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<blockquote data-quote="NotAYakk" data-source="post: 8039071" data-attributes="member: 72555">You can use illusions without lieing.&nbsp; I mean, you don't tell the players, nor do you answer every question.As the DM you are responsible to create a believable world that is fun to play in.The downside of the illusion style is that making a perfect illusion of a sandbox is ridiculously difficult.&nbsp; The kind of stories you tell with an illusionary railroad is going to be different than the kind of stories you tell with a sandbox.With a railroad, you never need to answer the question &quot;what if the players don't interfere&quot; -- you are picking what the players do.&nbsp; Even if your illusion is so good that the players don't know they are being forced down a particular path, the fact that you know you can force them means the &quot;alternative story&quot; doesn't have to be fleshed out.And as you are a mere mortal, that means you'll get lazy, and you won't flesh out those &quot;dead paths&quot;.&nbsp; Those &quot;dead paths&quot; -- what would happen if the BBEG won?&nbsp; What would happen if the Giants destroyed the town? -- even if they aren't taken, change the bones of the world.&nbsp; Like a creature that stops walking, the bones needed to support the unused paths atrophy and disappear.By sandboxing, you force yourself to answer the question of the &quot;untaken paths&quot;, which means your world needs bones to support it, and a world with bones on those untaken paths is going to have a different shape along the taken paths.It is theoretically possible to have the taken path shape be identical with or without a railroad, except DMs are mortal, and mortals are lazy, and form follows function.---There is the classic &quot;clue&quot; bit.&nbsp; Your players are searching a building for a clue.&nbsp; In a classic illusionary railroad, the Nth place the players search (maybe 1st, maybe 5th) will have the clue.&nbsp; The clue will be a specific thing, say a certain thing, and lead to a certain next stop on the train.In a sandbox, the DM can no longer rely on a player finding that clue.&nbsp; So they have to &quot;plan for failure&quot;.&nbsp; Any link between two areas that is a single hidden fact is not a link.So either the game has to be playable without finding that clue, or you have to follow the rule of 3 -- there are always 3 links.&nbsp; So the building has 3 distinct clues.&nbsp; Those 3 clues say different things about the connection.&nbsp; That connection gets &quot;thicker&quot; because there are more details in the DM's notes.&nbsp; Players who find one of the clues, and find a 2nd, may have different information than if they found other ones.&nbsp; Different approaches to the &quot;next&quot; location may now exist, based on which clues are found.The railroad game is structured like a thread -- a leads to b leads to c -- the sandbox game that tells &quot;the same story&quot; is structured like a web.Players doing the sandbox can never even see the rest of the web, but odds are they will catch glimpses of it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="NotAYakk, post: 8039071, member: 72555"] You can use illusions without lieing. I mean, you don't [b]tell[/b] the players, nor do you answer every question. As the DM you are responsible to create a believable world that is fun to play in. The downside of the illusion style is that making a [b]perfect[/b] illusion of a sandbox is ridiculously difficult. The kind of stories you tell with an illusionary railroad is going to be different than the kind of stories you tell with a sandbox. With a railroad, you never need to answer the question "what if the players don't interfere" -- you are picking what the players do. Even if your illusion is so good that the players don't know they are being forced down a particular path, the fact that you know you can force them means the "alternative story" doesn't have to be fleshed out. And as you are a mere mortal, that means you'll get lazy, and you [b]won't[/b] flesh out those "dead paths". Those "dead paths" -- what would happen if the BBEG won? What would happen if the Giants destroyed the town? -- even if they aren't taken, change the bones of the world. Like a creature that stops walking, the bones needed to support the unused paths atrophy and disappear. By sandboxing, you force yourself to answer the question of the "untaken paths", which means your world needs bones to support it, and a world with bones on those untaken paths is going to have a different shape along the taken paths. It is theoretically possible to have the taken path shape be identical with or without a railroad, except DMs are mortal, and mortals are [b]lazy[/b], and form follows function. --- There is the classic "clue" bit. Your players are searching a building for a clue. In a classic illusionary railroad, the Nth place the players search (maybe 1st, maybe 5th) will have the clue. The clue will be a specific thing, say a certain thing, and lead to a certain next stop on the train. In a sandbox, the DM can no longer rely on a player finding that clue. So they have to "plan for failure". Any link between two areas that is a single hidden fact is not a link. So either the game has to be playable [b]without[/b] finding that clue, or you have to follow the rule of 3 -- there are always 3 links. So the building has [b]3[/b] distinct clues. Those 3 clues say different things about the connection. That connection gets "thicker" because there are more details in the DM's notes. Players who find one of the clues, and find a 2nd, may have different information than if they found other ones. Different approaches to the "next" location may now exist, based on which clues are found. The railroad game is structured like a thread -- a leads to b leads to c -- the sandbox game that tells "the same story" is structured like a web. Players doing the sandbox can never even see the rest of the web, but odds are they will catch glimpses of it. [/QUOTE]

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