Sandbox-style: What's your opinion?

[Ginnel]

I'm not sure I've experienced a sandbox style game, a DM who does it well enough can make any story seem like a sandbox.

To sandbox or not it depends on your players and their characters they need a drive to go out and do stuff, events can't sweep them along unless its other members of the group of course.

Myself I like a little story driven and a little sandbox a bit of each would be my ideal, with large amounts of improvisation from the DM which takes into account players actions and backgrounds.

as a side note:
DM'ing as a whole is a skill I've probably only seen 4 people who've nailed it over around 15 different DM's and I'm definetly not one of those, it is possible to DM a good game without nailing it, kudos to Pete (Tribe 8) Alex (Planescape, Marvel) Tree (low powered superhero and starwars) and Gareth (Vampire, Marvel) the aforementioned 4.

 

[TerraDave]

Sandbox? You see this a lot, and its not always clear what it even means...but I will throw out some random reactions, not so much directed at the OP (or blog), but just in general:

How Big? From how it is sometimes described, The Village of Hommlet or Keep on the Borderlands would be perfect sandboxes. In other descriptions, they would be terrible, 'cause the pcs might not even go to them in the first place. Where do you set the boundries? Where is the edge of the "box".

How much prep? Some sandy DMs seem to really emphasize prep and using lots of materials they made or purchased. Others seem to focus on making things up and improvising. While some of both are always needed, there is a tension...which is it?

There is more then one player For the first two points, I can kinda see how to deal with them under various circumstances. But this last one is a potential killer. When players really take the initiative or go outside the box, it often pulls them away from the group, putting the dm and other players in the position of shutting down what they wanted to do, or suddenly improvising something they are not interested in. Normally, the DMs real job is to come up with stuff that has broad enough appeal to satisfy everone in the party. How does that work for the sandy DM?

Big Finish: My own experience from playing and DMing is that it can be quite appealing to take part in some bigger mystery or event, and see that revealed through play. Of course, the pcs should drive it, and have lots of tactical choice and room for failure. But in the end, you figure out that the townspeople really are all cultists of Yog-Soggoth and stop the ritual (or die trying) or you don't. You don't go to Arkham and foil the local loan shark or shutdown a meth-dealer instead just because you can. Unless of course they bring you back to good old Yog.

 

[Reynard]

How Big? From how it is sometimes described, The Village of Hommlet or Keep on the Borderlands would be perfect sandboxes. In other descriptions, they would be terrible, 'cause the pcs might not even go to them in the first place. Where do you set the boundries? Where is the edge of the "box".

I'd say they'd be perfect for sandboxes. A DM could get a lot of mileage out of either, and since he didn't spend months making them, if the PCs never go there, well, the next set of PCs might.

How much prep? Some sandy DMs seem to really emphasize prep and using lots of materials they made or purchased. Others seem to focus on making things up and improvising. While some of both are always needed, there is a tension...which is it?

Personal preference and ability, I think. Like you say, some love prep, some love flying by the seat of their pants, some fall in the middle.

There is more then one player For the first two points, I can kinda see how to deal with them under various circumstances. But this last one is a potential killer. When players really take the initiative or go outside the box, it often pulls them away from the group, putting the dm and other players in the position of shutting down what they wanted to do, or suddenly improvising something they are not interested in. Normally, the DMs real job is to come up with stuff that has broad enough appeal to satisfy everone in the party. How does that work for the sandy DM?

If the players refuse to operate as a group, it isn't incumbent upon the DM to make them. Everyone is responsible for everyone's fun. If they don't want to have fun as a group, they're not likely to be able to have fun as individuals, either.

Big Finish: My own experience from playing and DMing is that it can be quite appealing to take part in some bigger mystery or event, and see that revealed through play. Of course, the pcs should drive it, and have lots of tactical choice and room for failure. But in the end, you figure out that the townspeople really are all cultists of Yog-Soggoth and stop the ritual (or die trying) or you don't. You don't go to Arkham and foil the local loan shark or shutdown a meth-dealer instead just because you can. Unless of course they bring you back to good old Yog.

The sandbox doesn't mean there aren't big stories to be told or that big events aren't on the horizon. I'm not sure what even inspired this thought.

