Quote from: CRKrueger;982937I think the more standard form of re-using is doing what you would do if you bought a module and wanted to grab a map and encounters from it.  Do a tweak and reskin as Brand55 and Lunamancer are saying.   The original location is still there, the new one is ready to go and can'y be mistaken for the original.  No Harm, No Foul.

Boy, if pulling a dungeon map that never got used out and using it when you need one is problematic, I must be railroader.

Quote from: rgrove0172;982899Well sure but am I hearing that if the GM jotted down some ideas for a sea cave and the players never bite...he would keep the idea and present it again next time they are near the coast..elsewhere? That sounds like recycling to me, or similarly with a specific idea for an NPC. The party never meets the Tinkerer so he gets shelved until the next village etc.

I guess it comes back to the question of, "do the players' decisions matter?" If they are going to end up in the same dungeon (or "dungeon") with the same challenges, or meet the exact same people dropping the same plot hooks, then it is a problem. If you can repurpose things such that their decisions are still rewarded/penalized, then repurposing things should be fine (unless, of course, you only think you are making their decisions matter).

Quote from: CRKrueger;982968I occasionally do, but it's dependent on what it is, and how closely it's tied to the setting/location.

It also, for me, depends on how 'generalizable,' the things is. If a bandit gang is pretty generic, and if they miss the Purple Flower gang in town X, then I'll probably use the same write-up if they run into Miller's Gang in town Y. The oddball cult that trains displacer beasts but strangely worships a snake-goddess--if the PCs don't pick up that plot thread, it's going to go back into the folder for another gaming group or something.

The more I read this thread, the more Ron Edwards sounds like little more than some nerd on the Internet who wrote some boring blog posts that made some people angry (seriously, I have tried to read the stuff people talk about, and it's just endless nerd rambling), ran an online forum that a handful of people frequented, and tried and failed multiple times to get his self-published stuff to go big.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;982924Or not.

Sandboxing originally involved multiple groups of players with multiple agendas.  And yes, the players may never discover some of your neat shit.  Much like 'Kill your NPCs,' you must kill your favorite adventure locations.

A large part of the referee's fun was assumed to be creating the world (a la M.A.R. Barker's world of Tekumel), so no prep was ever "wasted."

This in spades. If you don't enjoy creating the world, I am not sure why you would want to be the ref, unless it is only because you want power, which is not what it is about.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;982894I would never move something; it is cheating.  Now if the players are hunting for rumors, and I think this Temple of the Eager Virgin is a real cool adventure site, I might have rumors keep popping up.

And if your players aren't hunting for rumors in a sandbox, they should be.

I agree. It is cheating to move it and it is not cheating to have the rumors pop up. If you player aren't hunting for rumors in your sandbox, then they don't get it yet, but don't give up they can still learn how to play the old school way.

Cross-post thread-crapping from another thread (which I didn't post this in), as a case-study:

Quote from: Dumarest;982659Perhaps we can combine them and Dig-Dug is operating inside various asteroids...

It could be a storygame where narrativium points prevent the asteroids with Dig-Dug inside from being atomized from outside, and of course every character has to be given exactly equal attention and something exciting and dramatic to do at all times, with exactly zero chance of dying.

Quote from: Skarg;983291Cross-post thread-crapping from another thread (which I didn't post this in), as a case-study:


It could be a storygame where narrativium points prevent the asteroids with Dig-Dug inside from being atomized from outside, and of course every character has to be given exactly equal attention and something exciting and dramatic to do at all times, with exactly zero chance of dying.

Well, then I wouldn't want to play my own game... :mad:

Quote from: -E.;983226I'm not lying
I'm not lying -- really. Take it easy.

I'm saying exactly what I said:

1) he had his heart broken (it's -- literally -- in the title) because
2) the games are based on D&D and not his ideas (which he enumerates -- metagame mechanics, traditional GM, etc).
...

I haven't thoroughly studied that essay, but it seemed pretty clear to me that he is expressing sympathy for all the effort and hope put into various indy RPGs that were published that were basically D&D campaigns with house rules and homebrew settings and various other ideas, but which he thinks led to creative and popularity failures, which ideas he then elaborates on his opinions about.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;983271The more I read this thread, the more Ron Edwards sounds like little more than some nerd on the Internet who wrote some boring blog posts that made some people angry (seriously, I have tried to read the stuff people talk about, and it's just endless nerd rambling), ran an online forum that a handful of people frequented, and tried and failed multiple times to get his self-published stuff to go big.

