Game Theory Musings: Levels of Railroading

[Grod_The_Giant]

At the risk of starting another long argument... it occurs to me that the question of "railroading vs sandbox" isn't the binary it sometimes seems to be framed as. One person's linear game is another person's railroad, while one person's sandbox is another's dull muddle. So, partially for my own benefit, I thought I'd sit down and try to define what I see as various common types of game, with the hope of spawning some slightly more nuanced terminology. In keeping with the original, I'll try to stick with transportation metaphors.

Airplane: An airplane game is a classic total-railroad. The GM controls more-or-less everything: where you're going, how fast you're going, how you get there, who you're allowed to interact with, when you're allowed to move around... the players really have no option but to sit where they're told and watch the pretty scenery. This is the sort of game that you usually hear horror stories about. (Alternate metaphor: You're playing Time Crisis. You can't do anything but shoot the targets that pop up).

Train Car: If you open up an airplane game slightly, you get a train car game. The players are still on rails, still going where and how the GM wants them to go, but there's at least the appearance of freedom. The plot will continue along the same lines no matter what you do, but you can get up and walk around the car, talk with NPCs of your choice, and make similar non-plot-critical choices. This is more of a "badly written module" level of railroad. (Alternate metaphor: You're playing Halo. There's only one way through the level, but you can poke around a little bit, try different loadouts, take the high path instead of the low, etc).

Highway: Opening things up further, you get a highway game. No more are the players bound to a single track-- instead, there's a set destination, a series of rails to get there, and the players have relative control over which ones they take, how fast they go, when they stop for bathroom breaks and scenic overlooks, that sort of thing. This is "decent-module" levels of railroad. [(Alternate metaphor: You're playing Dishonored. There's a linear series of levels, but each one is big and open and has multiple ways to complete it and secrets to find).

Open Road: A variant on the above, an open road game maintains the multiple-rails-at-your-own-pace-heading-the-same-direction approach, adds in some amount of major decision points-- do you side with the baron or the rebels? Help the girl or abandon her? You're still roughly following the GM's plot, but the game does respond to your choices. (Alternate metaphor: You're playing Deus Ex. Lots of ways through the level, lots of ways the game can end).

Big City: A big city game is a sandbox-with-stuff. There are lots of interesting places you can go in the city, lots of ways to get there, and even similar approaches ("let's bike") have different paths you can follow ("okay, do we go down park street or fifth?"). The GM offers a couple plot hooks, but lets the players find their own way. (Alternate metaphor: You're playing Skyrim. Start on one quest line, abandon it for a one-off, abandon that to just explore, it all works).

National Park: A national park is a more-or-less "pure" sandbox. The GM knows the lay of the land, but otherwise it's entirely up to the players to find their own adventure. Hike a trail? Go fishing? Build a fort? Have a picnic? Sit in the parking lot? All are valid; this is just a big pretty place to explore., and you'll have to make your own goals.(Alternate metaphor: You're playing Minecraft. Do what you want; if there is a plot it's subtle and hidden).

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None of these are meant as value judgements (except maybe for Airplane Games). A Train Car game can be relaxing fun if the scenery is nice, the food is good and the company is interesting; it can also be miserable if you're just riding through suburbs in an uncomfortable car full of surly *******s. A National Park game can be a rich experience if the terrain is interesting and varied and your fellow players are of similar mind; it can also be dull if there's nothing but some generic woods and no-one has a good idea what to do.

In any case, where do your games usually fall? I tend towards Open Road, myself, sometimes edging towards Highway-- a couple ways to get to the main plot, some nice open sections while pursing it, and player choices and outcomes sometimes lead to detours or altered destinations.

(Also, think I missed any styles, or lumped any together that are too different?)

[Geddy2112]

As a GM and a player, I like open road the most and most of my games fall into this, with a slight bias to big city . In my gaming group, we all have been GM at least once, some of us do it frequently. One GM is somewhere between highway and traincar, another is firmly big city with 2-3 session arcs of open road, while the last main GM of the group is a highway through a national park-get off the road and go hiking and you will find a lot to do.

