Sandbox or Adventure Path?

[Nebula]

3 minutes ago, shawnhcorey said:

My ancestry is European and "classical" fantasy RPGs are full of pitfalls, tropes, and stereotypes of the genre.

Point taken, there's plenty of those in all historical inspired set up as well. Sorry about that, didn't imply it wasn't the case. 🙇‍♀️

Edited May 6 by Nebula (see edit history)

[cailano]

1 hour ago, Nebula said:

Point taken, there's plenty of those in all historical inspired set up as well. Sorry about that, didn't imply it wasn't the case. 🙇‍♀️

I honestly believe that the important thing is that people are putting forth a good-faith effort but that doesn’t mean it can’t go comically wrong. Have any of you seen an 80s show or cartoon that tried to be inclusive lately? Oh man… it’s just… I mean, I know we had to start somewhere but my god. So bad,

All we can do is our best, I suppose.

[Nebula]

10 minutes ago, cailano said:

Have any of you seen an 80s show or cartoon that tried to be inclusive lately?

Different times :)

[Snicker]

I voted for Adventure Path with Sandbox Elements, which seems a popular option. In my mind, I compare this game design to a 'mystery investigation' or 'heist' game - the end goal is known, but the players can choose how to pursue it, and in some cases may not even know how to pursue it at the outset and must discover a way to move forward. I think this setup allows the DM to focus their prep while still giving players the greatest opportunity to leverage their strengths.

[Nebula]

21 hours ago, Snicker said:

I voted for Adventure Path with Sandbox Elements, which seems a popular option. In my mind, I compare this game design to a 'mystery investigation' or 'heist' game - the end goal is known, but the players can choose how to pursue it, and in some cases may not even know how to pursue it at the outset and must discover a way to move forward. I think this setup allows the DM to focus their prep while still giving players the greatest opportunity to leverage their strengths.

I feel the same.

To your point, i think it help a lot the DM to have an idea of the direction the party is going. It's very time consuming to know to prepare a lot of things and shift 180 degres every session. :D But sometime, this can't be helped.

 

[shawnhcorey]

1 hour ago, Nebula said:

I feel the same.

To your point, i think it help a lot the DM to have an idea of the direction the party is going. It's very time consuming to know to prepare a lot of things and shift 180 degres every session. :D But sometime, this can't be helped.

 

You can indicate where the party should go in a sandbox thru the NPCs. Every PC should have a few friends, family, associates, contacts, and nemeses, people the PC will respond to. It's thru them that the player will be guided to the adventure.

[cybersavant]

my experience online with sandbox is that this doesn't happen, or maybe the hints were too subtle

[Blaeringr]

I'm a sandbox guy as GM. I give the players leads, and try to give them a world with stuff going on and let them figure out what they want to get involved in.

So "sandbox with plots" for me, emphasizing the plural on "plots".

It's not about what's the right or wrong way to run a game with me, but what fits with my personality. I'm a creative with ADD, so even if you give me a good pre-written story, I'm going to change things on the fly. Constantly changing things, and reading as little of the plot as I can get away with so I can just make up even more of it as we go.

[Kamishiro_Rin]

Looks like I'm one of the few (8.11% as of this post) who likes what is effectively a railroad.

 

Sandbox elements for me, unless they are very concretely explained to fit into the plot, just raise my anxiety and I can't enjoy them. I end up just thinking that we're wasting precious time.

 

This is why I'm probably not a good DM, either -- it's really hard for me to respond to player actions that don't fit the prescribed adventure path.

[eltorin]

I’m in the same boat, Adventure Paths all the way.