D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Remathilis]

By that logic, it's impossible to have a sandbox game if that game involves a GM. You'd have to invent a GM-less game that uses a ton of random generators or event decks for there to be a true sandbox.

Isn't that, essentially, The Game of Life but with infinitely more complexity?

 

[Faolyn]

Isn't that, essentially, The Game of Life but with infinitely more complexity?

Well, if your little pegs were equipped with weapons and some of the spaces you could land on triggered combat encounters.

 

[AlViking]

By that logic, it's impossible to have a sandbox game if that game involves a GM. You'd have to invent a GM-less game that uses a ton of random generators or event decks for there to be a true sandbox.

Randomness wouldn't do it, you'd just be substituting GM generated options with randomly generated ones. I don't see any difference. Of course I also don't believe that picking from a list of plot hooks or coming up with your own is linear either.

 

[Faolyn]

Randomness wouldn't do it, you'd just be substituting GM generated options with randomly generated ones. I don't see any difference. Of course I also don't believe that picking from a list of plot hooks or coming up with your own is linear either.

So now even randomness is constraining?

 

[AlViking]

So now even randomness is constraining?

It is if only having a limited number of directions to choose from is constraining. Randomness just means that the option chosen is dependent on the randomizer. If my choice of going left or right is based on a coin toss I have no autonomy.

 

[Umbran]

So now even randomness is constraining?

It is not that randomness is constraining - making the choice anything but the player's own is constraining.

It follows that having one player choose is constraining on all other players, which starts sounding like the only pure case would be solo play....

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What do you mean by 'nailed down' world? I run hexcrawls. What's in the hexes is specified beforehand.

Suppose the players choose to head to another continent. In case A, that continent is one I've also prepared hexes for. In case B, it isn't, but the basic details of the continent are outlined in my notes. In case C, they head somewhere I have nothing prepared for.

Is one of those allowing them to forge into unknown territory while another is preventing them?

If you already know the contents of every hex well before players enter it, how is the world not nailed down?

It's your theme park. They just get to choose what they see in it.

 

[Umbran]

If you already know the contents of every hex well before players enter it, how is the world not nailed down?

It's your theme park. They just get to choose what they see in it.

Maybe. But it is the classic sandbox, regardless. The GM provides the sand in the box. The agency is in what to do with the sand.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So a sandbox (and any game with less agency than that) is a prison? Come on.

Ah, and see how you used the negative example, but not the positive one? Clearly I'm the one with a nasty evil agenda, not just using examples to illustrate a point, that a power not exercised still matters. As I literally said. Clearly the takeaway is that sandboxes are prisons, and not that sandboxes make you the most powerful individual person on Earth.

For goodness sake, I know you can respond to arguments better than this.

I know that I would do my best to accommodate my players if they wanted to leave the region altogether (yet somehow still wanted to play in my campaign), but until the situation becomes acute, why should I devote energy to worrying about it? Heck, if I came up with something in that contingency, wouldn't I be trapping my players in another of my "menu options" at that point?

I mean, you're the one using words like "accommodate" and talking about how you must "devote energy" to filling in the world because the players made a choice. That sounds to me like the only things players can do are ones you prepare. You just don't prepare absolutely all of it ahead of time. It's still your world. They just elect what to see of it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Maybe. But it is the classic sandbox, regardless. The GM provides the sand in the box. The agency is in what to do with the sand.

The GM provides the rails. The agency is in where you look while you're riding them.