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From what I heard it described as, a situation where the GM just refuses to let anything happen except for the PCs' own actions.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;596046From what I heard it described as, a situation where the GM just refuses to let anything happen except for the PCs' own actions.

RPGPundit

I think it is real. Every style of play has potential pitfalls. The way i run my modern mafia games, this is always a concern: trying to respect the free will of the pcs while supllying a living and reactive world. It would be easy to only react, and forget their are other forces out there that can act on the pcs as well.

Quote from: RPGPundit;596046From what I heard it described as, a situation where the GM just refuses to let anything happen except for the PCs' own actions.

Is this even a real style of play?

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;596051I think it is real. Every style of play has potential pitfalls. The way i run my modern mafia games, this is always a concern: trying to respect the free will of the pcs while supllying a living and reactive world. It would be easy to only react, and forget their are other forces out there that can act on the pcs as well.

This seems like a legitimate concern and something that might actually happen in play.

The RPGNet discussion is defining it as "forcing your players to make a decision". Which is a pretty stupid definition and will never happen in actual play. It gets even dumber when they claim that it's as bad as actual railroading because you're "forcing your players to do something".

It's like claiming that refusing to spoon-feed a grown adult is as bad as locking that grown adult in a room and refusing to give them any food.

In either case, I don't find the term "reverse railroading" to be particularly descriptive of the behavior being described. The opposite of railroading is not railroading.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;596057This seems like a legitimate concern and something that might actually happen in play.

The RPGNet discussion is defining it as "forcing your players to make a decision". Which is a pretty stupid definition and will never happen in actual play. It gets even dumber when they claim that it's as bad as actual railroading because you're "forcing your players to do something".

It's like claiming that refusing to spoon-feed a grown adult is as bad as locking that grown adult in a room and refusing to give them any food.

In either case, I don't find the term "reverse railroading" to be particularly descriptive of the behavior being described.

Not familiar with the rpg.net thread, so was going by the OP. i dont see forcing the players to make a decision as a problem. Also agree that reverse railroading is an odd term. Really I just think there is always the potential the GM doesn't do enough on his end during live play. In a sandbox game or one that focuses on letting interesting situations emerge, it is something to watch out for.

For reference, here's the original post (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?662423-Is-reverse-Railroading-just-as-bad) from the Big Purple thread.

QuoteJust read another thread about a Sandbox GM and On Rails players.

Some suggestions that I saw basically boiled down to "force them to sandbox/make decision".

My question to you is this. Is this sort of "Reverse Railroading" (i.e. refusing to do anything until the players start playing with the sand) as bad as classic railroading.

To me, the answer is yes. In both situations, you have a GM trying to force his/her players into a game or gamestyle that the players aren't wanting to play in.

Players who would rather be told what to do than decide, or react to something instead of be proactive, absolutely exist. My regular player-group back in the 80s-90s was like this - I'd give them a map and a bunch of rumors and tell them they could do whatever they wanted and they'd, basically, stare at me blankly until I had someone approach them with a job offer or attack them. But the idea of a GM who, faced with players like that, refuses to throw some catalyst at them, and would really allow the game to reach an impasse where everybody's staring at each other across the table waiting in vain for the other side to make the first move, yeah, I doubt that's ever actually happened.

I think it's a potential risk with sandbox-style games that the GM becomes too reactive, yes. But I tend to think just sitting there with the players and saying to them "Right, you're in a bar, do something!" without anything to interact with or pick up on is probably just not very imaginative GMing. There doesn't need to be a special name for it.

I'd still expect any players worth their salt to work with it, though. "Who do I know who might be looking for somebody to do a job?" might be an obvious response. Or "Who is in the bar?" or whatever.

Quote from: noisms;596071I think it's a potential risk with sandbox-style games that the GM becomes too reactive, yes. But I tend to think just sitting there with the players and saying to them "Right, you're in a bar, do something!" without anything to interact with or pick up on is probably just not very imaginative GMing. There doesn't need to be a special name for it.

I'd still expect any players worth their salt to work with it, though. "Who do I know who might be looking for somebody to do a job?" might be an obvious response. Or "Who is in the bar?" or whatever.

The usual response for us would be:

"Is there someone else here?"

"Yes."

"I attack them."

Or

"Is there someone else here?"

"No."

"Then I attack Fred."

It's a short logic tree, and we're both easily bored, and easily amused by rolling dice.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;596057In either case, I don't find the term "reverse railroading" to be particularly descriptive of the behavior being described. The opposite of railroading is not railroading.

"Shitty Sandbox/Unprepared GM" would be a close second in my book.

Quote from: T. Foster;596063Players who would rather be told what to do than decide, or react to something instead of be proactive, absolutely exist. My regular player-group back in the 80s-90s was like this - I'd give them a map and a bunch of rumors and tell them they could do whatever they wanted and they'd, basically, stare at me blankly until I had someone approach them with a job offer or attack them. But the idea of a GM who, faced with players like that, refuses to throw some catalyst at them, and would really allow the game to reach an impasse where everybody's staring at each other across the table waiting in vain for the other side to make the first move, yeah, I doubt that's ever actually happened.

I had some players in Cyberpunk 2020 like that back in the day, I am sure I have mentioned them before.  Went to the day job, went home, ignored the massive plot hook, went home, ignored the next several plot hooks, went home...  YOU ARE CYBERPUNKS GO FIGHT THE SYSTEM.

But yeah, we didn't sit at the table staring off into the distance, they did things and interacted with people while avoiding the plot hooks that I threw in because they weren't doing anything else.

