Does anyone else find it awkward that there has never really been a positive term for a more linear, non-sandbox game?

To be clear, I am not saying that anyone else's preferences are invalid. Other people are free to enjoy what they enjoy, and I will not hold it against them.

I personally do not like sandboxes. I have never played in or GMed even a moderately successful game that was pitched as a sandbox, or some similar term like "player-driven" or "character-driven." The reasonably successful games I have played in and run have all been "structure B" ( https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/94875428/ ), and the single most fulfilling game I have played in the past few years ( https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/91089566/#91131236 ) has unabashedly been a long string of "structure B."

I often see RPGs, particularly indie games, advertise them as intended for sandbox play. Sometimes, they have actual mechanics that support this. Most of the time, though, their rules are no more suited for a sandbox than they are for a more linear game; it feels like these games are saying, "This system is meant for sandboxes!" simply because it is fashionable to do so, or because the author prefers sandboxes yet has not specifically tailored the system towards such.

I think that this is, in part, because no positive term for a more linear game has ever been commonly accepted. Even "linear" has a negative connotation, to say nothing of "railroad," which is what many people think of when asked to name the opposite of "sandbox." Indeed, the very topic often garners snide remarks like "Why not just play a video game?"

I know of only a few systems that are specifically intended for more linear scenarios (e.g. Outgunned, whose GMing chapter is squarely focused on preparing mostly linear scenarios). Even these systems never actually explicitly state that they specialize in linear scenarios. The closest I have seen is noncommittal usage of the term "event-driven."

What do you think?

>>96048692 (OP)
100 percent agree, although I have no suggestions to fix it. The Alexandrian has written a little bit about this. There are a group of people for whom anything less than some mythic, totally freeform sandbox game is game master abuse. There are a lot of them here, or at least the people like that who are here are frequent posters.

Feng Shui is a little more up front about linearity of design than most games, as well. It seems games that are in the "action movie" genre seem to realize what they are about.

>>96048726

The way I see it, it is very easy to romanticize sandbox-style play with platitudes about "player agency" and "the beauty of RPGs." It is also rather easy to demonize non-sandbox play with all manner of negative connotations. Action-movie-themed RPGs like Outgunned and Feng Shui seem able to get away with it solely because of the genre that they are trying to emulate.

>>96048692 (OP)
Yeah, that's a whole lotta work for the players to write and come up with cool ideas. Really need a table of GMs to make it work, but the average player is lazy asf

Sandboxes are best kept as boxes, i.e parts of the world where the players get to do whatever like making an organization within the world but the overarching story ties it all together to give direction for why it exists

>>96048692 (OP)
For what it's worth, I think modules in Japanese ttrpgs are usually referred to as "scripted". I don't know if that helps or not, though it does at least make the intentions more upfront I guess.

>>96048692 (OP)
I run sandbox, but I fully understand your points. For me, it took a good number of tries, but in my sandbox, I hide little fossils, y'know what I mean?

There is always a bigger purpose you should go towards, but you're free to do whatever you want as long as you don't step on the other players in the process.

Sandbox is the only way for me, otherwise I'd just play vidya. But as such, I need to do a ton of work building my setting and knowing, in detail, what everything is, does, and where you could find it.

For instance, I'm working on an herbalism system for my game, breaking my world map into segments that are ecosystems where certain plants can grow.

I wouldn't suggest running homebrew sandbox to a new DM for sure. Even experienced ones will have to learn. A lot. Still it's something I have picked up.

When running a sandbox, you must be a stellar improver with a wide understanding of the world and how things work. It requires intelligence.

TL;DR: I pretty much only run sandbox, but it took a solid decade of learning to do it well at all.

>>96048692 (OP)
The problem is freedom is seen as a virtuous; thus something that specifically is a reduced-freedom form of game is going to be looked down on. If you had to describe it, I would probably use the term 'narrative' (implying you have preset linear trajectory to the end of the campaign); failing that I just would not advertise the specific nature of the game as being 'narrative'/'railroad'/'linear' etc. The key to any descriptive term you want to use is that you want to emphasize the benefits of the structured linear campaign ('focused experience', 'narrative', 'crafted world') rather than restrictions on the player body ('linear', 'railroad', 'planned structure').

