How different PC motivations support sandbox and campaign play

[Dannyalcatraz]

why do you ignore the completely broken nature of the rest of the commerce system RPGs use

You assume this is true. It isn’t. I don’t, and neither do most of the guys I’ve played under.

See the example about the masterwork weapon. Or how I discussed that just because something has a price in the PHB means that’s the price a PC will pay. Or that just because something exists, doesn’t mean it’s available here and now.

That’s not just me being an Econ nerd. That’s a slew of GMs in different cities, states, and systems. It wasn’t uncommon for a shopkeeper to say, “I don’t have ________, but I DO have _______. Would you like that instead?”

 

[Ovinomancer]

You assume this is true. It isn’t. I don’t, and neither do most of the guys I’ve played under.

See the example about the masterwork weapon. Or how I discussed that just because something has a price in the PHB means that’s the price a PC will pay. Or that just because something exists, doesn’t mean it’s available here and now.

That’s not just me being an Econ nerd. That’s a slew of GMs in different cities, states, and systems. It wasn’t uncommon for a shopkeeper to say, “I don’t have ________, but I DO have _______. Would you like that instead?”

It is true: no RPG has a functional economic system -- it's all handwaived away because no one really wants to play real economic systems (and, given we can't model our real-world economic system with but the barest of skill, it's impossible to actually model a fantasy one). That you think this statement is defeated because you have arbitrary scarcity in your game (and some others do as well) is baffling to me. The scarcity you're talking about isn't at all based on any economic principle -- it's either DM fiat or left to chance with dice rolls. That's not economics, sorry.

But, to really drive home a point, you're here arguing that some mythical economic force in a pretend elf game declares that any DM that doesn't have magic items for sale is doing it wrong. No, man, just no. If someone asks you for help in coming up with some faux economics for magic item sales, leap to and have fun. But, if someone says 'my pretend elf game has no magic items for sale' you really shouldn't go leaping in with 'pretend elf arbitrary economics DEMAND that magic items are for sale!' It's a bad look.

 

[Shasarak]

It is true: no RPG has a functional economic system -- it's all handwaived away because no one really wants to play real economic systems (and, given we can't model our real-world economic system with but the barest of skill, it's impossible to actually model a fantasy one). That you think this statement is defeated because you have arbitrary scarcity in your game (and some others do as well) is baffling to me. The scarcity you're talking about isn't at all based on any economic principle -- it's either DM fiat or left to chance with dice rolls. That's not economics, sorry.

But, to really drive home a point, you're here arguing that some mythical economic force in a pretend elf game declares that any DM that doesn't have magic items for sale is doing it wrong. No, man, just no. If someone asks you for help in coming up with some faux economics for magic item sales, leap to and have fun. But, if someone says 'my pretend elf game has no magic items for sale' you really shouldn't go leaping in with 'pretend elf arbitrary economics DEMAND that magic items are for sale!' It's a bad look.

Having all your Elves sitting up trees singing "tra-la-la-lally" was good enough for Tolkien so it should be good enough for me too.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

How does one successfully combine sandbox and campaign play?

*shrug* I don't think I've ever had this problem. At least not in a few decades.

How do I do it? I run a rather harsh "old skool" style of game; the world IS out to kill the PC's. I, the DM, am the "world", ergo I am out to kill the PC's. That said, I am the world...so I don't really care one way or the other. Seems contradictory, huh? It isn't. When I DM I play the opposition as they would behave or be capable of based on a myriad of factors, most of which is "how tough does the creature think it is... how tough the creature actually is... how intelligent is the creature with regard figuring out when it is in a situation falling to the first or second point". Alignment plays a big part. Good creatures will avoid or try and "end it quickly". Neutral creatures are primarily driven by survival vs. danger (a risk:reward thing). Evil creatures will try to hurt/kill things whenever they think they can get away with it.

Anyway...because my games are "deadly", wealth is usually one of those "It sure would be nice to find a thousand gold pieces!" things. They are usually thinking "But honestly, I'd just rather have something other than a loincloth, a rock, and 1/4 of a water skin traipsing around in this desert after being teleported by that eff'ing crypt thing!"

Wealth? Xp? Magic Items? LOL! Keep dreaming, newb! You're first level, expect to die horribly! If adventuring was easy, everyone would be doing it!

But if you don't run an old skool style campaign, I guess the only option is really to find out what each PLAYER wants to get out of the game, then see if it's something you would enjoy giving to them. I the Players really enjoy the mechanics side of thing, then money, equipment, magic items, 'unique' equipment/items, special training that 'breaks' the rules somehow, etc is where you'd go. If the Players really enjoy the thrill of the hunt, give them a multi-part adventure quest where each ending of a part reveils more of the puzzle and grand scheme of things. If the Players just enjoy the talking and roleplaying of it, give them special favours owed by powerful people or titles of office and things relating to the RP'ing aspect of their PC's.

I guess in short, it just relies on what the Players want. And if you don't know what they want...ask them. It really is that simple. (...or go hard-core old skool on their collective PC posteriors and just start littering the campaign landscape with the beaten and broken bodies of scores of characters...that works too... ).

