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Sandboxes? Forked from Paizo reinvents hexcrawling
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<blockquote data-quote="Melan" data-source="post: 5124934" data-attributes="member: 1713"><p>That's a good one, but here is something else to consider: if the same thing ("you screwed up, got captured and thrown into the caves beneath the volcano") <em>happened as a consequence of meaningful player choices</em>, it would be an awesome development from a sandbox perspective. Not because of the exact content of the events, but rather in that it was <em>earned</em>.</p><p></p><p>Of course, another party might </p><p>a) just defeat the slave lords</p><p>b) lure them out one by one from their HQ and assassinate them</p><p>c) forment an uprising or civil war in the city and use that to deal with the slave lords on their own terms</p><p>d) convince some of the antagonists to join their side</p><p>e) remove themselves from the implied plot of taking the slave lords to justice and do something completely different (e.g. realise that a lot of profits are to be made in the city and seize it for themselves)</p><p>A GM who was running a good sandbox campaign would run with each of these potential developments and do something interesting with them. Some choices would lead to more risky situations than others, and feed back into more possible choices down the line - maybe in the same module, or maybe later - like, a few slave lords might get away to do something unpleasant to the players at a later date.</p><p></p><p>Naturally, these situations are not easy to translate into modules without</p><p>a) breaking the freedom of action;</p><p>b) overloading the GM/players with explicit information; or</p><p>c) generalising to a level that results in meaninglessness.</p><p>Some situations can be "bottled" if there is a limited set of agendas in play or the playing area is sensibly constrained (e.g. an island or a small city), but largely, you can only package the playing pieces and a few suggestions on the methods and what you could get out of them, not the adventure itself. In good circumstances, the adventure should just <em>occur</em>. This is not an easy thing; I have tried a variety of approaches in writing modules/mini-settings, and something it can be done, sometimes not. Most of the really enjoyable city adventures from my games would become horrible railroad-sessions if I presented them in a module.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Melan, post: 5124934, member: 1713"] That's a good one, but here is something else to consider: if the same thing ("you screwed up, got captured and thrown into the caves beneath the volcano") [I]happened as a consequence of meaningful player choices[/I], it would be an awesome development from a sandbox perspective. Not because of the exact content of the events, but rather in that it was [I]earned[/I]. Of course, another party might a) just defeat the slave lords b) lure them out one by one from their HQ and assassinate them c) forment an uprising or civil war in the city and use that to deal with the slave lords on their own terms d) convince some of the antagonists to join their side e) remove themselves from the implied plot of taking the slave lords to justice and do something completely different (e.g. realise that a lot of profits are to be made in the city and seize it for themselves) A GM who was running a good sandbox campaign would run with each of these potential developments and do something interesting with them. Some choices would lead to more risky situations than others, and feed back into more possible choices down the line - maybe in the same module, or maybe later - like, a few slave lords might get away to do something unpleasant to the players at a later date. Naturally, these situations are not easy to translate into modules without a) breaking the freedom of action; b) overloading the GM/players with explicit information; or c) generalising to a level that results in meaninglessness. Some situations can be "bottled" if there is a limited set of agendas in play or the playing area is sensibly constrained (e.g. an island or a small city), but largely, you can only package the playing pieces and a few suggestions on the methods and what you could get out of them, not the adventure itself. In good circumstances, the adventure should just [I]occur[/I]. This is not an easy thing; I have tried a variety of approaches in writing modules/mini-settings, and something it can be done, sometimes not. Most of the really enjoyable city adventures from my games would become horrible railroad-sessions if I presented them in a module. [/QUOTE]
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