Plots in a Sandbox

[Snoweel]

Not getting into a pissing match with you, mate. Please respect the moderators, who have already spoken.

Just because you're continually avoiding it doesn't make it an innocuous question.

And it will become extremely relevant the next time somebody is told their game is NOT A SANDBOX. Unless that thinking has been put to bed by all this.

 

[Umbran]

I thought that I said multiple options -- not multiple hooks -- were necessary for choices to be meaningful.

Well, here's how it fell out.

Lostsoul said:
"Is it "bad form" in a sandbox to set things up so that there is a point where there are too many things going on in the game world for the PCs to deal with all of them, forcing the PCs to pick and choose to deal with one of them, resulting in "bad things" happening somewhere else no matter what?"

You replied:
"...In fact, doing so is, IMHO, integral to making PC choices meaningful. "

From which I got:
The DM loading with so much NPC action (that's what we are talking about here - NPC plots, remember?) going on that the PCs cannot possibly deal with it all is integral (meaning essential to, an irremovable part of) making player choices meaningful.

That last is what I disagreed with.

 

[Umbran]

Just because you're continually avoiding it doesn't make it an innocuous question.

And it will become extremely relevant the next time somebody is told their game is NOT A SANDBOX. Unless that thinking has been put to bed by all this.

Snoweel, I think I understand some of where you are coming from. In some part, I agree with you. However, your method here is not going to be constructive - being overly aggressive in pursuit of a point rarely is. So please back off.

 

[Janx]

page 7 had a very relevant point made in response to RC. Now I can't recall who...

ANyway, the gist was, the GM is responsible for making hooks. If he only makes 1 hook, that doesn't mean the players only have 1 choice.

GM hooks is only PART of what the PCs can choose to do. They can also instigate trouble, start a new venture, sit around and do nothing.

Hooks are how a GM tries to inspire the PCs to action. Or at least provide a suggestion of 'what could be an adventure".

To me, "railroad" is a term that describes a horrible game session. Where the players were actively blocked from doing any other valid choice, but the one the DM pre-selected. It's not a matter of "we wanted to leave town, but if we had the bank where we store out loot would have been robbed."

It's where the PCs are forced down a path, and every other option that a sane person would have considered valid is negated by the DM.

Thus, in a detective game, I don't consider it a railroad that the players are presented with 1 case and are assumed to take it. That's not a big deal, it's part of the genre and "how a game gets started"

What is a railroad is when the DM decrees that in the next scene, the party will be falsely accused and captured by the constable, despite the fact that they have a solid aliby in having tea with the inspector and are in fact running away through the secret passage only they know about, and stll the cops are there on the other end to catch them.

Good GMs don't railroad. Let's assume that despite the variance in styles and tricks employed to run a game, that nobody here is running a crappy game that they're players don't enjoy.

 

[Cyronax]

Yes, if the DM had laid some clues about the level of risk. it would have been better. We as players also did make assumptions and you know what they say when you assume.

In later discussions, after some of the bitterness had worn off, we figured out what really went wrong:

The players did not really undertsand the way the PCs were part of a larger world that was not centered around us, as more "traditional" D&D games are.

I was DM for a group of players for about 4-5 years in 3.5 D&D. They more or less abandoned my campaigns after they kept complaining that I wasn't running level appropriate encounters ALL the time and that I was following the wealth charts from the DMG. I would give out more powerful items, but not necessarily place treasure that perfectly fit each PC. I felt terribly constrained by that aspect of 3.5 and am very happy with the modularity of 4e (though I do love both 4e and 3.5e in different ways).

I remember one player actually getting visibly angry at a session because I didn't place a +1 magic Small monk-appropriate kata in the hoard that would be useful to his halfling monk.

I basically ran sandbox campaigns with real hooks for level appropriate threats being the most typically encountered. A few would be pie-in-the-sky epic monsters on the fringes of the map. I'd also throw cakewalks their way to emphasize their progress.

I did my best to give hints at the difficulty levels of any thing they'd come across. I even at one point put down my screen and meta-gamist-ly stated, "guys, maybe I'm not conveying this as well I could, but XX threat is too great for you." They still went on a tried to take on XX threat, and when they had a TPK, they started blaming me ... blaming the wealth I wouldn't hand out, and also saying that it wasn't LEVEL appropriate.

SO, we parted ways. I was bitter then, but I'm now very glad I left. They found another DM and they now play completely level appropriate Adventure Paths in publishing settings.

