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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mallus" data-source="post: 4691297" data-attributes="member: 3887">Most simulations are created for a reason. They don't exist for their own sake. I thought the simulations (ie settings) found in role-playing gaming existed to facilitate the enacting of adventure stories. The simulation, in this case, could be said to be simulating these kinds of stories themselves.Which is to say any path leads to some kind of adventure (or is skipped over as quickly as possible). If the paths lead to tedium and endless milling about the DM will soon find his sandbox empty. And whatever they do eventually leads to adventure (or the campaign ends). Because that's what RPG's simulate -- adventure stories. Again, because wherever they go there will be the killing and taking of stuff, it's endemic to the medium.Let's not make too much of 'simuationism' eh? In the end it's no less contrived than more directed modes of play, because, again, it's a simulation of the worlds found in contrived fantasy adventure fiction. It's not like the characters in a 'sandbox game' are likely to stumble into scenarios like those found in a Jane Austen novel or a Beckett play (or, rather, if they did, those scenarios would inevitably end in the of killing things --eat this fireball Mr. Darcy!-- and taking of their stuff).</blockquote>