QuoteComputers can't do sandboxes.

Yes, they can.

QuoteA sandbox in the RPG sense is an infinite world

No, its not. Every sandbox - be it on rpgs, boardgames, computers, etc - is limited by the underlying concept that permeates and propels the game. It's a conceptual limit.

Eg: a sandbox about Shadowrunners in Seatlle will have definite conceptual boundaries. The first time a player step out of this boundaries (eg: retiring from this life and taking a straight job in McDonalds) the sandbox is over for him. In this case the player will need to create another character, except if the group accepts playing-out 2 radically and different and non-related games (one being shadowrunners in seattle, other being McDonalds Employer: The Simulator), which, in practical terms, no group is.

So, no. Sandbox games aren't infinite. Every game will have a definite conceptual scope. What characterizes a sandbox is not how wide-open this scope is, but how free you are to interact with the pieces inside the scope, and how open its internal structure is to accommodate and adapt to the players messing in a consistent fashion.

And Computers are perfectly capable of implementing this. Easily even. I can even name games that do this: GTA San Andreas, STALKER Call of Pripyat, Ultima 4, Darklands, Mount&Blade Warband, Crusader Kings, King of Dragon Pass, Dwarf Fortress, etc.

Just play them and see for yourself.

Quote from: silva;662258Yes, they can.

No, they can't, in the same way that computers can't mimic RPGs in any realistic sense.

Quote from: silva;662258No, its not. Every sandbox - be it on rpgs, boardgames, computers, etc - is limited by the underlying concept that permeates and propels the game. It's a conceptual limit.

Eg: a sandbox about Shadowrunners in Seatlle will have definite conceptual boundaries. The first time a player step out of this boundaries (eg: retiring from this life and taking a straight job in McDonalds) the sandbox is over for him. In this case the player will need to create another character, except if the group accepts playing-out 2 radically and different and non-related games (one being shadowrunners in seattle, other being McDonalds Employer: The Simulator), which, in practical terms, no group is.

Wait, what? So now you're conflating the limits of a sandbox with character death, so if any character dies or retires the sandbox is not longer unlimited? Even by your logically fragile glass jaw standards that's pretty weak, silva. So weak in fact that I'm actually trying to dig out some modicum of an actual point in there, but no, I'm afraid you've just gone mentally rabid on account of a relentless diet of raw bullshit.

Medic!

Quote from: silva;662258So, no. Sandbox games aren't infinite. Every game will have a definite conceptual scope. What characterizes a sandbox is not how wide-open this scope is, but how free you are to interact with the pieces inside the scope, and how open its internal structure is to accommodate and adapt to the players messing in a consistent fashion.

These are two seperate things. Being infinitely extensible and the ability of characters to interact with the setting have nothing to do with one another.

Quote from: silva;662258And Computers are perfectly capable of implementing this. Easily even. I can even name games that do this: GTA San Andreas, STALKER Call of Pripyat, Ultima 4, Darklands, Mount&Blade Warband, Crusader Kings, King of Dragon Pass, Dwarf Fortress, etc.

Just play them and see for yourself.

Computers are limited entirely by the abilities of the coders. Eventually you just run out of map, or end up repeating the same map again and again. No matter where you go someone has been there before, there is no discovery, no exploration. This isn't even a discussion, go educate yourself on the limitations of AI before parading your ignorance before the whole world again. Your mother must be ashamed of you.

Traveller, no need to offend, dude.

We just disagree on what constitutes a sandbox. Nothing wrong with that

Quote from: silva;662272Traveller, no need to offend, dude.

We just disagree on what constitutes a sandbox. Nothing wrong with that

This is not just a disagreement. This is a demonstartion of the Gross Conceptual Error that you have about what a sandbox is.

No Jeff, its not. Traveller´s techonbabble is even easy to refute.

But, frankly, its a waste of time continuing on this line of discussion.

Quote from: Silverlion;640710It also felt exciting, I mean I generally felt that some things wouldn't have happened in some other fantasy games without pulling teeth. Like our thief sliding off a roof after trying to knock the feet out under his foe and the foe grabbing his ankle on the way down. I know some GM's and some games do this, but it was nice the way this one handled it.

How was it handled?

Quote from: silva;662281No Jeff, its not. Traveller´s techonbabble is even easy to refute.

But, frankly, its a waste of time continuing on this line of discussion.

I await your refutation with a big bag of popcorn and a laugh track on repeat. Listen champ, if you'd like to talk about sandboxes I'll talk about sandboxes, but let's make sure we're speaking the same language first eh. What you seem to think a sandbox is and what a sandbox actually is are two different things. Therefore you have no right whatosever to make definitive statements about sandboxes, and if you continue with your bizarre train (ejaculated over or otherwise) of thought I will continue to delightedly illuminate your ignorance for the edification and entertainment of all and sundry.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;662294How was it handled?

