Sandbox Objectivity

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That signature is only temporary I hope.
 
Black Vulmea said:
Timeout for a Merle Oberon appreciation break. :heart:

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Okay, let the bickering, cheap shots, and snide asides resume. :tongue:
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I'll see your Merle Oberon, and raise you some Mary Eaton...

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After thinking over the last few threads I'd probably say my default preferred game would be a living world sandbox with no narrative mechanics, but one where the PCs are bit "more" than the average person, i.e. I'd prefer a Wuxia sandbox where we're (initially weak) chi-manipulators over say a Wild west game where I'm "just another guy".

I think the alterations to "just another guy" or the introduction of narrative mechanics would both rank a roughly equal second place provided the narrative mechanics are not too heavy.

Funnily, related to something robertsconley discussed in another thread, I dislike games where the PCs have in-fiction world editing abilities more than when something similar is being covered by a narrative mechanic. For example I'm not too fond of Mages in Mage: The Awakening retconning reality with a spell, but I'm fine with BitD's flashback stuff.

Of course this is all just default. I'd eat glass to play a "just another guy" sandbox set in the Golden Age of Piracy and I love Storybrewers' stuff like Jane Austen just because of the genre.

Anyway just saying this because since there's been a bit of contention I wanted to say these threads are useful to those on the sidelines to get a clearer idea of what we like. You often learn your own tastes are a bit confused and contradictory, but you can organise them a bit better.
 
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CRKrueger said:
So...you agree, disagree, or ignoring the Flashback argument?
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Voros said:
Isn't the classic rumour table a series of 'plot hooks'?

Although I realize the term 'plot' gives some the vapors.
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About a decade ago I made the conscious decision to ditch "plot hook" and go with "scenario hook." Seems to get rid of the baggage without causing any confusion. (I think this thread is actually the first time I've EVER seen someone claim that the concept of the Caverns of Chaos and the Temple of Elemental Evil being different scenarios was too "artificial" for their purity test.)

But also: Yes.
 
Voros said:
Isn't the classic rumour table a series of 'plot hooks'?
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Examples I gave in the plot hooks thread.


TJS said:
"I hit the town what do I find out?"

- Bandits are plaguing the road north - there's a bounty on the leader's head.
- Some miners are talking about how they dug a shaft to the north and broke into an underground crypt of some sort. As soon as they saw some of the skeletons get up and start moving they high tailed it back to town.
- A merchant's daughter has run off - apparently he's offering a big reward for anyone who can bring her back to town.
- recently there has been activity around the abandoned watch tower to the north. Travellers are reporting seeing flying monkeys of all things in the area.
- There's a rich alchemist who will pay money for any living exotic creature you can bring him.
There's a stranger in town asking lots of questions about a mysterious sorcerer with a blue crescent tattoo he's apparently looking for.

This is generally what people mean by 'plot hooks' in the context of a sandbox.

They're plots to the extent that they are things you can do- an excuse to get moving. They also serve double duty as the presentation of the situation in the local area. They may be connected - it may turn out the merchant's daughter ran off with one of the bandits - and you can of course try and capture a winged moneky and sell it to the alchemist. But they also know that any other fantastic creature they run across might be worth subduing and attempting to transport.

The fact that they are multiple and the fact that they are optional is absolutely key. The abandoned watch tower may be filled by a necromancer who is well beyond the party's ability to handle. That mere fact wouldn't be possible in a single hook plot situation. The party would know they are supposed to explore the tower because it's the hook the gm gave them and if the GM made it too hard they would just look like a dick. But in this case they don't know that, therefore they don't know if they can handle him.

Likewise if they find the bandits and decide they are too well-fortified and difficult to get to they can just go and do something else, or they can make allies of the bandits.

It's also key that, as none of the plots are 'the plot', the party are free to explore. If they come across an interesting looking path to a castle on a crag on the way to something else they might just go and explore that.
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Séadna said:
After thinking over the last few threads I'd probably say my default preferred game would be a living world sandbox with no narrative mechanics, but one where the PCs are bit "more" than the average person, i.e. I'd prefer a Wuxia sandbox where we're (initially weak) chi-manipulators over say a Wild west game where I'm "just another guy".

I think the alterations to "just another guy" or the introduction of narrative mechanics would both rank a roughly equal second place provided the narrative mechanics are not too heavy.

