Quote from: estar;983892That not what he said nor what I said in the post he cited.

It's not what you said, it is what he implied.

Quote from: estar;983892One time I scoured all the past issues of Dragon Magazine (I have the Dragon Magazine Archive on CD) for the use of the word sandbox. I did not find a single instance of it being used to describe a style of tabletop rpg campaign. It was used several times in reference to how roleplaying was like returning to the sandbox of one's childhood. And as alternate term for tabletop roleplaying in general.  In contrast what was being used were terms like open campaign or free-ranging campaign. The Dungeoneer's Survival Guide used open to describe a sandbox style campaign.

Thunder Rift, which was created as a mini campaign setting and very sandbox described it in one entry as wilderness, which was a term a few others used as well for that sort of free ranging style.

Quote from: Crimhthan;983904It's not what you said, it is what he implied.

Not seeing it especially with the video game reference. You need to reread what you quoted more carefully.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;983874The term "sandbox" originates with video games. It was adopted by developers of the 3E Wilderlands boxed set to describe the way that the published (not DIY) Wilderlands campaign could be used in play. (cite)

So: No. You're wrong. That's not what sandbox means.

As usual, very informational. My hat is off to you sir.

Quote from: Crimhthan;983872Nine including myself, two are passed away, three live nearby and three live between 2-6 hours away. That does not seem like powerball odds to me. I don't know how old you are but if you have children and none them play in your game ever as an adult, I am really sorry for you and the same if you have grandchildren. That is very sad.

Norman Rockwell wept.

QuoteOD&D game #3000 will be the 5th, 6th and 7th of September 2008.

I'll leave others to divide the claimed number of session into the time period (1971? - 2008) and then consider for themselves whether or not a hypothetical multi-generational group of disparate families committing to a single recreational activity every 4.5 days, for decades, through all of life's cycles, is even healthy, or characteristic of well-rounded, normal people.  

Remember - this is all pure pristine DIY.  This isn't supposedly a bunch of kids in middle school who can play all weekend and most weekdays.  Starting in the 70s when presumably these friends still had 9-5 jobs and young families (given being in their late 20s-early 30s in a more traditional period), every week nearly without fail they would gather, upwards of days at a time, to play D&D.  And DIY Daithi would create all of it from scratch, drawing on the 51,000 books he's read when he isn't working, sleeping, or rockin' out some DIY D&D.  The kids, and then the grandkids, wanted to invest their free time in this magnificent sandbox campaign.  

"Hey, little Daithi Junior - do you want to go camping this weekend with the rest of the guys in the neighborhood?  It's the trout opener and Billy just got new gear.  I might be able to sneak a six-pack out of the fridge Dad keeps in the garage, and the cheerleaders might sneak away too, know what I'm sayin'?"  

"Nah, my cleric's about to level in Grandpa Daithi Mac Liam's DIY Pure Sandbox (TM) campaign!  I spend part of every weekend there with the rest of my family - some of his friends come every week from 2 states away just to take part!  He's teaching me how to be a true old-schooler, unlike you lightweights that ran Steading of the Hill Giant Chief in the school library last week."

All of the rest of you should feel chastened and accept his words of wisdom while clapping with one hand (the other hand is drawing a DIY map).

Quote from: EOTB;983914I'll leave others to divide the claimed number of session into the time period (1971? - 2008) and then consider for themselves whether or not a hypothetical multi-generational group of disparate families committing to a single recreational activity every 4.5 days, for decades, through all of life's cycles, is even healthy, or characteristic of well-rounded, normal people.  

Remember - this is all pure pristine DIY.  This isn't supposedly a bunch of kids in middle school who can play all weekend and most weekdays.  Starting in the 70s when presumably these friends still had 9-5 jobs and young families (given being in their late 20s-early 30s in a more traditional period), every week nearly without fail they would gather, upwards of days at a time, to play D&D.  And DIY Daithi would create all of it from scratch, drawing on the 51,000 books he's read when he isn't working, sleeping, or rockin' out some DIY D&D.  The kids, and then the grandkids, wanted to invest their free time in this magnificent sandbox campaign...  

Listen and Believe, EOTB!

Quote from: EOTB;983914I'll leave others to divide the claimed number of session into the time period (1971? - 2008) and then consider for themselves whether or not a hypothetical multi-generational group of disparate families committing to a single recreational activity every 4.5 days, for decades, through all of life's cycles, is even healthy, or characteristic of well-rounded, normal people.  

3000 sessions from 1971 to 2008? Well there were 1982 weeks in that period. (six of those years have 53 weeks instead of 52). So that is 1.5 session per week for 38 years.

Quote from: EOTB;983914I'll leave others to divide the claimed number of session into the time period (1971? - 2008) and then consider for themselves whether or not a hypothetical multi-generational group of disparate families committing to a single recreational activity every 4.5 days, for decades, through all of life's cycles, is even healthy, or characteristic of well-rounded, normal people.  

Remember - this is all pure pristine DIY.  This isn't supposedly a bunch of kids in middle school who can play all weekend and most weekdays.  Starting in the 70s when presumably these friends still had 9-5 jobs and young families (given being in their late 20s-early 30s in a more traditional period), every week nearly without fail they would gather, upwards of days at a time, to play D&D.  And DIY Daithi would create all of it from scratch, drawing on the 51,000 books he's read when he isn't working, sleeping, or rockin' out some DIY D&D.  The kids, and then the grandkids, wanted to invest their free time in this magnificent sandbox campaign.  

