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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5122107" data-attributes="member: 80487">That's certainly the case when Rechan talks about 'sandboxes', and some other folks who "don't see how that works". It is not the rule I see when people here talk about their D&D campaigns moderated after the old fashion of Blackmoor, Greyhawk, Wilderlands, Forgotten Realms, and so on.The original (1974) Dungeons & Dragons set to my mind did a better job than any of its successors at conveying the essence of the concept, especially in the 'dungeon' context that serves so well as foundation for referees and players alike. (The Expert and Companion sets were also good, but AD&D 1E took too much prior knowledge for granted and 2E emphasized the more plot-driven approach.)From what I saw, the brief availability of legal PDFs of the seminal work (not only of D&D but of the whole RPG hobby) inspired a lot of interest. The actual boxed set of little booklets -- even in the Original Collectors Edition "white box" printing -- had long been a somewhat rare and pricey collector's item. Many curious and fresh eyes encountered it for the first time.The availability of many Judges Guild products in the same format, as well as in 3E reissues, fed that interest. So did James Ward's putting online the original (1976) edition of his Metamorphosis Alpha.That usage may be intuitive to we of the hoi polloi, but the intelligentsia led by Ron Edwards at The Forge -- to the Great Threefold Model of which the "SNG" (more conventionally "GNS") is a reference -- do not stoop to such common measures. What they mean (I think) is what we might call "exploration" or maybe "immersion": delight in the imagined world as an entertainment in itself and for its own sake. One might think, perhaps, of Star Trek or Star Wars fans who love the little details that bring the planets and peoples to a semblance of life, quite apart from their functions in scripts.(Likewise, "Gamist" in that context has more to do with an interest in competition with something or someone than with "game-y" rules contrivances. The latter tend in fact to be strongly embraced by Forge-y favorers of "Narrativism". The Big N, par for the course, is less about narrative per se than about narrowing the scope of a game down to specific themes. To the best of my fallible understanding, I am not a Forgespeak lawyer, YMMV, etc..)</blockquote>

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