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Player-driven campaigns and developing strong stories
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<blockquote data-quote="bloodtide" data-source="post: 8970589" data-attributes="member: 6684958"><p>The thing is, all RPG adventures are the same. It's just the limitations of reality.</p><p></p><p>The players pick something to do, or the GM picks something to do. That's it, it's a binary choice.</p><p>The GM prepares ahead of time or the GM just improvs on the fly. That's it, another binary choice.</p><p></p><p>The sandbox is just an illusion. And plenty of people thing it's fun, so if it's fun for you that's fine. Sure you can play a whole game, for years and years, in a sandbox just doing random short term simple things. That is all a sandbox can give you. As soon as you add any structure at all, it's not a 'pure' sand box anymore. As soon as you add even a single stone wall, the sandbox is not pure: that lone wall blocks the sand and forces the sand to flow around or over it. </p><p></p><p>The players leave the sandbox by picking something to do. They pick rob a bank. So the GM at this point needs to make the bank and the vault. The players can't even start to plan a heist without (literary) solid information. If the GM makes the vault guarded by a ghost dragon the players must find a way to deal with that. The players can't do the (sandboxy) thing that just say "oh we have our characters go dance in the Land of the Pink Elephants" , and then ask if they looted the vault. The only option is for them to somehow deal with or get around that ghost dragon. </p><p></p><p>And the more detail and the more complexity the game setting has, the less "choices" the players have: This is true. But this is a Feature, but a Bug.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="bloodtide, post: 8970589, member: 6684958"] The thing is, all RPG adventures are the same. It's just the limitations of reality. The players pick something to do, or the GM picks something to do. That's it, it's a binary choice. The GM prepares ahead of time or the GM just improvs on the fly. That's it, another binary choice. The sandbox is just an illusion. And plenty of people thing it's fun, so if it's fun for you that's fine. Sure you can play a whole game, for years and years, in a sandbox just doing random short term simple things. That is all a sandbox can give you. As soon as you add any structure at all, it's not a 'pure' sand box anymore. As soon as you add even a single stone wall, the sandbox is not pure: that lone wall blocks the sand and forces the sand to flow around or over it. The players leave the sandbox by picking something to do. They pick rob a bank. So the GM at this point needs to make the bank and the vault. The players can't even start to plan a heist without (literary) solid information. If the GM makes the vault guarded by a ghost dragon the players must find a way to deal with that. The players can't do the (sandboxy) thing that just say "oh we have our characters go dance in the Land of the Pink Elephants" , and then ask if they looted the vault. The only option is for them to somehow deal with or get around that ghost dragon. And the more detail and the more complexity the game setting has, the less "choices" the players have: This is true. But this is a Feature, but a Bug. [/QUOTE]
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