Quote from: StormBringer;596104"Shitty Sandbox"

Litterbox.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;596106Litterbox.

:hatsoff:
You have coined a phrase, sir!  Your recognition plaque and membership card will arrive shortly.  :)

Quote from: StormBringer;596116You have coined a phrase, sir!

Nah, I heard it from at least three different sources, all of whom seem to have coined it independently of one another.

I'm just the popularizer.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;596057This seems like a legitimate concern and something that might actually happen in play.

The RPGNet discussion is defining it as "forcing your players to make a decision". Which is a pretty stupid definition and will never happen in actual play. It gets even dumber when they claim that it's as bad as actual railroading because you're "forcing your players to do something".

It's like claiming that refusing to spoon-feed a grown adult is as bad as locking that grown adult in a room and refusing to give them any food.

In either case, I don't find the term "reverse railroading" to be particularly descriptive of the behavior being described. The opposite of railroading is not railroading.

As I see it, the railroad consists of one, and only one, option. So, it's opposite would be an infinite number of options, all of them equally meaningless. At least, as far as the players can tell they're all equally meaningless.
Maybe we'd be better off calling this the blank canvas or similar?

Anyway, this is the natural result of excessive worry over not railroading the players. Having rejected the tedious carrots and sticks of the railroad, he recoils from giving the players any input at all, fearful he will sully their pristine solipsistic protagonism.

Or maybe he's just inept, or lazy.

Quote from: Dan Vincze;596126Or maybe he's just inept, or lazy.

Usually, this.

<3 the term "Litterbox".

I would think the main problem with a "shitty sandbox" is that there would be a lack of true emulation; that is, there is no sense of a living world. Only the things the PCs directly do themselves create any change in the world.

Whereas a real sandbox always has all kinds of living NPCs/monsters/etc going around following their own agendas, not waiting around to see if the PCs will do anything at all.  So in fact, in a real sandbox even if the PCs do nothing at all, sooner or later things will start to happen to them and around them.  Whereas with the "shitty" version, if the PCs do nothing then nothing actually happens at all.

RPGPundit

First, "reverse raliroading is a lousy name for the thing depicted.
Blank canvas, litterbox, or why not crapbox and limbo ... would be far more descriptive words. ... Or why not "chaos"?

I tend to use something inbetween railroad and sandbox: One could call it roadmapping if one like, and i think several sandboxes works in similar ways.
It is that one makes up 2-5 plot stories, and consider them to be more or less ongoing during the whole time.
If the players would manage the improbable and go outside the areas for all those plots, then nothing happens.
However, that is the time when one either diverts parts of at least one of the plots to wherever they go ... or make something up on the spot.
....

For me the term "litterbox" evokes the metaphor of "throwing a bunch of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks" with no rhyme or reason, its own kind of degenerate sandbox. There the problem is that the players have no rational basis for decision making. So the campaign takes on the air of a surreal game show.
"In Dungeon Chamber Number One:"

"A stone golem shaped like Benjamin Cardozo! It steps forward and punches you in the groin!"
Compare this to e.g. a simple but informed choice between the long route through the Valley of Elysian Somnolence, and the shortcut across the  Axe-murder Mountains.

I suppose some gm's are so focused on pc actions to the point of not creating a living breathing world.

Ultimately it depends on what the players enjoy.

A world in suspended animation waiting for your player characters to react doesn't sound like a sandbox to me at all.

First, it sounds like juvenile bullshit, like a staring contest with a precursor  chargen formality. Waiting for one party to cry 'uncle' is just another form of metagame competition that doesn't make any 'rpg sense' for me.

Second, as Catelf notes, wouldn't that just be called Limbo? There's no real decision involved, outside of whether or not you flinch, because you must act to have the GM passively react (with consequences only in isolation) to everything you do. If consequences in the world are isolate, and only PC decisions set anything in (brief) motion, there's no setting ramifications to give context to any PC decisions.

It's like the opposite of a railroad as a sensory deprivation chamber is to a paint-by-numbers painting. It's like so much massive crazy and wrong, denuding the world of vitality and giving sole agency to players that any and all actions essentially mean nothing in the end, that I'm having trouble grasping it. Might as well stare at a blank wall until your mind starts to hallucinate images.

Seriously, if there's ever a case where you can say "you're doing it wrong," and something's "bad-wrong fun," this'd be it. I mean seriously, why play? It seriously is so solipsistic as to be an absurd example of play; I have trouble believing this ever happened.

How come all the outlier RPG weirdness ends up with representation, and supposed experience, upon RPG.net? It sounds... contrived.

Sounds to me like gamers trying to justify their own railroading playstyle by building up a strawman where "litterbox" equals "sandbox".

Yes. There are more effective ways to do a sandbox than other, shitty ways.

Yes, there are players who need to have choices and options thrown at them to be able to grab onto that and play the game. That's not the opposite of a good sandbox which would provide such opportunities for the PCs to get into something that interests them.

And really, if as a player you are REALLY that adverse to the notion of making a choice as your character while playing a role playing game, that you feel bullied by the GM when he actually expects you to take a decision and do something, anything in the game, you should just leave that emotionally unsafe environment that is the game table, just go home, grab a book, white-out the name of your favorite character therein, replace it with your own, and then read that book. That'll be your ultimate way of playing a "role playing game", I guess.

Quote from: Opaopajr;596302Seriously, if there's ever a case where you can say "you're doing it wrong," and something's "bad-wrong fun," this'd be it. I mean seriously, why play? It seriously is so solipsistic as to be an absurd example of play; I have trouble believing this ever happened.

