Yora
Legend
Historically speaking, a sandbox is three dimensional representation of an environment for oppperational planning.
When running a wargame or early proto-RPG in a sandbox, the defining characteristic is that players have full 360 degree freedom in moving their units/pieces to chose where they want to engage or avoid engagements.
In RPG terms, picking the sites and situations the players want to engage with seems like a pretty good analog. It's not just that players can choose between adventures for their next activities, but that they can pick a spot on the map and go there, and also aren't compelled to see anything through to the end once they engaged with it.
Obviously it would be good form for players to not say they want to explore the giant black tower of evil spikiness next week, and when the GM shows up with a stack of dungeon plans decide that the first hall is too spooky and go somewhere else. But taking that into consideration, they still could.
This is something quite different from when the GM asks at the end of an adventure if the players want to play Adventure B or Adventure C next.
When running a wargame or early proto-RPG in a sandbox, the defining characteristic is that players have full 360 degree freedom in moving their units/pieces to chose where they want to engage or avoid engagements.
In RPG terms, picking the sites and situations the players want to engage with seems like a pretty good analog. It's not just that players can choose between adventures for their next activities, but that they can pick a spot on the map and go there, and also aren't compelled to see anything through to the end once they engaged with it.
Obviously it would be good form for players to not say they want to explore the giant black tower of evil spikiness next week, and when the GM shows up with a stack of dungeon plans decide that the first hall is too spooky and go somewhere else. But taking that into consideration, they still could.
This is something quite different from when the GM asks at the end of an adventure if the players want to play Adventure B or Adventure C next.