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<blockquote data-quote="Beginning of the End" data-source="post: 5444280" data-attributes="member: 55271">Okay, three points...(1) That's not a railroad.(Railroading happens when the GM negates the choice made by a player in order to enforce a pre-conceived path through the adventure. If you've got meaningful choices built-in from the get-go, you don't have a railroad.)(2) That's a crappy sandbox.(Successful sandboxes tend to include one or more &quot;default goals&quot; that serve as a guiding structure / launching pad. &quot;<a href="http://www.thealexandrian.net/archive/archive2011-01b.html#20110113" target="_blank">Explore the megadungeon</a>&quot; is the grand-daddy of them all. The <a href="http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/" target="_blank">West Marches</a> used &quot;explore the frontier&quot; to similar effect. Plopping the PCs down on the equivalent of a featureless plain and saying, &quot;Where do you go?&quot; is just crap design.)(3) &quot;Railroad&quot; is not the opposite of &quot;sandbox&quot; (or vice versa).(This is a common mistake, but it completely warps any discussion of the two terms. The most useful definition for sandbox I've heard is something along the lines of, &quot;Allowing players to choose the scenario.&quot; The opposite of that is, &quot;Not allowing the players to choose the scenario.&quot; That's certainly a kind of railroading, but it's pretty much the lightest form of railroading possible. So by treating &quot;railroad&quot; as the opposite of &quot;sandbox&quot; you've immediately radicalized the conversation by implicitly pushing a position straddling the middle of the continuum out onto the extreme fringe.The opposite of railroading, on the other hand, is non-linear design. Sandbox campaigns are certainly one form of non-linear design, but they're not the only form. It's also possible to have sandbox campaigns which include significant non-linear elements. So by treating &quot;sandbox&quot; as the opposite of &quot;railroad&quot; you are non-usefully lumping all kinds of stuff into sandbox play that don't really belong there.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Beginning of the End, post: 5444280, member: 55271"] Okay, three points... [b](1) That's not a railroad.[/b] (Railroading happens when the GM negates the choice made by a player in order to enforce a pre-conceived path through the adventure. If you've got meaningful choices built-in from the get-go, you don't have a railroad.) [b](2) That's a crappy sandbox.[/b] (Successful sandboxes tend to include one or more "default goals" that serve as a guiding structure / launching pad. "[url=http://www.thealexandrian.net/archive/archive2011-01b.html#20110113]Explore the megadungeon[/url]" is the grand-daddy of them all. The [url=http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/78/grand-experiments-west-marches/]West Marches[/url] used "explore the frontier" to similar effect. Plopping the PCs down on the equivalent of a featureless plain and saying, "Where do you go?" is just crap design.) [b](3) "Railroad" is not the opposite of "sandbox" (or vice versa).[/b] (This is a common mistake, but it completely warps any discussion of the two terms. The most useful definition for sandbox I've heard is something along the lines of, "Allowing players to choose the scenario." The opposite of that is, "Not allowing the players to choose the scenario." That's certainly a kind of railroading, but it's pretty much the lightest form of railroading possible. So by treating "railroad" as the opposite of "sandbox" you've immediately radicalized the conversation by implicitly pushing a position straddling the middle of the continuum out onto the extreme fringe. The opposite of railroading, on the other hand, is non-linear design. Sandbox campaigns are certainly one form of non-linear design, but they're not the only form. It's also possible to have sandbox campaigns which include significant non-linear elements. So by treating "sandbox" as the opposite of "railroad" you are non-usefully lumping all kinds of stuff into sandbox play that don't really belong there.) [/QUOTE]

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