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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5586993" data-attributes="member: 42582">Leaving to one point that who the bad guys are may often be up to the players rather than the GM, I think what you describe here under the label "sandbox" sets out a clear contrast with railroading play.But I don't think it gets to the essence of a sandbox, because what you offer is an equally good description of thematically-driven play where the GM present the players with situations, the players engage those situations via their PCs, the consequences of that engagement are determined (keeping in mind the relevant thematic drivers) which produces new situations, etc, etc.I think this is right - provided we recognise that the player freedom here is freedom to explore the gameworld. And that, to me, is the essence of a sandbox - it is a player-driven though GM-mediated exploration game.Whereas the sort of theme-driven game I mentioned above, while also about player freedom, is not about exploratory freedom - it's about players' freedom to express their thematic points by making choices for their PCs. But those choices won't generally be exploration-type choices - they'll be thematic-type choices.I agree with this too. As a GM, you can't avoid railroading just by punting it all to the setting and saying "it's the setting's fault"! As Doug points out, different setting configuration support different sorts of player freedom  - or, perhaps none at all, which is my problem with Dragonlance - the players have neither exploratory freedom (Draconian armies will cut them off), nor thematic freedom (the answers to the thematic issues are already prepackaged into the scenario) nor even tactical freedom (because the adventure encourages fudging to produce predetermined outcomes to action resolution).My own game doesn't support exploratory freedom, because I deliberately foist situations upon the players which they have (in the sense of "have" that Janx is talking about upthread) to engage with them - but how they engage, and therefore what consequences they push towards, is under the control of the players.A story from somewhere (I think maybe the Burning Wheel rulebook?): a player created a PC who carried around the body of his dead wife, and whose goal in life was to have her restored to life. In the second (or thereabouts) session of the campaign the GM introduced a healer NPC, who duly proceeded to raise her from the dead. The GM thereby killed the game for that player, by removing the very point of play. Whether or not you want to describe that as a railroad, it certainly shows that setting elements are not neutral in their effects on the players' engagement with and participation in the game.The answer to this question depends, in my view, on what sort of freedom your players want to exercise in your game. If they want freedom to explore the gameworld, or to try and win treasures, then probably no. If they want freedom to pursue certain thematic concerns, and their PCs can't do that without the items, then probably yes - but the way you get the items to them should set up the thematic material in a way appropriate to your players' own concerns.</blockquote>

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