hawkeyefan
Legendary Pubber
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2020
- Messages
- 1,962
- Reaction score
- 4,815
I disagree, deciding to remain in the Caribbean in-game is a completely different decision than deciding out of game that the campaign will be only in the caribbean. Player will make different choices as a result and this something I have observed for decades of running both types of games.
A player can always choose to make a different choice than his character would.
Two part decision here for a sandbox campaign. First the decision to play in 18th century Earth. Second the decision to have the group start out as pirates in the Caribbean.
Yes, of course, I was assuming the campaign had been agreed upon by the participants.
I am not talking about one character going off to fight the French and Indian War. I am talking about the group deciding in-game that their character should go fight the French and Indian War.
But then why wouldn't they want the game to be about that from the start?
If there's a connection....if the pirate activity is impacting the shipping of supplies and the war is a factor in the campaign, then sure, this may be a reasonable shift and perfectly fine. But if it has nothing to do with anything that's going on, that just seems like the players wanting to play a different game.
If I said the campaign was about the group adventuring as a mercenary company serving on the southern frontier of Nomar than that would colored all their subsequent decision. They would have not considered leaving the Baron's service and moving to the northeast frontier as that would violate the premise. I intensely dislike influencing players in this way as the results are never as interesting as when they feel completely to make any decision their character would.
As a side note I consider the common idea that a campaign has to be about something other than adventuring in the setting a pain in the ass to deal with. I have to constantly reassure novices not to worry about what I may or may not have prepared. Just do what you think your character ought to be doing.
I don't know....it's hard to know the scope of the region and so on. I'm not saying that things have to remain absolutely locked in as "we must be pirates" and "we must be in the Caribbean". I just think that if that's where things start, and everyone agreed upon that, then any major shift in that which isn't prompted by the in game fiction is arbitrary. I am not saying that all sandboxes must have a tight theme or constraints in place....if a GM is ready to run any and everything to do with 18th century earth, or any other setting, awesome, have at it.
As for doing what the character ought to be doing....ideally, sure. But most characters "ought" to be living a safe life. If you mean, make decisions as your character (which I take to be your meaning, but don't want to assume) then yes, generally they should do that. But barring some in game reason, I wouldn't expect the players to want to go traipsing away from one area to engage in a totally different one.
It was not a problem for the inhabitants of 18th century Earth therefore I see no problem if players decide to fight in the French and Indian War if the campaign started out in 18th century Caribbean region as pirate.
I would say the feedom to go anywhere and do anything is more fictional than mirroring the real world. Plenty of people in that era had plenty of problems with leaving one area for another.