Saying all of that, I don't think each is all encompassing, or that you can't have elements from two different styles in the same game. A game with a traincaresque plot can have a big city couple of freeform exploration, for example.

[Cozzer]

I'm an Open Road sort of guy, with a few Highway moments (where the choices of the characters "lock" the plot for a while) and a few Big City moments (usually for pacing, after a big plot point has been solved and the story needs a bit of time to decompress).

[kyoryu]

So, here's what I do:

There's a situation. There's some people that want things that the players don't want. They have agendas - that is, what they will do if left to their own devices. The game is about dealing with this, and is presumed to be about this.

However, how the players go about this is up to them. There are no (or very few) preplanned scenes. I don't know what will happen. The players are free to try pretty much any type of counter that they want. And their actions will impact the world, and the antagonists will change their plans based on this.

I don't know how things will turn out. At all. Including the ending! So it's reasonably directed ("this is what the game is about") but the players have almost complete freedom in how to approach the issue, and I dictate almost no events that will happen. Sometimes, players will lose control because of an action or a consequence of previous actions, but not because I've predetermined that things should go a certain way.

I don't think this fits well with any of your proposed categories. IT almost seems to be a two-axis thing, rather than a single spectrum.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't think this fits well with any of your proposed categories. IT almost seems to be a two-axis thing, rather than a single spectrum.

I dunno, it sounds like a National Park game done well. "This is the world, this is how it works, do what you will with it.". The key point there is that the world exists independently of the players, rather than being a playground specifically built for them.

[Anonymouswizard]

I tend towards train cars, but I'm trying to move towards both big city games and highway games (not overly interested in truly open road games, I find them much harder to write compared to just above and below them).

Humourously big city games I run tend to be located within big cities, while more linear games tend to range over larger areas.

[kyoryu]

I dunno, it sounds like a National Park game done well. "This is the world, this is how it works, do what you will with it.". The key point there is that the world exists independently of the players, rather than being a playground specifically built for them.

But in most cases in the games I run, the world is tailored to the characters. And the game is really "about" the plot. It's about finding out what happens with that particular "story question", if you will. Done well, the gameplay feels more like a Highway or Open Road, but with National Park levels of freedom.

I'm also a "sandbox"/"National Park" fan, and they're very different game types.

[JNAProductions]

I'd note there's a difference between linearity and railroading.

Linearity is more what you're describing-it only becomes a railroad when the GM is FORCING it on players.

For example, a GM that says "Hey guys, I want to run this module-it's kinda linear, so try to stick to the story, okay?" and then runs a Train-Car game is totally fine. A GM that says "You can do anything you want! Total freedom!" and runs a Train-Car game by arbitrarily shutting down anything that doesn't follow his plot is a liar, a bad GM, and railroading.

[Scripten]

Fair warning, this might end up being a long post and I'll probably get ninja'd writing it.

So the big suggestion I would like to put forth is this: We should indeed separate the act of Railroading from the level of linearity in a game. Firstly, this allows us to examine the behaviors associated with Railroading without presupposing any judgement on game style, which I believe is an important distinction. This isn't to say that I believe that your proposed levels of linearity are not useful, but rather that they are not as useful to a discussion on Railroading, per se.

When disucussing Railroading, we're always going to get into a matter of consent, because that's really the underlying issue. When a DM Railroads, they do something that violates the implicit or explicit consent which the players have offered when agreeing to play the game. This consent is given either by a general social contract (as we've seen from other threads, this is muddy and ill-defined), group discussions/votes, or explicit mechanics such as votes or game session primer documents. My primary RL game's primer, for example, discusses some of what a new player can expect in terms of campaign openness and informs them of some mechanical expectations.

I think we can explain the amount of Railroading in a game by breaking down behaviors, although the terms are just conveyances as of yet. I haven't really thought much about them and are pretty much pulled straight from thin air.

