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.

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.

I agree with most of this, but I always thought "sandbox" came from actual physical sandboxes where little kids can play with sand, the only limits being their imagination (and the physics of sand, or course).

Quote from: jibbajibba;662342Computers 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.

Random tables only go so far before repeating themselves, what you end up with sooner or later is a melange of locations that are more or less the same. The GM can take the seeds of ideas and make them into something new and original, or weave them into a larger whole.

What you're saying is still much closer to a sandbox than anything silva was babbling about however.

Quote from: jibbajibba;662342When 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.

Sixty years of AI research have produced exactly zero intelligent entities and almost no steps in that direction. We don't even have a formal definition for intelligence, AI is very very far off indeed.

Quote from: apparition13;662371I agree with most of this, but I always thought "sandbox" came from actual physical sandboxes where little kids can play with sand, the only limits being their imagination (and the physics of sand, or course).

Apparently not, I think in fact that one of the forum regulars, estar, had a hand in the original coining of the phrase. The misinterpretation of it being a children's play area came later.

Quote from: The Traveller;662378Random tables only go so far before repeating themselves, what you end up with sooner or later is a melange of locations that are more or less the same. The GM can take the seeds of ideas and make them into something new and original, or weave them into a larger whole.

What you're saying is still much closer to a sandbox than anything silva was babbling about however.

No I don't agree with that.
In anthropology we look for patterns, trends and similarities and we find them. Forest cultures tend to stay nomadic longer, they tend to have polytheistic religions, Desert cultures tend to settle round oases and form more settles societies quicker and tend to be monotheistic worshiping some variant of the sky god.

Armed with real world data, some imagination and some extrapolation you can create some huge cultural variation tables that basically cover every culture that exitis on earth and a few things that don't churn them through a random gnerator governed by some master algorythms and Ithink you have a pretty need tool.

Geography is even easier becuase its all covered by physics. If you define your sandbox as a standard M class planet with 500 million square km of surface area (the Earth, but you could vary this up of down and alter gravity etc as a result as you see fit) you get certain climatic zones with certain paglioclimatic vegetation types, Cool temperate western maritime defaults to an Oak-Ash Complex deciduous forest unless you do somethign about it or you are in a coastal zone or a swamp etc. You can easily layer that on your computer generated sandbox then vary with cultural and historical overlays.

Astrophysicists, use similar programs not to work out what alien planets might look like given a range of different physical parameters.

So a computer generated sandbox is only bounded by the limits of the parameters of "reality" you impose upon it. You can even add unreality and loating mountains etc can be added to the initial parameters as options simple really.  

QuoteSixty years of AI research have produced exactly zero intelligent entities and almost no steps in that direction. We don't even have a formal definition for intelligence, AI is very very far off indeed.
.

AI is far off, but sixty years ago did you think you would be carrying a phone in your pocket that can video, communicate across the globe to any one of several billion other handheld devices, that it could play games, operate on voice command, show you maps of your current location with your location marked thanks to GPS satelites.... all pretty amazing.

And it doesn't have to be true AI it needs to appear to be true AI which is different

Quote from: jibbajibba;662397No I don't agree with that.
In anthropology we look for patterns, trends and similarities and we find them. Forest cultures tend to stay nomadic longer, they tend to have polytheistic religions, Desert cultures tend to settle round oases and form more settles societies quicker and tend to be monotheistic worshiping some variant of the sky god.

Armed with real world data, some imagination and some extrapolation you can create some huge cultural variation tables that basically cover every culture that exitis on earth and a few things that don't churn them through a random gnerator governed by some master algorythms and Ithink you have a pretty need tool.

Geography is even easier becuase its all covered by physics. If you define your sandbox as a standard M class planet with 500 million square km of surface area (the Earth, but you could vary this up of down and alter gravity etc as a result as you see fit) you get certain climatic zones with certain paglioclimatic vegetation types, Cool temperate western maritime defaults to an Oak-Ash Complex deciduous forest unless you do somethign about it or you are in a coastal zone or a swamp etc. You can easily layer that on your computer generated sandbox then vary with cultural and historical overlays.

