Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="jmartkdr2" data-source="post: 8243015" data-attributes="member: 7017304">Jumping into this discussion because this paragraph reminded me of something I learned about recently: Kishotenketsu.Here's a brief article introducing the concept. <a href="https://mythicscribes.com/plot/kishotenketsu/" target="_blank">Kishōtenketsu for Beginners - An Introduction to Four Act Story Structure</a> This reddit post talks about it in reference to DnD: [MEDIA=reddit]DnDBehindTheScreen/comments/6wpl11[/MEDIA] Short short version: it's a type of story structure, an alternative to three-act or five-act structures. It has four parts: Introduction, development, complication, and resolution. The big difference is that the main conflict (so to speak, it's not a one-to-one correlation of concepts) doesn't come at or near the beginning - it comes after the development of characters and setting.And now my own thought to add: in a sandbox game, you need to do a lot of introduction before the players are really exploring the setting, and you need to do a lot of exploration before you can introduce conflicts/twists/fronts. It takes a while before the players are confident enough in who their characters are and where they are, both physically and narratively, before they can really explore. If they set out to early, they're just wandering around lost. This is why it's best to keep them in a smallish area at first - they need to define themselves before they can explore the world.The second phase, if entered correctly, is where the real OSR exploration can take place: they're mapping and learning and growing as characters. The relationships, between the pc's and between them and the world, are developing (and developing meaning). But things happen at their own pace - new places are explored, one after another, in whatever order seems the most fun.The twist shouldn't come until you're running low on stuff to do in the existing setting. Then, you can throw a wrench at the whole thing and the players can use what they have learned to resolve the issue.Resolution would either be denouement and/or opening up a new place to explore (ie planar travel), which brings us back to phase 2.</blockquote>

Verification