How come all the outlier RPG weirdness ends up with representation, and supposed experience, upon RPG.net? It sounds... contrived.

Exactly.  If the players decide to just sit at the inn rather than interact with the campaign, that's on them.  I don't find it credible that the whole group sits around staring at each other waiting for someone to make a move, though.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;596051I think it is real. Every style of play has potential pitfalls. The way i run my modern mafia games, this is always a concern: trying to respect the free will of the pcs while supllying a living and reactive world. It would be easy to only react, and forget their are other forces out there that can act on the pcs as well.

It is one of the GMing mistakes I know I am prone to (due to the breakdown of multitasking, laziness, being forgetful, whatever), which is why I try to actively avoid committing it.

[edit]Also, I have found through personal experience that a GM's unwillingness to railroad and the players' unwillingness to show their own initiative makes for a poor combination. Some people are just not meant to be together.

So the big insight is that the sandbox format is not immune to bad GMing? :rolleyes:

Quote from: Melan;596312[edit]Also, I have found that a GM's unwillingness to railroad and the players' unwillingness to show their own initiative makes for a poor combination. Some people are just not meant to be together.

You are still batting .1000 with your keen observations, my good sir.

Quote from: The Butcher;596315So the big insight is that the sandbox format is not immune to bad GMing? :rolleyes:

Tautological insight is tautological.
(theirs, not yours. :)  )

Quote from: Melan;596312[edit]Also, I have found through personal experience that a GM's unwillingness to railroad and the players' unwillingness to show their own initiative makes for a poor combination. Some people are just not meant to be together.

Over the years, I've read plenty of complaints by GMs who didn't give their players a preset plot only to have the players do nothing or even ask them GM to give them a plot.  Some players want the GM to hand them a story and are quite happy willingly taking a ride on a railroad.  A lot of casual gamers seem to fall into this category.  If they are in a game with one or more active players who make adventures happen, then they don't need the GM to provide them a plot.  If they are all passive casual gamers, then adventure may not happen unless it's dropped into their lap.  

So I would argue that one should only run games that rely on proactive players if one has at least one proactive player in the group.

That's pretty much how my old player-group was. They didn't care about freedom of choice and a living, reactive world and yadda yadda, they just wanted a maximum of cool stuff to happen with minimal effort. Which led me to formulate the maxim that players only complain about railroading when they don't like where the tracks are taking them (when a railroad forces them to lose their stuff, or do some mission they don't want to, or befriend some NPC they don't like, or to listen to some NPC's boring expository monologue, etc.). But as long as they're in interesting locations having interesting encounters and getting interesting rewards, in my experience most players (especially casual ones) don't care if it was a railroad or their own choices that brought them there, and if anything prefer the former since it requires less work and is usually quicker.

Quote from: The Butcher;596315So the big insight is that the sandbox format is not immune to bad GMing? :rolleyes:

Yeah, file it under 'sun rises in east.'

Quote from: John Morrow;596342So I would argue that one should only run games that rely on proactive players if one has at least one proactive player in the group.

I don't mind running a more directed game if the group is looking for that. We can just agree on the "this is the week's adventure, now let's play" model. But there was one particular party of otherwise intelligent and creative people who just refused to budge unless they were hammered on the head with the plot stick. After a while, I got tired of hammering and handed over the reins to a railroadier guy, which was better for all of us since the new GM was ruthless in forcing an adventure to happen, and I assembled my Fomalhaut group, who took to making their own adventures in a fairly open world like a polar bear takes to a bucket of frozen fish.

Quote from: Benoist;596304Sounds to me like gamers trying to justify their own railroading playstyle by building up a strawman where "litterbox" equals "sandbox".

Correct answer.

I think one needs to remember a few things:
Railroading works.
I guess this odd view on sandboxes comes from "railroad" GM's and Players, that feels left behind by a current focus on sandboxes, and feels bad from others looking down on railroading in general.

Summary:
There is bad railroading, like walking through a corridor of interesting doors that one may not open, or even examine.
There is also bad sandboxing, where virtually nothing happens.

As pointed out by several before me: A good game depends on either a fitting approach for a certain kind of group, or on a flexible enough GM/DM/Storyteller/Whatever.

I think its fair to reduce this term to "sandbox done badly", but this is still useful, because the fact is that the reason a lot of people are afraid of sandboxes is because they often ARE done badly.

So being able to explain what's the wrong way to do it, and have a term for that, can help in explaining how to do it right.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;596669So being able to explain what's the wrong way to do it, and have a term for that, can help in explaining how to do it right.

Which is why I like litterbox.

But 'reverse railroading' is just gibberish. I can railroad players in a sandbox as readily as I can in a linear adventure - there is no 'opposite' or 'reverse' of railroading other than not-railroading.

I like "litterbox." It's pretty good and basically means what it says RE: "the sandbox."

Meh, I think any style can be done badly and/or taken to an extreme.

On the positive side the idea of reverse railroading is a cure for the times when the players are like "We'll just wait for the next clue to be dropped in our laps." after the GM has given them enough clues.

On the negative side the GM might have failed to provide enough clues for the players to know where to go,the players literally don't  know what to do next so each side sits there waiting for the other to make a move.

All too often I think people want something clearly defined as "good" or "bad" when in reality there are a lot of shades of grey and qualifications as to most issues.

Railroading is usually bad but if you're running something like a movie where some things are scheduled to happen at certain times (Spectre will detonate the bomb at X o'clock, the players ojly purpose is to stop them.) it can be useful.

This reverse railroading can be good in some cases, bad in others. At best it gives the players a chance to think up some things the GM may not have.