Someone on EN World will probably chime in and say, oh but you are supposed to make a campaign that is fun for the players. Yes ... but I would hate to DM a cookie-cutter level appropriate video-gamey, yet somewhat challenging AP. And some players would hate to have their characters face uncertainty and a world of ambiguity in their games.

To each their own ... I just learned how important it is to always remind your players about the kind of campaign you play. I didn't understand concepts like 'status quo' game or 'sandbox campaign' back then.

I wish I had.

/Rant

 

[Cyronax]

Might it be simpler just not to lock up your players?

That's a rather simplistic counterpoint. I think the poster just meant that sometimes sessions can get eaten up unintentionally by all sides if you move room by room through big dungeons.

The late 3.5 version of Castle Greyhawk had excellent advice on helping get away from this element. It basically didn't even bother mapping out every corridor (like 2E FR's Undermountain boxed set). It just had discrete encounter areas ..... much like what's become the norm for all 4e adventures.

BUT ... even with this new way of looking at/map dungeons there is still the chance for getting 'bogged down' (perhaps a better term than 'locked down') in a small to mid to mega dungeon.

Or maybe everyone is just a bad DM compared to you.

 

[Raven Crowking]

ANyway, the gist was, the GM is responsible for making hooks. If he only makes 1 hook, that doesn't mean the players only have 1 choice.

GM hooks is only PART of what the PCs can choose to do. They can also instigate trouble, start a new venture, sit around and do nothing.

Hooks are how a GM tries to inspire the PCs to action. Or at least provide a suggestion of 'what could be an adventure".

Yes, but the problem here is how the term “hook” became conflated with “NPC plot”, which in turn is conflated with “Things worth doing”.

When the DM throws hooks, he is giving the PCs purchase on the world, rather like good shoes give you purchase on the pavement. The more hooks he throws, the better the purchase, and the better able the PCs are to make meaningful decisions. Hooks in this context are not just “here’s an adventure” but also “here are some things you might be interested in”.

In a living world, much like the real world, information is always flowing. Some of it is useful. Some of it is not. All of this information consists of hooks or potential hooks.

If there is only one hook, certainly the players can choose to do something else, although they are making that choice in a vacuum. Even in a game where the players are responsible for seeking information out (and, IMHO, this makes for the best possible gaming) that information is sought within the context of other information.

If the DM only offers one “hook”, there is no means by which the players may instigate a plot of their own. They don’t have enough information to do so. As soon as enough information exists, there is more than one hook. Therefore, I contend that it is true that multiple options are necessary for any option to have meaning. Moreover, I contend that there must be enough options that all cannot be followed before the choice of which to follow becomes truly meaningful.

YMMV, of course.



RC

 

[Janx]

...
Someone on EN World will probably chime in and say, oh but you are supposed to a make campaign that is fun for the players. Yes ... but I would hate to DM a cookie-cutter level appropriate video-gamey, yet somewhat challenging AP. And some players would hate to have their characters face uncertainty and a world of ambiguity in their games.

To each their own ... I just learned how important it is to always remind your players about the kind of campaign you play. I didn't know the term 'status quo' game or 'sandbox campaign' back then.

I wish I had.

/Rant

Regardless of the terms used, it's always a good idea to try to give the players a sense of how you DM, and what style of game you're playing. You don't need the big fancy official lexicon of RPG terms. Saying there's a mix of stories and plots going on of verying difficulty levels and you're going to have to be careful which ones you chose, might say a lot.

Also, be mindful that as a GM, what you consider fun to run may be functionally different than what the players want to play. I could see the sandbox or simulation mindset appealing to a GM, looking to run "as real of a world as possible". I could also see a GM thinking they have a story to tell and want to do so in D&D. At extremes, either style has negatives (a true simulation tends to be so gritty and deadly due to the nature of actually being an adventurer as to not be fun anymore, a foisted story on the players can turn into a railroad).

I've seen this point made twice from two different credible sources. Dilbert recently made a point that "it's not art if people don't like it".
Dilbert.com - The Official Dilbert Website with Scott Adams' color strips, Dilbert animation, mashups and more!

And I jiust finished watching the Les Paul documentary on NetFlix. He too made the point that if you're not making stuff that appeals to people, you're going to fail. Les Paul, for those who don't know, is a very famous musician who invented a ton of things that enable the recording of music that we hear today. Plus he has a line of nice guitars from Gibson.