The quality of sandbox play heavily rests on the players wanting to drive their own stories and plots without stepping on eachothers or the DMs toes too much.

>>96048692 (OP)
>Does anyone else find it awkward that there has never really been a positive term for a more linear, non-sandbox game?
Non-sandbox is called "a TTRPG." Qualifiers are only needed when you change away from the default.

Sandbox is a pretty wonky term to begin with. The vast majority means "GM writes multiple adventure prompts, the players pick one, and then the GM writes an adventure" rather than "the GM writes an adventure." It's more about "hey we're going to play in the spirit of you guys create your own motivations" then it is a specific type of game. The hardcore actual sandboxes are just hexcrawls.

>>96048692 (OP)
Try "directed", both in the sense that the narrative has a pre-set direction and the GM is expected to direct the action rather than just let players do what they want.

>>96049237
This.
Sandboxes arose (resurged?) as a reaction to very linear 2e campaigns and other 90s and early 00s campaigns. Adventure paths with strict sequences of events, often run by GMs who would use an iron fist out of essential insecurity.
Nowadays we have a glut of relatively player driven games and a sandbox is an apt marketing term. Linearity is less desirable for GMs because it's actually fucking hard to do, especially in the World's Most Profitable RPG. You have to write a whole fucking adventure from scratch every week with nothing from last week to help. Whereas a well prepared sandbox will have a few factions, a few ongoing sequences of events, a few player/character drives all recombining every week. All the GM has to do is whip up locales and fill in the numbers. It's self sustaining.
A linear or mission based game is desirable only for players because it's the basically a content conveyor belt that feeds into their gaping maws. All they have to do is optimise their character sheets to gobble the GM's work as fast as possible and then get excited for new encounter.

>>96048692 (OP)
Because ttrpgs are meant for player driven sandbox games. Story games suck a fat choad. Always have and always will.

>>96051385
Story game?

>>96048692 (OP)
>a positive term for a more linear, non-sandbox game?

Railroad isn't a negative term.

>>96051465
Yes, it is.

>>96048692 (OP)
I was thinking about this in terms of Vidya. Everybody loves Deus Ex, but it's a pretty linear game, in reality. You do liberty island, new York, hong Kong and area 51, and then one of three ending. It isn't some crazy sandbox. But you're really free to go through each level however you want. Ttrpg is the same way. You can have a small, 7 room dungeon that is relatively linear, but if it's well designed, different groups will be able to move through those 7 rooms in different ways, and have a different experience.

>>96048692 (OP)
As someone that runs that sort of pre-planned "sandbox" where the plot points are intended to flow into each other, I'd probably call it something like "Hiking Trail." There is a very intended pathway that has generally been maintained in some way, with the intention of the hikers/players being able to succeed. The party is always allowed to leave the trail, where there is far more rugged wilderness and far worse trials, but the chaos of the improvised path can lead to more thrilling discoveries. A hiker might get a random encounter with a bear on the trail and be equipped with bear mace and/or some kind of animal empathy skill to surpass it. If they go innawoods, they might bumble into the bear's den in a cave by a small pond that the town river flows through, where the baby bear is being taught to fish and now the bear is motivated to protect its child.
A noob GM's take would be the "Interactive Park Ride," where everything works within the few choices the GM intended, but the moment you leave the railroad it becomes obvious there was never anything else. The kind of game where the GM might plan for a castle or manor with a main entrance and a secret entrance that the party can learn about, but then someone says they want to sneak in through a window, waste chute, cellar door, chimney, whatever, and the GM outright saying no to such options breaks the sense of realism in the roleplay. It's like how vidya has the processing shortcut of only rendering what the player could reasonably see, but if you clip out of bounds then you can tell the doors in the chase scene hallway are for all intents and purposes just wall with a different color. Or there are visible rooms on the other side for the camera to show through the doors' windows, but they are simply inaccessible, and should you somehow access them they're all dead ends with nothing useable in them.

https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1lvry67/does_anyone_else_find_it_awkward_that_there_has/

>>96048913
You got anything more specific, any tips and tricks for us upstarts and learners?