I don't think "litterbox" as a term actually describes anything.  It doesn't immediately imagine anything other than "a sandbox full of shit". It certainly doesn't express a "sandbox where nothing happens".

RPGPundit

Quote from: Benoist;596692I like "litterbox." It's pretty good and basically means what it says RE: "the sandbox."

Exactly.  Standard sandbox, but the owner is a lazy good-for-nothing, so now it has clumps of shit all over it.

I've delt with the group that is waiting for direction. I usually sove this problem with a shipwreck or a fuckover. Which leads to "We need to find a way back to civilization and we're completely lost," or "We need to find that fucker and get REVENGE!"

Anyway i usually start the characters off with a short something to do. By the time it's done they usually have their own ideas.

Quote from: Gib;597186I've delt with the group that is waiting for direction. I usually sove this problem with a shipwreck or a fuckover. Which leads to "We need to find a way back to civilization and we're completely lost," or "We need to find that fucker and get REVENGE!"

Anyway i usually start the characters off with a short something to do. By the time it's done they usually have their own ideas.

Was it Raymond Chandler who suggested having men with guns kick down the door and start shooting when the plot stalls?

What's good writing advice isn't always good GMing advice, but in this particular instance, I think it works for both. I've used it every now and then in investigative games.

Some of this can happen because a GM puts one vital clue in a place that has to be found, but, for whatever reason the PCs don't find it. Maybe they failed a spot hidden roll or the clue simply was not as clear as the GM thought it was, his riddle had another perfectly good interpretation, etc.

Quote from: red lantern;597263Some of this can happen because a GM puts one vital clue in a place that has to be found, but, for whatever reason the PCs don't find it. Maybe they failed a spot hidden roll or the clue simply was not as clear as the GM thought it was, his riddle had another perfectly good interpretation, etc.

I've seen GMs who weren't flexible at all about this and got incredibly frustrated when players just couldn't figure it out. A good GM will ask himself if maybe his descriptions weren't all that clear or if the players aren't finding the game interesting enough to pay attention. I've had a few, though, who always blamed the players for being too stupid or too disengaged.

Quote from: Laurel;597265I've seen GMs who weren't flexible at all about this and got incredibly frustrated when players just couldn't figure it out. A good GM will ask himself if maybe his descriptions weren't all that clear or if the players aren't finding the game interesting enough to pay attention. I've had a few, though, who always blamed the players for being too stupid or too disengaged.

Some GMs have the "Frank Gorshin syndrome". I.E. they create these oh so clever and convoluted riddles that people are supposed to get without realizing maybe most people haven't seen the same episodes of the same shows they have or read the same books or interpreted things the same way.

The sandbox is all about choice, and choices need consequences.  It's imperative that the game master advance the actions in the larger sandbox in order for the setting to have integrity; it's the concept of opportunity costs - what do you lose by picking something else?  Example: the party hears about two potential plot hooks in town, taking care of some bandit raiders or looting a recently discovered ruin.  If they choose the ruins, perhaps the bandit problem gets worse; if they go track the bandits, perhaps other adventurers find the ruins first.  Either way, the road not taken doesn't 'go into stasis' like some Schrodinger's cat.

I don't know that I like the term litter box for this static sandbox, there's got to be something better than that...

A technique I highly recommend is to have a good campaign calendar, extending out into the future, in which the DM can map various events that have the potential to happen if the PC's don't take action.  1E Oriental Adventures has some great charts on generating domain-level events in advance, as does the BECMI companion set (might be in the Rules Cyclopedia, too).  That way the setting isn't a closed box waiting to see if the cat is alive or not.

Even on the micro-level, this is a good technique for your site-based adventures - making changes to the environment in between player incursions to create that appearance the inhabitants are reacting to the player incursions.

Quote from: red lantern;597263Some of this can happen because a GM puts one vital clue in a place that has to be found, but, for whatever reason the PCs don't find it. Maybe they failed a spot hidden roll or the clue simply was not as clear as the GM thought it was, his riddle had another perfectly good interpretation, etc.

Epic fail gming!

1) Fails to realize his single clue/riddle might make no sense at all to the players.

2) Fails to realize adventures should not depend on a single clue that it is possible to miss or not figure out.

3) Fails to adjust when the game screeches to a halt.

4) Profit!

Quote from: RPGPundit;597123"sandbox where nothing happens".

Sandless Box.

Like a sandbox, but empty

Quote from: Beedo;597585The sandbox is all about choice, and choices need consequences.  It's imperative that the game master advance the actions in the larger sandbox in order for the setting to have integrity; it's the concept of opportunity costs - what do you lose by picking something else?  Example: the party hears about two potential plot hooks in town, taking care of some bandit raiders or looting a recently discovered ruin.  If they choose the ruins, perhaps the bandit problem gets worse; if they go track the bandits, perhaps other adventurers find the ruins first.  Either way, the road not taken doesn't 'go into stasis' like some Schrodinger's cat.

I don't know that I like the term litter box for this static sandbox, there's got to be something better than that...

A technique I highly recommend is to have a good campaign calendar, extending out into the future, in which the DM can map various events that have the potential to happen if the PC's don't take action.  1E Oriental Adventures has some great charts on generating domain-level events in advance, as does the BECMI companion set (might be in the Rules Cyclopedia, too).  That way the setting isn't a closed box waiting to see if the cat is alive or not.

Even on the micro-level, this is a good technique for your site-based adventures - making changes to the environment in between player incursions to create that appearance the inhabitants are reacting to the player incursions.

Apocalypse World has nice tools for tracking this, by the way of some "clocks" that go "ticking" (and triggering events progressively) according to factions agendas and players actions in play.

