Here's how it went.

There were some giant centipedes. They jumped out at the thief and the elf doing advanced scouting. The rest of the party wasn't paying attention, so when the scouts drew their swords, I had the centipedes reverse course and assault the main party instead.

The player of the elf interpreted this as the centipedes being afraid of the light I had described glittering off their swords prior to the reversal. (People will make up causality when it's not obvious, almost always.)

I thought that was cool. So now giant centipedes in this particular OD&D game get a -1 to fight when confronted with bright light and will probably flee from light spells. Why not?

I like RPGs that have lots of room for this kind of improvisational creation over time. Maybe it will turn out that there's a Demon Lord of Centipedes allied with darkness or something, in the end. Every fact ties into every other as far as you want to take it, but you don't know exactly how they're tied up until you get there.

If a player tosses a nifty notion at you, hey, why not run with it? It's only smart to pick up ideas and inspiration from wherever you can.

Quote from: CalithenaHere's how it went.

There were some giant centipedes. They jumped out at the thief and the elf doing advanced scouting. The rest of the party wasn't paying attention, so when the scouts drew their swords, I had the centipedes reverse course and assault the main party instead.

The player of the elf interpreted this as the centipedes being afraid of the light I had described glittering off their swords prior to the reversal. (People will make up causality when it's not obvious, almost always.)

I thought that was cool. So now giant centipedes in this particular OD&D game get a -1 to fight when confronted with bright light and will probably flee from light spells. Why not?

I like RPGs that have lots of room for this kind of improvisational creation over time. Maybe it will turn out that there's a Demon Lord of Centipedes allied with darkness or something, in the end. Every fact ties into every other as far as you want to take it, but you don't know exactly how they're tied up until you get there.

That sort of things is always neat. Back in the day, I used to be real anal about it, but I learned quickly that it really adds to the game when players find out that their explanations are true (even if the explanation was the ultimate source of the truth.)

Yep. A player of mine bought some heather from a gypsy type in a RM game of mine, because "Everyone knows that heather from gypsies protects you against witches!" The other players laughed at him for quite a few sessions, as he kept mentioning it on occassion.

Next fight with an evil spell user, me "Everyone roll a resistance roll versus essence magic please." Them, "Groan...". Me to player with the heather, "Add 5% to your roll." Other players, ".......!"

I love to do this, Cali! It's ld to some awesome twists in my games.

-clash

These are cool. I really like the give-and-take among the group it shows.

This is essentially the default style of my online game. It runs on misunderstanding, overinterpretation, and whim! (And since it's a messageboard game I always have at least 24 hours to give the whim some legs.)

I once gave away a fairly dorky magic item- a water bottle shaped like a fish, with a short spike sticking out of the grip. if one impaled one's hand on the spike, therebye taking a hit point dmg, the bottle would fill with one day's supply of water.
Anyway, the "fishbottle" became a bit of a joke in the game. whenever the pc who had it met someone new, he'd be all like, "hey wanna see my fishbottle?"
eventually the whole group got into it, "show them the fish bottle. hahahahah"
I got a little bored with it after awhile, but the pcs couldn't stop.
So at some point I decided the fishbottle (originally known as the Urn of Ruin) was basically the "one ring" of their world and the forces of evil were looking for it. A friendly old wizard even warned them, they laughed it off.
I was laughing too, especially when I stole the thing away (they never took any precautions with it- even after the warning they were laughing and showing it off*) and the owner's body started to decay.
the epic struggle to get it back before the pc linked with it died determined the entire course of the campaign from there on out.



*in defense of the players I will say that this was a friday night after work game with lots and lots of booze and THC at the table, so sometimes decision making wasn't would it could have been- especially as we neared the end of the session.

heh heh.  when I talked about this effect some time back, people told me to go play Forge games.  

I guess I didn't have enough old school cred.

I´m a purist nowadays.
So this option is right out of the window.
Actually, I think it is an abomination to ret-con anything.

But I know how it works, and I used to do it all the time to great effect with Star Wars.

But these days are over.

If it´s not defined and fitted into the carefully crafted master-sandbox, it is cheating. It´s cheating myself.

But that´s just me, I guess.

Settembrini, that depends on the scope of the sandbox--which might include (some part of) the rules themselves. Myself, I'd be fine with both approaches.

I knew Sett had some Forgista inside him somewhere deep down inside. He couldn't hate them so much if they didn't have something in common.

In my case, some ret-conning bugs me, some doesn't, and in many cases I struggle to find any meaningful difference between retconning and the ordinary activity of making things up for use in play.

Perhaps Sett the purist could do a new thread on the well-crafted sandbox to let us know in more detail where he's coming from though.

Quote from: SettembriniI´m a purist nowadays.
So this option is right out of the window.
Actually, I think it is an abomination to ret-con anything.

But I know how it works, and I used to do it all the time to great effect with Star Wars.

But these days are over.

If it´s not defined and fitted into the carefully crafted master-sandbox, it is cheating. It´s cheating myself.

But that´s just me, I guess.

oh nooos I've been having badwrongfun!

I was playing in a campaign taking place in a setting where humans were slaves to larger, fiercer, scarier overlords, and I had run through two dead characters already.  The game system we were playing was skill-based, with characters affiliating with various guilds/occupations in the culture/setting to round out their skill set.

We were about three months in, and for my third character, I came with an idea for a new occupation, sort of deep cover operatives working as support crew in the overlord armies.  The GM loved the idea, bought in, and the whole (careful, using crazy word here, nobody fly off the handle) story was a crazy hoot, with my handler giving us great information and helping us along, and the rest of the party getting further involved in the Fight Against the Overlords and on and so like that.

Turns out, about three months later we discover (because we're captured by the real freedom fighters) that the organization I'd created (as a player) was a front actually operated by the Overlords, and that we'd been aiding the enemy.  

It was a ridiculously sweet twist.  :cool:  

We totally messed up my handlers.

Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly do you all mean when you use the term "sandbox"?