Dookie in the Sandbox?

[takasi]

What sort of world is this, that just sits around waiting for the PCs? It doesn't sound much like our world. Here, bad things will happen (and good things) if I, the protagonist of my story, do nothing.

Status quo sandbox worlds are much like our own but with a little more stasis and stability. Where medieval technology and cultures have lasted more than a few hundred years. Where magic allows for century spanning races. Where in many cases the gods/demons/monsters hold society back from evolving. Where a person's life really doesn't matter much unless he actively does something to change the world.

Compare with

The World Is Always Doomed - Television Tropes & Idioms

 

[takasi]

Where you see a rail I am seeing an opportunity to adventure.

Don't get me wrong, taking a train ride can be a fun adventure too, especially if there's a lot to do on board, the scenary is nice and I'm looking forward to the destination.

 

[coyote6]

But the players didn't want to do any of that. They just wanted to make a quick pit stop into town before going back into the jungle to explore. The freedom they had before, to just stop into town and keep the dog happy, is gone now thanks to a rail put up to impede their current action. They can try to jump the railing, but what if they didn't want it there in the first place?

Then they do just that. They pick up a potion, tell the guy, "Good luck with that, man", and go back to the jungle to explore.

Next time they come to town, the guy might be dead, and then they won't be able to buy a potion. Or he might not be; they'll only know when they leave and come back.

Besides, the players aren't complaining about the larger railroad of only one guy selling the precious pretty puppy potion? They seem to have a remarkable ability to view things solely from some remarkable frame of reference, where "guy living his own life, now it's threatened" is a rail, but "guy is only guy that sells this object" is not a rail.

 

[takasi]

Besides, the players aren't complaining about the larger railroad of only one guy selling the precious pretty puppy potion? They seem to have a remarkable ability to view things solely from some remarkable frame of reference, where "guy living his own life, now it's threatened" is a rail, but "guy is only guy that sells this object" is not a rail.

The players were able to tolerate the status quo. It wasn't an issue until it was yanked out from under them. I do agree that the status quo setting can also be limiting to what a player can and can't do.

This can be done literally. Take a road from town a to town b and fill the surrounding forest with extremely high level creatures. If the party walks off the path they are probably going to die. Everyone tells them this. They decide to walk off the path and they all die.

Some players would be intolerant of that setting just as some players are intolerant of setting degeneration through inevitable plotting by the DM.

A bad setting that can be improved can be as restrictive, at first, as a good setting that's going bad. The difference is that players at least get to choose what to improve, whereas the DM is the one who decides what will be in danger.

 

[Remathilis]

Status quo sandbox worlds are much like our own but with a little more stasis and stability. Where medieval technology and cultures have lasted more than a few hundred years. Where magic allows for century spanning races. Where in many cases the gods/demons/monsters hold society back from evolving. Where a person's life really doesn't matter much unless he actively does something to change the world.

I can describe what you're getting at in three words:

Grand. Theft. Auto.

Essentially, GTA is a static world. You begin with the world open to you (more of less) and you can carjack all the cars you want, kill as many hookers as you desire, and try and get the army to chase you around the city for as long as you can. You can even use these events (and the multitude of sidequests) to make money and buy real estate, new vehicles, etc.

OR

You can do the plot missions, which slowly open up new missions, new areas, and most importantly the plot of the game. Its not requisite to finish these missions to have fun; you can have all the fun you want racing cars and killing hookers. The plot diligently waits for you to decide you want to do a plot-related mission, and then picks up at the same point no matter if you waited 20 minutes or two days to go from mission to mission.

The key is that the mission await the the player's CHOICE to do them. Without the players consent (IE, choosing to do the mission) the mission doesn't matter. If the mission involves saving a hostage; the hostage remains safe until the PC tries the mission; THEN it becomes a success/fail scenario. Refusing the job doesn't "kill" the hostage, it just leaves him in off-screen limbo until the PC tries the mission (and either succeeds/saves him or fails/kills him).

While this works for a video game (which can only generate so many instances of an artificial world) I believe it is a STRENGTH of Table-Top RPGs to be able to have dynamic worlds that are affected not only by the PC's ACTIONS, but by their NON-ACTIONS as well.

YMMV, of course.

 

[Vegepygmy]

Seriously, if my players spent an hour minutes in a tavern detailing how they're drinking, chatting up the bar maids, pumping the guy in the corner for information and generally doing everything imaginable to not engage with the game, I'd kill myself.

You and I have very different ideas about what "the game" is, I think. For me, drinking in taverns, chatting up bar maids, and pumping strangers for information are all part of "the game." Those are not "pre-game" activities to me, and I would be just as frustrated with a DM who was bored by my "pointless dilly-dallying" as that DM would be with me.

To me, "the game" is not just about killing things and taking their stuff (and I seethe every time I see or hear someone make that claim). YMMV, of course.

 

[Krensky]

A railroad is not just about what characters can do, it's also about what's going to happen in the world around them, especially when those actions affect the character.

