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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5403902" data-attributes="member: 22779">I was giving this a bit of thought and I think I realize why it gets so hard to discuss this sometimes.  We tend to frame the discussion in terms of railroad at one end of the spectrum and sandbox at the other.  On the surface, that seems pretty logical.  After all, in a railroad you have no meaningful choices and in a sandbox, you have lots.The problem comes in when the connotations are added.  Pawsplay illustrates this perfectly.  He's hardly alone in saying that railroaded games are bad.  And, really, if you just asked most DM's, "Hey, is your game a railroad?" most would probably say no, simply because railroad has such negative connotations.But, take that a step further.  if Railroad=bad game, and the opposite of Railroad is Sandbox, then doesn't it follow that Sandbox=Good Game?  I think that's the attitude that somes off sometimes.  Anyone who has story or plotsy type games, theme park games if you like, or Adventure Path style games, are not sandbox games, and thus, are not good games.And it can be taken a step further.  After all, a good DM won't run a bad game, obviously, therefore, good DM's run Sandbox games.Now, I'm not saying that this is true.  But, there's a current of that in a lot of these discussions.  Call a DM a Railroading DM and see what happens.  Call him a Sandbox DM and he smiles and thanks you.I really don't think you can decouple the concept of Railroad from the negative connotations.  At least not easily.  In my mind, the discussion should be framed as Linear vs Sandbox.  A Linear campaign will follow a fairly well defined path forward.  That path is defined by the DM at the outset of the game.  Adventure Paths are linear, module A leads to B leads to C.  Within each adventure, you might have a great deal of freedom, but, you are still going to progress through a pre-developed storyline.  I guess the String of Pearls campaign construct illustrates this well as well.Now, at least in my mind, there isn't the negative connotations.  You can be a great DM and run a Linear Campaign or a Sandbox campaign.  Both have strong and weak points and depending on your personal tastes, you can prefer one or the other.  Or both.  I'm pretty easy and don't mind swinging from both sides of the plate.Hus "Currently rebuilding the World's Largest Dungeon" sar.</blockquote>

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