World in motion (great term) is certainly the way I always run a sandbox.   I think that the issues some other people have with sandboxes is that if you run them the other way (ie. like a video game, where everything in the world is just standing there, static, waiting for the PCs to show up and make things happen, and nothing ever changes except when the PCs do something) has LESS feeling of immersion than a non-sandbox game. But a real sandbox, one that does use "world in motion", is certainly going to have an even MORE immersive feel than a plot-driven game, if run well.

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Quote from: LordVreeg;383230I always use the term, "World In Motion" to describe this.

I am going to adopt this term to describe this aspect of campaigning. Great job in coming up with it.

It certainly is an appropriate term.

Quote from: LordVreeg;383230I always use the term, "World In Motion" to describe this.  A goal of a good GM in this type of game is to provide a feeling that events are happening with or without the PCs, that there is a natural cause and effect going on, and that the PCs CAN change the course of events but if they do nothing, things will continue to move on.

I call this a "dynamic sandbox." It's "opposite" is a "static sandbox" where nothing really happens in the world unless the PCs are involved in it.

Quote from: Benoist;383573It certainly is an appropriate term.

well you've seen some of my stuff.  World in cyclotronic motion, sometimes..
but my thanks.

Quote from: LordVreeg;383640well you've seen some of my stuff.  World in cyclotronic motion, sometimes..
but my thanks.

It really conveys the idea of a world living and breathing outside the characters' scope. I really like it.

I like it, too: concise, descriptive, and catchy.

Quote from: Melan;383267Ironically, this thread is full of arguments appealing to popularity and history, and it is mostly coming from the people who wish to deligitimise sandbox campaigns for their own particular reasons.

I have no interest in delegitimizing sandbox play.  It's actually a style of play I enjoy quite a bit.  What I'm addressing are romantic notions that if we peer back to the earliest days of role-playing that there was some sort of Garden of Eden of stylistic purity and I don't think that's the case.

Quote from: The Shaman;383172Your MA 'exhibit' consists of an example of a PC and NPC having a relationship and players running NPCs on behalf of the referee,

Here is the key bit from the "PC and NPC having a relationship":

"Eventually he succeeded. (Who was I, a mere game master, to stand in the way of True Love?)"

Sounds like the GM giving the PC a storybook ending to me.

Quote from: The Shaman;383172As far as the Traveller 'exhibits' go, I agree that MWM tended to publish very linear adventures, The Traveller Adventure being among the worst of these, but GDW also published Leviathan, about as 'sandbox-y' a published adventure as one is likely to find.

I'm not saying that sandboxes didn't exist or that people didn't play that way in the earliest days of the hobby.  What I'm saying is that people also played other ways going back to the earliest days of the hobby and that they often mixed and matched approaches, as people still do.  People experimented, tried different things, made up their own rules, and so on.  That comes through loud and clear in the Armintrout article, which is why I like it so much and always have (I own that issue and it was always one of my favorite gaming magazine articles).

Quote from: LordVreeg;383230I always use the term, "World In Motion" to describe this.  A goal of a good GM in this type of game is to provide a feeling that events are happening with or without the PCs, that there is a natural cause and effect going on, and that the PCs CAN change the course of events but if they do nothing, things will continue to move on.

It's a nice and evocative phrase but my advice would be to keep it lower case and avoid turning it into jargon because jargon like that always seems crystal clear to the people who turn it into jargon but once it gets out into the wild, it mutates.  The next thing you know, people will be telling you that all sorts of games are "World In Motion" (or maybe "WIM") games just because they want to make their games fit your neat phrase and those games won't seem like "World In Motion" games to you.  Just look at how hard it's become for people to give a crisp definition of "sandbox", "immersion", "old school", or even "story" with respect to role-playing that everyone can agree on.

Hmmm.  Maybe I should coin the phrase, "Jargon Heartbreakers".

Quote from: John Morrow;383664I have no interest in delegitimizing sandbox play.  It's actually a style of play I enjoy quite a bit.  What I'm addressing are romantic notions that if we peer back to the earliest days of role-playing that there was some sort of Garden of Eden of stylistic purity and I don't think that's the case.

I don't think any of us that use the Sandbox term a contend that.  

Many campaigns back in the 70s may seem have similar elements to a sandbox in that they borrow a lot from miniature wargaming particularly the campaign where two players (or two teams) start with an order of battle, a overall map, make moves, then counter moves and then fight individual scenarios. However both sides were free to do whatever within the confines of the map and rules.

That is the origin of why we use term campaign as part of roleplaying. This is the source of the golden age aura that surrounds the term sandbox. However RPGs campaign exploded in variety early on as you noted. The connection is over hyped.

Quote from: estar;383672That is the origin of why we use term campaign as part of roleplaying. This is the source of the golden age aura that surrounds the term sandbox. However RPGs campaign exploded in variety early on as you noted. The connection is over hyped.

That's pretty much all I'm personally trying to say.

To me, an Immersive world or World in Motion means sandbox play in the fact that the world goes on.  The PCs are encountering and interacting with an active world, not one that revolves around them.  At the same time, a World in Motion also means that there are plenty of story arcs and plot going on at any given time.  Every NPC is a potential adventure.

The characters get that special snowflake feel from being in the right place at the right time.  Just because the world is in motion doesn't mean there isn't a status quo.  Some bad things that are happening won't get stopped unless the players do it, or uncover it and bring it to the attention of others.  They become very important in the small scheme of things and eventually become important in the large scheme of things.

Sandbox to me never meant "arena-style" encounters, where each one is completely separate from the world.  When I make up a random encounter list for an area, the monsters or bandits have lairs (when appropriate) with treasure and/or captives that lead to other opportunities.

I think that people look back fondly on "sandbox" campaigns because they do harken back to a mythical time.  A time when we were younger and could spend 20 hours a week on campaign prep to do a good World in Motion campaign.  Doing a good sandbox campaign while juggling job, friends, significant others and offspring is goddamn hard work.

Quote from: CRKruegerI think that people look back fondly on "sandbox" campaigns because they do harken back to a mythical time. A time when we were younger and could spend 20 hours a week on campaign prep to do a good World in Motion campaign. Doing a good sandbox campaign while juggling job, friends, significant others and offspring is goddamn hard work.

Oh, don't tie this back to the whole "Rose Colored Glasses' thing, we've already beat that horse, dragged it around, beat it again, put the bones in a museum, then stole the exhibit and pulverized it in the escape attempt.

I admit I miss not having to make all the tough choices I do now.  It does make it harder for adults to make time to game.  But Prep time?  There are a lot of tools that did not exist when I was spending all that time prepping.  I can't begin to tell you how much time my wiki and email and printer save me over what I used to have to do for prep.

Quote from: John Morrow;383664I have no interest in delegitimizing sandbox play.  It's actually a style of play I enjoy quite a bit.  What I'm addressing are romantic notions that if we peer back to the earliest days of role-playing that there was some sort of Garden of Eden of stylistic purity

... which I don't think anybody said...

Quote from: John Morrow;383664and I don't think that's the case.

Me neither.