Quote from: Christopher Brady;984482Now, assume that the average person has other obligations, like family and work, and you expect them to sit down and spend potential hours to rifle through books for information on a particular setting, or just creating potential maps and adding monsters that may never see the light of day?  Really?

No one is drafting anyone to run a sandbox.

I don't think anyone should run a sandbox if they don't enjoy the creative activity of making shit up, at their desk, when no one else is around.  If potential DM X asks himself the question "if I spend 3 hours on a Sunday working on something and it never sees direct play, will I be upset?" and the answer is "yes" - don't run a sandbox.

Sandbox campaigning is two activities that don't necessarily interact, one of them is entirely solo, and both must be enjoyable for their own sakes.

No, "plot immunity" not equal to "going through the motions."  For some activities, they are one and the same, but not all.

For example, if the realms of snappy dialog, creating an atmosphere, and so forth, having plot immunity or not is largely orthogonal.  There might be a mild correlation favoring plot immunity, in that it allows the players to relax and focus on snappy dialog and the like, but it is an indirect support and not at all required.  Either way, in the end snappy dialog is snappy dialog.

Let's consider scouting in contrast, and at first strictly from the "consequences of failure" perspective, whether that failure be the risk of character death, failure of the mission, or something else significant.  I think we can all agree that there is a difference in the activity if the scouting can fail, as opposed to going through the motions of scouting as relevant to the atmosphere of the game?  Those are both called "scouting," but they are fundamentally different activities in the game, no matter how similar they may seem in the emergent story.

Now, it is my contention that the players I have been around (not talking for anyone else) mostly fall into a category of players that don't really respect the "failure" side of that equation unless death is at least a little on the line.  I've seen just enough of the opposite to know that this is not universal.  And I know enough statistics to not get fooled into thinking tiny little player sample is sufficient.  Nevertheless, these are the players I find attracted to games that I run.  Maybe I'm just lousy at really making them feel the sting of mission failure--but I doubt it, because I haven't pulled any punches there, either.  I think it is probably the combination of other failures supported by infrequent deaths that gets the maximum benefit.

Thus my conclusion that in at least some players there is some kind of switch that flips the moment that character death comes off the list of options such that other failure states are insufficient to produce thoughtful behavior about character consequences.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;984567Plausibility seems to be a separate spectrum though. In movies, people can fall 15, 20, even 30 feat (and not onto conveniently placed soft objects) and get up and run/fight/etc. That's not realistic--any of those distances you are at least injured. But if a far enough fall can still kill you, you don't have plot immunity. It's just up-scaling what a life-threatening fall looks like. Extrapolate that out and you can have cinematic daring without plot immunity.

My (as a player) current Mad Max-inspired game is a great example. PCs jump from one moving car to another and fight with enemies on top of the moving vehicles all the time. But it's not really them doing stupid stuff--they are making tactically sounds, smart decisions inside a universe with physics that support such things.

Right.  But I wouldn't enjoy a Mad Max-inspired game.  It's just too over the top for me.  I don't really enjoy the hyper realistic side, either, but that's a different issue.  I grant that in theory that the issue is simply one of scaling the game, but if you look at my previous post, you'll see why I don't think that is so for all players.

Quote from: S'mon;984469Also, IME sandboxes work best when they're already designed for a variety of groups of different power levels. My Ghinarian Hills sandbox has PCs up to 19th level, but we started a new group at 1st level there recently and they are adventuring in level-appropriate areas.

It never occurred to me that anyone would design a sandbox/setting/world any way other than for it to be for a variety of groups of different power levels. Rumor "Hill giants by been spotted in the Shattered Lands (a really rugged broken landscape area) and this would be the clue to the players that that would be a good place not to go at first level."

Quote from: Willie the Duck;984561Yes. And people have responded to it multiple times. Myself two or three times.

I was responding to the statement that No one had ever said that games without death are games with consequence which implies death is the only consequence or at least the only meaningful consequence" when that is not true of this thread. Yes, others have said differently but that didn't make the other statement vanish.  

This is the problem with forum communication, particularly when the threads get lengthy. The participants are discussing several points of view, sub threads develop, who exactly said what is forgotten or garbled, etc. And if you go to the length the specificity demands to prevent confusion you run into the "Too long, didn't read" problem

QuoteBut you are not wrong. There is definitely a pissing match going on. Same as with the storygame thread. There's a bit of 'there's no right way to roleplay (but my way is awesome)' going on. But it's 1) kinda unavoidable, 2) not one-sided, and 3) if you give in kind, you're just like your opposition.

Personally. I've been trying to avoid crapping on other people's play style. Maybe I haven't always succeeded but I do try. And from my perspective, I've seen more dumped on mine. But its fair to say that if you're not the target you don't notice as much. I think a little more good faith and picking words a bit more carefully might help keep but that makes me a thread nanny. I don't consider people that play differently from me my opposition. Opposing someone implies there something to win and there's nothing to win here. They aren't going to take over my games, I'm not going to take over there's.
Even if I argue with someone over how they play Let's Pretend until they stop responding I don't know if I convinced them their preferences are "wrong", they got bored screwing with me or decided I was a douche and put me on ignore.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;984482Now, assume that the average person has other obligations, like family and work, and you expect them to sit down and spend potential hours to rifle through books for information on a particular setting, or just creating potential maps and adding monsters that may never see the light of day?  Really?

No, not at all. You spend some time roughing out an area and defining in a maybe a 100 words or so some basic parameters. Create perhaps 10 rumors/possibilities and place them on the rough map. Rough out ten non wildlife encounters using about 100 words tops. If you have limited time, you are now ready to play. You should have enough now to start the game and spend the first game traveling to the thing they said they want to investigate.

