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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ariosto" data-source="post: 5109928" data-attributes="member: 80487">I find "enough" arguing too damned obnoxiously that only fools, or wicked men, and mostly wicked fools, run old-style campaigns ... or else that no one ever really has, so there's just been a parade of liars, or self-deluding people, or deluded liars, ever since 1972.They have so subverted the 'sandbox' neologism that I am not about to claim it as defining my Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Hell no.In fact, it appears to me that the assumption that "telling the story" is the purpose is overwhelmingly taken for granted. People who even take the old approach seem very rare here, even if all of them were to "suggest that it is somehow superior".Well, of course it is -- in just the 'how' that one appreciates enough to choose it. Preferences are different, but it does not follow that they are unfounded. The ultimate foundation is that people are different, to the point of being individually unique.Likes and dislikes might be touchier subjects to those who have invested a lot (even literally, in dollars!) in the premise that there is in fact an objectively better game. That seems often to come along with some other baggage that creates paradox in rhetoric, if not deep cognitive dissonance.If you mean that preparing my old-style D&D campaign as a persisting environment for players to explore somehow takes more work than creating one single-use scenario after another, then you are mistaken. My experience is in fact just the opposite.Not that it's a big issue with a game that in neither case involves long "stat blocks" or other such "modern conveniences" that really do require a lot of time and energy (maybe even subscription to a computerized database?) to prepare.The flip-side is that neither does it take so long to play through a "mechanics-heavy" situation such as a fight (and 4E-style "skill challenges" are just not on my menu at all)  -- so players 'encounter' more per unit of play time.I wonder how much the problem of "lost" players has to do with the shift -- 'officially', at least as default, back in 2E AD&D -- to a points system that basically rewards wandering around getting into fights just for the heck of it.Then there are the many DMs who disdain any system that actually lets players see and choose from risk-reward mixes. "You'll get what I give ya, and like it!" is one way to put it. More fashionable is, "You'll advance at the same rate no matter what".So, yeah, when you throw out the convention -- used in every other popular game that comes to my mind -- of readily identified objectives ... maybe players are going to wonder what they're supposed to do to play the freaking game.I don't see that problem in old D&D much more than in, e.g., Diplomacy.Having a default "object of the game", even stereotyped "openings", to avoid "options paralysis" does not limit players to only those goals. Sure, scoring points and gaining levels is fun -- but it's not the only thing that someone might find fun.In old D&D, levels don't really have much to do with the vast majority of things a person might want to do. Getting levels primarily makes it easier to do stuff that gains XP and thus further levels, but then you need to do harder and more stuff.Particular "game mechanics" matter, and so does the bigger picture of the game.</blockquote>

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