And besides these tools, it also has great advice for sandbox play (since it is its default mode of play). Really worth a look for those who like this playstyle.

Quote from: Beedo;597585Either way, the road not taken doesn't 'go into stasis' like some Schrodinger's cat.

It's a big pet peeve of mine how frequently people misuse Schrodinger's Cat.

(http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20120218.gif)

Quote from: red lantern;597263Some of this can happen because a GM puts one vital clue in a place that has to be found, but, for whatever reason the PCs don't find it. Maybe they failed a spot hidden roll or the clue simply was not as clear as the GM thought it was, his riddle had another perfectly good interpretation, etc.

We did that once. GM had a dungeon that was almost entirely traps. We failed perception rolls (Hero system) at least 20 or 30 times to find the mechanism to open the dungeon. (It wasn't particularly well hidden. I've never seen to many high rolls on a 3d6 bell curve, in a row.) GM is question is . . . stubborn about how things should be done.

We finally solved it using our one magic item, a rod that would "burn a hole through anything." See, we knew where the cap stone to the dungeon was, we just couldn't figure out how to open it. So we burned a hole in it, dropped a 30 tree in to the hole, and levered the cap stop out of the ground. Which, coincidentally, deactivated every trap in the place. After several hours of sitting around blowing die rolls, GM just said,  "You walk in and grab the (whateve we were supposed to get) and leave."

That is one of two times I have ever seen a gamemaster with his mouth literally hanging open in shock (as we decribed the plan).

Quote from: Justin Alexander;596057This seems like a legitimate concern and something that might actually happen in play.

The RPGNet discussion is defining it as "forcing your players to make a decision". Which is a pretty stupid definition and will never happen in actual play. It gets even dumber when they claim that it's as bad as actual railroading because you're "forcing your players to do something".

It's like claiming that refusing to spoon-feed a grown adult is as bad as locking that grown adult in a room and refusing to give them any food.

In either case, I don't find the term "reverse railroading" to be particularly descriptive of the behavior being described. The opposite of railroading is not railroading.

I think it comes down to Players having issues and/or timid DMs

I've seen players do this.  Usually it happens after the Dm had a lethal campaign/adventure that pissed a couple players off.  So the next go around the players refuse to engage the setting the DM is providing.

It also happens when players cannot decide on a course of action.  Their characters have their own agendas(no comprising) the players cannot let go of and the DM is to timid to call them on it.

I've seen DM get so flustered about 'railroading' and/or 'player choice' that they refuse to give direction/hints/ guidance in fear of being 'That Guy'.

If players cannot take a hint, I start laying tracks. Loads of tracks. Discreetly, if I can, with the equivalent of Idea rolls, if I suck. Half the time the problem indeed has been that I've been terribly obscure, and the other half tends to be either one of the following: the interesting tidbit of information was completely ignored for whatever reason, or forgotten because it was two sessions ago and the previous one was all about spending money or chasing red herrings and nobody wrote notes...

I try to run sandbox-style games, but that somehow works only rarely. My players end up being clueless and indecisive, apparently they have too many options, or I'm not providing enough of them. Fortunately iit is usually easy enough to get things moving by having armed goons crash through the door.

My players end up being clueless and indecisive, apparently they have too many options, or I'm not providing enough of them.

I have seen the majority of sandboxes fall apart because of this.

It is why I don't run 'true sandboxes'.  I think a true sandbox only works when;
1.  The group are long time gaming buddies.
2.  The group doesn't know each other from Adam.

Quote from: Sommerjon;5979801.  The group are long time gaming buddies.

This is us (over two decades with the same guys now) but still this keeps cropping up. I suspect the fault lies with me... Anyhow, I end up doing boxes filled with fake sand.

ED: probably the box is fake too.

Quote from: Sandepande;597988This is us (over two decades with the same guys now) but still this keeps cropping up. I suspect the fault lies with me... Anyhow, I end up doing boxes filled with fake sand.

ED: probably the box is fake too.

Or they know you will "If players cannot take a hint, I start laying tracks. Loads of tracks. Discreetly, if I can, with the equivalent of Idea rolls, if I suck."
They may just be waiting for the rails?  No idea, but that is also a side effect of LTGB.  
Like you most likely know what can set one of them off, perhaps one doesn't like funny accents, so in order to get a reaction you use a funny accent with one of the NPCs, etc.

Quote from: Sommerjon;597980It is why I don't run 'true sandboxes'.  I think a true sandbox only works when;
1.  The group are long time gaming buddies.
2.  The group doesn't know each other from Adam.

I don't think anyone on this thread defined a "true sandbox" as a box where there isn't any hint about anything or there can't possibly be hooks to situations the PCs might care about. That definition of a "true sandbox" seems to be a thing coming from people who actually have some imaginary issues with sandboxes and therefore hate them, or build a strawman around that imaginary idea, rather than something actual sandboxers talk about or promote in any way, shape or form.

That said, an actual sandbox is defined around the notion of choice. So that means that, though you totally can throw hints and hooks and situations at the PCs, ultimately it's for them to make choices as to what they want to interact and deal with, rather than just throw one single plug or "a set of tracks" at the PCs' feet with the assumption they HAVE to get on the tchoo tchoo train otherwise the pre-planned, predetermined "story line" of the game couldn't proceed.

There's a happy medium for sandboxes to actually work well: throw too many events or situations at the players and they'll be indecisive, unsure of what to care about because there are too many choices that look all equal in front of them; throw too few or no situation at the players at all, and they won't know what to do because nothing's truly going on in your sandbox and therefore, nothing to really care about in the first place. If there's such a thing as a "true sandbox", it's an actual functioning sandbox in my mind, and the amount or nature of the choices it provides to the players actually lies somewhere between those two extremes.