A failed roll gives rise to consequences that are broader than just failing at the action. Also, consequences more commonly arise from rolls, as they are somewhat detached from success and failure. Finally, the system grants XP on failure, so that tends to make the player feel more inclined to embrace failure IME

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;662294How was it handled?

The game offered the player success for a price. I cannot remember if he chose the falling off the roof directly or if the GM suggested it, but the actual "failure" is offered as part of the die roll. If you don't roll high enough you get a success for a price roll option. You then name the price (or the GM does) and take the fallout of that to get what you wanted in character.

Quote from: Silverlion;662303The game offered the player success for a price. I cannot remember if he chose the falling off the roof directly or if the GM suggested it, but the actual "failure" is offered as part of the die roll. If you don't roll high enough you get a success for a price roll option. You then name the price (or the GM does) and take the fallout of that to get what you wanted in character.

Yeah, that is cool IME. 'Success with consequences' is often pitched as a question for the player.

"You can jump over the gap, but to do so will require you throw you all into it, losing your balance and falling down the roof on the other side. What do you do?"

Quote from: Riordan;661785apparition13's point cuts to the chase, doesn't it?

Character-agency at the heart of an open world (generated and kept alive by tables/chance/GM refereeing): traditional rpg sandbox

Player-agency at the heart of an open world: storygame sandbox. Sandbox yes, but a storygamey one. Storygame yes, but indeed a sandbox - of sorts.

So while this discussion is in the right category now, what Silva talks about does look like a sort of sandbox to me - just not a traditional one. I'd be interested how such a world is kept consistent without the traditional 'boundaries' that lend it verisimilitude, though. does it feel real if anything can be changed from outside influence not by characters' actions but by by players' whim? or are players as bound by the sandbox's 'reality' in the storygame sandbox as the GM is in the traditional sandbox?

Is this a new thing with storygames?

Riordan, I agree with your initial asessment. But with some ibservations:

, Apocalypse World is not a storygame. He has some mechwnics that give the player some control over his own "role". But this control is exerced by the player (not the character) and under some circunstances. So, a gang leader may name his followers and, if he levels up, he has the option to add qualities to his gang (money, savagery, surpluses, growth, etc).  But this isnt made by the character, mid-session, insted its made by the player, between sessions when you level up.

And While the game is running the gm adresses the character, not the player.

Quote from: Skywalker;662311Yeah, that is cool IME. 'Success with consequences' is often pitched as a question for the player.

"You can jump over the gap, but to do so will require you throw you all into it, losing your balance and falling down the roof on the other side. What do you do?"

Yup, I think this is the really genius of AW, the weak-sucess concept.

Quote from: CRKrueger;661762I'll give it to the AW/DW authors in that they do stress not announcing GM moves and trying to keep things at the character-level, unfortunately, to them character-level means "appropriate within the fiction", and many of the moves and mechanics concern things related to the character, yet outside the character's direct control.  The narrative meta-layer is assumed and fundamental.

Krueger, care to cite some examples of moves/mechanics that are outside the character control ?

I know AW has some new school ideas, but I cant remember any actual storygame rules right now.

Quote from: The Traveller;662238Computers 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.

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Computers can totally do sandboxes.
You can write a program to generate and populate hexes in a map.
You can then take that population and from a series of 'cultural' and 'social' tables give them colour and depth, You can then extrapolate to an events table to set up world in motion.

You would conceed that a DM using a series of random tables could generate an ever expanding sandbox thus so can a computer.

What a computer can't do, at least not currently, is to extrapolate from the actions of the players as to how the game world is affected. This is because computers can only react to known options, currently. When you get to an AI state where a computer can take an option and match that option to a pattern and from that extrapolate to what the effect would be on the world well MMOs will be more fun.

The advantage a computer sandbox would have would be back to your own drive for realism. You could actually run a Computer generated sandbox on real world data. So you would have kingdoms rising and falling monarchs spawning children and making alliances all carrying on as a world in motion. The DM would read the history reports like a Reuter's news feed

I actually think a couple of coding guys ought to put together a package where you could input your own choice of initial variables and then have the programme generate a world and run it through 1000 years of history then give it back to you as a nicely aged game setting.

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.

In his introduction to the AD&D DM's Guide Gary said (paraphrasing): "of the two types of roleplayering styles currently extant, "simulationist [immersion]" and "game", AD&D is firmly in the latter camp. It is a game first and foremost."