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Message: <blockquote data-quote="payn" data-source="post: 8711181" data-attributes="member: 90374">Great OP, not much to add. I can give a story about a recent experience I had.Last year a friend wanted to run a cyberpunk game. Do to covid it was just three of us, which was fine. The GM decided to use Carbon 2185 which is a 5E reskin to cyberpunk. I dont like 5E reskins, but it was easy to jump into and get going. System has never been the issue for this GM though. He told us it was going to be a sandbox and we could do whatever we wanted. So, we had a session zero and I made a former megacorp security officer. He was a former fixer, in that he got corp execs out of trouble and dealt with the slums and gangs on the down low to keep the corp clean. He tired of doing all the dirty work and getting non of the credit, so he quit. Now he is looking to put to use his skills on the street with those from the office. The other PC was a 19 year old gutter punk. She had some skills and wanted help folks on the street, but wanted to avoid joining a gang. They work together as he is the face and she is the tech.After starting, the two PCs wanted to open their own detective agency. Work cases for whoever had the cash. GM thwarted us at every attempt. We kept asking him what he wanted us to do, since he wasn't really willing to entertain our ideas. "cyberpunks dont work with corpos, cyberpunks join gangs, the plan was to have a gang war, etc..." Turns out the GM didn't really want to run a sandbox. They wanted a specific experience and had the odd notion that the players would just fall into it. I think its important to be straight with your campaigns. If you expect your players to be a genre template to a T, then you really need to communicate that. Pretending to entertain their notions and dead ending all their efforts is awful. Once the illusion that the sandbox isnt really open at all, it will burn good will the players have for the campaign and the GM.</blockquote>

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