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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8627349" data-attributes="member: 82106">Right, so I would say that in both cases the primary agenda will be gamist (IE showing mastery of the play of the game, D&D as Chess, basically). I think there will normally be a kind of Narrative secondary agenda in most games. Like when I play D&D I might often think of a way to subvert the whole adventure, but I might well not have my character enact that, because it is less interesting, and if I need justification for some reason, I can say "well, he's a bit thick, he wouldn't think of that." or most likely it never comes up. Maybe I am just going easy on the GM because its more fun to see what they prepped. Either way, I've picked some favored type of story over pure gamist considerations. I think that happens a lot. Now, maybe some players are more into some Sim, though honestly IMHO its the least prevalent sort of play, and is the one that is often totally missing.So, in some sense the two adventures are similar. However, a sandbox is a lot less likely IMHO to evoke the whole "going easy" thing, as it is unlikely that beating one encounter or small adventure out of a whole sandbox breaks anything, like it might in an AP. Instead if Narrative comes in it is more likely to be in the "we go here so we can do X because that's what we're into." kind of way. Of course there may not be such an option, so its hard to say.IME the differences in these types of play are more expressed in terms of how much agency players are said to have, and how much it is likely that there will be some degree of Illusionism, Participationism, or Trailblazing style play on the GM's part. Linear AP style games (they may not be entirely linear, but they generally require hitting a lot of the main points, often in the right sequence) clearly beg GMs to move more towards the Illusionism side of the house than a sandbox would, where Trailblazing is much more likely (just dropping pointers and letting the chips fall where they may, possibly with more pointers/hooks added later so the party can clean up whatever they missed before). Its hard not to verge into at least a Participationist GMing approach though with an AP where if the thing derails its done. I'd note that I haven't studied this issue much in terms of game design. I'd say MOST GMs do some trailblazing, but all three of these GMing types are pretty much ruled out in Story Now play, though possibly not entirely in other Narrative forms (and in fact I guess might even be favored, though it becomes a bit hard to see where the RP is if the GM is leading PCs through their dramatic process by the nose...).</blockquote>

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