Quote from: talysman;662041... Because I'm somehow talking about rigid binary definitions of "sandbox"?

There are two obvious alternatives to what you're saying:

(1) The separation between in-character and out-of-character effects applies only to actual play. That is, you can't say "Oh shit, why didn't I think of that? I should use that RIGHT NOW" and change what's already been decided, and still consider it a pure sandbox. In fact, changing stuff in play like that is considered cheating on the GM's part.

(2) It's a continuum. I keep talking about "pure" sandbox. You could have a slightly less pure sandbox. One or two impurities is OK. A regular rule to allow out-of-character changes to setting during play is not. It's something else, or a hybrid at best.

I don't think GMs can 'cheat' can they ?

A sandbox isn't a set of rules yopu have to adhere to. Its a Gaming tool that focuses on players allowing their PCs to set their own agendas and actions in a living world that exists beyond the bounds of their characters direct experience.
If you loose sight of the point of a sandbox , to create interesting games that are fun for the players, then you have to question the whole purpose of the exercise.

For me I have no trouble with a PC describing how they have been to the northern mountains and met tribes of goblins. I might use it I might not, I might add goblins I might not, I might have the party get there only to find piles of burn goblin bones.
Whatever works best for the game, makes sure people have the most fun and helps create a believeable setting populated by believable characters

Quote from: daniel_ream;662034From Old Geezer's descriptions of Gary's original sessions, it seems pretty clear that he saw D&D as a sort of lateral thinking puzzle game.  Certainly some of his later Sorceror's Scrolls columns make it very clear that he had no use for "immersion" as this site likes to define the term.

My experience with engineering, classical/medieval history and experimental archaeology is that most moderns couldn't think like the average Dark Ages mercenary if their lives depended on it.

The other two sure, but how does engineering figure into this?

Quote from: jibbajibba;662092I don't think GMs can 'cheat' can they ?

Yes. They can.

Old Geezer talked about this in one of his Q&A threads on RPGnet. The question asked was about a referee punishing players who overloaded on combat spells instead of mixing in utility spells, for example. OG's response:

QuoteThe world came first, so changing the world based on player spell selection would have been cheating. It's about the only way for the referee to cheat, in fact. Any ref who changed things on the fly to punish players based on that day's spell selection would have found themselves without any players.

What was there, was there. There was a nest of six trolls on Level 1 of Greyhawk. If you went there with three first level characters, you found six trolls. If you went there with nine 11th level characters, you found six trolls. Changing the world as you seem to be describing above would have been anathema. It is really the only way to cheat as the referee.

OG didn't specifically mention sandbox play at this point, but that's what he's talking about. To run a sandbox, you set up an area and you play that area. Since you have complete control over placing absolutely anything you want absolutely anywhere, and since you can change any rules you want, it's not fair to the players to change things in the world after you know what the players are going to do.

Quote from: jibbajibba;662092A sandbox isn't a set of rules yopu have to adhere to. Its a Gaming tool that focuses on players allowing their PCs to set their own agendas and actions in a living world that exists beyond the bounds of their characters direct experience.

But, for a world to be a living world, it can't be changed on a whim. It has to change for reasons that seem internal to the world. So, yes, there is a set of rules you have to follow: the rules of the world, and the rule about following the rules of the world. Major deviations from that means you aren't playing in a sandbox.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;662096The other two sure, but how does engineering figure into this?

"I just felt like plugging my Linked-In résumé."

Quote from: talysman;662099Yes. They can.

Old Geezer talked about this in one of his Q&A threads on RPGnet. The question asked was about a referee punishing players who overloaded on combat spells instead of mixing in utility spells, for example. OG's response:



OG didn't specifically mention sandbox play at this point, but that's what he's talking about. To run a sandbox, you set up an area and you play that area. Since you have complete control over placing absolutely anything you want absolutely anywhere, and since you can change any rules you want, it's not fair to the players to change things in the world after you know what the players are going to do.


