Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="bloodtide" data-source="post: 9736009" data-attributes="member: 6684958">Odd, I thought Sandbox Style was just doing what the players wanted.  The idea is the players lead and the DM follows, right?I would say yes, just by the fact they are artificial.Most people split hairs here.  If the PCs have a castle with a horde of undead slowly approaching, the PC (and the players) will sure want to stop the undead and protect their castle.Linear Game- The DM steps way back and says "Okay, players what do you do?", and technically the players are free to have thier PCs "try" anything.Railroad Game- The DM says "the ONLY way to stop the undead horde is to get the Orb of Life that was lost in The Deadly Doom Swamp an age ago."  So the players have thier PCs go to the swamp to find the orb.Though, even with the above, many would say the undead horde alone is railroading.....Any fiction, like novels and movies breaks down with you try to apply it to an RPG.A novel or movie is a very set in stone story plot by an author, writer and maybe a few others.  But the story plot is very much set in stone...set in admamtium even.  The author or writer is telling a story, so whatever story they want to tell is what happens.  This just does not work in an RPG unless your playing it in the Cinematic style....but then it's not even a game: it's a stage play.   The BIG thing that separates RPG story plots from other fictional story plots is anything can happen.  One of my Famous Adventures is The Time of the Dragon.  It's made special for players that are new to gaming with me.  It is a simple enough "slay the dragon adventure", except most players will get their PCs killed very quickly.  This does not end the adventure as after 20 years game time the players have their PCs children show up to avenge their parents and kill the dragon.  Those PCs likely die too.  The PCs keep their memories of each person before them, so they grow wiser "for real". Eventually, most groups will defeat the dragon, though it often takes twenty or so attempts.  The record is 37....</blockquote>

Verification