Funnily, related to something robertsconley discussed in another thread, I dislike games where the PCs have in-fiction world editing abilities more than when something similar is being covered by a narrative mechanic. For example I'm not too fond of Mages in Mage: The Awakening retconning reality with a spell, but I'm fine with BitD's flashback stuff.

Of course this is all just default. I'd eat glass to play a "just another guy" sandbox set in the Golden Age of Piracy and I love Storybrewers' stuff like Jane Austen just because of the genre.

Anyway just saying this because since there's been a bit of contention I wanted to say these threads are useful to those on the sidelines to get a clearer idea of what we like. You often learn your own tastes are a bit confused and contradictory, but you can organise them a bit better.
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Well, once you have understood them, they're no longer confused...:thumbsup:
And contradictory? I prefer "varied"*, thank you very much:shade:!


*Said the guy whose favourite games are Traveller, Mythras, CoC and Exalted:grin:!
 
Justin Alexander said:
I know how frustrating you find it when people refuse to engage your disingenuous, threadcrapping bullshit.

And I want you to know how happy that makes me.
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You specifically asked me "honestly" what I meant by elements of BitD not allowing Sandbox play.
I replied to you, noting that I specifically said, "Living World" and then told you exactly how Flashbacks defeated the point of the Living World.
You said you were talking about Tools, not Flashbacks and ignored the rest of the post.
Then I told you how exactly how Tools defeated the point of the Living World.

For some reason, you don't actually want to know what I meant, so you dodge, then claim I'm threadcrapping when I'm specifically detailing the points you called me out to talk about.

If you don't want an answer, maybe don't call someone out to give one.

All the disingenuous crap, as usual, is coming from you. Do you actually think anyone here is fooled? Seriously?

BTW, thanks to admitting I live rent free in your head for you to specifically call me out then not reply because you think it frustrates me. I didn't know you cared so much to actually admit to trolling.
 
TristramEvans said:
That's why pack animals exist. But that's a whole host of other issues the PCs have to deal with - feeding, care, the animal refusing to enter dungeons or caves, or running off in a panic if any threatening reatures show up, etc


HROSES (D12 roll)

1. HEY MAN NOT TO BAD! THE HORSE STOPS FOR ONE ROUND TO THINK THING OVER BUT YOU GET CONTROLAG AIN NEXT ROUND.

2. HORES SAYS “FUCK THIS’ AND TRIES TO TOSS YOU LIKE A SALAD- SAVE VERS. DRAGON BREATH OR TAKE 1D6 DAMAGE AND LAND ON YOUR ASS.

3. DON’T BOTHER SAVE THIS TIME– YOU ALREADY FALL OFF!! TAKE 3D4 DAMAGE BECAUSE HE TRAMPLED YOU AND GOOD LUCK CATCHING HIM.

4. THE HORSE DOES NOT LIKE WHAT IS SEE AND A TURNAROUND IS NOW. GO REVERSE DIRECTION FULL SPEED FOR 4D4 ROUNDS.

5. CRAZY HORSE IS A BLOODTHRISRTY PRICK!!!!!!!!!!!! NEXT FIGHT HE CHARGE RIGHT IN AGAINST THE TOUGHEST ENEMY………HOPE YOU CAN HACK IT, HOTSHOT!

6. NEXT TIME YOU TAKE A BRAKE THE HORSE SPLITS TOWN IN THE MIDDEL OF NIGHT. THEN HE SPREADS WORD TO ALL THE HORSES OF THE WORLD – YOU ARE A SHITTY MASTER. NOW NO HORSE WILL SUBMIT TO A RIDE OF YOU…….HOPE YOU LIKE LONG WALKS1.

7. ROUGH RIDE MEANS YOU DROP YOUR COOLEST TOY – VORPAL SWORD, MAGIC 8BALL, FIREBALL WAND, THE DM DESIDES. BETTER GO PICK IT UP QUICK!!!1

8. THE MOST EMBARESSING…….A BATHROOM BRAKE!! YOUR HORSE TAKES A BIG DUMP AND YOU HAVE TO SIT THEIR AND WAIT. ALL YOUR HIRELINKS LAUGH AND THEY TAKE -1 MORAL FOR THE REST OF DAY BECAUE SITTING ON THE POOP HORSE IS NOT A LEADER?!?!?