But, for a world to be a living world, it can't be changed on a whim. It has to change for reasons that seem internal to the world. So, yes, there is a set of rules you have to follow: the rules of the world, and the rule about following the rules of the world. Major deviations from that means you aren't playing in a sandbox.

OG  can say what he likes doesn;t make it true
A GM can't cheat. They can be a douche, they can be a dickhead and they can loose all their players but they can't cheat because of rule 0

You're argument 'Major deviations from that means you aren't playing in a sandbox' means you are loosing site of the reason you are using a snadbox in the first place. Its just a tool to make the game more fun and engaging.
As per Pundy's arguments on realism, you can't create a perfect sandbox without a huge AI simulation package, you aren't going to roll for the effect of natural disease or calamity on each important NPC etc etc . All 'sandboxes' are part of a continum from super complex and complete (like an MMO perpetual world but with consequences) to super simple and sketchy.
The difference between "Last month I wrote down the whole sandbox" and "yeah that is a good idea that fits in this bit of my sandbox really well I will just add it in" is just one of timing not of defintion.

The basic tenants of a sandbox seem to be
i) the players are in charge of their PC paths - no railroads
ii) the world moves apart from the PCs with things happening beyond them - world in motion
iii) The GM doesn't move things deliberately to make the PCs encounter or avoid them - which is really just an extension of (i)

Since a world in motion is only ever going to be degree of illusion populating areas based on player concepts that arise in play doesn't break the core tenants so its fine.

So a PC describes how they grew up in the north and they were constantly plagued by Goblin Hordes. If the north was undefined then the GM adds that in now from now on the north has goblin hordes. When the PCs eventually get to the North they descover that for 10 years Commander Grey has been raiding the goblins and driving them futher back and now a wall is being constructed to keep them out of human lands.
This creates a world in motion. The players have a fact when they arrive at the place the fact applied they find the world has moved on without them.

But again the key point is do the players have fun and is the game enjoyable.
That is all that matters. Everything else is just trappings.

I have had this discussion before and I am trying not to get embroiled in rehashes of old arguments as no one is changing their mind anytime soon and it just creates ill-feeling so. That was my 5 cents worth.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;662096The other two sure, but how does engineering figure into this?

A significant background in making things with your own two hands will give you a decent understanding of exactly what can be built with two hands, as well as what kinds of ways you can injure yourself in the process.

(and just to piss off Benoist: about an eighth of my extended family is Old Order Mennonite;  I've been to a barn raising or two in my time)

This really just comes down to "most people who wank on about immersion should probably go re-read Thud and Blunder again".

Quote from: daniel_ream;662034From Old Geezer's descriptions of Gary's original sessions, it seems pretty clear that he saw D&D as a sort of lateral thinking puzzle game.  Certainly some of his later Sorceror's Scrolls columns make it very clear that he had no use for "immersion" as this site likes to define the term.

My experience with engineering, classical/medieval history and experimental archaeology is that most moderns couldn't think like the average Dark Ages mercenary if their lives depended on it.

Quote from: daniel_ream;662146A significant background in making things with your own two hands will give you a decent understanding of exactly what can be built with two hands, as well as what kinds of ways you can injure yourself in the process.

(and just to piss off Benoist: about an eighth of my extended family is Old Order Mennonite;  I've been to a barn raising or two in my time)

This really just comes down to "most people who wank on about immersion should probably go re-read Thud and Blunder again".

So basically you're saying that you can't imagine something unless you have real life experience relevant to what you're imagining. That's more full of shit than usual danny boy, even without getting into the inanity that is 'engineering, classical/medieval history and experimental archaeology' (home carpentry, reading books, and LARPing) somehow equalling a grasp on the experience of being a medieval mercenary.

Now if you had said 'I've spent several years living among the poorest people on earth in South East Asia, washing my clothes in the river, catching fish with a bit of bent wood, and generally trying to avoid getting malaria and dysentery' you'd have a far better understanding of the realities of medieval life.

Given my experience as a sushi chef, interior decorator and kayak enthusiast, I assure you nobody here is anywhere close to being in a mindset of futuristic spaceship captain operating in galactic divided by Sino - American corporations.