Well said; life is short, gaming time is shorter, a DM that recapitulates past plot hooks to help focus the players is facilitating the game, not rail roading.  My players have busy lives, and don't hang on my every word (much to their loss).  So starting a game session with, "after last week, some of the options you discussed include going back to the mist dungeon searching for the missing robot parts; following up on the clue left by the evil elves on the treasure map; setting off to the lonely spire, now that you have a passkey to get you in the place; or bush whacking across the surface ruins to find an alternate dungeon entrance".

Facilitating the options but putting it on the players to decide and plan is part and parcel of running a good sandbox game.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598002Or they know you will "If players cannot take a hint, I start laying tracks. Loads of tracks. Discreetly, if I can, with the equivalent of Idea rolls, if I suck."
They may just be waiting for the rails?  No idea, but that is also a side effect of LTGB.  
Like you most likely know what can set one of them off, perhaps one doesn't like funny accents, so in order to get a reaction you use a funny accent with one of the NPCs, etc.

You're probably right, actually. Makes perfect sense.

I have no trouble getting their attention if I want, the problem is that I end up having to do it all too often. Because, like you said, they're waiting for the train to arrive...

Quote from: Benoist;598015I don't think anyone on this thread defined a "true sandbox" as a box where there isn't any hint about anything or there can't possibly be hooks to situations the PCs might care about. That definition of a "true sandbox" seems to be a thing coming from people who actually have some imaginary issues with sandboxes and therefore hate them, or build a strawman around that imaginary idea, rather than something actual sandboxers talk about or promote in any way, shape or form.

That said, an actual sandbox is defined around the notion of choice. So that means that, though you totally can throw hints and hooks and situations at the PCs, ultimately it's for them to make choices as to what they want to interact and deal with, rather than just throw one single plug or "a set of tracks" at the PCs' feet with the assumption they HAVE to get on the tchoo tchoo train otherwise the pre-planned, predetermined "story line" of the game couldn't proceed.

There's a happy medium for sandboxes to actually work well: throw too many events or situations at the players and they'll be indecisive, unsure of what to care about because there are too many choices that look all equal in front of them; throw too few or no situation at the players at all, and they won't know what to do because nothing's truly going on in your sandbox and therefore, nothing to really care about in the first place. If there's such a thing as a "true sandbox", it's an actual functioning sandbox in my mind, and the amount or nature of the choices it provides to the players actually lies somewhere between those two extremes.

I realized long ago I don't give a fuck about railroads or sandboxes.  I will use every technique available to keep my players engaged.  

The problem with sandboxes is for every hints and hooks and situations one person perceives as choice another screams "RAILROADING MUTHERFUCKER!".

Quote from: Sommerjon;598047The problem with sandboxes is for every hints and hooks and situations one person perceives as choice another screams "RAILROADING MUTHERFUCKER!".

And that fills my RPGsite bucket o' stupid to overflowing.

Time to take a break from the inanity.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598047The problem with sandboxes is for every hints and hooks and situations one person perceives as choice another screams "RAILROADING MUTHERFUCKER!".

I think if you are free to ignore it, go another direction, or address it in any number of possible ways, then it isn't railroading even if some players choose to see it as such.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;598051And that fills my RPGsite bucket o' stupid to overflowing.

Time to take a break from the inanity.

Then I would love for you to come to my neck of the woods and meet a guy named Randy

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;598053I think if you are free to ignore it, go another direction, or address it in any number of possible ways, then it isn't railroading even if some players choose to see it as such.

And that will always be the problem with Railboxes & Sandroads.  Each person will choose to see what they want to see.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598056And that will always be the problem with Railboxes & Sandroads.  Each person will choose to see what they want to see.

Nice excluded-middle, dude. One moment sandboxes are these horrible aimless places where there's nothing to do and nowhere to go, players don't know what to do and "you gotta have the railroad for these folks who need it, man," and the next there's "really" no difference between a sandbox and a railroad because "that's all the same, so, there's really no such thing as a sandbox."

You are trying WAY too hard, grasshopper. Your mental gymnastics are showing.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598056Then I would love for you to come to my neck of the woods and meet a guy named Randy

And that will always be the problem with Railboxes & Sandroads.  Each person will choose to see what they want to see.

Again, if the GM isnt actually railroading then it isnt a railroad. Railroads can crop up in any style campaign, but my point is if the GM is letting the pcs do what they want and approach the situation how they want, it doesnt seem like a railroad.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;598069Again, if the GM isnt actually railroading then it isnt a railroad. Railroads can crop up in any style campaign, but my point is if the GM is letting the pcs do what they want and approach the situation how they want, it doesnt seem like a railroad.

And my point is people will perceive what they want to perceive.

Quote from: Benoist;598060Nice excluded-middle, dude. One moment sandboxes are these horrible aimless places where there's nothing to do and nowhere to go, players don't know what to do and "you gotta have the railroad for these folks who need it, man," and the next there's "really" no difference between a sandbox and a railroad because "that's all the same, so, there's really no such thing as a sandbox."

You are trying WAY too hard, grasshopper. Your mental gymnastics are showing.

Of course I exclude that huge middle.   Railboxes and sandroads are the edge cases.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598093And my point is people will perceive what they want to perceive.

There are people who perceive the world to be flat. That doesn't mean that the world is flat.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;598159There are people who perceive the world to be flat. That doesn't mean that the world is flat.