That seems to be my impression. This entire thing appears to be a tempest in a teapot that hit people in the craw more than it had any real impact.

The end result, regardless of what any of us here say, is that most people who play silly elfgames are playing how they play with no regard to either our elegant theories, nor those of this Edwards character (who rates a strong 'who?' on the influential-o-meter) or his-and-his-friend's games they've never heard of.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;983304That seems to be my impression. This entire thing appears to be a tempest in a teapot that hit people in the craw more than it had any real impact.

Sure, it looks like that now to a degree.  However, a few years back, the guy had a pretty strident following and there were folks all over the rpg forums advocating his perspectives and telling all us old-schoolers we were dinosaurs and it was time for everyone to move past the "dark ages."  That's where much of the animosity originates.

Quote from: Dumarest;983300Well, then I wouldn't want to play my own game... :mad:

Neither would I. I'll hold out for your version.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;983308Sure, it looks like that now to a degree.  However, a few years back, the guy had a pretty strident following and there were folks all over the rpg forums advocating his perspectives and telling all us old-schoolers we were dinosaurs and it was time for everyone to move past the "dark ages."  That's where much of the animosity originates.

So exactly what I said, no real impact.

That's supposed to be darkly fatalistic, not flippant and dismissive of your plight. I'm just convinced that apparently RPG-gamers online can't not be jerks to each other. I don't get it*, but there it is. We must be horrible to the people who are mostly like us because they're not exactly like us. So it goes.
*well, I do, I understand the societal phenomena of tribalism, and how you hate your neighbor-tribe who's very similar to you more than you do the truly foreign one from far away. That doesn't mean I get get it.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;983304That seems to be my impression. This entire thing appears to be a tempest in a teapot that hit people in the craw more than it had any real impact.

The end result, regardless of what any of us here say, is that most people who play silly elfgames are playing how they play with no regard to either our elegant theories, nor those of this Edwards character (who rates a strong 'who?' on the influential-o-meter) or his-and-his-friend's games they've never heard of.

This.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;983308folks all over the rpg forums

So what, a few dozen people? Maybe a few hundred? Forums have this way of amplifying things and making them seem bigger than they are. Forums are in reality a tiny sliver of the most dedicated fans of something and in no way indicative of trends or the whole. They're echo chambers that can make things nobody cares about seem extremely important to the users (like how PC gamers' forums have been predicting Playstation's doom and the resurgence of the graphical powerhouse FPS as the center of game development for over 15 years now).

Edwards was probably amplified even more by the fact that in 2001, the internet was much tinier than today. There was no Twitter. There was no Facebook (where the big 5e group has over 100,000 members). Amazon was still struggling to find itself, and self-publishing hadn't blown up yet. I'm pretty sure blogger was just geting off the ground, too. These days, "Look at my deep-thinking gaming blog and self-published RPG!" barely merits a notice.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;983304That seems to be my impression. This entire thing appears to be a tempest in a teapot that hit people in the craw more than it had any real impact.

The end result, regardless of what any of us here say, is that most people who play silly elfgames are playing how they play with no regard to either our elegant theories, nor those of this Edwards character (who rates a strong 'who?' on the influential-o-meter) or his-and-his-friend's games they've never heard of.

Pretty much, if you add in "a small group of people who made a lot of noise on the Internet for a while" into the mix.  Rather like the Bandar-Log.

Regarding Ron Edwards...  

I disagreed with Ron Edwards particularly on these points and argued with him over it. However, I've been active in online RPG discussions since around 1991, and have read into discussions before then. It is utterly ridiculous to assert that the animosity over narrative and story started with him.

Quote from: Zevious Zoquis;983308Sure, it looks like that now to a degree.  However, a few years back, the guy had a pretty strident following and there were folks all over the rpg forums advocating his perspectives and telling all us old-schoolers we were dinosaurs and it was time for everyone to move past the "dark ages."  That's where much of the animosity originates.

There were plenty of posts long before Ron Edwards of pro-story gamers calling old-schoolers dinosaurs, and also of old-schoolers calling pro-story gamers railroaders and/or pretentious goons. I linked earlier to a 1980 Different Worlds article about the divide of gaming. It was all about how to cut down on the "violent arguments" "furious discussion", and "feuds" between different styles.

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/blacow.html