Solution Predetermination: This is when a DM accepts only one solution to a proposed problem. This is the DM that only allows the players one option per encounter. This is the Ogre that can't be reasoned with, can't be evaded, can't be lured away, etc, etc, etc. Just like all of the other behaviors, this is sometimes okay. If the players consented to a game with precise puzzles/encounters similar to a point-and-click video game, then the DM shutting down creative "wrong" solutions is acceptable. This occurs almost exclusively in mostly linear games and is a very common Railroading example.

Illusory Arbitration: This is a form of Illusionism where the DM first decides to allow game mechanics to arbitrate a situation but then (secretly) reneges on that decision. This might involve fudging dice rolls, changing target values, or otherwise overruling the mechanics of the game, along with the requirement that the players are unaware that this has happened. Sometimes, again, this is acceptable: If the players consent to the DM giving the Illusion of using the system to arbitrate situations while the DM is actually just deciding arbitrarily, then this is not Railroading. This kind of Railroading can appear in any style of game, including full-on National Park sandboxes.

Mono-pathing: This is another form of Illusionism where the DM offers the players the illusion of choice/agency while actually only offering a single path through the adventure. This is where the term Quantum Ogre comes up a lot, though the Quantum Ogre also (tends to) require that the players are aware of and actively attempting to avoid the Ogre, while I am proposing that Mono-pathing is any false illusion of choice. This is the dungeon with a T in the hallway that somehow always leads to the same room or the quest that lets you side with either faction, but one always betrays you while the other does not. As always, this is not always a bad thing: Sometimes the DM only has so much material prepared, after all. It's only Railroading if the players did not consent to it.

NPC-centrism: I'm not entirely sure about this one; it could probably be rolled into either Solution Predetermination or Mono-pathing. Anyway, this is when the DM offers the players an adventure where they think they are the heroes... until the DMPC or superpowered NPC comes to save everyone. Alternatively, this is also the villain that absolutely cannot be defeated. This is... well, Elminster, the SUE-files' self-insert NPC, or particularly bad interpretations of Strahd. As you may have guessed, this is also not Railroading if the players have consented or the NPC is somehow taken out of the picture or made to be defeatable. A well-run Strahd is the latter case, while our friendly Elder Gods in Call of Cthulhu are an example of an undefeatable enemy that is nonetheless not really in the picture. Generally, the worst cases of this are NPC allies, although they can also be handled without the DM Railroading.

[JeenLeen]

I prefer something between Highway and Open Road. Any tighter than that, and choice feels too constrained, though I'd be open even for Train if the DM was honest about the type of game being run. Pure National Park sandbox is a bit too 'lack of direction' for my taste. I think I'd enjoy it at first, but get bored without an overarching plot to drive things.

I think why I like those is that it enables me to let my character's morals and personal goals interact with the overall plot in a meaningful way. That is, I have the freedom to make decisions based on those and can still (at least usually) accomplish the goals at the 'plot points'.
I also like games where there are plothooks that are optional. Like a Mage game where we can work with the vampires in town or not. If we do, it opens up some connections but also gets some enemies. If we don't, some stuff is harder but we avoid vampiric politics. Our usual DM is good at having even some major plot points be optional, at least in the sense we are free to ignore them and he won't kill us for it. Although he's up-front that the natural consequences might be really bad (e.g., the city we are protecting becomes a hellscape.)

From what my DM's told me, he usually plots out the major movers in the setting (usually a Big Bad and a few other parties), and decides how they will act during the game to move towards their goals. The PCs interfering are the major plot points. As the PCs interact with the world, he has the major movers respond in a character-consistent fashion. (I was originally going to write 'logical fashion', but not all NPCs act logically, so I realized that 'consistent with their character' is a better descriptor.)

When I DM, I aim for those, but I generally wind up more Highway. But I try to be up-front with my players that I need them to accept certain plothooks or the game won't really move.

