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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5655164" data-attributes="member: 42582">To be honest, I don't know if our games would run similarly or not.I know, for example, that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] has posted in the past that when he wants to run a game that is driven by player engagement with thematic material, he doesn't use D&D. Whereas that is how my D&D game plays. Which makes me think that Hussar's D&D games are at least somewhat different from mine. (Some of this came out on the recent Is D&D About Combat? thread.)You say that your game is based around an adventure path, which the players choose to follow rather than "going to raise sheep" instead. As I understand it, an adventure path has a more-or-less predetermined villain, and a more-or-less predetermined series of scenes that the PCs will proceed through before confronting that villain. When the players choose to engage the adventure path, as best I understand it, they are choosing to pick up on hooks that the module authors have built into the path. They follow the module author's leads as far as importance and theme are concerned.If my understanding of adventure path play is correct, this is quite different from how I run my game. My game is based on framing situations that engage the players in virtue of the details (backstory, previous actions, thematic concerns that they express, etc) of the players' PCs. The key thematic ideas of the campaign are emergent from play, not settled in advance.And I'm pretty confident that [MENTION=26473]The Shaman[/MENTION]'s game plays diffferently again. He uses a combination of detailed setting notes and random tables that "encode" the setting and genre to support his players engaging in genre-reflective exploration of and engagement with early modern France.I agree that some sandboxers talk in elitist terms, as if the only alternative to a sandbox is a railroad. I don't agree with that at all. But I'm hesitant to therefore conclue that our games are all very similar. The distribution of situational and plot authority across players and GM, and the mechanical and other tools used to achieve this and build on it, make a difference. That is why (for example) playing classic AD&D is a different experience to playing Dragonlance, or playing Burning Wheel!EDIT:It makes a huge difference to play, though, what sort of control the GM has.For example, is the GM obliged to respect the players' decisions about resource use? About PC backstory? About thematic significance? Contrast the rules text on these issues found in (say) The Burning Wheel with the text on these issues found in (say) 2nd ed AD&D. Or whether or not a game even supports the notion of "sidequest" (AD&D 2nd ed does; BW doesn't).To just lump this all under "GM control" is to elide all the differences that are in play in the range of mainstream approaches to playing and GMing an RPG.</blockquote>

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