Adventures Do you run or play in a Sandbox or Linear game

[Sadrik]

Sandbox: games where the world is open for the players to explore
Linear: games where the players are lead down a pre-constructed path

Not every game is completely one or the other but you can probably say this game is more linear and that game is more sandbox, they are not absolute terms.

So what is it?

[Remathilis]

Mostly Linear; I often introduce plot hooks, antagonists, and story-driven elements to the PCs. They respond to it. How they respond to it is up to them.

I guess it might be better to call it scenario-based: I present my PCs a scenario (The king is a doppelganger, the Lich Arthgard's tomb is open, vampires are attempting a ritual to blot-out the sun) and the PCs look for ways to stop it (seek out help, explore the tomb, find an artifact, kill the vampires, etc).

[Dice4Hire]

Originally Posted by Remathilis

I guess it might be better to call it scenario-based: I present my PCs a scenario (The king is a doppelganger, the Lich Arthgard's tomb is open, vampires are attempting a ritual to blot-out the sun) and the PCs look for ways to stop it (seek out help, explore the tomb, find an artifact, kill the vampires, etc).

Yes, this is exactly what I try to accomplish in my games.

[Garmorn]

Originally Posted by Remathilis

I guess it might be better to call it scenario-based: I present my PCs a scenario (The king is a doppelganger, the Lich Arthgard's tomb is open, vampires are attempting a ritual to blot-out the sun) and the PCs look for ways to stop it (seek out help, explore the tomb, find an artifact, kill the vampires, etc).

My approach is similar but I try to have 2 or more scenarios for them to pick if they want to. Also I try to stay away from save the world types. I do occasionally run save the worlds type but it last one I ran was a world where the sun was permanently (by magic) hidden behind a thick cover of ash. It was them who where trying to change things while evil tried to stop them.

[The Shaman]

Originally Posted by Remathilis

I guess it might be better to call it scenario-based: I present my PCs a scenario (The king is a doppelganger, the Lich Arthgard's tomb is open, vampires are attempting a ritual to blot-out the sun) and the PCs look for ways to stop it (seek out help, explore the tomb, find an artifact, kill the vampires, etc).

Can the player characters say, "Yeah, not our problem. Let's go find a tomb to loot!" instead?

[Jack Daniel]

Meh. There's no such thing as a real sandbox game. Consider its supposed properties:

- The PCs can go anywhere they want to, with no predetermined plot.
- For all the locations that the PCs never visit, life goes on, consequences happen.

The problem with these two things is that they're all but impossible to implement in a tabletop RPG. No DM can create an infinite number of locations, NPCs, adventure hooks, etc. to account for all the possible places a party might hex-crawl to. There will only be a handful of plots (yes, they're plots), vague plot-nuggets, and other interesting occurences, ready and waiting to be dropped in the path of wherever the PCs "decide" to go. And since the only game world that really exists at any given moment is exactly what's in front of the PCs' faces, because the DM and the players are co-creating the illusion as they go along, there is just no way that the DM is "updating" every other location in his campaign setting. Even computer games don't usually do a good job of that.

There is no sandbox. Just linear with a focus on developing locations, vs. linear with a focus on developing events (perhaps with varying degrees of predetermination vs. improvision).

[Filcher]

Originally Posted by Jack Daniel

No DM can create an infinite number of locations, NPCs, adventure hooks, etc. to account for all the possible places a party might hex-crawl to.

What about Schrödinger's Setting? Where the DM doesn't really know what in that hex/cave/forest until the PCs decide to look? Does that qualify as "sandbox" ? You don't create in infinite world, just a virtual, penciled in world, filling in each next step, as the PCs decide what to do where to go.

We did this w/ some Mud code, way back when. The specifics of a hex didn't exist until the PC walked into it.

[Beginning of the End]

Originally Posted by Jack Daniel

Meh. There's no such thing as a real sandbox game. Consider its supposed properties:

- The PCs can go anywhere they want to, with no predetermined plot.
- For all the locations that the PCs never visit, life goes on, consequences happen.

The problem with these two things is that they're all but impossible to implement in a tabletop RPG. No DM can create an infinite number of locations, NPCs, adventure hooks, etc. to account for all the possible places a party might hex-crawl to.

But to achieve those properties, DMs don't have to create infinite locations, NPCs, or adventure hooks. All they have to prep is the area where the PCs are currently standing.

And they don't even need to fully prep those locations: A DM is not a computer program. They are capable of effective improvisation at the gaming table itself.

The PCs stand at location X. They walk away. If they come back, I'll figure out what's happened in their absence. If they don't, I won't.

The PCs decide to go into a random building. I don't know what's in there. I can either (a) use generative systems to find out myself or (b) make it up on the fly.

There seems to be a strawman out there that holds that the creativity of the GM isn't allowed to impact a sandbox setting. That's self-evident nonsense. The difference between a sandbox and a railroad is not whether or not the players are responding to the environment provided by the GM; the difference is in how their input to the game is parsed.

