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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 9077181" data-attributes="member: 85555">I just woke up as well so hopefully mt post makes sense The primary difference I am seeing is the GM seems more greatly constrained by system. You could very much have a downtime mechanic in a sandbox. You can also be transparent about resolution of that downtime in a sandbox. I can't say whether the faction clock would be useful or not to a given sandbox GM. I have read through Blades in the Dark and I like the concept of a faction clock, but the particulars don't quite work for my style (which isn't a knock on the clock, as I think it is a pretty clever way to conceive of what is going on----there are plenty of procedures I like that I would change or alter to fit my style). One caveat is I read Blades in the Dark but didn't fully grasp it, so keep that in mind here. My understanding of the block may be a little foggy.I think another major difference here is while something similar is likely to arise in a sandbox (for instance building a crew, conflict between crews, etc). It is likely to emerge more from what is going on in the setting with the characters other than a mechanic (though you can definitely have mechanics for this stuff, it is just that what is happening in the game is the priority). So like I have said many times my last several wuxia campaigns have been about factions and sect wars (think of any classic kung fu movie where martial sects are in conflict, kind of like a gang war). In those game the players will be trying to build their sect. I have on occasion come up with formal sect building and management procedures. <a href="https://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2023/05/sect-management.html" target="_blank">Here is one example of such an attempt</a>. I also had sect war shake up tables (these even made it into one of my supplements) and a procedure for managing NPCs advancing to higher levels 'off camera'. Having such tools and procedures is totally fine, but I think the major difference is the GM is not constrained by them and the players are still expected to do everything through their character (that said there are still going to be many mechanics in the game they can rely upon to function as written) What I have always found though, because the priority is the player saying what they specifically want to do, is these types of procedures rarely work in every instance and are more likely to be one tool among many that I may draw on (and to be frank usually what I end up doing is going back to ruling uniquely on each attempt because it is very hard to fit specific requests by players into a broad mechanical structure like that (that last one was my attempt to address this issue but I would only call it partly successful, ultimately it is much easier for me to hear what the players are specifically trying to do to build and manage their sect and for me to say "Okay this is how I am going to handle that mechanically". That way I can tailor it specifically to the action. This is something that isn't coming from me the GM trying to impose my idea of sandbox, personally I would find it much easier to have a regular mechanic that I can just use every time, but rather it is coming from the players who want me to honor what it is they are trying to do. The same thing happened to me when I came up with rackets and crime tables for my mafia campaigns. I loved the procedures but they fell apart when players wanted to do specific things and I had to deviate from them.I also think conversations around sandboxes and procedures in them are likely to be much less structured than:However sandbox features a similar type of dynamic. Not saying it follows the procedure you outline above this statement, just that I could take what Rob said or what I said or what another sandbox GM elsewhere might say and follow that with a statement about how whatever it is we did 'fed devision points, which feeds the resolution, which changes the game state-setting, and comes back to new decision points'. The would not be a formal thing like a play loop to us but the magic of a living world sandbox is there is a jazz like quality to it in terms of no one, not even the GM, has any sense of where it is going to go, and it naturally builds off the interactions of the players saying what they try to do, the GM responding and doing so with principles that value player agency, the living world, etc.</blockquote>

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