"Hey, little Daithi Junior - do you want to go camping this weekend with the rest of the guys in the neighborhood?  It's the trout opener and Billy just got new gear.  I might be able to sneak a six-pack out of the fridge Dad keeps in the garage, and the cheerleaders might sneak away too, know what I'm sayin'?"  

"Nah, my cleric's about to level in Grandpa Daithi Mac Liam's DIY Pure Sandbox (TM) campaign!  I spend part of every weekend there with the rest of my family - some of his friends come every week from 2 states away just to take part!  He's teaching me how to be a true old-schooler, unlike you lightweights that ran Steading of the Hill Giant Chief in the school library last week."

All of the rest of you should feel chastened and accept his words of wisdom while clapping with one hand (the other hand is drawing a DIY map).

1. According to you we are crazy people for playing OD&D on a regular basis.
2. You assume that our kids play every game rather that now and then, no where did I ever talk about how much or how often the kids and grandkids play only that they do. Our kids lead as normal lives as any other kids.
3. You said for days at a time - special events a couple times a year and you do you best to make that sound like the crime of the century and you are accusing us of not being mentally healthy, sounds to me like you are the one that is unbalanced. A lot of people do things year round year after year, I have a neighbor that goes running every day before work rain/shine/snow 365 days of the year, that is one example of dozens I could give you.
4. According to you I have friends that come in from out of state every week, when what I said was they come into town a few times a year not every week (the ones 2 hours away more often that the ones 6 hours away - that is what giving a range of times means)  

Thank you so much for writing such an inaccurate post just for the sole purpose of trying to make me look bad. (I think the consensus is that I don't need any help with that :rolleyes:)I and my friends have never forced any family members to play. Our wives are friends and so are our kids, so getting together was an event for every one not just the old men.

I feel badly for you that your life is so empty that you have to slam me and my family in a futile attempt to make yourself feel better.

Quote from: estar;9839223000 sessions from 1971 to 2008? Well there were 1982 weeks in that period. (six of those years have 53 weeks instead of 52). So that is 1.5 session per week for 38 years.

Thank you,

Add to that in 1974 I was 37 and my youngest at that time was 11 years old - no diapers and no getting up in the middle of the night. A few weeks a year we would get in 2-3 games even before we retired and  I did retire at 65 in 2002, at which time we retired guys (the four of us that were local, well for part of that time 6 of us) started playing several times a week. The wives liked having us out of their hair. So the higher average from 2002-2008 raised the average for the preceding years.

Quote from: Crimhthan;983711you can call that original. Using Forgotten Realms Guide, if they told you where they got the inspiration then go back to those and do you own thing. If you want to use a tertiary source like Forgotten Realms and copy it, then don't pretend you are doing something original.
Because  are not game materials written for a game. Anything you do with them will be original. But Forgotten realms material was written for a game, the original sources were already ported into game terms, now you are just copying someone else that already did the fun part.

So I have a serious question about the above...

Does using the OD&D boxed set almost at all preclude your game being a pure sandbox? After all, Men & Magic translates the inspirational source material into character classes, races, and spells. Monsters & Treasure translates the inspirational material into monsters and magic items. And what if your inspiration is LotR which itself was inspired in part by mythology? How far do you have to go to original sources to qualify as DIY for purity? To be absurdist, I would posit that it's impossible to be pure DIY because any myth or fiction we read today was inspired by oral tradition that sadly was not recorded for us to play back today...

Frank

Quote from: Crimhthan;9839251. According to you we are crazy people for playing OD&D on a regular basis.

Well, that goes without saying. Look at what happened to Gronan.

Quote from: Crimhthan;983925I feel badly for you...

Correct grammar is "I feel bad"...unless you mean there is something wrong with your hands or fingers? Maybe from rolling all those funny dice every 4 1/2 days for hours at a time?

Quote from: DavetheLost;983889To me the distinguishing feature of a sandbox game is that the players are free to go where they want and do what.

I strongly suspect that behind the "do what they want" is conditional and that there are a number of implied assumptions about genre and the sort of things player characters in roleplaying games are meant to do. I mean if the players decided that what they really wanted to is run perfectly normal, legit hair salon or an accountancy firm there may come a point this isn't fun anymore for the GM. Most GMs I know don't want to run "The Sims Tabletop".

Likewise, though with a lesser degree of certainty, that the "go where they want" in most really means "go where they want as long as it is together". I expect in most cases that the GM would like the different player characters to interact with each other, ideally travel together or at least be based in the same city. So again the notion that the players are free to go where they want may be a little overstated.

I'm not saying these are likely to happen in practice very often given there is defacto self-selection among roleplayers and accepted gaming conventions and etiquette, such say I very much doubt most sandbox games are truly pure.

I'm just being pedantic because implied assumptions are a pet peeve of mine.

So how much of a pre-made RPG setting can one borrow before the sandbox ceases to be 'pure'? Is there some sort of one-drop rule that applies here?

Quote from: ArrozConLeche;983970So how much of a pre-made RPG setting can one borrow before the sandbox ceases to be 'pure'? Is there some sort of one-drop rule that applies here?

Zero. Only entirely DIY games are pure sandbox. If you even use a rulebook, that's not pure sandbox. And if any players how up and dilute the purity, that's not a real sandbox either. The only pure sandbox games take place entirely within your mind with no outside interference.

Quote from: Crimhthan;983684No I am just making a distinction between good, better and best. If you like mediocre, then that likely explains why you are offended.

    No, I think it's more likely that people are frustrated by the way you keep begging the question--you assume that 100% DIY, "pure sandbox" gaming is better without giving any solid reasons why, aside from a few lines about how a 'truly excellent DM' is one who is able to improvise when the players go 'off the map'.