So what is a sandbox game anyway?

[Pippa the Pixie]

Another thread keeps talking about a sandbox game, but what is that? I've heard the term used, but not often defined. There is a current vogue in table top rpgs where "sandbox" games are in. Structured plots are often criticized as "railroading", and huge value is place on wide open player choice. Especially that this term is used increasingly often and it seems that it's meaning starts to blur. I guess many feel that any game is Sandbox regardless of what kind of story or gameplay is involved?

Honestly, I don't understand how this is differnt from the DM not doing any prep and just yanking encounters out of thin air. I would be pretty annoyed if I showed up at a game and the DM looked at us and said, "so, what do you want to do?" and then starting thumbing through monster books while I sat there and waited for him to figure out what he was going to use for an encounter. It seems lazy, not "creative" to me.

And from the other side of the table, if I was the DM, and I had designed an adventure around finding the Lost Templeof the Whosawhatists, complete with plot hooks, npcs, encounters areas that can be entered in muliple way in several different ordres, etc, and the players said "no, I don't like the sound of that. Lets go prospecting in the Tinhat Mountains instead!", well, they would be looking for a new DM.

So what am I missing? For those of you who do this "sandbox" thing, what is the appeal, and how do the games actually unfold, and why is this better than a good plotted adventure created by a skilled DM?

[hamishspence]

"Let the players set and pursue their own goals" is a hallmark of the sandbox genre, in video games:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...ideOpenSandbox


In D&D, the idea would be to take a similar approach - helping the players feel like they're in this kind of game.

[jayem]

So what am I missing? For those of you who do this "sandbox" thing, what is the appeal, and how do the games actually unfold, and why is this better than a good plotted adventure created by a skilled DM?

It's different not better.

So to compare with a more linear plotted adventure.

On the other thread it was suggested that the sequence Rivendell/Moria/Mordor could have formed a linear adventure.
In practice the party tried to avoid Moria and go over mount Caradhras instead. They fail but arguably the only reason they fail, is that Tolkien wanted them to go into Moria.* Note of course that the structured plot is not the railroading, but leads to it.
To some extent Frodo ought to be guessing what the author wanted them to do and not thinking about things his side of the 4th wall (such as their climbing ability or the prophecy about Gandalf). The net effect is it cheapens the consequences of the players decisions.

The DM and the players, to some extent are both aware of this. But for it to not occur the DM and players have to yield the "carefully plotted adventure". If the players attempt to go over the mountains then the players attempt to go over the mountains. If they succeed on their own merits (it may be the case that the mountain route is genuinely impassable, it's slightly harder to argue that in other situations) then they go over the mountains.
Instead of coming down the Celebrant to Lothlorian with a host of orcs after them, they come into the area very cold and wet (and with Gandalf) and so the next bit of the 'plot' even starts off key, and in short order the structure is lost completely.

Having gone for this approach, then, the first thing is that preparation is just as important. It is however different.
In a sense many of the same things that you did for the Lost Temple you do at the wider scale.

And it has some paybacks fairly quickly too:
You no longer have to explain (either beforehand or improvisationally) why they can't climb the mountains/come in the back entrance. You just have to design and occupy both (either beforehand or improvisationally).
Conversely you don't have to design weaknesses to be able to force success along the 'one true path'. It's up to the players to find a solution. The worst that will happen is they leave (or die, but that can happen anyway).
You get to be surprised and play a game.
And if they miss out the Lost Temple, it's still there.

*in practice of course both routes were of course dangerous and a book is not the same thing as a game.

[Kaptin Keen]

Traditionally, I have a hard time telling players what to do.

Not-sandbox games, to me as a GM, feel like playing Hantsel and Gretel - you need to put out a string of breadcrumbs for them to follow. If they miss one, you need to point to it harder until they find it.

I can't do that. I'm not sure why. It feels like I'm robbing the players of choice, feeding them what I want rather than trying to find what they want.

So instead I paint a picture: Here is a town, these are it's people, these things are going on, it's surroundings are these and hold this and that. Do with it what you will. Things will happen, the players can intervene for or against, or take no part at all - and all choices have consequences. Provided I manage to remember what their choices were and what consequences I had in mind.