There's a movement around here to not call anything "badwrongfun". And of course, whenever the words plot or sandbox come up, a number of us get riled up into thinking the "other way' is wrong (myself included).

The real test of YOUR method whatever it is, is on whether you have a group of players that enjoy your game. If you're not currently running, the test would be, if you announced starting a new game, would your group jump on board to play it.

I suspect then, since my group likes my games, that regardless of how I describe it, I'm doing something right.

That in turn, folks like Ariosto (who in other threads we seem to butt heads) also has a working method for his group of players.

Cyronax's story here, indicates that the way he ran his game, didn't fit for that group of players. It doesn't mean his method was wrong, but it does mean it wasn't a good fit. It also may be a warning sign that his methods need alteration, in what fashion would require some consideration.

One of the things folks seem reluctant to do is label something wrong. If you keep doing the same thing and getting bad results, you are doing it wrong.

So what's a GM to do. They got a philosophy they think is valid. If it ain't holding a group together, you gotta identify what the trouble points are and adjust. You may not have to throw out all your ideas, but if your ideas are driving away audience, they ain't all that great.

 

[Janx]

That's a rather simplistic counterpoint. I think the poster just meant that sometimes sessions can get eaten up unintentionally by all sides if you move room by room through big dungeons.

The late 3.5 version of Castle Greyhawk had excellent advice on helping get away from this element. It basically didn't even bother mapping out every corridor (like 2E FR's Undermountain boxed set). It just had discrete encounter areas ..... much like what's become the norm for all 4e adventures.

BUT ... even with this new way of looking at/map dungeons there is still the chance for getting 'bogged down' (perhaps a better term than 'locked down') in a small to mid to mega dungeon.

Or maybe everyone is just a bad DM compared to you.

Excellent clarification of what the OP probably meant.

If you take a trip to deepest darkest Africa to explore some lost tomb, you're probably going to be out of tough and gone for a while.

While not literally locked up in chains, the person is tied up with business and cannot simply alter course and jump back stateside right away.

 

[Cyronax]

There's a movement around here to not call anything "badwrongfun". And of course, whenever the words plot or sandbox come up, a number of us get riled up into thinking the "other way' is wrong (myself included).

The real test of YOUR method whatever it is, is on whether you have a group of players that enjoy your game. If you're not currently running, the test would be, if you announced starting a new game, would your group jump on board to play it.

I suspect then, since my group likes my games, that regardless of how I describe it, I'm doing something right.

That in turn, folks like Ariosto (who in other threads we seem to butt heads) also has a working method for his group of players.

Cyronax's story here, indicates that the way he ran his game, didn't fit for that group of players. It doesn't mean his method was wrong, but it does mean it wasn't a good fit. It also may be a warning sign that his methods need alteration, in what fashion would require some consideration.

One of the things folks seem reluctant to do is label something wrong. If you keep doing the same thing and getting bad results, you are doing it wrong.

So what's a GM to do. They got a philosophy they think is valid. If it ain't holding a group together, you gotta identify what the trouble points are and adjust. You may not have to throw out all your ideas, but if your ideas are driving away audience, they ain't all that great.

Astute analysis, Janx. You are indeed right the 4 year long running group in question often made snide comments about me being stingy or too 'Old Guard' (to describe me as too much a 2e DM -- i.e. me not following 3.X wealth by level). We butted heads more than most.


And the parting of ways was a good result indeed. I've been DMing since 1997-ish and have run a number of long campaigns (though none survived past 13th level in 3.X).

I think the main point I was trying to make is that DM's nowadays (at least those who read EN World) are getting a better lexicon to help convey their styles to the players (and vice versa).

My 2003-2007 group essentially collapsed because we had wildly different expectations.

I later tried to play in the group's adventure path campaign and was bored to tears because it felt like a railroad. YET, my old players enjoyed the railroad.

happy ending: I formed a new group right after the last one collapsed in 2007. We are still going strong into 2010. They more or less like my more sandbox-type style ... and I do my best to attend to their other tastes as well.

But I should also state that I also tried my best to make my 2003-07 group enjoy my campaigns and tried to blend all of our tastes. We had some great times, but by 2007 though, two specific players became too frustrated with it and that's when we collapsed as a group. The two 'insurgent' players formed the new adventure path group, while two of my old players stayed on to join (at times) my new group.

Gaming is not marriage. And a sandbox vs. linear adventures are equally valid.

Best Regards,

C.I.D.