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

[Ariosto]

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

I have stated no such thing. I am pretty sure I have not used the phrase "linear design" at all.

If I knew what you mean by "linear design" and how, in your mind, it differs from "a railroad", then I could tell you what I actually think. It might be that I would agree with you -- on the concepts, if not on the terminology.

 

[Lanefan]

To me, this is almost the mirror image of a traditional AD&D or Basic D&D game, where the question of "what is an encounter" is up for grabs - because the PCs may or may not show any interest in any particular room, or cavern, or rumour, or treasure map - but the question of "how will it be resolved" is very often known in advance, because the reward system and the alignment system dicate so much of the answer to those questions.

I'll disagree with this; in that the examples you gave and how they resolved could very easily have gone exactly the same way in my old-school game...or gone completely differently; dependent almost entirely on the whims of the players at the moment. (in fact, the beheaded foes example looks *really* familiar! It's happened twice, so far...) Remember, ExP is given for encounters defeated or avoided; and treasure is treasure wherever it comes from, so the reward system doesn't get in the way at all.

Alignment is another issue entirely; but even there, unless alignment is being used as a straightjacket there still should be some variability in how a PC or party might react to any given situation.

Agreed that "the question of "what is an encounter" is up for grabs" in the older games, but keep in mind that in those games it doesn't matter very much; clear definition of An Encounter only matters in 4e where game mechanics use encounter as a timing mechanism. (side note: were I to ever sit down and re-design 4e this is something I'd fix, if for no other reason than it *really* seems to hamper good adventure design; 4e adventures all seem to want to proceed from one clearly-defined encounter to the next, rather than letting things flow naturally)

Lanefan

 

[The Shaman]

The question is then, was this actual play? We weren't using the system the bulk of the campaign was but we were certainly roleplaying during that session.

It's a very interesting edge case, Gimby, and it sounds like a decent middle ground between what pemerton and Nameless1 and I each prefer.

That said, roleplaying without the game is like playing tennis with the net down (with sincere apologies to Robert Frost). It's actual play, but not of a roleplaying game, in my very humble and most personal opinion.

If we'd instead held the same roleplay as a "telling of old warstories in the bar" scene as part of the first full session, would that be different?

Adventurers sitting around telling warstories in a bar sounds like a reason for me to pack up my dice for the night.

 

[Ariosto]

Agreed that "the question of "what is an encounter" is up for grabs" in the older games

That is basically to the extent that it is "up for grabs" in normal English. The DMG glossary entry is not a binding rule of usage, prohibiting dungeon key entries from being called "encounters". Neither does that latter usage supersede the ordinary usage in the old works.

but keep in mind that in those games it doesn't matter very much

That is right.
Call it a "meeting", if you will, and it makes no practical difference in play. "Encounter", meaning especially an unexpected meeting, suits the usual context in old D&D. For something we anticipate, we are likely to have a more specifically appropriate word.

Ordinary meanings and concepts came first, informing the design of game abstractions. For instance, "armor classes" started as classes of armor.

Now, those same terms have been pressed into use to correspond to different concepts. When the correspondence of the word "encounter" to a particular game structure is internalized, it may be a barrier to conceptualizing the old game.

 

[The Shaman]

But I think it is a requirement, or something like a requirement, for the sort of play that Nameless1 and I are talking about.

Fair 'nuf. In that context, I certainly agree.

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.

So of course I had to dig this out and take a look at it, and lo and behold, guess what appears right in the middle of the article? An ad for Flashing Blades! How's that for a coincidence?

/digression

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.

It's an interesting article, but I admit as I was reading it, all I could think was, "Dude, just play Rolemaster already."

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.

Check this out.

The players should be divided into two basic groups - lawmen and outlaws. There can also be an assortment of prominent citizens - ranchers, businessmen, and so forth. Many other possible positions for player characters include: railroad executive, Indian chief, cavalry commander, gambler, or perhaps a less savory character such as a hired gun, drifter, or bounty hunter.

Characters on the side of law enforcement can take such roles as: county sheriff, town marshal, deputy, state ranger (such as Texas or Arizona Ranger), or deputy U.S. marshal. . . .

Players opting to be outlaws start their own gangs by hiring non-player characters and/or joining with other player characters of similar bent. . . .

That's 2e Boot Hill, from 1979.

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

 

[pemerton]

The Shaman, interesting quote from Boot Hill. Not a game I'm familiar with, other than what you've said about it in this thread.

I agree that a lot of "modern" RPGing ideas can be found in older games. Ron Edwards gives examples from Champions, James Bond, Marvel Super Heroes and T&T. I think you've given examples in this thread (and others?) from Top Secret.

What might be a little bit new under the sun is new mechanical techniques to try to emphasise some of these varying approaches to play. That said, I've just admitted I don't know the Boot Hill mechanics!