Funnily enough, my RL group are sensationally bad at the second type of play.

[kyoryu]

I define things, perhaps, slightly differently than most people. I think it's fine for there to be an overall goal in the game (ideally one agreed upon before the game starts).

What defines a sandbox, to me, is that you have a game where, the vast majority of the time, the players are determining what the next scene is, and ideally not from a pre-planned set of options.

While this doesn't appear to include dungeons, I would argue it *does*, becuase:

A) dungeons have such a vast array of options that you can't really predict what the players will do
B) in a well run dungeon game, while the locations may be somewhat set, what happens there won't be and will at least partially be a result of previous actions

In non-sandbox gaming, the GM is choosing what happens next. In some cases they may allow players the illusion that they're choosing, but anything other than the designated next scene will either lead back to the designated next scene or accomplish nothing. In some cases, as well, the GM may offer a choice between several pre-planned scenes, but I would argue that this sort of branching structure is still not sandbox play.

[gkathellar]

Honestly, I don't understand how this is differnt from the DM not doing any prep and just yanking encounters out of thin air.

It's very often just the opposite. Many sandbox GMs do extensive prep, with at the very least working outlines for a variety of options and plot threads, as well as major and minor details such as NPCs, encounters, plot twists, etc. There may also be an overarching plots, factions who respond to the actions of players, or even other groups of PCs if you want to get really old school. All of this requires a fairly broad reflexive knowledge of one's setting, pretty extensive forethought, a feeling for what players might be interested in, a working knowledge of monsters and rules miscellanea that might come up, and some pretty serious improv chops. To draw a comparison, a good sandbox game is like Skyrim (a game I dislike, but I can acknowledge it for what it is): pick a direction, walk in it, and you'll find something. Maybe it's a town being attacked by vampires, or a toxic swamp ruled by an evil wizard, or a demon lord's pet talking dog. And critically, in a proper sandbox, the direction matters, because the GM has different ideas for all of them.

What this means, in practice, is that when you go into the tavern to gather rumors, the DM doesn't give you a story hook: they give you seven.

So what am I missing? For those of you who do this "sandbox" thing, what is the appeal, and how do the games actually unfold, and why is this better than a good plotted adventure created by a skilled DM?

You might as well ask the inverse question. It's not better - it's just a different style of play.

[GloatingSwine]

In non-sandbox gaming, the GM is choosing what happens next.

The GM always chooses what happens next. It fundamentally can't be any other way because no matter how much you let players decide where they want to go and what they want to do, the GM has to think of something for them to find there and how the world reacts to what they do. Whether they do that by improvising on the spot or by working it out beforehand.

That's what the GM is for, after all.

[jayem]

I define things, perhaps, slightly differently than most people. I think it's fine for there to be an overall goal in the game (ideally one agreed upon before the game starts).
...

I'd definitely be happy with using the term more or less sandboxy at different scales.
In any case an overall goal being something that would be emergent very quickly (and potentially more or less predictably so). While if the players change their goal anyway you can't really do much about it anyway (after all they don't have to tell you). The more it constrains the actions, the less sandboxy it will be, but that doesn't stop it being very Sandboxy.

Had the OP said "if I had designed an adventure around finding the Lost Templeof the Whosawhatists, complete a dramatic gate encounter, being pushed in the path of a rolling stone and a climactic battle at the end", I would say that was more linear than what they actually said.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Honestly, I don't understand how this is differnt from the DM not doing any prep and just yanking encounters out of thin air. I would be pretty annoyed if I showed up at a game and the DM looked at us and said, "so, what do you want to do?" and then starting thumbing through monster books while I sat there and waited for him to figure out what he was going to use for an encounter. It seems lazy, not "creative" to me.

You don't start any sort of game with "What do you do?" Regardless of game type the first session should have an introductory burst of action. In a sandbox game a random example could be "Okay you've spent three months traveling with a caravan through the wild lands. In the night, raiders attack and have already dragged some of the caravan people off by the time the alarm was sounded." Cue exciting fight. And then after the fight launch the sandbox with "Do you go after the raiders to rescue the rest of the caravan or continue on to the town on your own?" Immediately throwing the entire setting at the players and asking them what they do is overwhelming, start small and build outwards.

