Guiding players to more sandbox-y play?

Weather Report said:

What with the we must have this Dungeon Tiles/Plastic Crack encounter.

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God damn do I hate tiles.

But whenever I run a canned adventure that references them, I just use my battlemat instead, and it usually ends up being somewhat more accurate to the description than the actual tiles would be; encounters using tiles sometimes say things like "The little crystals are actually flaming brands" and stuff.

[MENTION=1165](Psi)SeveredHead[/MENTION] Yeah my group doesn't communicate about D&D in between sessions... i think that's why they like to maximize time playing at the table, because our game time is such a rare commodity.

So I'm wondering if doing the sandbox style is harder with a group who doesn't have a lot of time/energy in D&D.

Or whether it is a factor of player initiative, or if it mainly comes from how the DM runs things. Of some magic combination of all the above.

Quickleaf said:

I would *love* it if my players came to the table with defined motives/quests for their PCs. Usually I have to come up with anything like that because they are so reactive. Maybe I just need to ask for that more directly?

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If players aren't interested in self-motivating then IME this won't work. I recommend setting a default group motivation everyone can get behind - "You are defenders of the realm" or "You are adventurers in search of loot" - then give choices in play.
As I said, they are unlikely to communicate much or decide anything in between sessions, so you need to come to the table prepared to run with whichever choice they decide on at-table.

Quickleaf said:

So I'm wondering if doing the sandbox style is harder with a group who doesn't have a lot of time/energy in D&D.

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It shouldn't be a problem; in old school Gygaxian play you'd have a variable group of players (with PCs of variable level) show up to the session, decide what to do, then do it. They might not even know each other before the game. But there was an overall goal of getting treasure, XP, and magic items.

I think it's more that when players have been instiutionalised to follow the rails of a linear adventure or campaign they come with a passive mentality; they're afraid of showing initiative in case it disrupts the GM's plans.

Quickleaf said:

I would *love* it if my players came to the table with defined motives/quests for their PCs. Usually I have to come up with anything like that because they are so reactive. Maybe I just need to ask for that more directly?

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S'mon said:

If players aren't interested in self-motivating then IME this won't work. I recommend setting a default group motivation everyone can get behind - "You are defenders of the realm" or "You are adventurers in search of loot" - then give choices in play.

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The approach I took at the start of my 4e game was a bit different from what S'mon suggests here, but not completely different. I told each player that their PC (i) must have a loyalty to something/someone, and (ii) must have a reason to be ready to fight goblins.

The point of (i) was to get them focusing on locating their PCs within the 4e gameworld, and to tell me about that. The point of (ii) was to get them in the right sort of frame for the first adventure I was planning to run (a 4e adaptation of the B/X module Night's Dark Terror). What I found was that this was (mostly) enough to generate initial momentum, and then subsequent momentum was somewhat self-generating - I would toss in things based on their loyalties, or something that had come out in play based on their dealings with the goblins, and they would respond to that, and the game would build its own direction and momentum. (The reason I say "mostly" is because on a couple of occasions - say once every 10 or so sessions, especially earlier in the campaign - I had to deliberately think about how to kick-start things after a bit of a lull in the drama, and so would go back to a core PC loyalty, or something that had come up earlier in the campaign, like an old villain, and build that into a new encounter that would grab the players.)

What I see as a difference between my (ii) and S'mon's default motivation is that it is much more local to a particular adventure, so it kicks things off while leaving development open-ended. But I agree that there should be choices in play. My emphasis is less on "procedural" choices (do we take the left door or the right door) and more on "dramatic/thematic" choices (do we help this person or that person), and I use the stuff about loyalties, plus developments that have come out of it in play, to shape those dramatic choices. I tend to find that, provided I've correctly worked out what the players care about (and getting them to state that loyalty helped early on) then generally they will respond to those dramatic choices themselves without me need to do anything extra to encourage them.

pemerton said:

The approach I took at the start of my 4e game was a bit different from what S'mon suggests here, but not completely different. I told each player that their PC (i) must have a loyalty to something/someone, and (ii) must have a reason to be ready to fight goblins.

The point of (i) was to get them focusing on locating their PCs within the 4e gameworld, and to tell me about that. The point of (ii) was to get them in the right sort of frame for the first adventure I was planning to run (a 4e adaptation of the B/X module Night's Dark Terror). (snip)

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We're currently in the middle of a campaign inspired by the Neverwinter Campaign Setting, or a at least a version of the Neverwinter Campaign Setting with anything inspired by a R A Salvatore novel expunged, that had Graz'zt as the BBEG.

The really great thing about the Neverwinter Campaign Setting is that the section of themes at the front is perfect for handing to players for them to read up on what character theme they might use and, as a result, what goals in Neverwinter their PCs might have. It is working really well for us. In the past I have always worked with the players to do something similar but, for some reasons, seeing it in print and also seeing it reflected in the character theme on their character sheet seems to exert a stronger hold over them than just simply including it in the PC's backstory.

One thing I try to do each session is make sure I "reward" each of the character themes. Obviously, sometimes one PC is more the star of the show than the others, but I make sure there's a nod or easter egg for each theme regardless.

