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Ok, let's see if this works. In the interests of building bridges instead of burning them, let me outline how I would run my next Sandbox campaign, which won't be for some time as I've just embarked on my current one, but, at some point in the future, this is what I would do to run my next...

They were arguing that all sandboxes MUST be played like that. It was repeatedly stated. To the point where I pointed out that something added to the game - a squeaky floor- wasn't objective, by the words of the person advocating that the DM in a sandbox must always be objective, and I get dog...

Umm... murdering retreating enemies is typically seen as pretty morally repugnant. They were beaten, they were never coming back. He had a gun. He wasn't defenseless. And, let's not forget that this was a sadistic murderer (he tried very hard to kill someone to get into UNIT HQ) sociopath...

I ran this over Fantasy Grounds, and the secret door leading into the 1st level is in the completely wrong place. A fact I didn't realize until AFTER the PC's had gone through it. :(

Heh. Or, alternatively, ask the players what they think should happen and then do that. :D Just for a different approach. Personally, I find that players are FAR nastier to their characters than I ever would be.

Y'know, as much as I've been argumentative in this thread, there have been some really fantastic ideas come out of it: Let the players trash the setting. @robertsconley - this is absolutely fantastic advice and something I think a lot of DM's forget. I've seen a lot of players get...

Because this wasn't actually the point of what I was trying to explain. The point that was being made is that the DM must strive to be absolutely objective in setting creation. That the world should exist outside of the players and their characters. And that world should have nothing to do...

Can I just point out though, that this is not a "sandbox" thing. That's a game thing. Perfectly linear campaigns can start with or without specific personal goals and then develop goals later on in the campaign. And, so long as the DM shows any degree of flexibility (which a good DM should)...

Really? So, you stopped every few kilometers to check out every single thing? You stopped at every gas station, rest stop, roadside attraction, town, village, city, and house along the way to interact with the people there and discover what you could learn about all these things? Or, did you...

Great Snarfticle as always.

I'll just echo others here. You do not need Phandelver at all. Heck, you barely need a town to be honest. The adventure spends virtually no time in the town, and, other than essentially fridging the town in order to get the party motivated, the town has no real purpose. I am very much not a...

Heh. Well, thank you for that. At least my brains haven't entirely fallen out of my ears. :D For those who are looking at this episode and reacting strongly, that's largely the point. There are no "good guys" and "bad guys". They were looking to stir up people talking about the show and...

Let me try to clarify then. The characters were not "just exploring". They were traveling to a specific location to explore that specific location. The only reason they went to that specific location is because the DM deliberately called it out as a place of interest - it has a cool name...

I guess, at the end of the day, I just don’t see what the problem is with admitting that the dm is never really impartial. To me it’s far more important to realize that no I’m never really impartial and recognize that. From there I can see how my biases are impacting play and try to ameliorate...

Of course. What they didn’t do was point to an unmarked bit of forest on the map and say, “hey let’s go here!” They went to an obvious point of interest that the dm had prepared (or at least named). Had the forest not been named, you wouldn’t go there. Iow, the content is still generated by...

Wow. I do not play that way. It never occurred to me to play that way. How does my persuasion check determine the moral character of an npc?

But that’s not the example. There’s no misunderstanding here. @Lanefan specifically stated why he described the floors that way.

Well I care because I got accused more than a couple of times of onetruewayism and accused of denigrating play styles and games. Things I never actually did. But when some of the same people who have accused me of these things then tell me that I’m not even capable of running a sandbox, the...

Fair enough. I can see that the GM can strive to be impartial but I see it is aspirational not something you can ever achieve in a system where the GM is not constrained in any meaningful way to actually be impartial. Which I suppose is a rather long winded way I’d agreeing to disagree.