>>96053365
Nayrt but also a longtime sandbox GM
I say that Ubisoft games have a lot of stuff to learn from. Think of an activity (small dungeon raid, puzzle box, race, etc). Think of six ways you could do it (six racetracks) or six different monsters that could be complicating it, etc. Scatter over your map. Then think of another activity. Repeat til bored.
Put in 4 towns, ensure that they have enemy outposts to fuck up and info about the nearest activities to hand out.
Put in as many main dungeons as you can be bothered to steal and prep.
Then make a robust random encounter table (monsters, number appearing, combat type like hold the line or race to rescue innocent). For two ISH adventures of material you have a shit ton of gameplay time.
Throw some factions or fronts from DW in and your game can last months with minimal reprep.

>>96048692 (OP)
Its called being "Structured"

>>96048692 (OP)
You are either a woman or you play no games, so you were alone during weekend and overthinked things. Linear term is completely fine.

>>96048692 (OP)
>narrative
sounds like a novel or artistic work
>linear
structural term, nothing wrong with it
>scripted
sounds like a stage play or movie, again, artistic
>railroad
like the helpful thing that lets people travel

I don't see anything wrong with the terms, all of them already have better connotations than "sandbox", i.e. kindergarten children's playground.

>>96053515
The biggest problem is "it's not really true." The notion of perfect sandbox versus perfect railroad is a false dichotomy. Virtually every campaign has an element of sandbox, and an element of railroading. It's a negotiation between the two. And saying "sandbox" honestly just means "we're going for player-driven stories." It doesn't mean the GM doesn't prep, that there aren't structured adventures, or anything. It just means the GM is trying to let the player take the reins. And a game NOT being sandbox doesn't mean "therefore players get no input." The need for a "term" to describe "non sandbox ttrpgs" inherently claims that a false dichotomy exists between ttrpgs that are and aren't sandbox. Very few sandbox ttrpgs are true sandboxes. And virtually zero non-sandbox ttrpgs are perfect rails.

plebbit ctrl+c ctrl+v thread
most updooted answer was “just call it story driven”

Edit: thanks for the gold!

>>96054104
>I have no point and I must sperg

How a single location/encounter plays out doesn't have much to do with "sandbox" or "railroad", because those words describe campaign structures. Either "structure" could be what happens in hex E12 or what destiny inevitably has in store for the heroes.

>>96048692 (OP)
The opposite of "sandbox" is "story-driven".

>>96053406
There are definitely new methods in there I hadn’t considered before, thank you.

>>96053365

>Natural Talent
If you want to run a sandbox, it requires a good deal of natural talent. That includes memorizing your entire world (Actually pretty easy if you make everything yourself without AI or help). You need to be smart enough to improvise anything you don't already have prepared.

>Improvising
You make the world, and to run a sandbox, you need to learn improvisation. This means saying "Yes, and" and "Yes, but." By always saying yes to what they should be able to do, you keep the illusion going. If you aren't prepared for what they say, wing it for that session, but use the next day off to study and design a system for what they want, such as running a unique type of business in town or possibly planning a heist. The customer is always right, and a good DM is able to make anything work.

>Trial and Error
You will have to do a lot of games to get to a point where it is all second nature. For me, it was a decade of nearly ten game tables, explaining the rules to noobies, and helping to build countless characters.

>Results
Right now, I'm working on my personal masterpiece with nothing but a single dice rolling app. With my memory of the game and rules, I'm offering to run one shots with my friends literally at restaurants, making everything up on the spot, making general stat assumptions and playing for fun. I haven't been out with a friend group that wants to play yet, but I'm constantly thinking about my "Sudden D&D System."