And from the other side of the table, if I was the DM, and I had designed an adventure around finding the Lost Templeof the Whosawhatists, complete with plot hooks, npcs, encounters areas that can be entered in muliple way in several different ordres, etc, and the players said "no, I don't like the sound of that. Lets go prospecting in the Tinhat Mountains instead!", well, they would be looking for a new DM.

Well obviously if you're going to put all your eggs in one basket then you want people to come look at your cool egg basket. But you don't have to do that. The lazy/efficient sandbox GM doesn't prepare much in detail until he knows what the players want to do and then prepares that. The dedicated sandbox GM prepares a whole lot of everything.

So what am I missing? For those of you who do this "sandbox" thing, what is the appeal, and how do the games actually unfold, and why is this better than a good plotted adventure created by a skilled DM?

I couldn't care less about gloriously crafted set pieces. I want the world to react to me and my choices, and I want to do creative things by mixing unrelated pieces of the setting together.

A dwarf has some dirt on us that he's spent the past 50 sessions or so gathering from the various dubious things we've done. He's using it to extort us to get something he wants. Not being an idiot he's first secured the backing of a powerful political figure, withdrawn his clan into a fortress to protect them, and made copies of the information to be released on his death should anything "unfortunate" happen to him. The GM hasn't planned what we're going to do about this because that's our job, not his, he's just played the dwarf as the dwarf should be played and left the rest up to us.

I've settled on assassinating his backer and using the pressure to try to force the dwarf to accept a lesser thing in trade instead, but we didn't have to. Other perfectly viable options that I could see include storming the fortress to try to kill him and everyone else he might have given the information to all at once, caving and giving him what he wants, or ignoring the entire thing and going off to pursue one of the other important goals I'm working on at the moment and dealing with the fallout later. And that sort of hard choice is what makes an RPG fun to me.

[Goaty14]

<Insert snarky comment about a sadbox being a box that people get sad in>

TL;DR A Sandbox is a campaign without a definite plot. One that doesn't tie the players down to any given task.

[Thrudd]

This sounds suspiciously like another thread (a lot of threads, actually) and the exact point of view of another poster. It's hard to believe anyone still needs to or wants to talk about this.

[Jay R]

Originally, many DMs would create a world (or a continent, or archipelago, or wilderness, or just a dungeon). We would know what existed in most places, and you could choose what direction to go.

This had several effects, including:
1. You might go where the high-level encounters were, so running away or staying away had to be among your options. [I remember taking a wide berth around Cockatrice Valley.]
2. There is no single story - no great evil bad guy who had to be stopped, no Ring to be destroyed, no Queen to rescue. It was more like individual short stories, not a novel.
3. Sometimes players weren't sure what to do. The party went to the tavern, not to be hired for a specific quest, but to get information about what was out there.

This is called a sandbox. I haven't seen one in decades.

Then we started building specific quests. This can be loose and unstructured. There is a great evil bad guy who has to be stopped, but no direct quest. You might try to start killing his followers, or sneak around his castle, or research his history, or go elsewhere to gain more experience before even starting.

But such a story can be badly created. In the cliché of the railroad, there is a single allowable path. You must defeat the werewolf Gabriel-Ernest to get through the open window before you can enter the Dungeon of Filboid Studge. You must go the the 14th level to find the Clovis's Sangrail before you can climb the mountain of Sredni Vashtar. You must climb the mountain before you can earn the approval of St. Vespaluus, etc.

In the most extreme cases, it is said that each single move is pre-determined. There are traps that can only be escaped with a specific outcome. You will never get out of the first room without touching the fourteenth brick with a dagger three times.

I have never seen this kind of railroad, or even the one listed above it.

Maybe the true sandbox and the true railroad really exist. I haven't seen a sandbox since the 1970s, and have never seen the most egregious sort of railroad, and I've seen a lot of gaming

Nonetheless, I have heard, and read, an awful lot of writing from people complaining about one or the other.

