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<blockquote data-quote="Imaginary Number" data-source="post: 5043372" data-attributes="member: 63056"><p>I voted for &quot;mostly linear&quot; because I think that's the way my players perceive what we do, but like many of the posters above I didn't think the choice was an easy one.&nbsp; Typically when we start a campaign I have a discussion with the players about what sort of characters they want to have and what sort of stuff they want to do.&nbsp; I then sketch out an area on a map with one or two potential home bases and some adventure hooks designed to appeal to the characters, and I try to let them choose among the hooks I've presented to do what they want.&nbsp; That seems pretty &quot;sandbox-y.&quot;&nbsp; However, because I am a human with a limited amount of time, I need to make some judgments in advance about what I think the players will do and prepare accordingly.&nbsp; For example, even if the characters hear both about the Caves of Chaos and the Dungeon of Doom at the beginning of the campaign, I may have decided for whatever reason that the players are more likely to want to go to the Caves of Chaos and have planned lots of encounters there while having only a vague idea of what's going on at the Dungeon of Doom because I think that they won't want to go there until later.&nbsp; My players know this and (here's the rub) they also know that everyone at the table (including me) has more fun if we play through adventures that I've planned in advance.&nbsp; I like to think that I'm reasonably good at improvising, and indeed some of the memorable moments for our group involve things I worked out on the fly, but the fact of the matter is that its generally more rewarding for my players (and me) to have encounters that I've thought through in advance and to receive magic items and loot with a cool backstory rather than to have me come up with those things off the top of my head.&nbsp; My players therefore have an incentive to seek cues from me for what I have prepared for any given session, and I'm almost always happy to give those cues to them.&nbsp; That seem more &quot;linear-y&quot; in that my judgment and expectations as a practical matter bound the players' meaningful choices of action.&nbsp; So I think my game is a hybrid, and I think that's also what most other DMs are doing.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="Imaginary Number, post: 5043372, member: 63056"] I voted for "mostly linear" because I think that's the way my players perceive what we do, but like many of the posters above I didn't think the choice was an easy one. Typically when we start a campaign I have a discussion with the players about what sort of characters they want to have and what sort of stuff they want to do. I then sketch out an area on a map with one or two potential home bases and some adventure hooks designed to appeal to the characters, and I try to let them choose among the hooks I've presented to do what they want. That seems pretty "sandbox-y." However, because I am a human with a limited amount of time, I need to make some judgments in advance about what I think the players will do and prepare accordingly. For example, even if the characters hear both about the Caves of Chaos and the Dungeon of Doom at the beginning of the campaign, I may have decided for whatever reason that the players are more likely to want to go to the Caves of Chaos and have planned lots of encounters there while having only a vague idea of what's going on at the Dungeon of Doom because I think that they won't want to go there until later. My players know this and (here's the rub) they also know that everyone at the table (including me) has more fun if we play through adventures that I've planned in advance. I like to think that I'm reasonably good at improvising, and indeed some of the memorable moments for our group involve things I worked out on the fly, but the fact of the matter is that its generally more rewarding for my players (and me) to have encounters that I've thought through in advance and to receive magic items and loot with a cool backstory rather than to have me come up with those things off the top of my head. My players therefore have an incentive to seek cues from me for what I have prepared for any given session, and I'm almost always happy to give those cues to them. That seem more "linear-y" in that my judgment and expectations as a practical matter bound the players' meaningful choices of action. So I think my game is a hybrid, and I think that's also what most other DMs are doing. [/QUOTE]

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