>Tips
Practice makes perfect. It's possible to run a quality sandbox, trust me. The only thing is you have to be fluid, willing to adapt and grow, and having an encyclopedic knowledge of the general world helps a lot too.

>>96054081
>>96054237
"Railroad" isn't a structure, it's a fail state. You're both conflating linearity with railroading.

>>96055784
One person's railroad is another person's "tired of players gawking at me with their deer-in-the-headlights gaze telling me what they should be doing". Okay, not really, but I hope you get what I mean by my exaggerated analogy

>>96055832
>My players are bad so I *have* to railroad them!

Yeah, that sounds like an absolute fail state.

>>96055784
Maybe try reading the posts, then responding to the things that people did say, instead?

>>96048692 (OP)
>Does anyone else find it awkward that there has never really been a positive term for a more linear, non-sandbox game?
Because they're the default. When it's bad, it's a railroad. When it's consciously avoided, it's a sandbox. When it's okay-to-good, you don't notice.

>>96055933
>>96054237
>How a single location/encounter plays out doesn't have much to do with "sandbox" or "railroad", because those words describe campaign structures.
>>96054081
>Virtually every campaign has an element of sandbox, and an element of railroading. It's a negotiation between the two.

>>96055018
What do you do about the common problem of players stalling out and the session going nowhere?

>>96055836
Do you know what a fail state is?

>>96055018
That sudden dnd system sounds really sick. Do you have anything to share about it?

>>96058615
Take Matt Colville's advice: If the players get stuck doing some boring shit, just toss some monsters at them and hope it dislodges them.

>>96058615
That's an important piece of the puzzle! You need players that understand they can do anything, which takes experience on their part. You need to vet your players to make sure they can do that or at least learn in time. That's the annoying part of my system, it requires an intelligent group, but it's definitely something a standard player can learn. It just sucks when you get someone who's been playing in a railroaded game for years and are locked into decision paralysis. They normally break out of this within a few sessions though. Make sure they know what you're offering in an interview or at session zero so they're not blind sided.

Basically, if you find a good improv player, this is never an issue. In fact, having one solid player helps the others come out of their shell or just let them be the "leader" of the party.

>>96059290
>Sudden D&D System
Yes, happy to share! The idea is to know the rules and standard builds so well, you can make up the numbers as you go and be relatively accurate to a fully built character. You might look at a level 3 fighter in your head and go "So a level 3 fighter typically has a +5 to attack, so we'll just assume that's the case for this attack." Or "This is supposed to be a level 1 cleric, and he cast a spell, so I'll rip up a piece of paper to signify the number of slots he has left," with no need to write anything down truly.

It's not a fully fledged game truly, just like a casual game of go fish compared to poker. Yet, with a crew that knows their class inside and out and a skilled DM, you can do a small 5 minute "Battle with vampire lord Peppier Shakier" at at your table. It's also an excellent way to introduce new players to the game since it's pure imagination and avoids the grind of character creation that sometimes turns off players.

>>96058687
If you have to resort to railroading, you have failed in your preparation. That's really all there is to it.

>>96048692 (OP)
>What do you think?
I know that generally sandbox can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how the toolkits are for homebrewing.
Sometimes and quite often really, sandbox means the rules are half assed and the community is to "repair" through homebrewing the system, sometimes from the ground up and I wouldn't be surprised if this is how some entire TTRPG systems are born.

>>96066962
You can the most prepared in the world, but if you have a party that's full of passive people who just blankly stare at you if you tell them they can do anything they want and you aren't going to railroad them, then there's not much recourse beyond just leaving the table. But of course you'd also blame the GM for that too, wouldn't you?

>>96071411
You could have a fucking conversation with your friends, yeah? But if I was in some kind of weird situation where talking to human beings wasn't an option then, yes, I would just quit the game. I'm not interested in having people voice act a novel for me, that completely defeats the purpose of why I play role playing games.