The sandbox and the railroad appear to me to be the theoretical extreme ends of a long continuum of role-playing experience, and both, in my experience, are vanishingly rare or non-existent.

Who knows? Maybe I've been lucky in my DMs.

In any event, you don't need to know the terms. Play a game, and if it's fun, keep playing it. If it isn't, you don't need to categorize it to decide to stop playing.

[kyoryu]

The GM always chooses what happens next. It fundamentally can't be any other way because no matter how much you let players decide where they want to go and what they want to do, the GM has to think of something for them to find there and how the world reacts to what they do. Whether they do that by improvising on the spot or by working it out beforehand.

That's what the GM is for, after all.

Disagree.

In many cases, the players decide to go to a place to gain some goal. "We want to go to the Mage's Guild to see if they know anything about this magic."

Okay, great. Now, the GM is going to have to fill in a ton of details - who's at the Guild, what do they know, will they give it willingly, etc. - but it's entirely possible that the GM had zero clue that that was going to be a scene in the night's game.

I use that as an example because it's a specific example from a game I ran.

[1of3]

Another thread keeps talking about a sandbox game, but what is that?

No one knows. It is just a stupid metaphor. It can mean all and nothing. So you are probably playing a sandbox. No one can tell you otherwise, because there just is no criterium whatsoever. I mean, you say it yourself. You have several different entrance points and motivations for your NPCs. Sandbox for sure!

tl;dr: There certainly are useful attempts to study the structure of play in a group, but the term "sandbox" certainly isn't one of them.

[Emperor Demonking]

Disagree.

In many cases, the players decide to go to a place to gain some goal. "We want to go to the Mage's Guild to see if they know anything about this magic."

Okay, great. Now, the GM is going to have to fill in a ton of details - who's at the Guild, what do they know, will they give it willingly, etc. - but it's entirely possible that the GM had zero clue that that was going to be a scene in the night's game.

I use that as an example because it's a specific example from a game I ran.

But it is the DM who decides if the Mage Guild is closed or open to intruders, if it is all of the finest users of magic or simply a bunch of hack frauds, whether they offer information freely or want coin or want something more difficult. And that is the point, I believe, Gloating_Swine was making.

[Darth Ultron]

Disagree.

In many cases, the players decide to go to a place to gain some goal. "We want to go to the Mage's Guild to see if they know anything about this magic."

Okay, great. Now, the GM is going to have to fill in a ton of details - who's at the Guild, what do they know, will they give it willingly, etc. - but it's entirely possible that the GM had zero clue that that was going to be a scene in the night's game.

Ok, but the DM still has to make all that up....so the DM has to think of everything and all about it and all.

Like:

2 PM: Clueless DM has no idea what will happen in the game tonight
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05:DM blinks as they are Clueless
6:15:06:DM makes up the Mage Guild, NPCs, everything else.
6:15)07:Game rolls on....


And for the record I'm not Emperor Demonking, after all I heard he can be ''nice'', so that is so not me....

[Scripten]

But it is the DM who decides if the Mage Guild is closed or open to intruders, if it is all of the finest users of magic or simply a bunch of hack frauds, whether they offer information freely or want coin or want something more difficult. And that is the point, I believe, Gloating_Swine was making.

The GM always decides the content. That's never been up for debate. (Or, if it was, the post was but one in a sea of others stating otherwise.)

Linearity is generally defined as a spectrum with Linear games on one end and Sandbox games on the other. Games with more linearity involve the DM coming up with goals for the players to accomplish. Games that are more "sandbox-y" have goals determined by the players. That is, a game could be called a "sandbox" if the players choose their goals during gameplay more often than not.

None of that has anything to do with whether the GM is creating the content, whether they have material prepared or are improvising, or whether the GM is engaging in Railroading.

Ok, but the DM still has to make all that up....so the DM has to think of everything and all about it and all.

Like:

2 PM: Clueless DM has no idea what will happen in the game tonight
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05:DM blinks as they are Clueless
6:15:06:DM makes up the Mage Guild, NPCs, everything else.
6:15)07:Game rolls on....