As for Night's Dark Terror, my next campaign is inspired by that and the character creation session will begin with, "You hate drow and Zhents [as an analogue for the Iron Ring] and you're off to Shadowdale because both are there. Why do you hate them and which one do you hate most?" OK, that's a gross over-simplification but it's still essentially true and it will hopefully make the introductory adventure, which will proceed a more sandbox approach to the campaign, work that much better.

[MENTION=87576]Scrivener of Doom[/MENTION] I am a big fan of creating party cohesion, whether thru "here's what you have got in common - now why?" or some other technique. IME this doesn't lead to sandbox-y play however. Maybe it's one of the ingredients that helps the players get into it, but it has definitely not been a game-changing one for my group.

"You all oppose the tyrannical prince. Why?"

"You all are loyal to your kingdom and king. Why?"

Then I get some players who seriously answer, most who give a quick stock answer, and then waiting around for adventure to come find them.

Quickleaf said:

I am a big fan of creating party cohesion, whether thru "here's what you have got in common - now why?" or some other technique. IME this doesn't lead to sandbox-y play however. Maybe it's one of the ingredients that helps the players get into it, but it has definitely not been a game-changing one for my group.

"You all oppose the tyrannical prince. Why?"

"You all are loyal to your kingdom and king. Why?"

Then I get some players who seriously answer, most who give a quick stock answer, and then waiting around for adventure to come find them.

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A question (which if you've already answered upthread, sorry!):

What are you trying to achieve? A sandbox in the (semi-literal) sense of the players taking their PCs around the gameworld exploring it? Or a player-driven game, where the key choices and direction come from the players as much as or more than from the GM?

If the former, I can't offer much advice as I don't run those sorts of sandboxes, and the few times I've tried they haven't really worked. For the latter, does it matter if the players have their PCs wait around for the adventure to come to them? The key is that, when it does, they choose how to respond to it.

S'mon said:

It shouldn't be a problem; in old school Gygaxian play you'd have a variable group of players (with PCs of variable level) show up to the session, decide what to do, then do it. They might not even know each other before the game. But there was an overall goal of getting treasure, XP, and magic items.

I think it's more that when players have been instiutionalised to follow the rails of a linear adventure or campaign they come with a passive mentality; they're afraid of showing initiative in case it disrupts the GM's plans.

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Yes, I believe its a player experience issue. When I was running my 4E sandbox there was little to no discussion about the game between sessions. Most of us were so busy that game night was the only time we talked to each other. The difference was that half or more of my players had been gaming as long as I have and grew up with sandbox gaming. Even though the group as a whole approached the campaign as casual players, picking up adventure hooks and deciding what to do on their own came naturally to them.

Investment in the game while not at the table isn't a requirement for a sandbox campaign. You can start with some simple NPC interaction leading to the hearing of a number of rumors, and let the players follow up on the ones that grab their interest. This requires no time investment away from the table, and the players still get to choose their own path.

pemerton said:

A question (which if you've already answered upthread, sorry!):

What are you trying to achieve? A sandbox in the (semi-literal) sense of the players taking their PCs around the gameworld exploring it? Or a player-driven game, where the key choices and direction come from the players as much as or more than from the GM?

If the former, I can't offer much advice as I don't run those sorts of sandboxes, and the few times I've tried they haven't really worked. For the latter, does it matter if the players have their PCs wait around for the adventure to come to them? The key is that, when it does, they choose how to respond to it.

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Yes, player driven is what I would like. Let me explain my approach and my observations in a bit more detail...

At the start of his campaign I tried to get deeper characters but to no avail. I think one player really went for it, the rest didn't go much deeper than their class. I encouraged them to develop inter-party connections but also to little avail. When I asked about the type of game they wanted, I got a lot of "whatever's", "a balanced game", "we like how you DM", and one player specifically asked for a "heist adventure".

I decided to read in between the lines, taking what I knew about each player and their PC and work that into the story with a red dragon attack the PCs would need to react to. When it comes to the local scale, within the context of an adventure I explicitly introduce, they enjoy getting strategic and are good at coming up with creative ideas.

It's at the larger scale, choosing between different adventures, deciding on a broad course of action, or generating quests of their own that they forget critical information, suffer analysis paralysis, or fall silent and wait for me to give them some guidance. That's what I find not fun.

I have a fairly robust game world with lots of encounter possibilities, and I also have an overarching story involving an invasion of the PCs' kingdom by a magocracy. I have divided the story into separate adventures that are self-contained, can be pursued in whatever order the players like, can be approached in multiple ways, and each have multiple end states and can influence each other.

IOW I like a fairly involved complex game world, but my players have trouble keeping up because they have more casual attitudes toward the game & because they've been "institutionalized" to follow the rails.

Following the rails may not be a problem *for them*, but it is a problem *for me*. As a DM I put work into a game because I want to see players engaging with the setting and NPCs, and when I don't see that I feel frustrated. Why should I put work into a game if I'm not getting met halfway? The answer of course is: Because I love D&D, but I need more than that to stay happy DMing this group.