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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 5396941" data-attributes="member: 3192">As I understand it, you're saying a sandbox game obligates the GM to say no to any player attempts, which are not part of the scenario design.  That's is the complete opposite of the desired effect I strive to engender in my games.  ANY player PC attempt in the game world not covered by the code behind the screen receives a yes answer from me. The action is defined and immediately incorporated, though it is not able to be contradicted after the fact.I am not here to limit players' imaginations, but press them to both study and perform the social role they selected.  It is the role play simulation point of view, the analytic, question asking study of the world they are part of.  As long as the focus is on character and narrative elements in games, then I think the purpose of sandbox games is missed.  Those two elements are always in every game from Chess to Gin Rummy to Monopoly, so a player is not necessarily adding character or narrative where none existed.  But these elements are largely irrelevant to the game's focus and design.  It is as asking two football teams why they don't choose to work together in order to tell a better story instead of competing against each other.  After all, the game of football is also a storygame about expressing fictional personas and quality narratives, no?I've said before I run my game as a reality puzzle game, a cooperative simulation game with the rules hidden behind a screen.  Think of it like the blueprint of a Rubik's Cube.  I do not need to know how to solve that puzzle, only relate its current configuration and move the pieces according to the code/rules and as the players dictate.  It is an attempt to relate without personal preference and I am obligated to say yes, just as in a situational puzzle, to any PC attempt not covered by the rules.  As the reality puzzle game I run (RPG) is very, very broad in details covered, yet small and elegant in its design, rarely are the players expressing something not covered by that code.I understand your worries about power.  The Foucauldian ethics of unending power struggles as the natural state of humans is in large part the current cultural absolute truth.  However, if you are so worried about issues of power as to never engage with a puzzle game, then I think you may wish to back off it a little.  Otherwise such fun activities as Suduko, trivia games, and any computer games will fall into the same interpersonal struggle of oppression-by-other.  Heck, using a computer software written by others incorporates the same risk.Games are, in almost all respects, attempts to create a pattern for players to explore and demonstrate recognition thereof.  It's currently an unpopular opinion, but I do believe the vast majority of gamers are looking for just that.  I do not know anyone who plays chess strictly for its ability to express fictional persona and tell quality narratives.  It is the same in my game.  Mine does not require people to express a fictional persona when playing, that isn't roleplaying anyways as it was originally defined back in 1920.  Will they be doing so anyways?  Yes, in the same way they are expressing one when performing math or acting as if anything else they don't believe in exists.  So how can I act honestly, sometimes called objectively, behind a screen as a referee and still end up being subjective?  It's about fairness and how balance is built into the game, like spotlight time in many contemporary storygames.  As in the game Mastermind I relate elements like color and spatial positioning, both of which are included in my codeset, and allow the players to decode the pattern.  Memory matters here as does quality communication, but as in any communication it is subjective understanding on all our parts.  Like Mastermind my RPG is largely a semantic language game with repetition coming from adequately relayed meaning.  It's beer & pretzels not rocket science, but the communication is only a power struggle when chosen to be viewed as such.  Unless you believe every interpersonal engagement is so, then playing the game is morally OK.My own game design? I play a variant of Conway's Game of Life, which is ironically no longer considered a game by many of the top "let's define games" folks.  To understand the next part and, if you don't know GoL, you may want to check it out.  I start with positive and negative energy particles and create elements out of them.  With those elements I create more complex constructs like solids and gases and blood and flesh.  The most complex creatures are those sentient ones, the ones not only with maps in their brains that may be explored, but also are capable of incorporating what they interact with into those maps.  (Think of a square in GoL becoming a brand new color of that next to it.)  NPCs are the most complex configurations within the game, but PCs are not far behind.  It's just the players are asked to remember and demonstrate recognition of the world in their own right.  Play is largely as a blueprinted Rubik's Cube with player intelligence and skill demonstrated by manipulating events to their own desired ends.   I do not determine those ends for them just as I do not tell the players that all the sides of the Rubik's Cube must one color.  They will learn how it operates through play and perhaps maneuver to such positioning because they are intelligent enough to do so.  The code is heavy in the scope defined within the social role, class, they have chosen, but not so much in other places.  Learning how to be a good weaver isn't addressed, but it isn't promised to be.  Does a player want to weave? I say yes, but then their description is added on for future reasoning.This type of play is associative learning and a powerful technique in my opinion.  It pushes players in many of the reasons I enjoy playing the game and I hope they do as well. I've posted <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/5389450-post12.html" target="_blank">them over here</a> before, so I'll keep from repeating them.  In the end I think those behaviors are why players play in my games.  They aren't playing basketball because they will tell a great story. I think basketball is played because it improves players. In ways like eye hand coordination, strength, speed, agility, grace, and  teamwork.  But my game is a mental game and if it isn't helping the players in ways they've agreed to, it isn't worth much in my eyes.</blockquote>

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