Snoweel
First Post
Maybe so but that doesn't invalidate how unhelpful certain niche assumptions are for a poster whose game rests on a broader set of default assumptions.
What makes a Sandbox?
- Thread starter Witty Comeback
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Maybe so but that doesn't invalidate how unhelpful certain niche assumptions are for a poster whose game rests on a broader set of default assumptions.
The Shaman
First Post
Argumentum ad novitatem.
Snoweel, can we have this discussion without the ad hominems-cum-fallacies, please?
Snoweel
First Post
I think this thread needs less defensive snarkiness all-round actually.
Nobody has yet answered the OP's query as to why 'sandbox' is a qualitative rather than quantitative descriptor.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
Basically the players can attempt any action in another player's, the referee's, imaginary world. However, this is only an attempt and an imaginary character is understood as trying it. The players do not get to narrate their own consequences. Rather they explore a world exterior to themselves by discovering consequences to attempted actions accounted for by hidden rules and then attempting to deduce these from the Ref's responses. The scope of the rules is what the DM speaks throughout play, seen in agreement or denial, but the players actions may enlarge them. And, IMG, each player's engagement is rewarded with points towards "natural" class advancement when a consequence falls within performing successfully the class/role they've chosen to play.
Though my game probably looks somewhat like a pawsplay nonlinear, mechanistic game. But, as mentioned in another thread, I don't waste my time altering the world players never affect. Any given session scenario proceeds unchanged until the PCs do more than sit each Turn or until an equilibrium is reached and repeats itself.
I think some actions are regularly rewarded for players who perform them, beyond what awards XP, but nothing here is enforced. It's more simply smart play and good advice to give. Here's a short list: goal setting, planning, teamwork, information tracking, and good communication.
Though an imagination is always a requirement.
Though my game probably looks somewhat like a pawsplay nonlinear, mechanistic game. But, as mentioned in another thread, I don't waste my time altering the world players never affect. Any given session scenario proceeds unchanged until the PCs do more than sit each Turn or until an equilibrium is reached and repeats itself.
I think some actions are regularly rewarded for players who perform them, beyond what awards XP, but nothing here is enforced. It's more simply smart play and good advice to give. Here's a short list: goal setting, planning, teamwork, information tracking, and good communication.
Though an imagination is always a requirement.
Snoweel
First Post
"My game looks this much like the theoretical sandbox of legend." vs "My game follows an adventure path wherein the players may take whatever actions they wish only to the point they get so far off track that I get sick of improvising/spending 40 hours between sessions world-building and we all have an out-of-character discussion to find out exactly whether we should be gaming together".
I would argue that there is a continuum between sandbox campaigns and linear campaigns. A sandbox campaign doesn't become a linear campaign because it occasionally features the predetermined; and a linear campaign doesn't become a sandbox because occasionally the PCs get to make a meaningful decision.
With that being said, a "set piece encounter that just happens" regardless of what the PCs do or where they go is clearly a linear technique, not a sandbox technique.
Using such a technique is "compatible" with a sandbox campaign insofar as the sandbox campaign doesn't suddenly stop being a sandbox because you used it. But that doesn't mean that the technique isn't straight-up railroading.
Woas
First Post
A sandbox needs sand right? So there is the first requirement.
Then, when you play in a sandbox you start out with a flat or unshaped container of sand. You sit in it and then take tools like a little green plastic shovel an a yellow bucket and make sand towers. Or maybe grab some green army men and play out Operation Torch in miniature or ANYTHING because you use your imagination and the sand as a canvas.
That's how I see it at least. Simple as that.
Then, when you play in a sandbox you start out with a flat or unshaped container of sand. You sit in it and then take tools like a little green plastic shovel an a yellow bucket and make sand towers. Or maybe grab some green army men and play out Operation Torch in miniature or ANYTHING because you use your imagination and the sand as a canvas.
That's how I see it at least. Simple as that.
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