[Kaptin Keen]

As a player, I'm perfectly OK with railroading. Make it interesting, and why would I want to change it?! oO

As a GM, I'm pretty much incapable of anything other than sandbox. I'm simply not organised enough. Sure, I may have some vague idea of where the game is going, but it's likely to change as it gets closer, like some sort of mirage. If the players go somewhere I hadn't thought of, that's generally a source of inspiration.

On the other hand, I'm pretty weak on the mechanics - and I outright suck at running combat - so I'm pretty restrictive with builds and sources allowed and so on =)

[Jama7301]

Highway with a dash of Open Road. I have the overarching plots. There are a few plot specific locations you may want to go to, to fulfill some criteria of it, but if you want to kick it off road, well, then you have to live with the consequences of the BBEG getting the MacGuffin you were told about.

[Quertus]

Hmmm... For now, I guess I'll just say that I tend to prefer to run (EDIT: and definitely other to play in (when not playing a module)) games somewhere between Big City and National Park. But I'm not completely certain what the distinction is. Funny how this metaphor makes that sound like such a huge range!

For one-shots and published modules, it's more... hmmm... Railroad with the heart of a National Park?

[Warlawk]

Highway with a dash of Open Road. I have the overarching plots. There are a few plot specific locations you may want to go to, to fulfill some criteria of it, but if you want to kick it off road, well, then you have to live with the consequences of the BBEG getting the MacGuffin you were told about.

This is a pretty good landing place for the games that I run as well. I tend to have the game focused on a specific plot, and they players know that. As for planning, I have a few key encounters/challenges and the region, how those things all come together will depend on the players actions. I rarely plan, Encounter X at Location Y at Time Z, moving forward to Encounter X2 at Location Y2 at Time Z2. I plan what the antagonists are doing, why they're doing it and then place those actions in ways taht will put them in conflict with the players with the timing and settings determined by what the players do and where they go.

I'd note there's a difference between linearity and railroading.

Linearity is more what you're describing-it only becomes a railroad when the GM is FORCING it on players.

I wanted to second (third?) this viewpoint. The OP seems to describe more the differences between a story/plot focused game and a sandbox game. It's very possible that we're just quibbling over terminology though. Railroading in my 33ish years of gaming has always meant that the DM forces you down a specific path, you MUST talk to this NPC, you MUST go to this location, you MUST solve this puzzle to advance etc.

[Cluedrew]

On Railroading vs. Linearity: I will fourth that I think this describes linearity instead of railroading. Railroading would be trying to increase the linearity without the consent of the other players. De-railing I supposed would be the opposite? (Decreasing linearity.)

To kyoryu: You said this is a two-axis measure, what are they? I understand that there is more than way to describe a game, but I think only one is described here.

[braveheart]

My current campaign is definitely a big city campaign, however when I do a one off it is usually a hybrid of freeway and national park by that I mean I present the party with a specific problem in a setting and let them figure it out from there without my input.

[JeenLeen]

I wanted to second (third?) this viewpoint. The OP seems to describe more the differences between a story/plot focused game and a sandbox game. It's very possible that we're just quibbling over terminology though. Railroading in my 33ish years of gaming has always meant that the DM forces you down a specific path, you MUST talk to this NPC, you MUST go to this location, you MUST solve this puzzle to advance etc.

On Railroading vs. Linearity: I will fourth that I think this describes linearity instead of railroading. Railroading would be trying to increase the linearity without the consent of the other players. De-railing I supposed would be the opposite? (Decreasing linearity.)

With this discussion, it seems to me that forced linearity is a component of railroading. That is, in a pure railroad game (or Airplane game, to use Grod's categories) things are necessarily linear since you are forced to do these things in a given order. As a game gets more towards the sandbox scale, it becomes less linear since PCs can do things in different orders, or skip things, or do different things.