>>96072853
>>96071411
As a DM, this is the most frustrating feeling. I hate to walk away from entire tables, but when I'm left with no choice and not having fun... It's funny, my players will always come up to me after saying they're sad to see it end and that they were having fun, but when they were playing it was like pulling teeth. I've second guessed myself a million times, but the answer has always been to shake up the crew until you find a good mix.

>>96048692 (OP)
Why would there exist positive terms for objectively bad things?

>>96048692 (OP)
Well? Why don't you just play a video game? Quoting a question doesn't free you of the obligation to answer it. If you can't justify your preferences, you are required to fix them.

>>96048726
Not mythic in the least. If there are any decisions forbidden to the players, there is no reason for them to attend the game.

>>96048790
Not romanticized. Player agency is the point of playing an RPG.

>>96049114
Freedom is obviously virtuous and anything opposed to it is evil.

>>96053474
No.

>>96053515
Nice cope, loser.

>>96054081
True dichotomy, and only perfect sandboxes are legitimate games.

>>96055018
Sandboxes require no memorization.

>>96055832
Why are you playing with people who aren't interested in playing?

>>96058615
I don't have that problem because my players aren't mindless retards. They set goals and make decisions in the service of those goals, and all I have to do is adjudicate the machinery of the universe. The game practically runs itself.

>>96075345
False. Even making shit up requires a modest memory for a game lasting more than one session.

>>96064206
jesus how dire

Incorrect. You can just write things down.

>>96075353
You'd be surprised how many people suddenly inherit decision paralysis when you take the blinders off. I've found a proper group that can self-motivate now, but it was such a pain in the ass trying to weed through the ones just looking for clearer choices and which ones needed lines fed straight to them to get anything done

No, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Samefag was here

>>96054279
>The opposite of "sandbox" is "story-driven".
It isn't. A game being a sandbox makes it less likely to be story-driven, but a game not being sandbox doesn't make it story-driven.

>>96075634
Retard.

"Narrative" is probably the closest in application to the opposite of sandbox insofar as sandbox means the players are in charge of determining how events unfold and narrative means the narrator or some equivalent is.

This also isn't as hyper specific as railroad since "narrative" doesn't mean there is zero player agency agency involved, e.g. in the case of branching paths.

"Story-driven" would be a close second.

>>96051766
>I'd probably call it something like "Hiking Trail." There is a very intended pathway that has generally been maintained in some way, with the intention of the hikers/players being able to succeed. The party is always allowed to leave the trail, where there is far more rugged wilderness and far worse trials, but the chaos of the improvised path can lead to more thrilling discoveries.

This is a great way to put it! Ultimately, your players follow a linear sequence of events. It's just a question of how fractally subdivided the tracks are, and how many tracks are locked behind invisible walls.

--

The tricky thing is that humans are hard-wired to appreciate things that follow an interest curve - building up to some kind of point, or payoff, or punchline. Giving players absolute freedom without any idea of how to create these peaks and valleys is a recipe for directionless slop.

Sorry your players don't know how to set goals. Wonder how they deal with real life.

>>96048692 (OP)
Isn't storypath used? Or is that just by Pathfinder

>>96075304
>>96075296
You're a little confusing if you think sandbox are the only way to give players agency. People can agree to tell a story, even if they improvise most of the details, let's work with an example:
-Player tells you they want to include as a motivation for their character that a villain has killed his family
So do you a) respect player agency by incorporating this detail in the game or by ignoring it? Is clearly a choice a player made for his backstory, but if you make the villain appear then you're clearly pushing a story.
See, players give you the building blocks and clearly using them is not depriving them from having agency.

>>96048692 (OP)
'Traditional Campaign' or 'Trad Campaign', where trad is used in the same sense as 'trad game'.

>>96081211
Don't feed the troll, dude. Come on.

>>96048692 (OP)
Obviously, no other term is required because there is no other legitimate type of game.
If the players aren't free to make whatever decisions they want, why are they playing?

