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<blockquote data-quote="Kobold Boots" data-source="post: 5654892" data-attributes="member: 92239">I'm stating this based on experience.My players and I undertake an active world-building and character-building exercise at the beginning of any campaign that allows them to influence what the campaign world is and what their characters are across any number of possible categories.&nbsp; This is more sandboxy.It's then my responsibility to get them through however many levels of play they want to play through and that's part of the group's social contract.&nbsp; The one I'm currently running is set for 30 levels of 4e and they're at level 9ish right now after about a year and a half of regular play.My responsibility is to then provide them with the type of experience they want, which in the case of my players is a combination of them creating trouble and me giving them something to do.&nbsp; I run an adventure path agreed upon by the group with the understanding that I'm folding in the results of the world building exercise into the path.&nbsp; This prevents the path from being something a player could read and completely ruin.Additionally, it's understood that they could tangent off into other plot hooks or threads and depart from the path at any time, to do whatever they wish, but that the path will still be going on in the background and they'll likely have to deal with it at some point.&nbsp; Of course, whether it's the path as written or not by the time they get to it, or they're cleaning up the mess someone else failed on.. So in doing this I keep track of the plot players create, and the plot the game world has going on.&nbsp; It's not railroading, but it's not sandbox either.The reason why I'm abstracting on the topic is because I think most people's games have elements of story and sandbox and the arguments posted here assuming some campaigns exist with an absolute polarity towards one or the other may be true, but certainly not the majority.2c.KB</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kobold Boots, post: 5654892, member: 92239"] I'm stating this based on experience. My players and I undertake an active world-building and character-building exercise at the beginning of any campaign that allows them to influence what the campaign world is and what their characters are across any number of possible categories. This is more sandboxy. It's then my responsibility to get them through however many levels of play they want to play through and that's part of the group's social contract. The one I'm currently running is set for 30 levels of 4e and they're at level 9ish right now after about a year and a half of regular play. My responsibility is to then provide them with the type of experience they want, which in the case of my players is a combination of them creating trouble and me giving them something to do. I run an adventure path agreed upon by the group with the understanding that I'm folding in the results of the world building exercise into the path. This prevents the path from being something a player could read and completely ruin. Additionally, it's understood that they could tangent off into other plot hooks or threads and depart from the path at any time, to do whatever they wish, but that the path will still be going on in the background and they'll likely have to deal with it at some point. Of course, whether it's the path as written or not by the time they get to it, or they're cleaning up the mess someone else failed on.. So in doing this I keep track of the plot players create, and the plot the game world has going on. It's not railroading, but it's not sandbox either. The reason why I'm abstracting on the topic is because I think most people's games have elements of story and sandbox and the arguments posted here assuming some campaigns exist with an absolute polarity towards one or the other may be true, but certainly not the majority. 2c. KB [/QUOTE]

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