You seriously have no concept of making arguments without attacking other people, do you?

This post is obvious trolling and I recommend that other posters just ignore it so that OP can get a decent answer without the thread devolving into the third/fourth such pile of excrement in the past month or so.

[Jay R]

Ok, but the DM still has to make all that up....so the DM has to think of everything and all about it and all.

Yes, but not all at once.

2 PM: Clueless DM has no idea what will happen in the game tonight
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05:DM blinks as they are Clueless
6:15:06:DM makes up the Mage Guild, NPCs, everything else.
6:15)07:Game rolls on....


And for the record I'm not Emperor Demonking, after all I heard he can be ''nice'', so that is so not me....

Yes, of course players can try to destroy a sandbox by inventing ideas that aren't there, and yes, DMs can let them and try to design their world on the fly. Pushy players and gullible DMs certainly exist, so you have successfully described an absurd cartoon of the worst way a sandbox can fail.

But this simply does not describe the sandboxes I've actually seen and played in. In general, they went like this:

1. The DM designs a dungeon or wilderness.
2. DM invites players to start playing in the wilderness or dungeon. Players go wherever they want in the wilderness or dungeon.
3. DM designs a town near the wilderness. Players can explore the town.
4. Players decide to visit the Mages' Guild. DM has not designed a Mage's guild, and tells them that there isn't one in this town. He tells them they would need a bigger city for that, and makes a note to start designing a bigger city with a Mages' Guild.
5. Players hear about various things happening in the country. Maybe they get excited by one of them. They hear about a bigger city to the north, and decide to head for it looking for the guild..
6. Away from the game, the DM starts designing the bigger city and the Mages' Guild, knowing how long it will likely take the players to get there.
7. DM consults notes, sees that north road goes through forest for awhile, until reaching the designed kobold village.
8. DM rolls random forest encounters, and possibly includes the designed forest elves.
9. Players reach kobold village. DM uses notes on kobold village.
10. Players move on to city, through the previously established plains. DM uses a combination of planned encounters and random monsters from his plains table.
11. Players reach city, and DM has several possible encounters ready, plus the Mages' Guild. Players play through the city encounters as long as they wish.
12. Players decide to go west. DM states that the mountains are impassable due to a recent avalanche.
13. Players try to come up with a way to get through anyway. DM says that the avalanche is there because he hasn't designed the mountains to the west yet. therefore, he recommends that they try something else until the spring thaw, at which point he expects to have that part of the world designed. He tells the party that they hear about an elven enclave in the woods to the east, an evil witch in the plains to the southeast, hills with a dragon to the northeast, and a city of giants to the north.
14. Players decide which of the already mapped out areas to pursue.

This is a sandbox designed well, and played well, with DM and players trying to cooperate.

[ImNotTrevor]

And for the record I'm not Emperor Demonking, after all I heard he can be ''nice'', so that is so not me....

Wow. This is literally the worst possible thing to do when people think it's a shared account.

Congrats on confirming it for everyone.

I'm also thinking 1of3 is you, too. It's too dang perfect. 1 of 3 alt accounts with the same goal.

I'd need to look at the post history to confirm, though.

[kyoryu]

But it is the DM who decides if the Mage Guild is closed or open to intruders, if it is all of the finest users of magic or simply a bunch of hack frauds, whether they offer information freely or want coin or want something more difficult. And that is the point, I believe, Gloating_Swine was making.

Well, in most cases, sure. In some cases, players do have some ability to make narrative declarations, but it's a reasonable statement that, in most cases, is going to be 90%-100% true.

But your point is? We're not talking about "the GM can make stuff up". That's obvious. Nobody disputes that, at all.

The question isn't whether the GM is making stuff up. The question is whether or not players have input into the events of the game. Can the GM use that power to be a jerkface? Well, sure. Can they use that power to make a fun game for everyone? Absolutely, and that's what happens the majority of the time.

[Emperor Demonking]

Well, in most cases, sure. In some cases, players do have some ability to make narrative declarations, but it's a reasonable statement that, in most cases, is going to be 90%-100% true.