However, I can still picture (albeit with difficulty) a linear game that is still Open Road or Big City. Things X, Y, and Z occur, and those drive the plot. Maybe Do-This D is needed to prevent a really bad thing, but you can still play the game if it isn't done. Thus, linearity is strong, but the PCs still have freedom about how much they interact with the plot (as well as the means through which they interact, e.g., alliances, combat, diplomacy, etc.) and could be spending most of their time on side quests.

EDIT: by "forced linearity"... I guess I mean what Warlawk was referring to, where the linear things are forced upon the players. Of course, in my example, the DM forces X, Y, and Z to occur insofar as the DM describes the narrative around the players.

[Darth Ultron]

Well, The Open Road fits my game style, except for the pace: my game is blazing fast.

And a put the Open Road Highway as the Normal Game: A typical, classic TRPG.

But Big City National Park breaks down so much that your not even playing a game.

Like the Big City has stuff, and the DM only makes random plot hooks with no content. Then the DM just sits back and ''lets the players find their own way". So, sure, this type of game works great for the Storytelling type games, and especially games with no DM. If the DM is not going to do anything, they might as well just leave, or just be a player.

How does the Big City DM even do anything if they are just ''letting the players find their own way''? If the DM does not make the path of ''the treasure chest is under the oak tree'', then how do the players ever have any hope of finding it? The answer is: they don't.

So this leaves the Big City DM to do random Improv: they just make whatever right in front of the characters. And there is a very narrow window where a skilled DM can pull this off; at least good enough so the players at least don't notice. But other then that, you just get a random mess of an activity.

National Park is even worse. It's staring to even call itself a ''game''. You just kind of sort of do something..or do nothing...whatever, it does not matter.

[Scripten]

-Snip-

For those unaware, it is not worth it to respond to this post. It will only succeed in turning this thread into another swamp of an argument.

[erikun]

I find it more useful to think of different aspects of the game as being railroady or not, alongside the degrees of railroadiness. You can have a fairly railroady plothook (this is the thing, nothing is happening until you take the thing) but the actual adventure is quite open. You could have quite the variety and options in plothooks, but they all get railroaded into the same adventure. You could have a railroad main story adventure, but very open side adventures or quests to find the required key components. You could have one singular railroad adventure tonight, because I didn't have time for anything else, but we're back to out regularly scheduled sandbox next week.

In my current game, the main location is sort of a Big City. But the plot hooks lead to things well outside the city, with an Open Road to get there and the objective being a lot more linear when we get there.

[Cluedrew]

Oh, on thing that sort of occurred to me:

(Also, think I missed any styles, or lumped any together that are too different?)

Sort of, besides some things about games not staying at the same level think these really should be considered "bands" instead of styles. For instance the "train car" type of game would include a guided tour of a setting or a series of combat challenges. Both are probably directed and paced by the GM/module while giving a bit of time for the player characters to interact with each other between "view stations" or challenges. So I would describe these as having the same amount of linearity. However they are two completely different types of games.

But I don't think that is a problem, I think we can have a measure for a thing (linearity) that just measures that and doesn't try to be some unified answer to everything.

[Scripten]

But I don't think that is a problem, I think we can have a measure for a thing (linearity) that just measures that and doesn't try to be some unified answer to everything.

This, I agree, is very important. Keeping these terms constrained and manageable (and hopefully free from subjective values judgements) would likely serve the community better.

[PhoenixPhyre]

My games end up being pretty linear (at least in a piecewise fashion). But I'm not sure how they fit into these frameworks because they're not designed to be linear--my players are just really good about finding their own highway.

Call it the Self-laying Train Track approach. They pick a goal (in some cases from a short list, other cases entirely freely), and then they blaze a path straight toward it. Each little piece (1-3 sessions) is pretty linear because their chosen methods are (usually) pretty predictable. They usually walk right up to the front door and knock. For being a bunch of ostensibly sneaky types, they don't do subtle.

Campaigns (the longer ones anyway) tend to be made of a bunch of these, laid end to end. I have no clue where the whole campaign will end up (until right near the end), but each individual part of it had a clear goal and them taking the shortest distance between goals. This is true even when the goals bounce all over the place.