Astrophysicists, use similar programs not to work out what alien planets might look like given a range of different physical parameters.

So a computer generated sandbox is only bounded by the limits of the parameters of "reality" you impose upon it. You can even add unreality and loating mountains etc can be added to the initial parameters as options simple really.  

You do realise we're unable to model the climate on our own planet successfully, even after throwing enormous resources at it. Everything that happens in a computer is scripted, even the random stuff. If it wasn't scripted it wouldn't be there. The definition of a sandbox is that it's unscripted. This is also why shared narrative games are unable to handle sandboxes.

Now I will admit that computers can do a pretty good impression of a sandbox, but once you scrape the surface the cracks start to show.

This is actually the reason why I stopped playing computer games now that I think of it, once you figure out the underlying logic everything becomes predictable. The only things that work for me on computers are PK games because humans are the only worthy opponents, and even then the patterns in the system aren't hard to spot.

Quote from: jibbajibba;662397AI is far off, but sixty years ago did you think you would be carrying a phone in your pocket that can video, communicate across the globe to any one of several billion other handheld devices, that it could play games, operate on voice command, show you maps of your current location with your location marked thanks to GPS satelites.... all pretty amazing.

Progress as you're describing isn't the result of random advances dropping out of a magical cloud of spinning lights and colours, it's an incremental process of many small steps. If you aren't paying attention to the steps it might look like these things magicked themselves into existence, but they didn't.

What makes AI different is that we don't have anything to aim for - there is no definition of intelligence. The best anyone's come up with have been smart systems which support users in particular fields, like Google's suggestions when you search for something.

I represented this conundrum in my near future game by the invention of 'trinary' chips and languages; binary is yes-no, on-off, 1-0. Trinary is yes-no-maybe, the introduction of chaos via Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle which allows true AI to evolve.

Quote from: jibbajibba;662397And it doesn't have to be true AI it needs to appear to be true AI which is different

The EU handed out or is handing out a few billion to some guy to attempt just that, brute force the problem and create a simulacrum. It's been tried before and hasn't worked, and I see no particular reason why it should work this time either. The brain isn't simply a series of daisy chained xboxes.

Jibba, a computer must be programmed with choices for its random tables before it can roll on them. Since the computer cannot create its own program to run, the sandbox limitations of any computer driven game will be dictated by the number of possible choices that are within the program.

Human being are self-programmable, and thus capable of near infinite possible choices.

Therefore, a computer can run a limited sandbox. Not a true sandbox.

Quote from: jeff37923;662403Jibba, a computer must be programmed with choices for its random tables before it can roll on them. Since the computer cannot create its own program to run, the sandbox limitations of any computer driven game will be dictated by the number of possible choices that are within the program.

Human being are self-programmable, and thus capable of near infinite possible choices.

Therefore, a computer can run a limited sandbox. Not a true sandbox.

Really

But I can set say 10 variables with a table of 40 options per table for a total number of combined options of 40 to the 10th power, or lots to the layman, several orders of magnitude more than there are stars in the heavens (well technically 10 times more than there are stars in the Milly Way but you get the idea)
Close enough to infinite for a game world eh? And certainly more than there are actual regional variations on earth or different area hexes than all the RPG games of all genres that have ever been written and ever will be written ever .... probably.....

Quote from: jibbajibba;662404Really

But I can set say 10 variables with a table of 40 options per table for a total number of combined options of 40 to the 10th power, or lots to the layman, several orders of magnitude more than there are stars in the heavens (well technically 10 times more than there are stars in the Milly Way but you get the idea)
Close enough to infinite for a game world eh? And certainly more than there are actual regional variations on earth or different area hexes than all the RPG games of all genres that have ever been written and ever will be written ever .... probably.....

Still limited by what is programmed into it.

The computer cannot break the limits of its programming until it becomes self-programming like a human being.

