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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9644099" data-attributes="member: 6790260">I've never seen anything like what you describe. I have never heard of it from anyone but you. I have spent pushing 20 years frequenting various forums, talking with friends, and delving into the TTRPG space. You, and only you, have brought this idea of the "player-DM" who sits there quietly doing nothing but nodding at the players' declarations.I strongly suggest that, given the sheer number of people who are reacting incredulously at your descriptions, you reconsider whether this style is actually common, or is perhaps either specific only to your general gaming sphere, or a misunderstanding on your part.I assure you, it is not. It is one style. There are others. I wouldn't enjoy playing a game with the specific kinds of stuff that most sandbox games do, because I'm not good with that particular kind of thing. I suffer analysis paralysis when given that kind of creative freedom; I call it the tyranny of the empty page. I am quite good with only very very minor constraints, but give me total freedom and my brain shuts down. It's like...if I have a hundred options, I can filter them and pick one that is best by whatever metric seems reasonable. But when I have nearly infinite options? My proverbial filter clogs and nothing gets through.(This, incidentally, is one small part of why I like PbtA-type games. They have the player-driven experience, but in a way that drives the players to respond to this current situation right at this very moment, which is enough to jump past my analysis paralysis and get moving. But PbtA-type games are a whole different subject, I just thought I'd mention this aside.)Do not make it black and white. There are shades of grey between.E.g. the DM has written a loose plot arc. It has an inciting incident, a big event that will happen in the middle, and a climactic conclusion at the end. How the players get to each part (well, perhaps not the inciting incident), and more importantly what they do in each part, isn't controlled. There could be a lot of things that happen along the way. None of this involves "controlling" the PCs in the ridiculously over-the-top way you describe, but it does involve (more or less) saying, "Hey guys, I have this cool story, are you okay with playing through that?"Similarly, any time any DM runs a pre-written adventure, that is necessarily not a sandbox. But I know for a fact you know that people play such modules/adventures/APs/etc.Nope. It's not a matter of leaving things vague. That's just, as you say, a linear game that isn't pre-written, though admittedly such a game is more responsive to the players. In a sandbox, there isn't anything to keep vague in the first place. There is just a world with stuff in it and events happening in/to it, and PCs who may or may not get involved. Such a game requires motivated players who won't wait for "the adventure" to come to them. (Quotes because there is no single adventure!) The players need to actively set goals for themselves both individually and as a group, because a sandbox DM isn't going to push them through anything. Such a game will bog down and become dull and boring if the players are not active participants asking questions, coming up with ideas, and pushing the situation forward.I am glad it was helpful.And yet you keep being told that this is really, really weird. That people find your descriptions incredibly unusual and even blatantly insulting to playstyles you don't personally practice. In the face of such a response, I recommend reflection. Is your personal experience truly representative? Or have you been witness to unusual DMs, or an unusual local gaming culture? The latter seems rather more plausible considering how wildly divergent your ideas are from what everyone else in this forum has experienced.</blockquote>

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