>>96081211
What backstory? The things that happen to a player are those things that occur during gameplay.

>>96083383
>adventurer egg backstory

Yep, you're retarded.

>>96083717
Rude to say that about your mother, you know

About you, rather.

>>96081211
That's narrative authority, not agency. Player agency is the freedom to make meaningful in-game decisions. Narrative authority is direct control over the game world outside the medium of a character. Most systems give players narrative authority in the form of custom character and background creation, but a GM could theoretically enforce fully randomized or fully premade characters, thus eliminating all player narrative authority, without at all affecting player agency.

>>96053406
>sandbox is ubshit
True, but not in the way you think
Fuck sandboxes, fuck player agency, and most of all, fuck you. Choo choo motherfucker.

Nope, you'll be killed, and quite easily.

>>96084914
Rough weekend, anon? Everyone else went to that party on the shore?

>>96048692 (OP)
The word you're looking for is invisible railroad. Where you think there are choices but they often all end the same way. These things exist on a continuum with a game being too much of a sandbox not giving directions while a game that's railroaded has invisible walls and feels restricting. Personally I try to make my games more of an open play, they can do what they want but there is an overarching plot and mission.

/tg/ made a document ages about about sandboxes and railroading in games I'd post it but they removed pdfs. Here's a link https://www.mediafire.com/file/9iqsz2riqgoa1z8/Sandbox_Railroading_Tracks_in_the_Sand.pdf/file

>>96085452
My image didn't post for some reason here it is.

>>96084898
Narrative=Story

>>96085452
The players provide the direction. If you aren't capable of setting goals, roleplaying games aren't for you.

>>96085452
>>96089303
Do you guys play text games with elaborate description spanning a paragraph or more every post?

>>96089575
What does this have to do with anything? Are you having an episode?

>>96089582
I'm saying your advice only works for games played in person. When it comes to collaborate writing you need to have a real structure in place that everyone follows.

>>96089595
A structure and player goals are not contradictory or mutually exclusive, and you certainly don't have the authority or the expertise to tell anyone what is needed in any particular type of game.

>>96089611
I assuredly have at least as much as you, anon. More, because you don't do collaborative writing and don't understand that things need to be structured around an ending. Too much attempts to vary it kill the investment of all involved.

>>96089632
Clearly not. All of my games are collaborative writing, and all of my games are player-driven with minimal GM-provided structure. Therefore, it can't be the case that this type of game needs GM-provided structure. QED.

>>96089644
Not a single one of your games count because you only do games in person, voiced.

>>96089651
Nope, text. Don't project.

>>96089658
True text only?
How many characters a post?

>>96089658
>project
The word you're looking for is assume.

>>96089672
No.

>>96089679
Yes. How do you get projection out of someone who doesn't do that?

>>96089690
You are projecting.

Why are you guys talking about collaborative writing in a thread about games?

>>96089695
You don't know what projecting means.
>>96089718
Because text only tabletop is like collaborative writing.

>>96048692 (OP)
>Does anyone else find it awkward that there has never really been a positive term for a more linear, non-sandbox game?
No. Fuck railroadfags. Things that are terrible don't need positive terms.

>>96089595
>When it comes to collaborate writing you need to have a real structure in place that everyone follows.
Yeah, this is a board for games. You want some other bullshit.

>>96048692 (OP)
In my experience "sandbox" games are either quantum linear scenarios, or just a lobby for multiple linear scenarios the players can choose from. I tried to run a true sandbox game once and the players were so paranoid/indecisive that they basially never went anywhere, so I had to start organizing them toward a linear scenario anyway.

>>96089666
Funny how he never replied to this post.

>>96090165
I cannot present my players with open ended scenarios without them freezing. None of the so-called agency can be found.

>>96090165
God, this so much. Even if I do try to run a more "open" game, I outright ask players in session zero to help me develop plot hooks relevant to their character they'll jump on immediately so that we're not stuck in a game session twiddling our thumbs waiting for someone, ANYONE to make a decision that isn't just sitting in a tavern.