EDIT: Thinking about Boot Hill and Flashing Blades, in the earlier days of the hobby was there a tendency to identify historical games with tighter situations and generic fantasy games with a greater degree of open-endedness? Then there are strange examples like MERP, which could have offered very tight situation-based play, but instead presents itself just as more generic fantasy but using Middle Earth as the backdrop.

 

[pemerton]

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

<snip>

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.

What does "sandboxing" look like to you?

Beginning of the End, you're probably right that I'm using "sandbox" too narrowly. Like I said upthread, I was using to describe (what I think of as) traditional Classic Traveller or AD&D/Basic D&D play - highly exploratory, with the GM establishing a range of sites and personalities within those sites, and the players choosing which of the sites/personalities their PCs seek out and interact with.

Nameless1 said upthread that sandboxes are static. I can see why this was objected to, but I think that what he was getting at is that the overall orientation of the game he was describing as a sandbox is one in which the world is a buffet for the players to choose from, that there will be parts of the buffet that the players don't interact with, and that those parts remain more-or-less unchanged, waiting to see if the players finally pick them. (For example, Smaug's cave remains essentially static until the players choose to go on the Lonely Mountain quest.)

A sandbox in which the various world elements that the GM has created get actively brought into the game by the GM in response to the things that the players have their PCs do starts to look more like a situation based game. At that point, though, I again tend to think that it might be easier just to start with everyone on the same page as to situation, so that the GM can focus on creating all and only the gameworld elements that will be needed for that game.

Anyway, just some thoughts. . .

 

[SteveC]

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

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

Here's the thing: this is all preference, and we're just talking about our preferences.

For me, establishing character motivations goals, and frankly what the game will be about tells me a lot: it tells me what the game is going to be about, it tells me if I've created something appropriate for the game, and it quite frankly tells me if the game is something I want to spend my time playing. That's as a player.

As a GM it gives me the ability to prepare something for the direction the group wants to go in rather than improving the whole thing. That's very useful to me when I GM, since I'm a good improv GM but I get better with some prep work.

That's not saying a "you're at the gate, go!" campaign is bad, it's just something that I would prefer to avoid at this point in my life.

So it's all a matter of opinion, but there are some very good reasons on both sides, and that's something that seems to be lost here.

--Steve

 

[Hussar]

Interesting stuff all around.

There are strengths and weaknesses of both approaches really. The wide open, "You're at the gates of Paris, what do you do?" is great in that it allows the player to engage with the setting. It's bad in that it presumes a fair degree of setting knowledge that the player may not possess. For myself, presented with that scenario, with my pretty much complete lack of knowledge of Paris of that time period, I'd be pretty lost. "Umm, find a bar?" would be my most likely response.

OTOH, if you start off with a tighter woven group, with interconnections and whatnot, I believe it is true that you can get into the meat of things much faster. But, there's a problem that the player might create a character and then find that that character isn't what he wants to play. I know that happens to me from time to time. A concept that seems really cool at the start turns out to be a complete dud at the table.

So, now, I have to eject that character and bring in a new character, again repeating all the work of building in relationships and reasons for being with the group. That can be very off putting and can really hurt the flow of the game.

It's best if the GM is cognizant of the strengths and weaknesses of whichever method is chosen and then use the approach that will work best for the particular campaign. I don't think that doggedly using the same approach for all campaigns is a good idea. Use the tools that work best, rather than driving screws with hammers.

 

[Ariosto]

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Right. Gangbusters is another in which it might be easier for some people to see it -- and also a splendid description of a D&D-style "sandbox" game.

Thinking about Boot Hill and Flashing Blades, in the earlier days of the hobby was there a tendency to identify historical games with tighter situations and generic fantasy games with a greater degree of open-endedness?

D&D easily includes Boot Hill's milieu and Gamma World's and Metamorphosis Alpha's (all explictly referred to in AD&D works) and more. A historical game is necessarily expected to conform somewhat to this or that portion of history.

Otherwise, I never saw any great difference in "specificity of situation" between D&D and Boot Hill.

What is the difference you have in mind?

(For example, Smaug's cave remains essentially static until the players choose to go on the Lonely Mountain quest.)

Not in D&D as explained by its creators, and practiced by most of those in my experience who claimed to be refereeing anything as close as, say, RuneQuest.

A sandbox in which the various world elements that the GM has created get actively brought into the game by the GM in response to the things that the players have their PCs do starts to look more like a situation based game.

Yours is the first use of the phrase "situation based game" I think that I have ever encountered.

On the other hand, I have for some years seen old-D&D players using the term "sandbox" as I (having learned from them) use it. The "sandbox" environment most definitely changes in response to the players' moves. The moves of players, and responses to those moves by players and non-player figures alike, weave an ever richer tapestry.

Maybe you are thinking of some examples of "sandbox" as used by computer gamers, but even then I think you may be inverting the positions of definitive and coincidental elements.

When there are really just a very few possible states for a game, it is obviously not desirable to "use them up" and leave players with nothing interesting to explore. Old D&D does not suffer from that weakness.