Edit: Or is this Open Road? Not sure. Each arc had a goal and I'd build toward it, but the goal was theirs in origin and they could choose to do something different instead. I had an occasional "Hey guys, if you go that way I'll need some prep time" moments when they took a hard right unexpectedly, but they could go there just fine.

[Pex]

I'll tolerate Highway if I enjoy the company, and the DM makes it fun. My paladin game I talk about often is Highway. The railroad tracks are obvious, but we get to make meaningful choices in the journey. Recently the DM has been good at letting party decisions affect, alter, or abolish planned encounters because our choices changed the circumstances. We can change to a parallel track.

My cleric game, which ended and will become my hexblade game, is Big City in set-up Open Road in play. The DM lets the players choose the adventure. For example, he had the players vote on which of the 5E modules to play instead of him deciding. Storm King's Thunder won out. When in module mode the inherent railroad makes it Open Road, which is ok. Player choices matter, and he'll go off script. It was with this DM where we made a deal with the goblins in Lost Mine Of Phandelver so we didn't have to fight them at all after the ambush and two joined our party as NPCs. One eventually became a PC. He'll be my hexblade's Boss in the new campaign.

My Pathfinder game is Open Road. We have our freedom and choices, but I notice here and there the DM going "You Shall Not Pass", preventing it from being Big City.

I'm not sure I'd like National Park. It sounds as if the DM will make everything up as it happens. The DM has to do that sometimes when players do the unexpected, but as the whole point of the campaign the players and/or DM can get bored fast due to lack of story.

[JeenLeen]

I'm not sure I'd like National Park. It sounds as if the DM will make everything up as it happens. The DM has to do that sometimes when players do the unexpected, but as the whole point of the campaign the players and/or DM can get bored fast due to lack of story.

While my sentiment about enjoying National Park is similar to yours, I can see a way it could somewhat work.
The DM builds a setting. Let's say a modern old World of Darkness game. From player buy-in pre-game, the 'world' is essentially one big city the game will mostly operate in, though PCs are free to go to neighboring areas occassionally or if they give the DM enough fore-warning.

What do the PCs do? Up to them.
The DM has some stuff set up already. There's a few mage chantries, a Technocrat construct, some werewolves here and there. He has the Camarilla Princedom built up, maybe with a notable Anarch faction in town laying low. And spattering of other supernaturals. And some mortals doing important stuff.

None of the NPCs have some grand plan (as would make it a more constrained 'do you interact with this plot point or not' setting). Instead, they have their motives and goals, but are fairly passive and reactive. If the PCs engage, they will respond, but it puts all initiative on the PCs.

The DM has already built where the magic items in town are, and has several potential allies and enemies built up, but the PCs can do what they want. Wanna hunt monsters? Cool. Wanna do politics? Cool. Wanna build up your own empire? Also cool. The DM knows how the NPCs will react, and that shapes the game.


So, in one sense, the DM has already did the "make everything up" in setting planning, but things move at the player's initiative.
(Again, I think I'd find this boring, at least after a while. For a short game, I could see it working. We've contemplated a Worm setting game where a city just got half-destroyed, killing most supers in it, and we are either villains who can carve a niche or heroes who can restore order. I guess that constrains it a little, but it's basically "town is an open playing field, do what you want with your powers". Seems fairly National Park, and I think I'd enjoy it since it'd be a shortish campaign where the only goal is to accomplish our PC's goals.)

[Darth Ultron]

So, in one sense, the DM has already did the "make everything up" in setting planning, but things move at the player's initiative.

So the DM makes the setting and just lets the players have their characters wander and explore. And this can be plenty fun for a relaxing, casual game. Lots of small, simple stuff can happen to fill up a couple hours.

BUT for anything else to happen in the game, you have to ''move up the list''. Like the characters can go attack the Blue Wizards, and the DM will react and have the Blue Wizards defend themselves. But that is as far as the ''Park" game goes. As soon as the DM has even a single surviving Blue Wizard vow revenge, the game goes up to the ''highway road", at least.

