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

[Hussar]

Any campaign that relies heavily on procedural context during play omits steps crucial for a sandbox campaign. One of two things tends to happen with procedural context:

1. The result is inconsistent with previously established elements of the setting.
2. Or it limits the choices the players can make as characters adventuring in the setting.

Now this I strongly disagree with. The idea that proceeduraly generated conted will be inconsistent (or more inconsistent than any other RPG campaign) is something I don't find true. Proper note keeping solves that pretty well, same as any other campaign.

And it is no more limiting than having preset scenarios a la a DM curated setting.

 

[Bedrockgames]

By this argument, every invisible railroad is by definition a sandbox, because the players think they have freedom even though every challenge they face and place they go is actually predetermined.

Plenty of peopke don’t care and plenty do. I am fine with a mixture of ad lib and pre-prepped material as long as the GM is being considered in their application of it and keeping this solid once they are set down for consistency. But there are techniques you can use for improv to ensure choice still matters (I.e. pinning details down before players make a decision). But this seems purely like a matter of taste: why should other people care if @AlViking cares about this or not?

 

[Remathilis]

To me this is a key point. I like non-prescriptive guidelines and advice. One of the things that I found I fell into when I got into sandbox was taking too much overly prescriptive advice to heart. And I think my games suffered for it. It was when I realized you have to take whatever advice you find useful and apply it to the table before you that I started running them in a way that I think was more satisfying for everyone involved.

So you don't like when people tell you how to do something and prefer when they just support your already preconceived notions and style? Ok. Good job doing the thing, I guess...

 

[pemerton]

The map itself isn't particularly important but again I disagree (surprise, surprise). As long as the GM is not forcing a direction I don't care if the location, obstacles or opportunities are predetermined, procedurally determined, made up on the spot. All that matters is the entertainment value provided, which for most people includes a sense of consistency and logical world building.

If the GM is just making stuff up as takes their fancy, then it's not a sandbox - it's just a spontaneous GM script.

A GM script can, of course, be entertaining. I'm sure a lot of RPGers have found playing through (say) the DL modules entertaining. But being a sandbox is meant to be more than that.

What happens next should be dependent on the declaration of the characters and potentially other world events.

Again, I don't think it's a sandbox if the GM is riffing off what the players say, but just making it up as takes their fancy.

One of the great proponents of the classic D&D sandbox is Lewis Pulsipher, writing in White Dwarf magazine in the late 70s and early 80s. He contrasted sandbox-y RPGing (he called it "wargame-style" D&D) with the "living novel" approach. Whereas you seem to want to say that the GM-atuhored "living novel" is a type of sandbox.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So you don't like when people tell you how to do something and prefer when they just support your already preconceived notions and style? Ok. Good job doing the thing, I guess...

This isn’t quite what I am saying. I found after years of participating in sandbox advice and conversations (and here I am talking about sandbox folks that come from a similar school of thought as me and @robertsconley), the advice could sometimes veer into overly ideological territory where the purity of the sandbox mattered more than the health of the table and campaign. So I had in mind things like the principles of play (for instance how naturalistic events should be). But I also like when sandbox GM advice is more open to flexibility. If they present a tool, I may want to use it, but I like when tools are more open and not done as strict ‘you must always do this way’ kind of procedures. I also think some sandbox advice and philosophy can be overly prescriptive around things like play style (I.E. if someone wants to use a less traditional system, even one where the GM has more constraints, I don’t have an issue with that: it certainly could impact play but I think experimentation with different kinds and different approaches to sandbox is good)

 

[AlViking]

The "restrictions" you speak of are in the fiction, not the rules. The fiction of a world that doesn't have spaceships, electronics, rocketry, etc., isn't going to permit one, barring active effort to simulate these things fantastically (e.g. Spelljammer).

They are still restrictions. I can't just decide in that age of sail game that my ship can fly whether that's a hard rule because the game has rules for how ships work or because it's the narrative assumptions of the people playing the game.

Uh...this...isn't disagreement? You're just restating what pemerton said in different words? Well, without being quite as specific, I should say.

@pemerton can correct me if I misinterpret him but he believes that if the GM decides whether or not something is uncertain, automatically successful, potentially successful or not possible it is not a sandbox. That there must be some predefined procedure to determine response to declarations.

See above. The criterion isn't any different, it's just avoiding vagueness.


.....how can you possibly not care whether the obstacles are predetermined?

By this argument, every invisible railroad is by definition a sandbox, because the players think they have freedom even though every challenge they face and place they go is actually predetermined.

It's only an invisible railroad if the GM has already determined direction before the declaration of actions by the players. When I'm DMing and running an NPC I base reactions on what I know about the NPC while taking into account what the characters have done and said. There have been many cases when direction of the session or even entire campaign changed based on choices of the characters.

