Players: it's your responsibility to carry a story.

[pemerton]

Or your could do this through actual play, instead of metagaming.

Doing this out-of-game is a preference, not a requirement.

Not a requirement for a fun game, agreed. (Not everyone shares my aversion to what I described upthread as "faffing around" - ie one person's faffing is another person's play).

But I think it is a requirement, or something like a requirement, for the sort of play that Nameless1 and I are talking about. Because if you don't do it through metagaming, than the GM has no easy way to start the game. Instead (it seems to me) s/he is stuck with providing hooks in the traditional way - either the railroad way, if it's one hook, or the sandbox way, if it's multiple hooks - and waiting to see which one the players take up.

A game like this could evolve into a situation-based game over time. And I have GMed a few games, both AD&D and Rolemaster, that did this - started as a bit of a sandbox, but after several sessions of play morphed into situation-based games as the players bit at hooks and started to embed their PCs in the gameworld.

It was these experiences, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which really showed me that a game could be run without railroading but with a much tighter focus than a sandbox (or at least what I think of as a sandbox - eg Classic Traveller or exploration D&D). It was only much later - more than 10 years later - that I became a FoRE and got a better handle on what it was I was actually doing, and how I could use the mechanics of the game to help support it. Although there is one Dragon article that predates Ron Edwards prominence in RPGing circles but which did have a big influence on my approach to play - Paul Suttie's "For King and Country" in Dragon 101. The main aim of the article is to argue against the alignment system. But in the course of the argument he also describes how a situation-based campaign might be set up - his main objection to alignment is that it needlessly gets in the way of setting up the situation. What's missing from his description is an account of how you can embed the PCs in the situation from the get-go. This is what I've come to understand better as a FoRE.

 

[pemerton]

I don't really see a character/situation-based sandbox, such as a political game set at the royal court, as any different from geographical sandbox. I tend to think the best games have elements of both. If you look at 3e Wilderlands of High Fantasy, it's certainly possible to extract complex relationship maps of the different NPCs and factions, though it's a pity that more wasn't included in the box set.

For the sort of play I am trying to describe, what's missing here are the PCs. Unless they have a place on the relationship map, I don't think it's the sort of situation-driven play that I've been trying to characterise.

EDIT: If the GM chooses that place on the map, we have a railroad. If the players choose that place, we don't. But if the players are to choose that place then they have to either (i) learn about the relationships during the course of play, as The Shaman suggested above, in which case the game at least starts as something other than a situation-driven game, or else (ii) put themselves onto the map at the metagame, pre-play stage.

 

[S'mon]

For the sort of play I am trying to describe, what's missing here are the PCs. Unless they have a place on the relationship map, I don't think it's the sort of situation-driven play that I've been trying to characterise.

EDIT: If the GM chooses that place on the map, we have a railroad. If the players choose that place, we don't. But if the players are to choose that place then they have to either (i) learn about the relationships during the course of play, as The Shaman suggested above, in which case the game at least starts as something other than a situation-driven game, or else (ii) put themselves onto the map at the metagame, pre-play stage.

Indeed - in the normal sandbox/exploratory mode, the PCs come into the situation from outside, without prior links, like the Man With No Name in A Fistfull of Dollars, and it's up to the players how they interact with it.

Your 'situation based' play seems much closer to the roots of the hobby in situational roleplaying scenarios like Braunstein - "You are General Xavier, the Russians are coming, what do you do?" - except that you are apparently talking about a game where the players start off knowing the relationship map and create a PC that fits within it? OK, but the big risk there is stasis, IMO. There is no inherent 'kick' from the arrival of the PCs on the scene, so the DM has to create proactive antagonists, a draft timeline for their plans, and such. All the stuff that in Braunstein type games is done by the players according to their GM-determined start conditions.

 

[Gimby]

Indeed - in the normal sandbox/exploratory mode, the PCs come into the situation from outside, without prior links, like the Man With No Name in A Fistfull of Dollars, and it's up to the players how they interact with it.

Your 'situation based' play seems much closer to the roots of the hobby in situational roleplaying scenarios like Braunstein - "You are General Xavier, the Russians are coming, what do you do?" - except that you are apparently talking about a game where the players start off knowing the relationship map and create a PC that fits within it? OK, but the big risk there is stasis, IMO. There is no inherent 'kick' from the arrival of the PCs on the scene, so the DM has to create proactive antagonists, a draft timeline for their plans, and such. All the stuff that in Braunstein type games is done by the players according to their GM-determined start conditions.

Hmm, depends. By having play begin with some change in status of the PCs, then they can both be new arrivals and embedded into the relationship map. For example, the game could start with (or shortly follow) a "coming of age" ritual of some sort, so while the shape of the relationship map remains unchanged (parents are still parents and so on) the nature of the relationships and the expectaions on the PCs change, providing the needed driver to action. While this approach is limited in the circumstances that it allows, I don't feel it's more so than requiring the PCs to be the Man With No Name.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Think everything has been covered but feel the story comes from the middle, both the DM and the players. Players act out producing plot, the DM has to see them and take action on them.