[JeenLeen]

So the DM makes the setting and just lets the players have their characters wander and explore. And this can be plenty fun for a relaxing, casual game. Lots of small, simple stuff can happen to fill up a couple hours.

BUT for anything else to happen in the game, you have to ''move up the list''. Like the characters can go attack the Blue Wizards, and the DM will react and have the Blue Wizards defend themselves. But that is as far as the ''Park" game goes. As soon as the DM has even a single surviving Blue Wizard vow revenge, the game goes up to the ''highway road", at least.

By "the DM has" do you mean the DM alters or forces events such that one wizard necessarily survives, or that it follows naturally that one wizard survives given the PCs planning, course of action, abilities, etc.? If the former, I agree it is no longer a sandbox. If the latter, see paragraph below.

I'd disagreed with your last sentence. If the final Blue Wizard vows revenge, that's a natural consequence of the PCs actions (including their inability to leave no survivors), given the set-up of the Blue Wizards' mentality from setting-building. The PCs now have to deal with a Blue Wizard trying to kill them (or however it goes about it), and that's now a part of the setting. The PCs are free to respond to that how they like: try to ignore it and deal with consequences, try to kill Blue Wizard, or something in-between (convince it to forgive, get it imprisoned, etc.).

One example that comes to my mind from an oWoD Mage game I was in was that we wanted to befriend some were-ravens to have them as useful contacts. We asked if they needed any work done, and they (of course voiced by the DM) mentioned some evil stuff in the Amazon and asked if we could teleport there and take care of.
Weighing the options, we decided the risk of life and resources, plus potentially making enemies, wasn't worth it, so we declined. We were strong, but we knew there'd be a chance one of us might die or an enemy might escape us.
But if we had accepted and, say, fought a cadre of vampires but one survived and vowed revenge. That one surviving would just be a response to our actions. It's still an extension of the sandbox game since it's a consequence of our actions.

[kyoryu]

To kyoryu: You said this is a two-axis measure, what are they? I understand that there is more than way to describe a game, but I think only one is described here.

How much the game is about "a story" or story-like things is being conflated with how much freedom the players have to do things.

[Darth Ultron]

I'd disagreed with your last sentence. If the final Blue Wizard vows revenge, that's a natural consequence of the PCs actions (including their inability to leave no survivors), given the set-up of the Blue Wizards' mentality from setting-building.

So it's only a sandbox because the players caused it? As long as the DM can point to an event the players did, the DM can just to any game type listed above? See that seems weird to me.

And it's bad enough when the DM has to defend themselves vs the players and point to something obvious the players both know about and agree with. But assuming the game is more complex then a cartoon, there will be a lot of times the players won't immediately know all the game details.

But if we had accepted and, say, fought a cadre of vampires but one survived and vowed revenge. That one surviving would just be a response to our actions. It's still an extension of the sandbox game since it's a consequence of our actions.

It just feels so hostile to say ''the DM can't do anything in the game except react to the players''.


BUT, even if you just ''sandbox'' for hours as the DM just sits back and waits for the players to do something to react to, once that finally happens your moving up the list to at least the Open Road...maybe even higher.

[Keltest]

Personally, I try to be a Big City type of DM. I want the players to follow the plot hooks because theyre engaging and the players are invested in them, not because theyre the only content I prepared. And sometimes this means they stop chasing the bad guy to go follow a butterfly for a bit, and that's OK. It means next time, I should try to get them more engaged with chasing the bad guy.

Unfortunately for some, this does involve more work and improvisation. I have become very good at transforming orc character sheets into bandits, or city guards, or some other similarly physical threat. Heck, just last Saturday I had a session that went off script at the very first dice roll, and it was probably the best session I have ever run for this group. And it was hard work, and I was flying by the seat of my pants, but darn it if it wasn't one of the most satisfying sessions for everyone involved.