And the fact that the world isn't flat doesn't keep some people from believing it is. If people who don't like railroading think you're railroading, it doesn't matter at all whether you agree.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598094Of course I exclude that huge middle.   Railboxes and sandroads are the edge cases.

More mental gymnastics.

Look. You might not be aware of this so I'll give you a tip: these things you are posting right now? They don't disappear when you make a new post on the thread later on. Everyone can see the way you've just tried to reframe the argument twice in a row.

That basically shows that you don't have an actual point, and are just engaging in it rhetorically.

You're not very good at this so... I thought I would let you know.

Good luck with that.

Y'know, words, like facts, mean something. The rest is disingenuous sophistry. Or as I called this 'example' earlier in this topic, "contrived."

The topic had no question here about the migration of meaning, just a malcontent from RPG.net trying to fabricate a "gotcha" pulled from their ass.

Now, go ahead and continue to play games...
When you're tired of trying to defend the contortions of the self-deluded and ready to rejoin the real world we'll still be waiting here. ;)

Quote from: Benoist;598237More mental gymnastics.

Look. You might not be aware of this so I'll give you a tip: these things you are posting right now? They don't disappear when you make a new post on the thread later on. Everyone can see the way you've just tried to reframe the argument twice in a row.

That basically shows that you don't have an actual point, and are just engaging in it rhetorically.

You're not very good at this so... I thought I would let you know.

Good luck with that.

You quote part of a post of mine to toot your own opinion, then when I respond to your toot, you get to accuse me of 'reframing the argument'?

Quote from: taustin;598167And the fact that the world isn't flat doesn't keep some people from believing it is.

We have a word for those people: "wrong". We are not required to compensate for them. We can attempt to educate them, or we can avoid them, but the problem is squarely theirs, nor ours.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598476You quote part of a post of mine to toot your own opinion, then when I respond to your toot, you get to accuse me of 'reframing the argument'?

Pure rhetoric again. No substance.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;598554We have a word for those people: "wrong". We are not required to compensate for them. We can attempt to educate them, or we can avoid them, but the problem is squarely theirs, nor ours.

And they're not required to participate in your game. If you don't care about that, then you should't invite them in the first place. If you do, you need to take in to account what they expect, or you'll fail.

I guess the bottom line is, if you act like an asshole, people will treat you like an asshole. And it's an entirely two way street.

Quote from: taustin;598637And they're not required to participate in your game. If you don't care about that, then you should't invite them in the first place. If you do, you need to take in to account what they expect, or you'll fail.

I guess the bottom line is, if you act like an asshole, people will treat you like an asshole. And it's an entirely two way street.

If someone comes to my game and acts like an asshole then I'll treat them as one, like you say. I won't kowtow to their assholish refusal to face facts.

I wouldn't invite someone like that, if I knew they were like that. I have better things to do than play with dickheads who will never admit when they are wrong.

Quote from: Benoist;598583Pure rhetoric again. No substance.

You quote part of a post of mine to toot your own opinion, then when I respond to your toot, you get to accuse me of 'reframing the argument'?

Quote from: Doctor Jest;598639If someone comes to my game and acts like an asshole then I'll treat them as one, like you say.

And if someone comes to your game and acts like an asshole, they'll treat you as one, too.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;598639I won't kowtow to their assholish refusal to face facts.

Like the fact that they're not enjoying your game and you don't care?

Quote from: Doctor Jest;598639I wouldn't invite someone like that, if I knew they were like that.

And they wouldn't expect, if they knew you were like that.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;598639I have better things to do than play with dickheads who will never admit when they are wrong.

As do our hypothetical players.

I'm getting the impression that interpersonal skills and maturity are rather less common here than in the general population.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598681You quote part of a post of mine to toot your own opinion, then when I respond to your toot, you get to accuse me of 'reframing the argument'?

Pure rhetoric. No substance. And no imagination.

Quote from: Benoist;598735Pure rhetoric. No substance. And no imagination.

You quote part of a post of mine to toot your own opinion, then when I respond to your toot, you get to accuse me of 'reframing the argument'?

Ad nauseam. Et bis repetita.

Quote from: Benoist;598762Ad nauseam. Et bis repetita.

You be the one doing the accusin, so show me.

Post 1

Quote from: Sommerjon;597905I think it comes down to Players having issues and/or timid DMs

I've seen players do this.  Usually it happens after the Dm had a lethal campaign/adventure that pissed a couple players off.  So the next go around the players refuse to engage the setting the DM is providing.

It also happens when players cannot decide on a course of action.  Their characters have their own agendas(no comprising) the players cannot let go of and the DM is to timid to call them on it.

I've seen DM get so flustered about 'railroading' and/or 'player choice' that they refuse to give direction/hints/ guidance in fear of being 'That Guy'.

Post 2

Quote from: Sommerjon;597980My players end up being clueless and indecisive, apparently they have too many options, or I'm not providing enough of them.

I have seen the majority of sandboxes fall apart because of this.

It is why I don't run 'true sandboxes'.  I think a true sandbox only works when;
1.  The group are long time gaming buddies.
2.  The group doesn't know each other from Adam.

Post 3

Quote from: Sommerjon;598002Or they know you will "If players cannot take a hint, I start laying tracks. Loads of tracks. Discreetly, if I can, with the equivalent of Idea rolls, if I suck."
They may just be waiting for the rails?  No idea, but that is also a side effect of LTGB.  
Like you most likely know what can set one of them off, perhaps one doesn't like funny accents, so in order to get a reaction you use a funny accent with one of the NPCs, etc.