Not by any conventional definition of the word. By definition a railroad constrains players actions. Consequences for non-action are not railroading. A rather silly example for a game about apprentice wizards on middle school might involve preventing the lunch lady from serving brussel sprouts next Monday. A more serious example from the same game might involve breaking out of detention to go watch the big game. A third might involve defeating the playground bully to bring freedom and peace to the ball court. If they don't succeed or ignore the first, they get brussel sprouts on Monday. If they ignore the second they miss the game. In the third, they and their classmates continue too get harrassed and assaulted.

By your reconing, these are all railroads because they have some set of consequences for failure to act. By your definition, life is a railroad.

What about self motivation? That's part of making a character. Characters have goals and objectives even in a world where things don't change very often.

All fine and good. You know who else has self-motivation? Every single NPC, including the villians.

If that happened then you're in the wrong group.

I think it's wrong to say they're not 'engaging in the game' though. It sounds like you're the one who doesn't want to.

I would maintain they're at the wrong table and it's their own fault because I was quite clear on what the game was.

Things change in status quo sandbox games, but it's more often from player action rather than DM fiat.

That's still GM fiat. Changes in 'normal' RPGs only happen because the GM causes them. That may be triggered and determined by player action, but only the GM makes changes. The question you haven't answered is why only the players get to determine this. Why is the GM in your view nothing more then a computer cranking out quests like so much CRPG?

All games are a mix of styles, and some players are more tolerant of differences than others. I think my GM would be equally offended if he created a world, which of course has a story behind it, and I showed up expecting to coast along with his 'plot'.

There's that false dicotomy again. Who said coast? The players have to engage in the plot, follow hooks and leads, address the conflicts, and overcome their challenges. In the context of D&D this typically involves defeating some ultimate personification of evil who may be at any stage of his nefarious scheme to accomplish something. The something here is typically something the players are or will dislike. If the protagonists don't act things get worse for them in some way.

If the players ignore the world, the world does not go into stasis waiting for them to care about it. That's why a status quo world is boring. The players choices don't matter because nothing happens when they aren't around.

 

[Krensky]

You and I have very different ideas about what "the game" is, I think. For me, drinking in taverns, chatting up bar maids, and pumping strangers for information are all part of "the game." Those are not "pre-game" activities to me, and I would be just as frustrated with a DM who was bored by my "pointless dilly-dallying" as that DM would be with me.

To me, "the game" is not just about killing things and taking their stuff (and I seethe every time I see or hear someone make that claim). YMMV, of course.

Assuming there's a reason and doing so drives forward the character's story (not my story, the characters story) it's all fine and good. When it devolves to the whole damn night and ignores several clues that there's nothing here? It's time to move on.

That doesn't mean go kill things. I'm currently running a game where the PCs carry millions of dollars in military equipment and enough firepower to level decent sized town and are currently at war. Last session involved a running gun battle after a meeting with an intel asset behind enemy lines went bad (the npc flubbed her checks while flirting with the bad guy questioning her). The three sessions before that dealt with they doing training evolutions, grabbing some R&R, soaking up local color, and, for two of them, spending time with their families over Thanksgiving. No combat at all. Well, some verbal combat between the psyop officer and his estranged son, but I doubt that counts. Twelve hours in play covering about a week, all social and non-combat encounters. All fun because it all drove the character's story and development forward. Doing something does not mean vombat, and while the phrase "kick in the door" comes from an author who meant it literally, it can be applied far more figuratively. If things stagnated another team might show up and challenge them to paintball, or a drinking contest, or play a prank on them, or even make a few joking comments regarding a fumble by one of the PCs from an earlier op.

Stagnation is bad, and once the GM has said: "The patrons don't know anything else", "The waitress slaps you" or "The waitress gives you her number", and "The bartender is refusing to serve you because you're obviously drunk" it's time to move onto something else. That might be (and given those answers, probably should be) the hangover the next morning, but it could be anything as long as it moves the character's story along.

 

[MichaelK]

Takasi.

So, what do your villains actually do? Since they clearly never march on the civilized lands, threaten innocent dog beauticians or raze a hometown. What's more they're never planning to do these things, because that sort of ticking clock runs the railroad timetable. Why are they villains and why are the PCs justified in killing them?

And what about changes? Do changes ever happen in your world? In your world would America invade Iraq and Afghanistan? Would Michael Jackson have died?

I can not imagine what your game worlds are possibly like, but they sound a strange and spooky place... nothing like Earth.

 

[Desdichado]

As this discussion has gotten more and more surreal, I've been tempted to consider it possibly a troll. Especially considering the threat title and the argumentative (polite, but argumentative) responses from the original poster.

takasi, as has been mentioned to you several times, your definition of "railroading" is not actually railroading at all. It's not what is meant when that word is used. In addition, anyone as OCD about player freedom as the players you describe most certainly would not be welcome at my table; I can't imagine how they could possibly enjoy my game, or how I could possibly enjoy the game that they obviously prefer. The existance of plot hooks is not a curtailment of player freedom, nor is the fact that the environment in which they operate might change and evolve over the course of the game. And any time you're calling character motivation a "railroad" I have a serious problem with that, because character motivation is entirely within the control of the player anyway.

The ideal you're holding out is one that I would have said was a theoretical endpoint, not a practical one for a real, actual campaign to ever try and model.

In addition, as I've said before, it seems poorly suited to this medium anyway, as it essentially makes the GM pointless. It takes away most of the benefits of actually having a GM in the first place.