Snark aside - it's not about getting into the precise mindset. It's about trying to do so.

I'm a huge history enthusiast, and I try to get into that mindset as much as possible. And truth be told - you just need to read a few history books that focus on life and culture rather than battles & campaigns, to get the hang of it. I recommend Bronisław Geremek's works, if you can get your hands on translations.

Because I do admit, the mindset of those people is nearly alien to ours...yet similar in certain aspects. 500 years might've passed, but some things didn't change. Most of humans still love to drink, sing and fuck, and will do whatever's necessary to ensure those activities will commence, in copious amounts preferably.

Quote from: jibbajibba;662125OG  can say what he likes doesn;t make it true
A GM can't cheat. They can be a douche, they can be a dickhead and they can loose all their players but they can't cheat because of rule 0

You're argument 'Major deviations from that means you aren't playing in a sandbox' means you are loosing site of the reason you are using a snadbox in the first place. Its just a tool to make the game more fun and engaging.
As per Pundy's arguments on realism, you can't create a perfect sandbox without a huge AI simulation package, you aren't going to roll for the effect of natural disease or calamity on each important NPC etc etc . All 'sandboxes' are part of a continum from super complex and complete (like an MMO perpetual world but with consequences) to super simple and sketchy.
The difference between "Last month I wrote down the whole sandbox" and "yeah that is a good idea that fits in this bit of my sandbox really well I will just add it in" is just one of timing not of defintion.

The basic tenants of a sandbox seem to be
i) the players are in charge of their PC paths - no railroads
ii) the world moves apart from the PCs with things happening beyond them - world in motion
iii) The GM doesn't move things deliberately to make the PCs encounter or avoid them - which is really just an extension of (i)

Since a world in motion is only ever going to be degree of illusion populating areas based on player concepts that arise in play doesn't break the core tenants so its fine.

So a PC describes how they grew up in the north and they were constantly plagued by Goblin Hordes. If the north was undefined then the GM adds that in now from now on the north has goblin hordes. When the PCs eventually get to the North they descover that for 10 years Commander Grey has been raiding the goblins and driving them futher back and now a wall is being constructed to keep them out of human lands.
This creates a world in motion. The players have a fact when they arrive at the place the fact applied they find the world has moved on without them.

But again the key point is do the players have fun and is the game enjoyable.
That is all that matters. Everything else is just trappings.

I have had this discussion before and I am trying not to get embroiled in rehashes of old arguments as no one is changing their mind anytime soon and it just creates ill-feeling so. That was my 5 cents worth.

Spot on, Jibba. I agree with every word.


P.S: some nice posts here. Im out of time now, but will try to answer them later.

Quote from: daniel_ream;662146(and just to piss off Benoist: about an eighth of my extended family is Old Order Mennonite;  I've been to a barn raising or two in my time)

"I've been to a Mennonite barn raising or two, so I damn well know better than you do what is going on in the head of a mercenary chasing dragons in some elf game!"

 

More seriously now.

Immersion is not about becoming a "realistic" alter ego in a setting. I think some people should have a look at our multiple conversations about absolute realism on these boards to know my position about that particular point.

Immersion is about seeing the game world from your character's point of view. You can be yourself in the process, pretend to be your character, and any variation thereof.

I personally know that working on wooden toys in Santa's workshop and reading books about General Robert E. Lee wouldn't get me much closer to understanding what a Confederate soldier felt like actually fighting at Gettysburg. But the game isn't about "realism" to me. It's about let's pretend, and about suspension of disbelief.

Let's pretend and suspension of disbelief are aided by the believability of the game milieu. Different gamers will have different thresholds in that regard: some will need more believable elements than others to in effect pretend and suspend disbelief, while the nature of these elements, what "feels believable" in fact, will also vary from gamer to gamer. On Thud and Blunder reads to me like a column discussing what feels believable and what the value of a minimum of thinking and research are to the believability of a fantasy setting. And I wholeheartedly agree with that.

So. All that to say that one's faculty to immerse in the make-believe isn't dependant on the actual realism of the decor or characters therein.

