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Not in it's most extreme form, but I've seen Warlocks routinely use their ability to get slots back on a short rest to cast extra useful spells in situations where taking lots of short rests are easy. And no, I don't see it as a problem at all--quite the opposite. The ability to do so is one of...

There are several always-useful spells, but Sending (available to Great Old One Warlocks and some multiclassed Warlocks) is the big one. The size of the contact network a party can usefully maintain is often directly a function of how many Sendings they can (on average) cast in a day. With a...

We're continuing to miscommunicate. None of your responses address what I was trying to say. I don't know if that's because you continue to doubt my intentions, or because we use language very differently, or for some other reason. In any case, I don't want to continue to spend the time to try...

That's fine--there's plenty of room for disagreement here. :) And I entirely agree that the Backstory-first vs Situation-first dichotomy is relevant to this thread. I think it's similarly relevant to discuss perceived drawbacks to, and/or perceived shortfalls of, that analytical approach.

I see. Well, if you aren't willing to take me at my word regarding my intentions, then I'm not sure more words are likely to help. I'll go ahead anyway and try to provide a specific response to your objections, but if you're convinced I'm being disingenuous then I can't be sure how my answer...

That isn't at all what I think or what I am doing or saying. To clarify, I am inquiring as to the utility of the category "Backstory first" and whether it is axiomatic (as @Malmuria suggested) or describes differences in play experiences (as @pemerton claims). I agree that it at least describes...

I agree that "Backstory first", as @pemerton is defining the category, appears to distinguish Story Now from other approaches. Indeed as a category it seems purposefully defined to do exactly that. I asked pemerton what purpose they saw in categorizing together disperate approaches because I...

What purpose do you see in categorizing together playstyles that provide different experiences? For instance, in the second quote above you're evidently defining "Backstory first" as a singular process broad enough to encompass both static map-and-key and living sandbox styles even though those...

Interestingly, this is a great illustration of the reasons I prefer game mechanics that consistently and predictably model the fiction. :) I dislike mechanics like Covering Fire whose utility directly depends on the GM's choices for how to mechanically model the fiction precisely for the reasons...

Your sense is well-founded, according to Edwards himself! In this post he says that story before and story after as terms were "only posed... as dysfunctional failures of Story Now". While I appreciate the self-awareness required for him to identify his motivation in originally proposing the...

Am I correct in understanding that you would strongly object to a GM changing an NPC's actual statblock behind the curtain for any reason, but you have no issue with a GM showing the players a phony NPC statblock in order to preserve a mystery? You would consider the former to be a breach of...

I think the real danger of extensive agriculture in a magical setting is that it encourages your political enemies to research Animate Wheat in order to make you fight your own food supply....

There's quite a bit of difference! Just not necessarily a difference regarding where the two campaigns fall on the sandbox spectrum. I don't know how to emphasize more clearly than I already have that the sandbox spectrum measures one aspect of play style in isolation. If it's an entirely...

Various approaches to content creation are definitely different things, but they don't directly relate to the sandbox spectrum, as I've defined it. The spectrum is only looking at one dimension of play: how often players are expected to make strategic choices from among specific options for that...

Where are you getting the idea of a "hidden menu" from? That isn't part of how I've specified the spectrum. And yes, implicit in the idea of being able to make an open-ended choice is that you may be doing something the GM hasn't prepped yet. (Depending on GM style, the GM might wing it or...

@EzekielRaiden Thanks for the detailed response! I like learning about different approaches, so I really appreciate the time and effort that went into providing so much detail. For clarity, I am very upfront with my players about my DMing style and the tools I use, especially the ones that can...

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you mean, I don't consider the sandbox spectrum I've specified to be about "establishing situations". It's about what the table expectations are for how the party decides to answer the (implicit or explicit) strategic question: "what do you do next?" and how...

The difference is table expectations: if, for a given strategic decision, one is expected to pick from those options laid out by the GM (obligating the PCs to follow the GM's lead on campaign direction), then that decision would be non-sandboxy and lower the campaign's sandbox percentage. If...

I like starting at level 6. At that point single-classed characters are starting to get some of their advanced abilities, dip characters can take a level in another class without losing their important level-5 ability, and multiclass characters have enough room to start making character-defining...

I'm with @prabe on this point. How do you get better at solving mysteries when your deductive skills are better than the DM's ability to make sure that the evidence points most strongly towards their intended solution? As a DM who runs improv-heavy sandboxes, I encounter this issue a lot. I've...