It is, in fact, possible to have nothing except a linear railroad prepped and yet still run a sandbox by being permissive and creative in your response to player input. (Although running a campaign like that is far more difficult than properly prepping the sandbox.)

[Snoweel]

Originally Posted by Beginning of the End

There seems to be a strawman out there that holds that the creativity of the GM isn't allowed to impact a sandbox setting. That's self-evident nonsense.

Equally nonsensical is the idea, 'out there', that games are either 'sandbox' or 'not sandbox'.

Though if this is the case, then the "creativity of the GM" in reaction to the actions of the PCs surely invalidates a game as a 'sandbox'.

And if it doesn't then a game that is 'not sandbox' doesn't exist, other than in theory.

Either way, 'sandbox' becomes a useless distinction; either all games are sandbox games, or none of them are. The only difference is the degree.

[Glyfair]

Originally Posted by Filcher

What about Schrödinger's Setting? Where the DM doesn't really know what in that hex/cave/forest until the PCs decide to look? Does that qualify as "sandbox" ? You don't create in infinite world, just a virtual, penciled in world, filling in each next step, as the PCs decide what to do where to go.

We did this w/ some Mud code, way back when. The specifics of a hex didn't exist until the PC walked into it.

In my experience, in the attempts at so-called sandbox games you usually end up with a lot of inconsistency. The GM often will forget some detail he made up on the fly (especially if it was months ago in real time) and at times directly contradict it. Usually it's just a minor bump that hurts the player's immersion in small amounts. Sometimes, however, it can totally break the players from the game world.

The other weakness is that very few GMs are 100% creative. When they are constantly put in situations where they have to completely improvise, they tend to fall back on the some of the same things. True, GMs who can prep the details in advance do this as well, but they have plenty of time to catch it and go back and change things when they do. When you are improvising in the moment you don't have time to realize you are being repetitive and erase and change direction.

The biggest possible weakness in an improvisation heavy game is that the responsibility for the game is heavier than usual on the DM. If you have an amazing GM than the game will probably be amazing. If you have a slightly better than average GM, then the game will probably just be "OK". If you have a slightly below average GM then the game is going to be bad.

That being said, I am slightly below "mostly linear." If you ranked games on a scale of 1 - 10 with 10 being as linear as you can get and 1 being as sandbox as you can get in a real game, I would put myself between 6 & 7 for my style preference. Have a clear direction (or directions), have players that are not going to fight the direction just because it is there, and be improvise when the players wander off the prepared path.

[Gilladian]

If I were given a 1-10 scale, I'd have to say I'm a 5. I tend to present my players with a few options at a given point, let them choose one, and focus in on it. I will try to be flexible and improvisational in my responses to their choices during the adventure.

When they "finish" that plot, they get a couple more options (or get reminded of dangling options from earlier). I don't do a huge amount of "ramifications for failing to choose" something. I figure that if the PCs choose twice NOT to attend a performance of a play I've mentioned, they're not going to be interested in hearing that the theater burned and the lead actor was murdered. Instead, they might later witness a party at which one of the solvers of the murder is lauded.

I don't ever run "the world is going to end" plots. At most, they're "the kingdom's rulership changes" plots. I think they're boring, myself.

My players always have the option to "leave". They could pack up and depart from their home city tomorrow, and we'd be running a wilderness campaign... I don't know if that's sandbox, or what, but it is how I like to do things.

[Crothian]

Both; there are pre constructed paths but the PCs are free to go where they want.

[Remathilis]

Originally Posted by The Shaman

Can the player characters say, "Yeah, not our problem. Let's go find a tomb to loot!" instead?

Well, my group tends towards the "save the world" heroic type of play by choice, but yes, they can (and have) ignored plots or even made up their own alternative ones. They then deal with the repercussions (such as the king declaring war on a neighboring ally or a sunless world, which usually leads them to go find the vampires and restore the sun anyway, except now it just got a wee bit harder to do...)

Part of the social contract is feedback. I try and give plots the players (though not necessarily the PCs) will enjoy. In return, they tend to take the bait more often than not. If things start to suck, we try to modify things to make them work, even it means the occasionally hastily-wrapped up plotline or forgotten hook ("Hey, wasn't there ogres attack Eastvale?" "Some other group of adventurers must've taken care of them.")

[Derulbaskul]

My players think they're in a sandbox and that is the illusion I always try to maintain.

From my side of the screen it is a railroad, more or less, but a railroad with the illusion of choice (plus the occasional real choice).

[Ariosto]

For several months, I have been playing in a very linear campaign.

Besides other considerations, it is pretty clear that AD&D was not designed with that in mind. The "house rules" and "DM specials" seem mainly to have made matters worse, although I guess that a more cunning DM might have done better.

Before that, I was playing RPGA (LFR) 4e. Not my cuppa, but at least designed for that.

My D&D campaigns are just "worlds" revisited. By analogy with computer games, think of Frontier: Elite II.

I also do one-off "plot line" series from time to time. Those tend to take up at most three or four sessions, though. (The UK module-duology "The Sentinel" and "The Gauntlet" stands out.)