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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 8431736" data-attributes="member: 6802765">I disagree--I think viewing sandboxiness on a spectrum is extremely helpful to understanding how authority is distributed between the GM and players concerning the direction of the campaign.For specificity, I'm defining the spectrum by the percentage* of strategy-level character decisions which are open-ended, rather than constrained (via the social contract) to discrete choices presented by the GM. At 100%, all strategic decisions are open-ended, with the GM obligated by the social contract to react to whatever the PCs decide to do. At 0%, none of the strategic decisions are open-ended, and the players are always obligated by the social contract to pick from the options presented to them. At in-between percentages, some strategic decisions are more open-ended than others, such as (e.g.) the style of campaign where the PCs are expected to pick from among prepared quests to pursue, but have carte-blanche to approach those quests with out-of-the-box strategies.The closer a given campaign is to the sandbox end of this spectrum, the more de facto authority the players have over the direction of the campaign. Conversely, the closer a given campaign is to the opposite end of this spectrum, the less de facto authority the players have over the direction of the campaign. I therefore see the spectrum as a useful tool for mapping gradations in table expectations regarding open-ended strategic decisionmaking to differences in de facto player authority over campaign direction.(*I am not suggesting that the numerical percentage for a given campaign is actually calculable--doing so would require specifying a reproducable procedure for identifying, counting, and weighting specific strategic decisions--but I think the existence of the spectrum is still useful as a comparative tool even without being precisely quantifiable.)</blockquote>

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