As for the attempt in redefining "sandbox" to fit narrative games because somehow it's "bad" if narrative games aren't doing that thing and they can't possibly be different and fun on their own merits for some reason, color me unimpressed. Why it is that some gamers just can't own up to the fact they are playing different games than others and enjoying their own games for their own personal reasons, instead of going through mental gymnastics in order to appropriate the terms others are using and pretending like it's all the same, I have no idea. Good luck with that, though, I guess.

I was going to respond to the immersion issue but Benoist basically made the points for me. It's about feeling like I am there seeing things from my character's point of view, not about genuinely understanding what the life of a medieval warrior was and how he might have seen the world (I am interested in those sort of things and am particularly fond of micro history but don't think any of this is needed to have immersion in an rpg).

Realism can lend to, or greatly enhance, the sense of immersion but two concepts are not directly linked.  Personally, well done verisimilitude provides a better atmosphere for immersion than realism.  I will take good verisimilitude over realism any day to aid my immersion in the character and game world.  Now, when realism and verisimilitude mix together well that's the sweet spot of immersion for me.

While I agree with Ben on the relativity of realism and immersion (great post, Ben), I also agree with Riordan that sandbox gaming can exist regardless of immersion in a alter-ego.

Some videogames and boardgames are good examples of it - like the Battletech Mercenaries campaign me and my brother were planning last year, where each player would assume the role of a small merc company (containing mechs, pilots, staff, repair facilities, etc) and had to control the company´s finances, contracts, employees, supplies, etc. The fact that we assume the "role" of an entire army dont negate the sandbox experience, I think. And notice that, in this case, the sandbox would be player-driven, not character-driven.

So, summarizing: IMHO, for a sandbox to work, its only necessary for the player to be represented by an alter-something (this "something" may be a character, a party, clan, army, etc), in a environment/setting regulated by an entity that keeps the environment consistent, dynamical/rective, and player-driven (this "entity" can be a gamemaster, a computer program, some randomization tool, etc).

IMHO, of course.

Quote from: silva;662235While I agree with Ben on the relativity of realism and immersion (great post, Ben), I also agree with Riordan that sandbox gaming can exist regardless of immersion in a alter-ego.

Some videogames and boardgames are good examples of it - like the Battletech Mercenaries campaign me and my brother were planning last year, where each player would assume the role of a small merc company (containing mechs, pilots, staff, repair facilities, etc) and had to control the company´s finances, contracts, employees, supplies, etc. The fact that we assume the "role" of an entire army dont negate the sandbox experience, I think. And notice that, in this case, the sandbox would be player-driven, not character-driven.

So, summarizing: IMHO, for a sandbox to work, its only necessary for the player to be represented by an alter-something (this "something" may be a character, a party, clan, army, etc), in a environment/setting regulated by an entity that keeps the environment consistent, dynamical/rective, and player-driven (this "entity" can be a gamemaster, a computer program, some randomization tool, etc).

IMHO, of course.

Computers can't do sandboxes. A sandbox in the RPG sense is an infinite world, unscripted, living seperately from anything the group does. If the group doesn't do anything, it will continue to change and evolve on its own. There are no borders, boundaries or limits. With computers you eventually reach the edge of the map, in one way or another, not a problem RPGs have, at least with a good splash of imagination. Talking about computer games and sandboxes in the same breath just means you don't understand what a sandbox is.

It's a term that was misappropriated from software development initially, the original meaning (and current meaning as far as software goes) is a confined area where you can do whatever you like without affecting the rest of the system, it translates to segregated areas. A more accurate phrase to describe the RPG version is 'open ended'.

Shared narrative games operate from a plot centric point of view, they are deliberately thematic railroads. By their nature, like computers, they are unable to engage with the concept of a sandbox. With that said, some of their mechanics which require player creation of parts of the game world are not neccessarily antithetical to sandboxes, just to immersion.

Immersion itself is a phenomenon independent of sandboxes, neither one requires the other. But as far as RPG sandboxes go, immersion is important to fully enjoy the experience.