Ambivalent

One the one hand, I applaud the new players thinking outside the box even if they are "re-discovering" cool things that weren't lost to begin with.

On the other hand, Google?  I mean when you get into a hobby that you know has spawned hundreds of games over decades, how do you never investigate what else is out there?  

It's not like Rome fell and people are now re-learning how to dress stone for Christ's sake.

The fact that you're re-discovering a new technique that was never lost and still in use just points to the fact that you're insular, and despite the greatest collection of information ever known at your fingertips, you don't bother to look at anything outside your immediate "information circle".

Quote from: CRKrueger;774933The fact that you're re-discovering a new technique that was never lost and still in use just points to the fact that you're insular . . .

And that is why I laugh.

It is kinda weird the tabletop definition is so different from the games definition. With pen and paper RPG's it seems to be all about actions and consequences. Who reacts on your actions and how? With computer games it's all about a big open world with a lot of quests.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;775390It is kinda weird the tabletop definition is so different from the games definition. With pen and paper RPG's it seems to be all about actions and consequences. Who reacts on your actions and how? With computer games it's all about a big open world with a lot of quests.

That, I think, is why videogames are still a long way from replacing tabletop for me. I'd say it's 50% this, and 50% the social aspect.

Funny how human brains, despite their limited computing power, limited storage capacity and propensity to all sorts of biases, do such a better world of abstracting so many complex variants and emulating a living, breathing world (mostly, I suppose, by drawing and extrapolating from experience).

Quote from: The Butcher;775391That, I think, is why videogames are still a long way from replacing tabletop for me. I'd say it's 50% this, and 50% the social aspect.

Funny how human brains, despite their limited computing power, limited storage capacity and propensity to all sorts of biases, do such a better world of abstracting so many complex variants and emulating a living, breathing world (mostly, I suppose, by drawing and extrapolating from experience).

Yeah, true. You could make a brilliant social web of Game of Thrones btw. It also explains why I like those books so much more than your run of the mill fantasy.

Btw I think I know why I felt different about the factions in a WoD game than the factions let's say SW Hellfrost or another fantasy RPG. In those last games every organisation has it's own leaders and that's where it stops. In Vampire a city could have a Prince who is Invictus, a Sheriff who is Ordo Dracul and a Senechal who is Carthian. I always had trouble with that aspect of the game. It just doesn't make sense to me. And then I don't even mention the Primogen. So they are all rival organisations, but they still work together? I just can't wrap my head around it. The Rome setting is much more cohesive to me.

Quote from: CRKrueger;774933...
On the other hand, Google?  I mean when you get into a hobby that you know has spawned hundreds of games over decades, how do you never investigate what else is out there?  
...
The fact that you're re-discovering a new technique that was never lost and still in use just points to the fact that you're insular, and despite the greatest collection of information ever known at your fingertips, you don't bother to look at anything outside your immediate "information circle".

What exactly do you think they should have been Google for?

Right now search engines tell you what you look for, but you need to know what you're looking for. There's some work in search engines that tell you what they think you want to / ought to know, but it's early days yet, and it requires that the search engines have a pretty good understanding of who you are and what you're interested in.

It doesn't surprise me that people who haven't been introduced to sandboxes don't stumble across them until non-OSR gaming sites choose to write articles on them.

That's right. People have to know what they are looking for. I think it's good for sites like Gnomestew to write articles like this. This topic isn't about dissing some website for writing something people know already. I was just really wondering what the fishtank is. And I learned a few things again:

• A fishtank is really a sandbox
• It looks like a WoD relationship map, so WoD games are sandbox too
• 50% of sandbox is open world, the other 50% is the social side
• The biggest difference between a WoD setting and a fantasy RPG or maybe Fading Suns is the scale. A WoD sandbox is indeed a fishtank. You are more likely to run into each other than in an ocean like some of those big world fantasy settings.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;775592That's right. People have to know what they are looking for. I think it's good for sites like Gnomestew to write articles like this. This topic isn't about dissing some website for writing something people know already. I was just really wondering what the fishtank is. And I learned a few things again:

• A fishtank is really a sandbox
• It looks like a WoD relationship map, so WoD games are sandbox too
• 50% of sandbox is open world, the other 50% is the social side
• The biggest difference between a WoD setting and a fantasy RPG or maybe Fading Suns is the scale. A WoD sandbox is indeed a fishtank. You are more likely to run into each other than in an ocean like some of those big world fantasy settings.