But your point is? We're not talking about "the GM can make stuff up". That's obvious. Nobody disputes that, at all.

The question isn't whether the GM is making stuff up. The question is whether or not players have input into the events of the game. Can the GM use that power to be a jerkface? Well, sure. Can they use that power to make a fun game for everyone? Absolutely, and that's what happens the majority of the time.

My point is that you said that you disagreed with Gloating_Swine, but your example did not actually disagree with Gloating_Swine.

[Grim Portent]

Say I'm GMing a Warhammer Fantasy game, or any game with a well fleshed out setting and plenty of information about places and people really, I have no real need to know beforehand if the players want to seek out a wizard, I already know where the important ones live, what their buildings look like and how they react to people coming in and talking to them. If they want to travel from say the city of Nuln to Altdorf to seek out the College of Light I know where that all is relative to each other and how the College is found. Hell, they could up sticks and decide to travel to Bretonnia with a shipment of fine clothes to sell after stealing it from a merchant, and I know what routes exist from Nuln to Bretonnia and what monsters live along the roads near the mountain passes that may be interested in waylaying travelers and can determine what shows up more or less randomly.

I can plonk myself down and trust the players to decide what they want to do, be it hunting ghouls to earn gratitude from the cult of Morr or trying to steal a Griffon egg to sell for a hefty sum, or even just to try and rear themselves if the mood takes them. They could even travel to the far north to pledge themselves to Chaos or skulk into Sylvania with the hopes of becoming vampires. All up to them.

Similar principles apply to any setting and game, if I have a good idea of what can be found where, or even better maps of different important places and lists of people in a folder then I don't need to have a specific plot in mind provided the players can come up with personal goals without needing an NPC to tell them to go kill giant rats or fetch him a McGuffin. Ideally they have flexible long term goals like surviving without falling into poverty, getting rich and powerful or becoming the greatest knight in the land, because they can pursue those goals in many ways or even change goal based on experiences during play.



The difficult part of running a sandbox is usually the first session unless you have everyone work together to create characters and work out shared goals before the game starts, otherwise you are at risk of getting situations where some characters have little reason to be in the party other than being PCs. But then I've played and ran several non-sandbox games where the PCs had little if any reason to be doing the story the GM was laying out. Playing in one such game right now in fact.

[kyoryu]

My point is that you said that you disagreed with Gloating_Swine, but your example did not actually disagree with Gloating_Swine.

I disagree with "The GM always chooses what happens next".

There is a huge difference between "the players will now go to this place, where they will have this encounter" and "okay, to solve the general issue I've put before the players, they've decided they want to get information from the Mage's Guild, so I need to fill in some details."

I feel this difference is clear to most people. It's clear, and important (for elf-game levels of importance) to me. If it's not clear to you, and you're looking for understanding, we can continue to discuss this. If you're looking to score points and "prove me wrong", then I see no point in continuing.

[Florian]

I'm also thinking 1of3 is you, too. It's too dang perfect. 1 of 3 alt accounts with the same goal.

Nah. I´m "knowing" 1of3 now based on shared forum interaction on :T: for some years and I'm well acquainted with people who've met that user in person, like on the annual summer/winter convention.

I´ve crossed verbal swords with goldilocks more than enough in our first language to actually know the differences in style and taste and this is in no way a match up to DU or such.

(@1of3: Slayn says "hi!", improve your english ;)"

[Emperor Demonking]

I disagree with "The GM always chooses what happens next".

There is a huge difference between "the players will now go to this place, where they will have this encounter" and "okay, to solve the general issue I've put before the players, they've decided they want to get information from the Mage's Guild, so I need to fill in some details."

I feel this difference is clear to most people. It's clear, and important (for elf-game levels of importance) to me. If it's not clear to you, and you're looking for understanding, we can continue to discuss this. If you're looking to score points and "prove me wrong", then I see no point in continuing.

You said you disagreed with him. Your example did not disagree with him. It appeared like you misunderstood him. I endeavoured to help explain his point to you. I did not expect you to take that as a personal affront.