Post 4

Quote from: Sommerjon;598047I realized long ago I don't give a fuck about railroads or sandboxes.  I will use every technique available to keep my players engaged.  

The problem with sandboxes is for every hints and hooks and situations one person perceives as choice another screams "RAILROADING MUTHERFUCKER!".

Post 5

Quote from: Sommerjon;598056Then I would love for you to come to my neck of the woods and meet a guy named Randy

And that will always be the problem with Railboxes & Sandroads.  Each person will choose to see what they want to see.

Then you come up with this gem

Quote from: Benoist;598060Nice excluded-middle, dude. One moment sandboxes are these horrible aimless places where there's nothing to do and nowhere to go, players don't know what to do and "you gotta have the railroad for these folks who need it, man," and the next there's "really" no difference between a sandbox and a railroad because "that's all the same, so, there's really no such thing as a sandbox."

You are trying WAY too hard, grasshopper. Your mental gymnastics are showing.

And you are accusing me of the mental gymnastics?
Care to show me from my posts where I said anything about "One moment sandboxes are these horrible aimless places where there's nothing to do and nowhere to go, players don't know what to do and "you gotta have the railroad for these folks who need it, man," and the next there's "really" no difference between a sandbox and a railroad because "that's all the same, so, there's really no such thing as a sandbox.""

Hm.. nah, I don't care to. People can just rewind the thread and check out how you fucked it up with inane rhetorical bullshit for themselves.

Quote from: Benoist;598767Hm.. nah, I don't care to. People can just rewind the thread and check out how you fucked it up with inane rhetorical bullshit for themselves.

And that's why you're an asshole.  You come in just to stir the pot.  That's alright I listed every post of mine in here, let them read it for themselves. We knows you never back up your bullshit.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598774And that's why you're an asshole.  You come in just to stir the pot.

Pot. Kettle. Black. ;)

Quote from: Sommerjon;598766You be the one doing the accusin, so show me.

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Then you come up with this gemAnd you are accusing me of the mental gymnastics?
Care to show me from my posts where I said anything about "One moment sandboxes are these horrible aimless places where there's nothing to do and nowhere to go, players don't know what to do and "you gotta have the railroad for these folks who need it, man," and the next there's "really" no difference between a sandbox and a railroad because "that's all the same, so, there's really no such thing as a sandbox.""

I appreciate you gathering all your quotes on why you believe extreme sandboxes fail, but they all are attributed to shitty DMing.  (Apparently quotes don't nest...)

Although I suppose there might be players out there that would admit to "I don't like to make decisions, choices, or plans; I just want the GM to entertain me."  That would make the DM's job harder; part of a DM's job is teaching - rules, and how to actually play.

Does anyone seriously have those kinds of players?

Quote from: Beedo;598814I appreciate you gathering all your quotes on why you believe extreme sandboxes fail, but they all are attributed to shitty DMing.  (Apparently quotes don't nest...)

Why are they all attributed to shitty DMing?

Quote from: Beedo;598814Although I suppose there might be players out there that would admit to "I don't like to make decisions, choices, or plans; I just want the GM to entertain me."  That would make the DM's job harder; part of a DM's job is teaching - rules, and how to actually play.

Does anyone seriously have those kinds of players?

Yes.  I know a lot of people who don't have enough time or desire to get all up into a setting.  They are perfectly content to show for 5 hours and react to what is going on that week.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598832Why are they all attributed to shitty DMing?


Yes.  I know a lot of people who don't have enough time or desire to get all up into a setting.  They are perfectly content to show for 5 hours and react to what is going on that week.

As a player, I get very immersed when sitting at the table.

I don't generally think about the game between sessions.

Well, I do sometimes think about the cool stuff that happened in the game, but I don't plan what my character might do in between game sessions.

Running a railroad campaign is going to succeed or fail based on the writing, the sandbox is going to succeed or fail based on the DM's presenation at the table.  It requires clear information,transparency, frequent recapitulation, and even a bit of training of the players on their responsibilities.

Lethal campaigns or adventures piss off the players

Sandbox transparency requires the DM to provide sufficient information so that the players can make informed decisions about risk vs reward.  That's the essence of a good sandbox.  Death isn't the fault of the campaign model - it's either shitty DMing or a natural consequence of bad play.

DM is Timid - Either Doesn't Push a Decision or Provide Directions

People without social skills shouldn't be Dungeon Masters, and that means ground rules and frank (social) discussions about what the game is about.  All this ivory tower discussion seems to miss the point that most in-game problems need to be cleared up out-of-game with a 5 minute human to human discussion.

"Look fellas, this campaign is a bit of a railroad, because it involves a scripted adventure path, but as long as you understand that and follow the basic storyline, you'll have plenty of opportunities for decision making and agency; it's really a great story".

"Look fellas, this campaign is a set up as a sandbox, at any given time there's going to be a handful of interesting things to do, built on last week's session, and you'll need to come to a decision each night on which opportunity you're going to pick".

Both techniques can lead to great game sessions, but laying the ground rules about how the style is going to work is a social problem, not a game problem.  A DM that can't handle social problems shouldn't be a DM, and a player that can't accept the table ground rules shouldn't be invited.

Per Bill's point, in both types of campaigns, there can be problems with player engagement and memory - no one memorizes or remember every detail of what happened last week, or two weeks ago.  It's a good technique to do a game recap and set the stage each week - that's like game master 101 kind of stuff.

This is why I said sandbox (or railroad) problems start with shitty DMing.

Quote from: Sommerjon;598761You quote part of a post of mine to toot your own opinion, then when I respond to your toot, you get to accuse me of 'reframing the argument'?

BI = 3