As far as I'm concerned "Sandbox" and "Campaign" play is the same thing...from the perspective of the Players. They don't know (or at least shouldn't) that X is going to lead to Y which will end with Z. My players know that when I whip out some old module or something, that it is the "starting point". How long the player pursue that 'adventure' is based entirely upon their desires. I have had players (somewhat often, actually...call it 30%) decide that they are "done" with some particular adventure area and just wander off to some location on the world map that they thought sounded cool. My last "Kingmaker" campaign (Pathfinder, by Paizo), the PC's did the first adventure...mostly. Just as they would have started into the second they went back to the Lord (Baron? Duke? I can't remember), handed their 'writ of passage and settlement', said "So long, and thanks for all the fish!" and then left the area, heading north to Red Dragon Mountains iirc (curious to see if there were actual red dragons there...silly Players!...they should know better by now!...). That did NOT mean the campaign "ended"; it only changed the story.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

It is true: no RPG has a functional economic system -- it's all handwaived away because no one really wants to play real economic systems (and, given we can't model our real-world economic system with but the barest of skill, it's impossible to actually model a fantasy one).

(Edit)

But, to really drive home a point, you're here arguing that some mythical economic force in a pretend elf game declares that any DM that doesn't have magic items for sale is doing it wrong.

I’m not declaring it badwrongfun. If it works in your group to have no possibility of buying/selling magic, bully for you! I’m stating a strong personal feeling that that is the kind of DM fiat that makes me leave games.

A fellow ENWorlder (no, not me) once posted something to the effect that the RW lays the foundation of the game world. The more you alter the fundamentals, the more you either need to support with an internal campaign logic or handwave away.

Both tools are necessary, but the more you handwave, the more players have to buy in. And every player has a point when the won’t do that. I know guys who won’t play FRPGs because of flying dragons...and others who won’t play sci-if games because such critters are impossible.

No fantasy economy handwaves ALL economic principles, they’re still present in at least a rudimentary fashion that still makes sense at an intuitive level. Generally speaking, rarer items cost more than common ones. Highly desirable items cost more than less desirable ones. More powerful things cost more than lesser ones.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My experience is few players pay much attention to economic forces in a campaign setting. 3E really dug into the economic stuff, but it always felt kind of weird for me to apply what felt like market economic forces to medieval fantasy. Still if you want magic item shops, they are easy to justify. If you don't want them, they are equally easy to justify. I think you can get overly pedantic about expecting explanations on either front though. A good reason not to have magic item shops is powerful governments and institutions could try to control who has them. You could have something like the state monopoly on salt in ancient China for example, just applied to magic items. They'd likely still be available on the black market, but that would easy explain why you don't have magic shops all over the place (because they are illegal). You could still have state owned magic shops if you wanted, but you could also just as easily say the Empire has decided to horde all magic items to itself and restrict sale to certain elites during very specific times of year.

I used to be very interested in the economic stuff as a GM. These days, I am much more interested in characters and organizations. Same for when I am playing. I really don't care now about those kinds of details, and if a player gets bent out of shape because the GM doesn't handle them to his or her liking, but everyone else is having a good time, I tend to get annoyed at that player.

 

[Riley37]

I guess in short, it just relies on what the Players want. And if you don't know what they want...ask them. It really is that simple.

Yes, with an exception: when the players have a hard time sorting out the relationship between "what the players want" and "what my PC wants". Whether I as player will sit at the table of an Old Skool DM, depends on whether I as player WANT a game experience which occasionally includes PC death. None of my PCs want a horrible death, so if I could not sort out that difference, then I could not tell the DM that I'm okay with an Old Skool game.

As far as I'm concerned "Sandbox" and "Campaign" play is the same thing...from the perspective of the Players. They don't know (or at least shouldn't) that X is going to lead to Y which will end with Z. My players know that when I whip out some old module or something, that it is the "starting point". How long the player pursue that 'adventure' is based entirely upon their desires.

See, that's evidence of your personal position, on the spectrum from Sandbox to Railroad. There are DMs who respond to deviation with "Get back onto the rails!". I've played with a DM who had enemies appear out of nowhere, and attack the PCs, as a response to PCs having an in-character discussion of whether and how they want to follow the plot hook. If you cannot imagine that level of railroading, good for you; but I have seen it, so that affects my view of the spectrum.

 

[Riley37]

I’m not declaring it badwrongfun. If it works in your group to have no possibility of buying/selling magic, bully for you! I’m stating a strong personal feeling that that is the kind of DM fiat that makes me leave games.

<snip>

No fantasy economy handwaves ALL economic principles, they’re still present in at least a rudimentary fashion that still makes sense at an intuitive level. Generally speaking, rarer items cost more than common ones. Highly desirable items cost more than less desirable ones. More powerful things cost more than lesser ones.

In a Quixotic attempt to re-unite strands of the thread...

If a player declares "My PC tries to sell the Bag of Holding", or "I go looking for someone who will sell me a Bag of Holding", then the DM's response will fall somewhere on the spectrum of railroad to sandbox.

