nailed down by the DM before they actually do anything there. That's the point. No option is available without being created by the DM, whenever the details are filled in is irrelevant. The DM is the sole arbiter of what is allowed into the fiction (except for personal details) either way.