9. YOUR HORSE PULLS A HAMMY, MOVE IS HALF AND IF YOU BEAT HIM WITH THE FASTER-STICK ROLL AGAIN THREE TIMES AND DO ALL 3 THINGS RESULTS

10. THIS HORSE IS POPULAR AND THE OTHERH ORSES LOOK FOR INSPIRATION. ROLL AGAIN TO FIND WHAT HE DOES, AND THEN ALL THE OTHER HORSES IN SIGHT DO A SAME THING.

11. OH SHIT THATS NOT A HORSE ITSA DOPPLEGANGLER! FIGHT!!!!

12. HORSE EXPLOSDES, TAKE 6D6 DAMAGE AND SAFE VS. DRAGON BREATH OR YOU ON FIRE FOR 1D6 EACH ROUND UNTIL STOP-DROP-AND-ROLL. NOW YOU NEED A NEW HORSE, PARD-NER!
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I once ran a game where the was a rival party of adventures. The NPC party beat them to a dungeon and was waiting inside to ambush them. They left their horses outside with some hirelings, so the party decided to skip the dungeon, threatened the hirelings, and just stole all the horses as their loot for the session.
 
Baulderstone said:
I once ran a game where the was a rival party of adventures. The NPC party beat them to a dungeon and was waiting inside to ambush them. They left their horses outside with some hirelings, so the party decided to skip the dungeon, threatened the hirelings, and just stole all the horses as their loot for the session.
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You want the new thread:thumbsup:!

Also, Justin Alexander Justin Alexander and CRKrueger CRKrueger - calm down, yer both as fugly as me and arguing on a forum won't change that one bit:shade:!
 
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I'd ask if anyone actually honestly thought my responses to Justin concerning Flashbacks and Tools were disingenuous or threadcrapping, but it never ever matters who is lying, even when the posts are there for everyone to read. People just want quiet.
 
We've decided to leave this one closed. Ample warning was given earlier, and the chance to improve the quality of replies, and instead, yesterday was a monkey show. That said, there's a few things in parting worth addressing.

If we weren't closing the thread, CRKrueger CRKrueger would have received an immediate threadban for ignoring a mod directive.

However, what Krueger said was absolutely correct Justin Alexander Justin Alexander - he answered and addressed your questions and your replies were little more than trolling. And that wasn't isolated to your interactions with CRK in this thread, I tuned you out a while back when you were comparing dick sizes with Tenbones. So, yeah, you would have had a threadban as well.

And, I mean, obviously Voros too, but I'm pretty sure he knew that, was just looking to get his digs in.

On the whole this wasn't the Pub's finest hour.

I just want to clear up a few misconceptions. First off, outside of Mod+ threads, moderation at The Pub continues to be light. Meaning, we're not going to jump in everytime two posters get into an argument. Obviously we prefer that things are kept civil, and we may step in if there's nothing to your contributions to a thread besides personal attacks, but we also don't intend to babysit anyone - the default assumption here is that all posters are adults.

Likewise, we don't care if anyone thinks or says that their style of play, or games they like, are better than anyone else's. My response to that is nothing more than an eyeroll, and maybe a giggle. We're not going to start going after posters for wrongthink. Part of assuming everyone is an adult is assuming you can handle people having different tastes than you, disliking games and mechanics that you like, and in general expressing statements you disagree with. It shouldn't matter to you this much. You want to debate it? By all means, but if you use it as an excuse to turn a thread about gaming into an extended match of insults and personal attacks that reflects worse on you than the person who said something you didn't like.

New posters coming from more heavily-modded forums may have different expectations of what a moderator's role should be rather than we ourselves see it. Our intention isn't to be moralists, or to dictate forum culture, or to establish the "correct opinions". We prefer any moderation action to be a last resort. Because we don't want posters walking on eggshells, or to cultivate an air of deep-rooted hostility and passive aggressive snark where no one knows when the mods will randomly misintepret something they said and bring down the guillitine.

The Mod+ threads are different. And also going to be rare. We're never going to extend those rules to the whole forum,, and each Mod+ thread is going to have different rules.

Anyways, I'm getting longwinded, but I guess what I'm trying to say is, let things go sometimes. Walk away if you're getting upset. Treat your fellow Pubbers like you would your own friends, or at least acquaintences at a party. Try to debate more and argue less. And if you have a problem with another poster that isn't going away, for God's sake just use the Ignore List. You have NO idea how much I envy you having that ability, to just filter out certain people.
 
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