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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FrogReaver" data-source="post: 8440093" data-attributes="member: 6795602">This is interesting because to me I would never describe backstory as what is written as play unfolds (just another case of jargon getting in the way of communication IMO).  (But I will use it that way some when speaking with you).More importantly though, I don't feel there's a very clear line for when something goes from backstory first to non-backstory first.  It kind of feels like it's a catch all term for anything that isn't situation first or character first?  IMO, All/Most RPG's involve backstory, situation and character and all these things in all/most rpg's work in unison together to create the playstyle and feel of that particular instance of the game.  Metaphorically it's as asking if we are assigning different priorities to the chicken and to the egg.I don't want to create terminology unless it's absolutely necessary.In a living sandbox players have their characters do stuff.  That's generally the exclusive way they have of interacting with the game.  I'm not seeing any categorizations of player actions that help explain the living sandbox play and experience.  There's just the one.There are many methods for resolving player actions in a living sandbox, which makes resolutions alot more challenging to categorize than your story now examples that generally have a single method for resolving a particular player action.  1 action to many resolution methods vs 1 action to 1 resolution method.  Which is just one reason why I keep iterating that living sandbox play doesn't yield itself favorably to doing the type of analysis that you are used to doing.  It's not that it can't conceivably be done, but that it gets so complex so fast that it's not really practical to do.Then I must ask, is there any backstory that isn't pre-authored?  If so what makes it not pre-authored?Assuming you are referring to using backstory to feed back into situation as an input.  That doesn't seem to jive very well with the DM ethos of story now games that have something like 'honor success' as one of their fundamental DMing criteria.  Honoring success requires that backstory gets fed into situation else there is no way to honor success.Sure.  If I had to explain the difference between those categorizations.  I'd say that all rpg's have backstory and situation.  A game being driven by situation primarily leaves the backstory variable free and fills in those details as the need arises in a given situation.  A game driven by backstory primarily leaves the situation variable free and fills in those details as the need arises from the backstory.That said, let's imagine for a moment an infinite gameworld where the players get to choose a) where their character goes in that world, b) what they do in that world, c) can choose what their character 'cares' about within that world and d) a GM that isn't pushing for any particular story/quest.  That gives the players the tools to push the game to almost any kind of situation they want to explore (though probably not as directly as they could do in story now).  There's 2 ways one can approximate an infinite world.  1) have a huge area of pre-authored content and hope the players never reach the boundaries (basing situations on backstory) and 2) procedurally generate content as you need it (creating backstory as the situation drives).  Living Sandbox play is a blend of those 2 methods for approximating an infinite world and thus it's a blend of backstory first and situation first.</blockquote>

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