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Message: <blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 5398483" data-attributes="member: 1210">Speaking for myself, as long as the dm keeps the showboat's time to a minimum, I would much rather deal with a showboat than  ride a railroad.Well, no offense, but from your description, it sounds very much like railroading to me: you are restricting player choice. In fact, I'd amend your statement to say that the players' choices were driving the game- as long as they fell within the acceptable limits of the story that you had already determined to tell. Now, while there is nothing wrong with this, I firmly stand on the other side of the divide here- Lanefan's comments about trying to throw the train off the tracks as soon as he feels a hint that he's on the rails at all rings very true for me, both from experiences dming and from my experience as a player. Again, it's all about playstyle. A key to making a sandbox work with players that aren't super proactive is to offer lots of hooks everywhere. Explicit, juicy hooks offering monsters, treasure, exploration or what have you.A key to making a story-driven game work with players that prefer their freedom is to allow the illusion of choice- let them make up their own mind about what to do and just feed them to the same storyline regardless.</blockquote>