Seems perfectly in keeping to me. You'll have to actually give what "most people" allegedly define a sandbox to be in order to take this argument seriously.

I'm just basing what I consider "most people" based on reading that I've done. Some people include the ability of players to contribute to world building, I've never seen another claim that all reactions to player declarations must be procedurally resolved.

 

[Remathilis]

I think it's a question of perception.

The idea of a sandbox implies that both the box and the sand were there ahead of time before anyone played in it and are still there (absent any sand that got thrown out of the box) after everyone's done playing in it. There's a sense of permanence.

That you and your group - going by your posts upthread - tend to run largely without prep and in effect make it up as you go along kinda takes that sense of permanence and chucks it in the lake. It seems you're defining "sandbox play" at least in part to mean building the box and shoveling the sand in on the fly during play, which is at least by perception a completely different experience than bashing around in a pre-existing sandbox that someone already built.

I think the difference here is an expectation of the state of the sand.

Imagine for a moment you went to the beach and someone had built an elaborate sandcastle. No, a whole whole bunch of elaborate sand castles spread out across the beach. They said, "play with these however you like. You can explore them, add to them, or knock them over." That's what a traditional D&D sandbox is; a bunch of pre built castles someone already built. You can use them to tell whatever game of make believe you want, but they were there when you got there.

Hussar is suggesting a type of sandbox where you can your friends are given a bunch of buckets and molds and told to build stuff as you play. You are given nothing but sand and tools and told to make your own castle. So as you play, if you decide you need a castle, you stop and mold the castle. Nothing was pre-decided upon before you reached the beach, everything was made up as you go along.

Both styles of play have strengths and weaknesses. The first has the advantage of forethought. The castles are more elaborate and ready to use. You can do what you want with the benefits of these beautiful castles. The latter is messier, on the fly, but far more free. Things don't exist until someone gets a bucket of wet sand and makes it then and there. The past is vague, the future uncertain.

I don't advocate for either style; I like my APs. But I are least think after 30+ pages I see the difference.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Plenty of peopke don’t care and plenty do.

Whether or not people care should not determine whether something actually is a sandbox or not.

I am fine with a mixture of ad lib and pre-prepped material as long as the GM is being considered in their application of it and keeping this solid once they are set down for consistency.

So you're fine with something that...isn't really a sandbox, but calls itself one?

For goodness' sake, I thought the one thing we all agreed here was that railroad and sandbox were opposites!

But there are techniques you can use for improv to ensure choice still matters (I.e. pinning details down before players make a decision). But this seems purely like a matter of taste: why should other people care if @AlViking cares about this or not?

No one? The point wasn't whether one person cares or doesn't care. The point was whether the thing described is in keeping with generally understood standards of sandbox or not. AlViking is claiming pemerton's standard is somehow totally wonky out there ridiculous unlike anything typical people expect....and then saying things that very much indicate their standard doesn't comport even with what folks have said in this very thread!

 

[AlViking]

If the GM is just making stuff up as takes their fancy, then it's not a sandbox - it's just a spontaneous GM script.

It's not the GM making stuff up as takes their fancy, it's the GM responding to player declarations taking into consideration the world that's been envisioned. I prefer that to relying on some predefined table of constraints.

A GM script can, of course, be entertaining. I'm sure a lot of RPGers have found playing through (say) the DL modules entertaining. But being a sandbox is meant to be more than that.

Again, I don't think it's a sandbox if the GM is riffing off what the players say, but just making it up as takes their fancy.

One of the great proponents of the classic D&D sandbox is Lewis Pulsipher, writing in White Dwarf magazine in the late 70s and early 80s. He contrasted sandbox-y RPGing (he called it "wargame-style" D&D) with the "living novel" approach. Whereas you seem to want to say that the GM-atuhored "living novel" is a type of sandbox.

You have a different preference than I do. What's different though is that I wouldn't care for your style of game but I'm not saying anything about what kind of game it can lead to or whether it's a good design or not outside of my personal preference. That's far different from you belittling my preference by calling it "making it up as takes their fancy". If I'm improvising a situation, I'm doing it based on an understanding of my world's history, current events and logic. Yes I am authoring new fiction for the world but that fiction has to be defined by someone somewhere at some point. Even if the fiction is defined by procedural generation.

 

[AlViking]

...

No one? The point wasn't whether one person cares or doesn't care. The point was whether the thing described is in keeping with generally understood standards of sandbox or not. AlViking is claiming pemerton's standard is somehow totally wonky out there ridiculous unlike anything typical people expect....and then saying things that very much indicate their standard doesn't comport even with what folks have said in this very thread!

I'm saying that his definition of only one and only true way of running a sandbox is not widely accepted. I have never called it "wonky", "ridiculous" or any of the other accusations.