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<blockquote data-quote="Raven Crowking" data-source="post: 3896797" data-attributes="member: 18280">Hobo,There's no way that any DM anywhere can ever present a truly complete world...doing so falls outside of the scope of human endevour.&nbsp; The sandbox style aims, primarily, to give the PCs choices; to let the players drive the game (instead of being driven by it).IMHO, of course.&nbsp; &nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> Bullocks.&nbsp; Or, at least, &quot;bullocks&quot; in my personal case.First off, very little of this effort should be wasted, as hooks that are not dealt with become &quot;ongoing&quot; and tend to recycle.&nbsp; Second off, the use of things like the 1e OA calendar event generator to spur ideas greatly reduces the amount of work required.&nbsp; Finally, I find that, in the case of prep work, doing creative things tends to make me more creative, not less.&nbsp; It is the mind-numbing bog-work of statting in 3.x that &quot;burns out&quot; DMs, IME and IMHO, not the creative aspects.&nbsp; Creativity is fun....a hobby unto itself!If by &quot;prepare&quot; we mean &quot;preparing stats&quot; I am right there with him.&nbsp; If by &quot;prepare&quot; we mean &quot;outline what's over there for use/potential fleshing out later&quot; then I would say that is necessary if you want to run a good sandbox-style game.EDIT:&nbsp; That bit by Ray Winninger is a dangerous bit of advice if you want to run a sandbox game.&nbsp; The only way that the DM absolutely knows what he has to prepare is to delimit the choices available to the players.&nbsp; Of course, all games delimit choices to greater or lesser degrees, but if your goal is to create a sandbox, you don't want to delimit player choices more than is necessary.&nbsp; There is no sense in detailing the City of Brass if the PCs will never go there; there is a great deal of sense in at least outlining if the PCs have that option.&nbsp; This is one area where you &amp; I differ, I suppose.&nbsp; I find that whatever work you put into a sandbox automatically &quot;pays for itself&quot; as it generates player interest, makes the world seem more real, and gives more options.&nbsp; Again, I am not talking about the fuddly bits of 3.x statting, which I will grant you is the polar opposite of creativity (except when folks like Boz or frankthedm are doing it!)RC</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Raven Crowking, post: 3896797, member: 18280"] Hobo, There's no way that any DM anywhere can ever present a [i]truly[/i] complete world...doing so falls outside of the scope of human endevour. The sandbox style aims, primarily, to give the PCs choices; to let the players drive the game (instead of being driven by it). IMHO, of course. ;) Bullocks. Or, at least, "bullocks" in my personal case. First off, very little of this effort should be wasted, as hooks that are not dealt with become "ongoing" and tend to recycle. Second off, the use of things like the 1e OA calendar event generator to spur ideas greatly reduces the amount of work required. Finally, I find that, in the case of prep work, doing creative things tends to make me [i]more[/i] creative, not less. It is the mind-numbing bog-work of statting in 3.x that "burns out" DMs, IME and IMHO, not the creative aspects. Creativity is [i]fun[/i]....a hobby unto itself! If by "prepare" we mean "preparing stats" I am right there with him. If by "prepare" we mean "outline what's over there for use/potential fleshing out later" then I would say that [i][b]is[/b][/i][b][/b] necessary if you want to run a good sandbox-style game. [i]EDIT: That bit by Ray Winninger is a dangerous bit of advice if you want to run a sandbox game. The only way that the DM absolutely knows what he has to prepare is to delimit the choices available to the players. Of course, all games delimit choices to greater or lesser degrees, but if your goal is to create a sandbox,[/i] you don't want to [i]delimit player choices more than is necessary. There is no sense in detailing the City of Brass if the PCs will never go there; there is a great deal of sense in at least outlining if the PCs[/i] have that option[i]. This is one area where you & I differ, I suppose. I find that whatever work you put into a sandbox automatically "pays for itself" as it generates player interest, makes the world seem more real, and gives more options. Again, I am not talking about the fuddly bits of 3.x statting, which I will grant you is the polar opposite of creativity (except when folks like [b]Boz[/b] or [b]frankthedm[/b] are doing it!)[/i] RC [/QUOTE]

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