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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 8714358">Again you prep and you improv. And I don't think it is all that significant if individual things that can exist in a sandbox also can exist in other adventure structures. What makes the sandbox a sandbox is the players ability to go where they want, set goals for themselves, and interact with the setting freely. Now if that is happening in your linear adventure, maybe it has transformed into a sandbox, if only temporarily. But a sandbox is about trying to maintain that openness. There is just a big difference between a game where you drop the players into a setting and let them do what they want, versus one where the expectation is they are given a quest to go on that follows a pretty clear path. There is definitely a difference between a railroad and freedom to do what you want because railroads are about constraining player freedom. Hex crawls can be pretty close to a sandbox, and a sandbox can certainly use hexes as part of its approach, but I don't think they are interchangeable (just adjacent to one another). Dividing styles between prep and non just doesnt give anyone enough guidance on their options. What you prep is important to style, how much improv arises during play is important to style, how open a GM is to player suggestions or to their choices in game matters for style, how much of an expectants the players have of an adventure building to a final fight matters for style, whether adventures tend to follow a linear path, be more like a choose your own adventure, aim for full openness, or are structured around central mysteries or character conflict, all matter for style and structure. Clearly sandbox is definable enough to the people who use that term. Like any term in gaming it is going to have its contested areas. That is normal.</blockquote>

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