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<blockquote data-quote="KidSnide" data-source="post: 5085956" data-attributes="member: 54710">I think most people would agree that a good story can come from a sandbox.&nbsp; (Certainly, the Gygas/ENworld mods game is a great story, at least from a certain perspective.)&nbsp; However, people who like the storytelling style think that its techniques lead to stronger stories (admittedly, at the cost of some PC autonomy), because GM intervention can help with pacing, consistency, theme, and - most simply - just finding the best bits to play with.Although a &quot;sandbox&quot; game definitely isn't opposed to a good story, a sandbox GM does forgo a collection of tools that help produce good stories.&nbsp; And therefore, it's reasonable to put &quot;sandbox&quot; and &quot;storytelling&quot; on a continuum.&nbsp; A sandbox style game grants more PC autonomy and freedom to explore what the PCs want, while a storytelling style game provides more GM guidance, along with the beneficial direction, pacing and narrative tricks that can go along with it. Terminology confusion aside, I don't think many storytelling GMs think of themselves as &quot;telling a story&quot; themselves, so much as they are telling a story together with the players.&nbsp; A story telling game that does't provide any opportunity for the players to participate in the story telling sounds like a strangely degenerate version of the style. -KS</blockquote>

[QUOTE="KidSnide, post: 5085956, member: 54710"] I think most people would agree that a good story can come from a sandbox. (Certainly, the Gygas/ENworld mods game is a great story, at least from a certain perspective.) However, people who like the storytelling style think that its techniques lead to [i]stronger[/i] stories (admittedly, at the cost of some PC autonomy), because GM intervention can help with pacing, consistency, theme, and - most simply - just finding the best bits to play with. Although a "sandbox" game definitely isn't opposed to a good story, a sandbox GM does forgo a collection of tools that help produce good stories. And therefore, it's reasonable to put "sandbox" and "storytelling" on a continuum. A sandbox style game grants more PC autonomy and freedom to explore what the PCs want, while a storytelling style game provides more GM guidance, along with the beneficial direction, pacing and narrative tricks that can go along with it. Terminology confusion aside, I don't think many storytelling GMs think of themselves as "telling a story" themselves, so much as they are telling a story together with the players. A story telling game that does't provide any opportunity for the players to participate in the story telling sounds like a strangely degenerate version of the style. -KS [/QUOTE]

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