Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 8234019" data-attributes="member: 5142"><p>So already at your first point, you completely lost me. What you describe as antithetical to old-school sandbox play is actually closer to how old school sandbox play often works. Not every thing is meant to be confronted by the players through fair combat encounters, i.e., &quot;combat as sport.&quot; OSR advocates &quot;combat as war.&quot; Unequal encounters produced by randomness are often a point of pride in OSR sandbox games, which gets discussed fairly frequently in a number of OSR guides, such as the Principia Apocrypha. What matters in these cases though is that the GM appropriately telegraphs the relative danger. Sometimes the best way to deal with that dragon that is eight levels above you is to avoid it (i.e., don't walk up to it as if it was a fair encounter), negotiate with it, bring in allies who can help, devise other strategies that can bypass/overcome it, or come back Metroidvania style when you are equipped to deal with it.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="Aldarc, post: 8234019, member: 5142"] So already at your first point, you completely lost me. What you describe as antithetical to old-school sandbox play is actually closer to how old school sandbox play often works. Not every thing is meant to be confronted by the players through fair combat encounters, i.e., "combat as sport." OSR advocates "combat as war." Unequal encounters produced by randomness are often a point of pride in OSR sandbox games, which gets discussed fairly frequently in a number of OSR guides, such as the Principia Apocrypha. What matters in these cases though is that the GM appropriately telegraphs the relative danger. Sometimes the best way to deal with that dragon that is eight levels above you is to avoid it (i.e., don't walk up to it as if it was a fair encounter), negotiate with it, bring in allies who can help, devise other strategies that can bypass/overcome it, or come back Metroidvania style when you are equipped to deal with it. [/QUOTE]

Verification