Very railroad: "No. There is absolutely no way for you to do that. Don't ask again."
Moderate: "That's not gonna be easy, you know. You've never seen a Magic Item Shoppe."
Very sandbox: "Tell me more about how you go about that project."
Very co-creationist: "I haven't really thought yet about how that happens in this setting. Let's figure it out together. What have we established, so far, about the creation of magic items, and who already has them, and about trade?"

X: "How much of the session do we want to spend on whether that's possible, and if so, whether you can establish a favorable price? I've got a Big Fight prepped; if we spend more than an hour on downtime, then that bumps the Big Fight to next session. Is anyone other than Steve interested in this process? If not, then Steve, could we schedule a one-on-one, between regular sessions?"

I do not know a good name for X. Do you, Gentle Reader? Maybe "meta-aware"?

 

[Nagol]

It is true: no RPG has a functional economic system -- it's all handwaived away because no one really wants to play real economic systems (and, given we can't model our real-world economic system with but the barest of skill, it's impossible to actually model a fantasy one). That you think this statement is defeated because you have arbitrary scarcity in your game (and some others do as well) is baffling to me. The scarcity you're talking about isn't at all based on any economic principle -- it's either DM fiat or left to chance with dice rolls. That's not economics, sorry.

But, to really drive home a point, you're here arguing that some mythical economic force in a pretend elf game declares that any DM that doesn't have magic items for sale is doing it wrong. No, man, just no. If someone asks you for help in coming up with some faux economics for magic item sales, leap to and have fun. But, if someone says 'my pretend elf game has no magic items for sale' you really shouldn't go leaping in with 'pretend elf arbitrary economics DEMAND that magic items are for sale!' It's a bad look.

By that measure, no RPG (except perhaps Phoenix Command) has a combat system. Its either fiat or left to chance with dice rolls...


Some RPGs and RPG supplements have an amount of thought/mechanical subsystems to model an economic system plausibly* enough for the type of game expected by the designers.


* as in, not getting in the way and/or presenting outcomes that lie within the expected range for the players

 

[pming]

Hiya!

See, that's evidence of your personal position, on the spectrum from Sandbox to Railroad. There are DMs who respond to deviation with "Get back onto the rails!". I've played with a DM who had enemies appear out of nowhere, and attack the PCs, as a response to PCs having an in-character discussion of whether and how they want to follow the plot hook. If you cannot imagine that level of railroading, good for you; but I have seen it, so that affects my view of the spectrum.

Ahh...yes. I have encountered this once I think. It wasn't really the DM's fault though...it was a Ravenloft adventure he was DM'ing. The problems were with the module more or less expecting that the PC's would be from Ravenloft I guess? Maybe it was just very poorly written, I'm not sure (I never DM'ed it). The other factor was that there were, iirc, 7 or 8 players. The horror of desperation kinda starts to nose dive after about 4 people (oh, all 1e, btw...this is way back when). It was BLATANTLY obvious where and what we were supposed to do, to the point of "You are on a dirt road, up ahead, you can make out the dark shapes and silhouettes of a fog-shrouded town. Only a handful of orange, dim glowing lights can be seen indicating that someone inhabits the structures."..."Ok...should we go around this place?" ... "...you suddenly hear the howl of wolves to your right, coming from withing the pitch black pine forest...and to the left you see a myriad of glowing red eyes blinking in and out of existence, watching you..." ... "Ahhh...got it. So we are supposed to go to the town. Ok. To the town!".

Pretty much anytime we considered doing something "unexpected", the DM would throw up "walls" to heard us down the "correct" path. We never finished that adventure. We rebelled at some point, asking what the point of an adventure is if all it really is, is a pre-determined set of encounters leading to some specific localised showdown (hmmm...that structure sounds familiar...like you're play an adventure set on some sort of path... [ok, newer ones aren't THAT bad...but still not my cup o' joe for a 'normal campaign adventure']). Anyway, the DM then gave up and we all talked about it, and me and a friend showed him our "map". It was a line map, with capital letters. I think we got up to H. Each letter we has a 'prediction'...and it was true every single time. "A: NPC tells us where to go? - Correct! // B: Location is under attack? - Correct! // C: NPC of prominence, or beautiful woman, pleads for 'help'? - Correct (woman) // D: ...", we would 'predict' the next letter as soon as we got to the letter before it. H. We got all the way to H with 100% accuracy.

So, yeah. I have encountered "hard-core railroading". In fact, I can think of one more, but it was in a Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Set game (FASERIP) by a new'ish player who wanted to GM a game. It was...bad. Like...REALLY bad. Some people, no matter how hard they try or how hard they want to be a GM, are just not cut out for it.

Anyway, I have been sitting primarily in the DM's side of the screen for a good 33 to 35 of my 38 years of RPG'ing. I prefer it. So I don't get to "encounter heavy railroading" very often. When I do, it's usually a one or two session 'one-off' that a player wants to do because the DM-bug bit them or something. After the adventure they go back to being a Player because "Being a DM is too much damn work. And you guys always screw things up!", as one of my players said (maybe not verbatim, it was a while ago, but I got a chuckle out of it!).


^_^

Paul L. Ming