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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sammael" data-source="post: 5129571" data-attributes="member: 4475">As always, I think all extremes are bad unless the entire group is completely homogeneous in their desires and capabilities. Since most groups consist of individuals with differing play style preferences, I believe the key to good DMing is to give each player a bit of what they want every session. This applies to the various player archetypes (powergamer, storyteller, etc) and to their approach to sandbox vs. railroading.Unless asked to do otherwise (which happened with one of my current groups - they asked me explicitly to run a semi-railroady campaign because they don't want to work too hard to investigate various adventure hooks), I run games as "crisscrossing railroads running through a sandbox." Not sure if that makes any sense, but let's try: there are usually several overarching plots moving forward in the game world ("trains"). The players can get on the trains when they want to, follow them for as long as they like, and can get off the train to either catch another one or to make a trek through the wilderness or cityscape ("sandbox") until something comes up. However, once they get off a particular train, there is no guarantee that they'll be able to catch it again - or, if they do, that their old tickets will still be valid. Plots will move forward with or without their interference. Sometimes, another group of heroes will intervene. More often than not, they won't, and the party will have to live with the consequences of their actions or non-actions, as the case may be.</blockquote>

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