Between games you add another 200 words or so fleshing things out. You think about those things as you can and when game time rolls around you are ready to go. If you have time to do more great, but if you don't you have enough short notes to roll with. If you are gaming with friends, they will cut you some slack. As you get to know you sandbox/setting/world better and better through play, it will get deeper and more complete. It doesn't start massive, it becomes massive over long periods of time. I picked my world's size at the beginning, but I didn't need to do that, I could have waited at least 25 IRL years to make that decision, you might never need to make that decision.

I can't emphasize this enough, always try to have a small notebook with you to jot down ideas when they happen if at all possible. If you are able to do this, in a short time you will have dozens of ideas, eventually you will have more ideas than ten people could ever begin to use and you can skim the cream for your game.

As others have said, a city with only the road east detailed, and the content on that road all designed for higher-level characters, seems clearly like a pre-planned adventure, not a dynamic campaign world or sandbox.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;984482So your saying that published sandbox 'adventures' are better than making shit up because they will have done all the work for you?  If you are, I see your point.  I don't particularly like it, as I personally like world building but you have a legitimately have a point.

Here's the thing, for ME, because I'm crippled and unemployable, I have a LOT of time to work on settings and ideas and if I wasn't as lazy as I am, I could easily flesh out an entire sandbox.  Except for one small issue.  I'd end up tossing out about 80% of my work because my players, and because one of the funnest things I find is watching my friends deal with situations in RPGs, would go in a way that would not utilize most of the information.  Hell, I had that situation happen, back in my youth.

Now, assume that the average person has other obligations, like family and work, and you expect them to sit down and spend potential hours to rifle through books for information on a particular setting, or just creating potential maps and adding monsters that may never see the light of day?  Really?

Well, the thing I learned about sandboxes is that you should be using and re-using them with a variety of PC groups over years of play. IME ignored material rarely stays ignored forever.

I like to use published material mixed with my own ideas, all-homebrew is good if you prefer. But a big advantage of published stuff is that I can buy* an adventure (eg Caverns of Thracia) and place it, but I DON'T HAVE TO READ IT - I hardly have to spend any time on it unless and until the PCs go there. I read the adventure intro and the material affects and informs my sandbox, but very little time is wasted. And IME eventually someone goes there.

*Or download free stuff. Dyson Logos has tons. Dragonsfoot has tons. Basicfantasy.org has tons.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;984584Right.  But I wouldn't enjoy a Mad Max-inspired game.  It's just too over the top for me.  I don't really enjoy the hyper realistic side, either, but that's a different issue.  I grant that in theory that the issue is simply one of scaling the game, but if you look at my previous post, you'll see why I don't think that is so for all players.

You do play fantasy RPGs don't you? They are far more unrealistic than the Mad Max 2+ universe both in term of physics and everything else. Seems arbitrary.

Quote from: Skarg;984665As others have said, a city with only the road east detailed, and the content on that road all designed for higher-level characters, seems clearly like a pre-planned adventure, not a dynamic campaign world or sandbox.

It's only detailed because that's what the players did.  They never went anywhere else, they weren't interested.  So sitting out and fleshing out Capitcalica Fantastica was a really big waste of time.  No one cared what boroughs or districts, or that the undercity has an undead infestation, nope, the players wanted to go 'East', so they did.  There was no point in detailing the West.  Most people have only so much time they want to devote to their world building.

Quote from: Voros;984817You do play fantasy RPGs don't you? They are far more unrealistic than the Mad Max 2+ universe both in term of physics and everything else. Seems arbitrary.

It is arbitrary in one sense, but not in another.  Let's take, as something that could happen in a fantasy game, the rogue swinging from a chandelier to swing into the bad guy.  I want some of that, but not the same stunt every single time there is a fight in the inn/ballroom/castle/etc.  Or for more fantastical, "Raise Dead" happens, but not every time someone with a bit of money gets sliced by an orc.  However, "over the top" is always a personal sensibility issue, not entirely amenable to logic.

Oh for chrisakes, if he doesn't want to play over-the-top games, he doesn't have to. My point was that that seems to be an orthogonal issue to plot immunity.

I have a player-character in my current campaign that some gamers would say ought to be dead. She's a knight (Elite Warrior class) and she's been stretched out on the ground at some point during every major fight this summer. They don't have major fights every gaming session but that's at least three times she has been below zero hits. The other characters give her advice but she makes her own decisions. Most of the time, she isn't wrong to go charging in; it's what is expected of people of her training and social class but the time before last she precipitated an unnecessary fight with a very dangerous opponent. Not only that, but the player has another character in the general area, so it would not be a pain to replace her.

However, she keeps making her below zero save and there is lots of healing available. I am quite willing for her to die but see no need to force it. If she failed her save, fine. If her side lost and could not recover her body, fine. But I like the combination of medieval weaponry and magic that Is at least as good as modern trauma medicine, so Lady G fights on.

Quote from: Crimhthan;984537III. The conclusion in the last sentence is illogical, why would you want your players to commit suicide over and over, do you really have fun when your players are too stupid to make better choices?

You meant PCs not players, right?
   
What would you say about a GM whose players have killed their PCs over and over and over again thousands of times?

Quote from: Willie the Duck;984561

This is one of the most fair minded posts I have ever read on this topic. Anywhere.

Well done!

Quote from: Willie the Duck;984906Oh for chrisakes, if he doesn't want to play over-the-top games, he doesn't have to.

This violates his agreement. He must play correctly or return his games immediately. This is the last warning.