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I would think that the later is one aspect for sure. What sort of unsavory acts are required in order to raise the dead? When might this be justified? Can Thoth justify it? More mundane obstacles might exist as well, but I think they're not likely to be the real crux of the thing. They might...

Look, I'm saying that NPCs are NPCs in all sorts of play, and in none of them are a substantial percentage fleshed out beforehand. So to label the NPCs in, say, Dungeon World, as 'color', but the same non-descript NPCs in City State of the Invincible Overlord as somehow 'more realistic' or...

Why would you assume that feeling doesn't exist in Narrativist play? I mean, for one thing, it is not the case that SETTING is all defined in relation to the characters. Blades in the Dark is set in Doskvol, a fully realized dark fantasy city situated in the ruins of a mostly dead world at the...

No, things are perfectly well-defined in BW, at the time they need to be well-defined. That is to say, this is true in games like Dungeon World, I also expect it is true in BW, though I have only really played TB2. Prep exists in these games, it is simply shaped by a need to center on what is...

Which is exactly the same thing! Color, or whatever, depending on how the game goes. You can try to cut this any way you want, but the premise of the argument is BS.

I have no idea what you're talking about tbh. With quite extensive experience in both styles, and on each side of the screen, I can tell you that neither set of techniques particularly results in a less engaging or real-seeming milieu. This has nothing to do with perfection, and nobody expects...

Every single game does this. If a town in some detailed trad game world has 3000 inhabitants, how many detailed NPC descriptions do you think there are for inhabitants of said place? If it is a heavily focused on location that number might run into the several dozen, perhaps. Some additional...

Right, I'd be more concerned, with an inexperienced MC, that they would fail to allocate bandwidth to everyone effectively. That they might softball less assertive or confident players, etc. Obviously you can, theoretically, have a player so loud and pushy that it derails play, but I seriously...

Honestly, IMHO, the 'classic' sandbox lacks point 2. It's more a kind of static situation in which the PCs are the main instigators of action. As the character of the campaign moves more to a dynamic world in motion it gains more character of 'the GM show' and less of player's playground.

Certainly not getting into any argument. I think the usage back in the early The Dragon days is a bit more specific than you credit, but it is notoriously difficult to retroactively parse shades of meaning at an earlier time. IMHO We described Wilderlands of High Fantasy as 'sandbox' and used...

Yeah, as someone who played D&D when it was the only RPG in existence, my understanding of 'sandbox' (and I believe the term originated in the D&D community of the '70s) was simply a game free of meta-plot. The GM devised a setting, complete with adventure locations and such, usually in the form...

Well, I think when you get to high levels, D&D has traditionally pretty much broken down. 5e maybe is a bit less extreme than 2e or 1e (or I guess 3e, never played high levels there, it seemed to break at like 5). At that point most games IME devolve down to some form of either neo-trad (IE...

I gotta say, this is like an advert for the truth of the OP. My 1977 self totally gets you. Sadly, the world has changed... Well, some parts of it have. The RPG discussion group at my workplace is interesting. There are a lot of participants (LARGE organization). Some simply cannot imagine...

Wow, you've managed to sum up EnWorld forums pretty effectively.

Yeah, I just cracked my old 'Kinergh Campaign' notebook, a whole 3-ring binder filled with notes and whatnot. It is pretty 'front-like' in structure, although all the different threats kind of align to one overarching plot/timeline. As we played it looks like I basically collapsed a lot of it...

It has been a while since I read/played TB2e, so I won't swear I am remembering correctly, but AFAIK the players declare camp, and they make a camp roll. If that roll fails, then mechanically camp phase doesn't happen. In our play that was sometimes described as the conditions being so hostile...

The generating of a monster by authoring an encounter table, and subsequently rolling on it, is no less a process of GM decision-making than the TB case, except maybe you did it last Tuesday. Granted D&D has, often, some random generation, but that still is 'randomly choose one of the things I...

But you cannot escape the actual description of, and discussion about how things actually play, which UNDERGIRDS the way it feels and plays out in an agenda sense. You cannot get to your philosophy without first visiting techniques. That is, any attempt to better play will have to regard the...

Well, in all fairness, games like BitD and AW/DW DO say something to the effect of "If you don't like the thing that the GM said, then tell them you want to change something." It isn't delved into in much detail in DW, but if the GM declares an action triggered and the rest of the table is not...

Except those principles are written in the book (at least in AW/GW/BitD) so they're pretty objective. Of course people are people and they don't always interpret them consistently, etc. So, of course there's variation in quality. Even good GMs now and then botch something or at least put...