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From the Horses mouth: Paizo´s own brand of Story-Swinery

Started by Settembrini, November 01, 2007, 02:51:53 PM

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droog

I know all that, Haff. You need to read my comments specifically in relation to the discussion Cal and I were having about Kickers.
The past lives on in your front room
The poor still weak the rich still rule
History lives in the books at home
The books at home

Gang of Four
[/size]

John Morrow

Quote from: HaffrungI think reasonable players in a sandbox game will understand that the more latitude they have for going anywhere and doing anything, the less detail they can expect when they get there.

I've run entire games and campaigns, even, with barely any prep.  I know other people who have done that, too.  Heck, years ago the GMs in my group would run one-shot games by asking each player for a word or two to describe the game that they wanted to play and then just running a game based on those words.  At that point, the level of detail is pretty constant no matter what the players do.  I've also played in games where the GM had such an excellent understanding of their setting that pretty much no matter where the players decided to go, the GM had a decent idea of what they might find there.  And so long as the players aren't mindlessly wandering just to see what's out there, the destination and behavior of the players will also often drive interesting adventures.  Run an interesting setting like a real place and the characters like real people, and it works pretty well in my experience.

Basically, I understand why people might think this is a problem in theory but I just don't see it in practice.  Why?  Because in my experience, good players push the boundaries of the sandbox for a reason and good GMs are able to roll with it.  And for GMs who can't just wing it, I've seen GMs write about stopping their games so that they can prep for the next session when the players wander off of the edge of what they planned for.  That works for some groups, too.
Robin Laws\' Game Styles Quiz Results:
Method Actor 100%, Butt-Kicker 75%, Tactician 42%, Storyteller 33%, Power Gamer 33%, Casual Gamer 33%, Specialist 17%

alexandro

Quote from: Pierce Inverarity1: It's neither railroady nor Forgey when the conflict web does NOT extend to the PCs. It pre-exists them but in a decentralized fashion. They walk into it, but it's not spun around them. Just like in real life.
Actually, both R-Maps built around the PCs AND R-Maps where the PCs "just walk into" have absolutely no relation to "real life".
Don't have to.
Why do they call them "Random encounter tables" when there's nothing random about them? It's just the same stupid monsters over and over. You want random? Fine, make it really random. A hampstersaurus. A mucus salesman. A toenail golem. A troupe of fornicating clowns. David Hasselhoff. If your players don't start crying the moment you pick up the percent die, you're just babying them.