Sounds right to me.

Fishtank = "City/town-sized sandbox mostly about people (and their goals and actions)"?

Quote from: jan paparazzi;774347But easier to use. You just pick out what you want to play. If you want to fight you join a mercenary league or a knights order. If you are fighting on the battlefield all the time you don't have much business with the scrollhunters who are out there collecting treasury from dungeons

Until the city you are fighting to conquer or protect also happens to have a major scriptorium and library for the scroll hunter faction. And something very much like that happened in my Hellfrost game.

Quote from: The Butcher;775391Funny how human brains, despite their limited computing power, limited storage capacity and propensity to all sorts of biases, do such a better world of abstracting so many complex variants and emulating a living, breathing world (mostly, I suppose, by drawing and extrapolating from experience).

This also only works because that human brain only needs to explain the concepts to other human brains who have a shared frame of reference. And it's not really emulating a living, breathing world. More like emulating an emulation of a living breathing world.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;775694More like emulating an emulation of a living breathing world.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;775592That's right. People have to know what they are looking for. I think it's good for sites like Gnomestew to write articles like this. This topic isn't about dissing some website for writing something people know already. I was just really wondering what the fishtank is.

I agree, it's a good thread.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;775592And I learned a few things again:

• A fishtank is really a sandbox
• It looks like a WoD relationship map, so WoD games are sandbox too
• 50% of sandbox is open world, the other 50% is the social side
• The biggest difference between a WoD setting and a fantasy RPG or maybe Fading Suns is the scale. A WoD sandbox is indeed a fishtank. You are more likely to run into each other than in an ocean like some of those big world fantasy settings.

Funny thing is, when I said #3 I meant the social side of gaming itself, not of the open world, but you know what? If you consider the "open world" to be the distinct elements floating around in the medium that is the setting, and the "social side" to be the interaction between these elements, I think it's a damn fine way to formulaste what I and a few others have been speaking of.

Much like the fish tank was meant by the Gnome Stew writer as a different, and IMO far dumber analogy that you've grasped and refined into something meaningful.

Quote from: The Butcher;775766

The first rule of Inception is, you can't talk about Inception unless you link The Button.

Quote from: jan paparazzi;775592

• A fishtank is really a sandbox
• It looks like a WoD relationship map, so WoD games are sandbox too
• 50% of sandbox is open world, the other 50% is the social side
• The biggest difference between a WoD setting and a fantasy RPG or maybe Fading Suns is the scale. A WoD sandbox is indeed a fishtank. You are more likely to run into each other than in an ocean like some of those big world fantasy settings.

Maybe these would help: A Swashbuckler's Sandbox, Part 4 | The Social Megadungeon | The Social Network.

Quote from: The Butcher;775772I agree, it's a good thread.



Funny thing is, when I said #3 I meant the social side of gaming itself, not of the open world, but you know what? If you consider the "open world" to be the distinct elements floating around in the medium that is the setting, and the "social side" to be the interaction between these elements, I think it's a damn fine way to formulaste what I and a few others have been speaking of.

Much like the fish tank was meant by the Gnome Stew writer as a different, and IMO far dumber analogy that you've grasped and refined into something meaningful.

I figured the open world are the places you can visit. In case of a modern city that means districts and/ or neighbourhoods and of course buildings.
With the social side I meant the NPC's, their goals and their relations. And optionally different factions with also goals and relations.