[RazorChain]

Sandbox is the setting you play in. If you allow your players to roam freely and do what they want then you have a sandbox game.

[kyoryu]

You said you disagreed with him. Your example did not disagree with him. It appeared like you misunderstood him. I endeavoured to help explain his point to you. I did not expect you to take that as a personal affront.

I'm not offended, don't worry.

It's possible I misunderstood him, but if his point was "the GM makes stuff up", then that's kind of silly because, of course they do. In context, his point seems to be "the GM makes stuff up, therefore the GM determines what happens, therefore it's all railroading anyway", which I pretty strongly disagree with.

As I said, there's a difference between the GM saying "you will now go here and have this encounter" (however they hide that) and filling in the details to enable the players to do the things they want to do (get info from the Mage's Guild).

Those are not the same thing. There is a huge difference between the two, to myself and to many people. The players choosing "we will get info from the Mage's Guild", and the GM filling in the details and opposition, is in no way the same thing as the GM choosing "you will now get jumped by abominations at the waterfront".

If you or he do not understand that, I'm still happy to try to explain the difference.

[Kaptin Keen]

Ok, but the DM still has to make all that up....so the DM has to think of everything and all about it and all.

Like:

2 PM: Clueless DM has no idea what will happen in the game tonight
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05:DM blinks as they are Clueless
6:15:06:DM makes up the Mage Guild, NPCs, everything else.
6:15)07:Game rolls on....


And for the record I'm not Emperor Demonking, after all I heard he can be ''nice'', so that is so not me....

Actually more like:

2 PM: I need to find a way to lead the players to Bazingatown, the heart of the kobold empire.
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05: GM silently exclaims 'Eureka!'
6:15:06: GM explains 'well - there are many mages guilds, but the only one a true mage would visit is the one in Bazingatown, the heart of the kobold empire.

Of course, I'm cheating ever so slightly on the whole Sandbox thing - but I never promised I wouldn't. If the walls of your prison are invisible, are you truly a captive?

=)

[OldTrees1]

Actually more like:

2 PM: I need to find a way to lead the players to Bazingatown, the heart of the kobold empire.
6 PM Game starts, characters meet in a tavern.
6:15 PM: Wozers! The players randomly say 'We want to go to the Mage's Guild'
6:15:05: GM silently exclaims 'Eureka!'
6:15:06: GM explains 'well - there are many mages guilds, but the only one a true mage would visit is the one in Bazingatown, the heart of the kobold empire.

Of course, I'm cheating ever so slightly on the whole Sandbox thing - but I never promised I wouldn't. If the walls of your prison are invisible, are you truly a captive?

=)

Depends on what happens when the players surprise you by wanting to go to the 2nd most prestigious mage guild in order to try to change the status quo.

Opaque Walls: Obviously a prision
"Invisible Walls": Do they block movement when I try to walk in a direction that coincidentally had one of those walls?

Consider having your path just barely intersect a circular valley (your path is almost but not quite a tangent to the valley). When you encounter the slope you will find it easier to lean into a descent into the valley. However you don't have to curve your tread. Such a slope is not a prison but can occur in a sandbox.

[Kaptin Keen]

Depends on what happens when the players surprise you by wanting to go to the 2nd most prestigious mage guild in order to try to change the status quo.

Opaque Walls: Obviously a prision
"Invisible Walls": Do they block movement when I try to walk in a direction that coincidentally had one of those walls?

Consider having your path just barely intersect a circular valley (your path is almost but not quite a tangent to the valley). When you encounter the slope you will find it easier to lean into a descent into the valley. However you don't have to curve your tread. Such a slope is not a prison but can occur in a sandbox.

It's mostly meant as a joke.

Being slightly more serious - if the players want to go somewhere I haven't fluffed out yet, I will delay them (travel time or whatever) until I have it ready.

My games truly are sandbox games, but not without some leadership. I present paths that are available, problems to solve or ignore, secrets to investigate or ignore, and so on. But if they come up with something entirely unforseen, they can do that. I just might need to delay them a bit.