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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8256017" data-attributes="member: 42582">Let's unpack this.First, in all RPGing the PCs, ie imaginary people that are elements of the shared fiction, learn about things after they occur. In KotB the PCs learn that humanoids have settled in the Caves of Chaos (past tense italicised). In the 2nd ed AD&amp;D WoG module Five Shall be One, the PCs learn that some magical Viking swords have been scattered across the northlands (past tense italicised). In one of the Cthulhu Dark sessions that I GMed the butler PC had learned that his master was missing (past tense italicised).Second, in each of the examples I've given in the previous paragraph, and in innumerable others across the history of RPGing, those events happened offscreen in the sense that they are established via one participant's stipulation of setting or backstory, rather than as the product of actual play at the table in the form of action declarations and resolution.Third, from the previous two paragraphs it is impossible to tell whether the games described were played &quot;story now&quot;, or were railroads, or &quot;living worlds&quot;, or something else. Even the most abject railroad, like a hard railroad approach to the DL modules, involves NPC activities, events etc that happen offscreen (such as the movement of the dragon armies) and which the PCs learn about after the fact (eg by encountering refugees or whatever).To get from what [USER=23751]@Maxperson[/USER] has said to something like a standard sandbox we need to add in things like: the GM updates his/her notes on a periodic basis; that updating mostly takes the form of bringing forward the &quot;present&quot; of the imagined setting; this is done by adding new information about what various NPCs etc are doing; this new information will be drawn upon for the purposes of framing, and also in the course of resolving players' declared actions for their PCs. There's probably more to be said, but I think what I've said is a start.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 8256017, member: 42582"] Let's unpack this. First, in all RPGing the [I]PCs[/I], ie imaginary people that are elements of the shared fiction, learn about things after they occur. In KotB the PCs learn that humanoids [I]have[/I] settled in the Caves of Chaos (past tense italicised). In the 2nd ed AD&D WoG module Five Shall be One, the PCs learn that some magical Viking swords [I]have been[/I] scattered across the northlands (past tense italicised). In one of the Cthulhu Dark sessions that I GMed the butler PC [I]had [/I]learned that his master was missing (past tense italicised). Second, in each of the examples I've given in the previous paragraph, and in innumerable others across the history of RPGing, [I]those events happened offscreen[/I] in the sense that they are established via one participant's stipulation of setting or backstory, rather than as the product of actual play at the table in the form of action declarations and resolution. Third, from the previous two paragraphs [I]it is impossible to tell[/I] whether the games described were played "story now", or were railroads, or "living worlds", or something else. Even the most abject railroad, like a hard railroad approach to the DL modules, involves [I]NPC activities, events etc that happen offscreen[/I] (such as the movement of the dragon armies) and which the PCs learn about after the fact (eg by encountering refugees or whatever). To get from what [USER=23751]@Maxperson[/USER] has said to something like a standard sandbox we need to add in things like: [I]the GM updates his/her notes on a periodic basis[/I];[I] that updating mostly takes the form of bringing forward the "present" of the imagined setting[/I]; [I]this is done by adding new information about what various NPCs etc are doing[/I]; [I]this new information will be drawn upon for the purposes of framing, and also in the course of resolving players' declared actions for their PCs[/I]. There's probably more to be said, but I think what I've said is a start. [/QUOTE]

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