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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 5044445" data-attributes="member: 15538">Based on the last couple of pages, I think I want to shift my view that sandbox play is an independent trait bipolar with programmatic games and instead say that sandbox games are a particular play style that involve more than one variable. however, I don't think status quo encounters are one such characteristic, they are not present in all sandbox RPGs (and cannot be in games that used tailored encounters or flat character development) and not in all CRPGs to which you would apply the term. My list so far:- The primary meta-game goal is discovery/exploration, which subordinates the meta-game goals of plot and cohesion- The game is high on GM control of background, but low on GM control of events. In terms of trajectories, they remain constant until affected by the PCs, and the secondary effects of the PCs' actions.- The environment is rich in things to do, rather than one thing being obviously more interesting than other choices.- Encounters and events are emergent rather than programmatic.- When the players affect the environment, the GM presents logical consequences from a realistical standpoint, rather than a poetic viewpoint.Tweaking any one of those items would change the game. For instance, if the players defined the world collaboratively and asked the GM to "tell them a story" with them as the characters, you would have what White wolf calls a storytelling style but which I might more specifically call an existentialist-storytelling style. In poetic terms, it resembles the storytelling style of someone telling a bedtime story... meaning is intended, but the audience presents the situation and no particular end to the story is mandated. Conversely, if it has most of the sandbox elements, but there is really only one interesting thing to do, it looks like the classic delve/quest style.</blockquote>

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