Players sit around drinking and hitting on the serving wench - where is their money coming from and how long will it last? When will they get drunk? Who is looking at them and thinking; mark! Who is going to take the server home? What will be the result of that? What are they drinking? Do they even know? What will be the results of it other than a hangover?

The DM fails if he does not grab some of these and runs with them.

 

[Nameless1]

OK, but the big risk there is stasis, IMO. There is no inherent 'kick' from the arrival of the PCs on the scene, so the DM has to create proactive antagonists, a draft timeline for their plans, and such. All the stuff that in Braunstein type games is done by the players according to their GM-determined start conditions.

Two things.

1) Create situations that are bound to degrade. Make lots of conflicting interests. If the PCs don't act, someone will.

2) The PCs do not have to be the kicker. Someone/something else can be. A static situation can be changed into a dynamic situation by the introduction of a new element, the gain of motivations that relate to that element, and the changing relationships that result. The PCs can be that element, but they don't have to be.

EDIT: No timeline needed. It often gets in the way.

 

[Ariosto]

I get the impression here that you really have no experience with games that are run on tight situations.

That impression is false.

Disagreement with an opinion concerning subject A does not imply ignorance of irrelevant subject X.

It is somewhat like a sandbox in that way, except by its very nature, the situation is not static as compared to most sandboxes.

"Sandboxes" are not static. By "sandbox" I mean here a game like that described in Dungeons & Dragons (1974) and The First Fantasy Campaign (1977).

 

[Ariosto]

Telling them to read the rulebook and play that game isn't going to solve the problem. If that was enough, the problem wouldn't have arisen in the first place!

That is not what I read in what you actually wrote.

What I read in what you actually wrote was a claim that D&D is too vague, in comparison with other games, even specifically other RPGs, not simply for Kzach's players but by the normative standard.

It is not enough for you to know what you mean. The forum operates by text, not telepathy.

Nameless1 has said a lot of sensible stuff in response to this. But I'll add a bit.

Nameless1 wrote much in response to this that has nothing to do with this.

You offered an exceptionally weak form of the claim that "it's not a railroad if the players like it". I disagree even with that strong form. I do not agree that "it's not a railroad if the GM's work is a response to the hooks that the players have put into the game at character build".

My criterion for a railroad is instead, as I stated, that "we've got to go through ABC... because the GM has determined that we shall".

You -- and Nameless1 -- completely ignored the explicitly stated issue at hand. That in itself would not be a big problem. Definitions of "railroad" might not warrant further discussion. The problem is that you are at length "arguing against" things that I did not write.

Suppose, then, that I, as GM, start an encounter this way: ...

Where is the railroad?

I never said there was a railroad.

I as GM have not determined that anyone has to go through anything.

Then it's not a railroad. If people are free to go do other things, then there are no rails. The lack of that freedom is what I mean by rails.

There's always a chance that things will take a different direction, but to me at least this looks nothing like sandboxing.

What does "sandboxing" look like to you?

 

[GregChristopher]

This post is hilarious. The amazing levels of defensiveness about totally unimportant things to get defensive about, the accusations of poor reading and writing skills, the conflict over what should be obvious points..... wow.....

 

[Beginning of the End]

Although there is no railroad, the amount of preparation I have to engage in is nevertheless reasonably slight - I need to know something about who attacked the mentor, and why, and something about what the wizard will learn is he uses magic or talks to the familiar, and that's about it. There's always a chance that things will take a different direction, but to me at least this looks nothing like sandboxing.

The first problem seems to be that "sandbox" is being treated as the opposite of "railroad".

But "railroad" is actually the opposite of "non-linear adventure design". And it is, specifically, the extreme opposite in which the players are forced to follow the linear design of the adventure. (For a more detailed discussion of this issue, read this.)

Which leads us to the second problem: Ariosto tends to assume that all linear design is a railroad. This is not a useful generalization.

Your example demonstrates both points: First, it's a linear design (PCs find out mentor is in trouble; PCs go to investigate mentor's house; PCs save mentor), but it's unlikely to turn into a railroad because (a) you're willing to let them just ignore it; (b) if the PCs pick up the adventure seed, it's pretty easy to guess what their actions will be; and (c) there's no reason an unexpected approach to the problem (a divination spell instead of investigating the mentor's home, for example) would cause the scenario to stop working.

Second, even if the scenario were to turn into a railroad after the PCs decide to rescue their mentor, there's nothing about the scenario which is incompatible with a sandbox. Sandboxes can (and perhaps even should) be dynamic and active places. The PCs need to be free to go out and do what they want to do, but that doesn't mean that the world is never going to come to them.