>>96089666
Yes, text only. I don't have a minimum or maximum post length in my games.

>>96091653
So you do maybe 100 characters a post. Pathetic.

>>96090165
Can't relate.

>>96091661
How do you figure? Also, what relation do you imagine there exists between the length of a post and anything we've been discussing?

>>96091677
Because you'd know how much harder it is to effectively do if you actually wrote more.

>>96091721
Of course, you can't actually show how or why it is related to post length.

>>96091724
I actually can. When you have a lot more written, you have a lot more prepared that becomes harder to detangled if your partner/s decide they want to do something else mid-scene.

>>96091773
No, not really. All I have to do is adjudicate what happens in response to each player's actions each round. It doesn't matter how much they or I write.

Out of curiosity, I pulled the word counts for some randomly-selected posts from my current game.

GM : 385
Player : 501
Player : 627
GM : 387
Player : 332
Player : 563

I'm sure you will say these are either high or low according to whatever is convenient for your position, since you still haven't explained why post lengths should matter, nor provided any examples of a post length preventing a particular type of play, so I don't know why I bothered. And of course, you will also claim that I'm not running my game the way I claim to be, that I'm not actually running a game, and so on. No higher standard can be expected of the board, and I hardly consider it your failing.

>>96091780
Yes, really. You don't write multipara and it shows. 10k characters. Try it and see.

>>96091899
Exactly as expected. Why is 10,000 the cutoff and not 9,999? Explain your reasoning in detail.

>>96091822
Kid that's not even semi-para level. You can't even handle 2k characters?
>>96091905
Maybe you could try huffing less copium and do some real writing for a change.

>>96091909
Still waiting on your reasoning.

>>96091913
Why would I bother with someone who's never experienced it?

Concession accepted.

>running away again
Your concession is accepted kiddo. You avoided replying to me before and you're running away again. You've never experienced what it's like to write a lot investing yourself. Of course it's easy for you to do something when you don't do it and pretend you did. Keep on crying like you did for 3 hours.

Nope, yours is. Post length doesn't affect ability to play, sorry.

My dude, you don't write and that's fine. Don't go around claiming you do when you admit you can't even handle 1k characters.

I'm sorry you can't justify your position.

I'm sorry you can't write to save your life and are deathly afraid of (You)s.

>>96091927
>>96091935
>>96091944
>>96091960
>>96091960
Are you two really having a dick measuring contest over play by post gaming? That's quite possibly the saddest shit I've ever seen. This is fucking embarrassing.

Embarrassing for you, yeah.

>>96092007
There's other forms of text only besides play by post

Sandbox = Good for intelligent and driven players playing with a capable and dedicated GM

Linear = Good for retarded gay normies playing with a lazy DM

>>96092175
Tell us about the last sandbox game you played, Anon, I'm very interested to hear how it went

>>96092175
I'm not sure linear is any easier, really; it takes less work up front, but then you're stuck designing set piece battles and writing plots for the rest of the campaign instead of just seeing where things go.

>>96092175
sandbox is way less work what are you on about lol

>>96092175
It takes more work to run a linear game since everyone needs to be in the same page, on the other hand a sandbox is
>"You go that way? Ehm roll table roll table roll table, you see an ogre"

it's so funny when people who have obviously never run a sandbox talk about what they imagine sandboxes to be lul

>>96092217
Yeah I don't think the difference in workload is that big. Sandbox has you prep wider, while railroad has you prep specific things in more detail. But in the end of the day, session prep is session prep. Regardless of playstyle, you still need content to fill the same number of hours.

>>96092007
Thanks for calling those two retarded so I don't have to <3

>>96092007
Embarrassing for you, yeah.

>>96092010
>>96097843
Pay attention folks, we're witnessing levels of samefagging rarely seen in the wild.

>>96099823
stay mad :)