If you would like a more concrete example for your pseudointellectualism to gnaw upon, you may compare the experience of playing a tabletop RPG with playing a single person computer game.

Quote from: jibbajibba;662404Really

But I can set say 10 variables with a table of 40 options per table for a total number of combined options of 40 to the 10th power, or lots to the layman, several orders of magnitude more than there are stars in the heavens (well technically 10 times more than there are stars in the Milly Way but you get the idea)
Close enough to infinite for a game world eh? And certainly more than there are actual regional variations on earth or different area hexes than all the RPG games of all genres that have ever been written and ever will be written ever .... probably.....

Here's a hard example of three tables with 50-70 options each. Now how many times do you need to click the button before they start getting repetitive? Ten tables will take a bit longer but not that much longer. Eventually you run into the same problem, everything starts to take on a familiar feel.

As I said computers can do a decent facsimile of a sandbox which will last for a while, but they can't do a sandbox.

In your own example, if you use the system a hundred times odds are that every element of the tables has been repeated at least twice. So while the combinations might be unique every part of the combinations will have been seen twice before. It's not just a feel of familiarity, it is familiarity.

Quote from: Benoist;662204"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!"

Siege towers don't build themselves.

You've backpedalled nicely with the whole "immersion doesn't mean, y'know, immersion-immersion" explanation, but what you're really saying is that every RPG is Dream Park.  You're not playing a character; you're just playing yourself in some kind of soi-disant theme park version of a fantasy world.  Look too closely and you realize the castles are all wooden facades and the hobgoblins are surly teenagers wearing paper-mache heads.

Quote from: The Traveller;662407Here's a hard example of three tables with 50-70 options each. Now how many times do you need to click the button before they start getting repetitive? Ten tables will take a bit longer but not that much longer. Eventually you run into the same problem, everything starts to take on a familiar feel.

As I said computers can do a decent facsimile of a sandbox which will last for a while, but they can't do a sandbox.

In your own example, if you use the system a hundred times odds are that every element of the tables has been repeated at least twice. So while the combinations might be unique every part of the combinations will have been seen twice before. It's not just a feel of familiarity, it is familiarity.

Dude, if I divided the whole planet Earth into 1km squares I woudl have 500 million of them... I guarantee that more than a few of them would be pretty much the same that's not familiarity that's geography

I have said my piece look up using computer algorithms to generate random maps or planetary constructs or what not. Plenty of examples,

I generated lots of Traveller star systems using 2d6 and a set of tables I figure its not to hard to move that to maps and a computer.
I might take this topic to the design forum and walk through how I would approach world building like this if I decide not to go out for a beer.

Quote from: jibbajibba;662414Dude, if I divided the whole planet Earth into 1km squares I woudl have 500 million of them... I guarantee that more than a few of them would be pretty much the same that's not familiarity that's geography

...and there's more to a sandbox than geography. If all anyone wanted was a list of terrain features and weather, repetition comes with the territory. But of course people want interesting and unique or at least unusual things to do and see, and possibly kill, which is where the imagination comes in. Something notably lacking in computers, which is my entire point. A GM, even one using tables as idea seeds, will still adjust the expanding sandbox in ways no computer can mimic.

Quote from: The Traveller;662415...and there's more to a sandbox than geography. If all anyone wanted was a list of terrain features and weather, repetition comes with the territory. But of course people want interesting and unique or at least unusual things to do and see, and possibly kill, which is where the imagination comes in. Something notably lacking in computers, which is my entire point. A GM, even one using tables as idea seeds, will still adjust the expanding sandbox in ways no computer can mimic.

So you conceed the geography?

I think you can do exactly the same thing with cultural groups extrapolating from the geogrpahy and climate you could generate human cultures from a random algorithm likewise you could add monsters from random monster generators, not such an original idea after all.
Sure the outcime would be limited by the imagination you put into those tables but since ones you make up are limited by your imagination anyway .....

that you run the who world through a historical events generation package with some algorithm to mirror response to events and interation between cultures let the thing run through a 10000 years of history and I think that would be pretty good. Ruins, lost civilisations, old roads overgrown by forest, cultures that lived underground but perished to unknown forces, ancient technology lost to the past.

