NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 7074590" data-attributes="member: 16814">No, I did.  You said it's not a sandbox at all because it didn't fit your very narrow definition.  I added the idea of a 'failed sandbox' as one that attempts to be a sandbox, but fails because it doesn't meet your definition entirely.To which I'd like to say that Free Kreigspiel is a model of a sandbox.  It's not THE model of a sandbox.The question was 'show me how the GM can drive the game'.  I provided an example on how exactly the GM can drive the game according to their desires.  You respond that 'if the GM doesn't engage the beliefs, it's obvious' but all of my examples do engage the beliefs.  The belief that you'll return to your ruined tower and find the mace you were looking on is engaged on a failure if I say 'no, and a demon appears'.  It's also engaged on a partial success if I say 'yes, you find it, but a demon appears."  My agenda here is to drive the game toward engagement with the theme and plot I want, which is demons.  But framing situations so that they're amenable to failure circumstances that drive towards my point, I can easily engage player beliefs and still drive the game.  I just choose failure events or choices biased to my underlying agenda.  You seem to refuse to acknowledge this is possible, mostly, I think, because it doesn't occur to you to do so.  That's a positive thing, but you're mistaking your playstyle as something that's emergent from the ruleset when this isn't necessarily correct.  It's encouraged, yes, but not required.I think a major point of contention here is the false binary that keeps getting kicked around by everyone that games are either DM driven or Player driven.  It's always both, it's just a matter of degree.  There is no magic formulation that sets the precise ratio for any game.  A game can have some DM direction and vastly more player direction, or vice versa, but the presence of DM direction doesn't mean the game is now DM driven.  If that's the case, your game is DM driven, and you've demonstated this by adding fiction that you chose in the event of failed checks by your players.  Since this is clearly counterindicated (it's clear you value player desires over your own as DM), then the premise fails.  Similarly, having events that occur off camera that then impact the players, or having events that pivot on 'secret' information doesn't make a game DM driven, it just tilts a little more in that direction.  These components, by and of themselves, do not rise to the level of automatic definition.  They can, for sure, if used extensively and with other DM force options, but it's not sufficient.</blockquote>

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