 

[TerraDave]

Reynard, thanks for the answers...as for the last, there seems to an emphasis by the sandboxers on smaller, personal goals (or things just made up on the fly), versus bigger, singular events.

 

[Reynard]

Reynard, thanks for the answers...as for the last, there seems to an emphasis by the sandboxers on smaller, personal goals (or things just made up on the fly), versus bigger, singular events.

For me anyway, it's often a matter of tossing a few seeds out there and see which ones grow. Last time I ran a successful sandbox, it turned into the PCs bringing the true gods back to the world and stopping an invasion from the Far Realms.

 

[jdrakeh]

Sandbox does not mean you need to write your own adventures.

This. The world is the sandbox. You can (and many do) use pre-written adventures in 'sandbox' play, the trick is getting enough information together on the setting to create the sandbox itself.

 

[Irda Ranger]

Sandbox ... requires impecable record keeping, which I tend to lag at

You will need to keep pretty accurate notes, because even the encounters or plot points you may have pre-planned will require fleshing out in the midst of the moment... players will remember that one tidbit that you threw out and forgot to write down.

Solution: TiddlyWiki - a reusable non-linear personal web notebook

Awesome. If you keep a laptop at the table (or would be willing to), spending 10 minutes after a gaming session entering the NPCs and plothooks you generated during the session into this wiki means never having to forget again. Great search features. Make sure to make uses of the tags.

If you use multiple computers, keep the wiki file in your DropBox folder.

Dropbox - Home - Secure backup, sync and sharing made easy.

 

[El Mahdi]

I'd be willing to try this as a DM, and I hope I'd have the chops to pull it off (I think I do, anyways). But other than the group I first started in (which I didn't really DM except as special one-offs), and maybe a group I played with in Korea, I haven't had players that I feel would have been able to do this, or enjoy it. Especially the group I have right now, they are pretty much newbies. But as time goes on, I may try to slowly introduce some sandbox aspects and get my players to decide where and what they want to do. It could kind of corelate to the feeling of their characters gaining in experience as the players themselves do also.

 

[FriarRosing]

I think I really like this idea for a style of running my game. The last campaign I tried to do involved me fleshing out every inch of every area and every character in a town. It really sucked when the area I'd spent weeks fleshing out in my notebook ended up getting ignored by my players. They decided they didn't like the villagers, and opted instead to go live with some druids I'd thought of only in passing.

I think the sandbox works better for me because, really, I found fleshing out tons of detail beforehand to be rather tedious. Especially in terms of designing dungeons and encounters. Is the "sandbox" style good for getting around that? Or will I always have to put up with the tedium?

I'm thinking I'm just going to draw up some general maps and think up several overarching ongoings in the area (i.e. war is brewing between two kingdoms, a plague has hit a group of villages, a king has gone missing) with general backgrounds and explanations for these events, and then just let my players respond to and get involved with whatever sounds good. Is that doing it right? Or should I just have a minor event or two and just see where it goes?

I've been making little NPC cards on notecards. I figured this way I could access them easily and have everything right in front of me? Is that a good idea? Are there other helpful little things I could do?

One last thing, how do you make your own random encounter tables? Should I just list monsters they're likely to run into based on their general level and what's in the area? Like, should I make random encounter groups or should I just have tables of random monsters?

I'll admit, I've been DMing for a while, but to an extent some of it is still a little new to me. Well, not new, but I feel like I still need a lot of good advice. Sandbox is always something I've wanted to do, but it seemed like more work. Now, though, I think it may actually be less.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Based upon this ENWorld blog entry I'm left wondering some things about sandbox-style gaming that I'd like to ask those DMs who have used it:
1) I've been told adventure writing is an art, but if you are simply following the direction of PCs does it require even more skill to pull off?
2) Does it dramatically increase the preparation time needed? (You may take this question however you feel.)
3) Would you recommend it to new DMs? And why or why not?

As a player, I'm not in favor of sandbox gaming. The big problem I've had with it are multiple players.

Unless they cooperate and do things together like a party, you end up with splitting the session into four (or more, depending on number) mini-sessions, in which you get to do something for a sliver of time.

The DM needs to enforce (yes, I'm going to use that word) making the PCs actually work together, and give his own reasons why they should, instead of only relying on the players to do so.