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Old 06-24-2017, 11:21 AM   #41
johndallman
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

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...did you catch that it was a reference to the popular meme, "The Cake is a Lie!"?
I'm another one who'd never heard of it and had to look it up.
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I'm honestly confused, because the words "the sandbox is a lie" don't translate to "people cannot enjoy sandbox play" -- at least, not in any way that I can possibly see. Can someone explain where the insult is?
I have a hypothesis about it. Some people who run sandbox games are quite ideological about that. One quite prolific poster here (now banned) claimed it was the only morally sound way to run an RPG. It can be a whole lot of work.

The title, in isolation, can be interpreted as claiming that "People who claim to be running sandbox games are lying about that and manipulating their players to keep them on the planned plot." GMs who go to a lot of effort not to do that could legitimately be annoyed.

Me, I prepare ideas, but I feel I have to cope with the players whatever they decide to do, preferably without the joints showing. Fortunately, I can improvise.
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Old 06-24-2017, 02:34 PM   #42
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

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In fact, is there anything -- anything at all -- in the actual content of that section that disparages sandbox play or insults those who use it? Because I've reread it multiple times now and I don't see it, so if I'm missing something, I genuinely want to know. In fact, everything there looks like advice on how to run a campaign that feels like a sandbox even if the GM doesn't have the time to craft a thousand plot hooks in advance.
I'm bringing this into the discussion. Specifically the line "Over 20+ years of GMing I've found pure "sandbox" play to be untainable in the long run." So there's a bit of past discussion brought into this by an earlier reader/author exchange.
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Old 06-24-2017, 03:16 PM   #43
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

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I'm honestly confused, because the words "the sandbox is a lie" don't translate to "people cannot enjoy sandbox play" -- at least, not in any way that I can possibly see. Can someone explain where the insult is?
I will attempt to explain.l as I see it. So I'm often a sandbox GM (not for oneshots, and not for certain games that have narrativism baked into the system, etc). Being a sandbox GM can certainly come with a feeling of alienation/marginalization from the published/official parts of the hobby. Few adventures are published that support sandbox play, and many companies who put out guidelines for publication of adventures...have guidelines that exclude sandbox supplements (including SJ Games's adventure template). Sandbox style is certainly not to be found in Adventure Paths. So if you like sandboxes, you don't get many bones thrown your way. And while there may be sandboxers who say sandbox is the only way, there are also lots of non-sandboxers who cast aspersions on sandbox style. If you are a sandboxer, you will have heard people say of your preferred style that it is boring, aimless, pointless...and that it isn't actually possible to do--in short that the ability of sandboxes to work at all and be fun is a lie.

"The sandbox is a lie" evokes echoes of these general negations of the play style while also coming off as a thumb in the eye of a group of people who already don't get much published support. While the author might have just been making a "funny" joke, it walked into a sore spot for a number of sandboxers. So I can see it offending some sandbox people.

I'm not offended, I suppose because I don't expect more, but I will say that looking at the text, I think the article would have been better with no references to sandbox style at all. The descriptions of sandbox come off straw man to me...I don't know any sandboxer who thinks they have to pre-design every element of a campaign. Really it could just be presented as a random quest generation system and not discuss sandboxes at all. And as a random quest generation system, I think it's pretty cool.

Side note for the sandboxers: I heard the Dracula Dossier is a sandbox adventure...I'm looking forward to reading it!

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Old 06-24-2017, 03:32 PM   #44
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

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Side note for the sandboxers: I heard the Dracula Dossier is a sandbox adventure...I'm looking forward to reading it!
I haven't played it myself but I listen to Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff and they have talked about it a lot. It's designed to be incredibly flexible, for example every NPC has three write ups (potential ally, neutral, potential foe).

The format was first created for The Armitage Files so there is more goodness out there if you want to track it down.
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Old 06-24-2017, 03:50 PM   #45
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

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I heard the Dracula Dossier is a sandbox adventure...I'm looking forward to reading it!
It's about as sandbox-ish as something published as a scenario book (as opposed to a setting book) can get. It does rather oblige the GM to improvise snippets of plot in response to player decisions.

It's extraordinary at what it does, certainly.
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Old 06-24-2017, 03:57 PM   #46
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

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The format was first created for The Armitage Files so there is more goodness out there if you want to track it down.
Thanks for the heads up! I'll check it out.

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It's about as sandbox-ish as something published as a scenario book (as opposed to a setting book) can get. It does rather oblige the GM to improvise snippets of plot in response to player decisions.

It's extraordinary at what it does, certainly.
I'm looking forward to reading The Dracula Dossier and Armitage Files to see how they do it. I have ideas about how to create a sandboxy sort of scenario book, so I'm interested in seeing how others have done it.
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Old 06-24-2017, 04:21 PM   #47
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

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many companies who put out guidelines for publication of adventures...have guidelines that exclude sandbox supplements (including SJ Games's adventure template)
At the risk of starting a tangent, what do you see as the difference between a sandbox supplement and SJ Games's setting-centric books like the Locations and Hot Spots series?
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Old 06-24-2017, 04:42 PM   #48
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

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At the risk of starting a tangent, what do you see as the difference between a sandbox supplement and SJ Games's setting-centric books like the Locations and Hot Spots series?
Because this IS a tangent, please take this to Roleplaying in General.
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Old 06-24-2017, 05:08 PM   #49
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

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Really it could just be presented as a random quest generation system and not discuss sandboxes at all. And as a random quest generation system, I think it's pretty cool.
I'll agree with pretty much everything you wrote on that, snipped for space, though without the same religious fervor. Also, after fiddling with it, the quest system did do well, though honestly it's not for my sandbox. It kept leading me to have to move everyone out of my sandbox (which is about as big as Estonia) and into jungles miles away (and about the same latitude as Slovakia). I think it would be great for a "drop the ring in Mount Doom, which happens to be on the other side of the continent"-type scenario.

The quest system worked better than the background system, which I found had too many weird events for one character. Many of the tables on that could have been changed to, "Roll 1d. On a 1, roll on this table; otherwise, move to the next one." I did like the general location tables, however; not only is it realistic to be from somewhere, it leads to interesting play.
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Old 06-24-2017, 06:21 PM   #50
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/104: Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game

The tables in It's a Quest! are great stuff, and are an excellent way for a GM to get inspiration if they're stuck on something. Not sure kind of a person is running the bandit ring? Roll on the Person table. Need to pick a monster to stock a room? Roll on the Monster table.

Liberally mix these tables with those from the Heroic Background Generator and you've got a good way to answer many questions about your adventure.
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