Remember your moster tables can be far more complex and larger than 20 monsters in a single matrix by vegetaton type. Shit you could tie a random monster generator into the package and have it populate the randomised world (the word in compter games is Procedurally generated apparently) with randomised monsters, classic monsters and every variant in between....

Would be awesome.

I would think computers would be great at modelling stuff like geography (better than most GMs even if theprigram is good). But i would think where they probably break down in keeping the setting engaging. I can totally see jibba's point that you could plug in key patterns based on anthropology and get soe blieveable culture entries. What might be missing are two things: the exceptions and odd combos that make stuff interesting (though i imagine you could also program something to have a 20 percent exceptoin rate or something) and the ability to run believable npcs and independant monsters. Whenever i play an online multiplayer game, this seems to be a key area where computer games havent caught up with D&D. It still doesnt quite feel like a living world (though i must admit they have gotten considerably better over the years).however the best computer rpg i ever played was Darklands and that came out years ago (that may be nostalgia though).

But this feels like a seperate issue from how sandboxes are thought of and defined among table top roleplayers.

Quote from: The Traveller;662415...and there's more to a sandbox than geography. If all anyone wanted was a list of terrain features and weather, repetition comes with the territory. But of course people want interesting and unique or at least unusual things to do and see, and possibly kill, which is where the imagination comes in. Something notably lacking in computers, which is my entire point. A GM, even one using tables as idea seeds, will still adjust the expanding sandbox in ways no computer can mimic.

The whole point of a sandbox to me is both that it is "endless" in that you do not hit a border on the map that limits where you can go, but that there is no limit on what you can try to do. A good human sandbox GM can handle anything his players try to do, even if it is something he never thought of (let alone planned in advance for) and even if it is not covered in his "programming" (the written rules and procedures in the rule books).

A computer GM even of a good sandbox CRPG (like one of the better Elder Scrolls games) limits what the players can try to do to what is in its programming. It does not have anything like the ability of even a poor human GM to handle unusual player decisions and plans.  This is why I don't play CRPGs -- so many limitations on what I can do that I'm usually both annoyed and bored within an hour of starting to play.

Perhaps someday AI will have advanced to the point that a sandbox CRPG game will be indistinguishable to me from a sandbox tabletop RPG ran by a good GM, but given that I'm 55 I doubt this will happen in my lifetime.

Quote from: jibbajibba;662417So you conceed the geography?

How do you mean concede, if you were arguing that sandboxes are just geography you weren't having the same conversation I was.

Quote from: jibbajibba;662417I think you can do exactly the same thing with cultural groups extrapolating from the geogrpahy and climate you could generate human cultures from a random algorithm likewise you could add monsters from random monster generators, not such an original idea after all.
Sure the outcime would be limited by the imagination you put into those tables but since ones you make up are limited by your imagination anyway .....

that you run the who world through a historical events generation package with some algorithm to mirror response to events and interation between cultures let the thing run through a 10000 years of history and I think that would be pretty good. Ruins, lost civilisations, old roads overgrown by forest, cultures that lived underground but perished to unknown forces, ancient technology lost to the past.

Remember your moster tables can be far more complex and larger than 20 monsters in a single matrix by vegetaton type. Shit you could tie a random monster generator into the package and have it populate the randomised world (the word in compter games is Procedurally generated apparently) with randomised monsters, classic monsters and every variant in between....

Would be awesome.

So let me see if I understand this - you'd take a description like "a castle on two rivers with periodic rain occupied by a hundred orcs with the clap" and just play it straight as is? No offence but that sounds like it would get pretty tedious before too long.

Also there's a pretty good world generator here, along with adventure generators and all sorts of stuff. Your idea would take it up a notch but I'd do a bit of research to make sure someone else hasn't done it first if you were thinking of seriously pursuing it.