Pathfinder 1E Sandboxes? Forked from Paizo reinvents hexcrawling

[amerigoV]

Thinking about it, a true "sandbox" approach under D&D 3e and 4e is much harder to pull off than under older editions. Under 3e, the game played different between L1-5, L6-10, L11-15, and L16-20 (and EPIC was its own ballgame). There is more of an expectation that a 3e campaign will run from L1 to say L13/14 than would occur in 1e/2e. The power spread between L1 and L14 is huge.

There are similiar spreads under 1e/2e, but the advancement curve really slowed around L10. So it was there, but I think the gameplay was in a narrower range than was typical in 3e. 4e, as I understand it, pushes that playable sweet spot across almost all levels, so I suspect that spread is even wider. (I'll duck the folks that are still running a L75 2e game, so my comments are based on my experience "back in the day" when campaigns tended to die out around L10).

I switched to Savage Worlds recently and its advancement is more horizontal (broaden the PC) instead of D&D's vertical power advancement. That has me thinking a sandbox game is more viable since the advancement model is not as steep.

 

[BenBrown]

I really don't buy that, but ok.

People can't agree on what "simulationism" means which is why the term is so useless... but we really should avoid the whole topic.

See, I never hear about this happening ever. Any time I see folks talk about "Sandbox", there's very little plot involved. It's just there until the PCs show up. I'm not referring to modules at all, but the impression I've taken from how folks here talk about Sandboxes.

Also, many modules typically assume the PCs actions and do move forward. In fact, Windjammer points out in his thread that the biggest criticisms of the APs are that they're very NPC-plot heavy. The NPCs have their plot, that keeps on trucking despite heroic efforts of the PCs, and so they don't really influence it anyways.

Modules do assume that the PCs actions move things forward--but they assume from a narrow narrow set of choices and the effects play out only within the module.

 

[Windjammer]

I've finally located the old Enworld thread on sandboxes a (to me) very important post by Melan comes from. And found out to my joy that Rob Conley (whose current work I referenced above) is active in the thread too.

Rechan, I hope you find this post therein to address a concern of yours voiced upthread.

 

[Haltherrion]

Lately, however, I see an awful lot of people toss out "sandbox" as if it were the Holy Grail of gaming. I'm trying to understand where this view came from, why it's become so suddenly very popular and ubiquitous on the internet, and... well, whatever else is going on with the idea of the sandbox.

I don't personally see that many more advocates for a "sandbox". But there always do seem to be folks, even going back to the 80s on rec.games newsgroups, who speak of it as somehow superior to other ways of ref'ing. Since these are often the very senior, old time refs, they get a certain amount of respect.

Myself, as in the very recent http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...te-characters-characters-accommodate-dms.html, I'm a big believer in seeing this as a spectruum and encouraging refs to choose a point on the spectruum suitable to their group's needs without there being special merit in one spot or the other on that spectruum (within in reason ).

I think its persistent appeal is multi-fold:

1. it can be a very fun way to play with the right ref, players and time.
2. it may seem a "pure" way to play. The ref lays out the world, the players go play in it without any bias from the ref. Or a similarly, the creative work of many is better than the creative work of one.
3. for some ref's it might also appeal from an effort point of view: I'll make the world, you players make the story. You don't like the story, its your problem. Or, I can't do story well, so I will do sandbox.

It seems to me that often when someone says they do sandbox, the imputed superiority of that method may not have been intended. We refs are arrogant creatures (world shaking powers do that to you) and it is easy enough to make a statement interpreted as implied supriority.

Honestly, while I haven't come very close to sandbox in decades, it still holds a certain appeal to me but I stay away from it as much for in-game time management reasons as any other. It can be a lot of fun when your players together take the game places where no one person, ref or player, can take it on their own. But a well-crafted plot originated by the ref and shaped by the players can be a great deal of fun too and often more memorable.

 

[S'mon]

A
Lately, however, I see an awful lot of people toss out "sandbox" as if it were the Holy Grail of gaming. I'm trying to understand where this view came from, why it's become so suddenly very popular and ubiquitous on the internet, and... well, whatever else is going on with the idea of the sandbox.

Hmm, well for me it's linked to the strong feelings of disgust elicted by railroad storyines, the type prevalent in the '90s. The worst offender for me was the Stormbringer adventure Rogue Mistress - the guy should have gone wrote a novel.

I think the promise of sandbox play is the player freedom and consequent sense of empowerment; of carving out your own destiny. For the GM it's the excitement of not knowing what's going to happen, no pre-scripted storyline but a saga genuinely emergent in play.

 

[Ariosto]

But I don't see how that works; when folks here talk abotu sandboxes, it seems all the little things in the sandbox are just in a time stasis, their motives and goals just frozen until the PCs stumble across them.

That's certainly the case when Rechan talks about 'sandboxes', and some other folks who "don't see how that works". It is not the rule I see when people here talk about their D&D campaigns moderated after the old fashion of Blackmoor, Greyhawk, Wilderlands, Forgotten Realms, and so on.

The original (1974) Dungeons & Dragons set to my mind did a better job than any of its successors at conveying the essence of the concept, especially in the 'dungeon' context that serves so well as foundation for referees and players alike. (The Expert and Companion sets were also good, but AD&D 1E took too much prior knowledge for granted and 2E emphasized the more plot-driven approach.)

From what I saw, the brief availability of legal PDFs of the seminal work (not only of D&D but of the whole RPG hobby) inspired a lot of interest. The actual boxed set of little booklets -- even in the Original Collectors Edition "white box" printing -- had long been a somewhat rare and pricey collector's item. Many curious and fresh eyes encountered it for the first time.

The availability of many Judges Guild products in the same format, as well as in 3E reissues, fed that interest. So did James Ward's putting online the original (1976) edition of his Metamorphosis Alpha.

However, I'd be wary of tossing around the term "simulationist" here, as plot-driven campaigns can be equally simulationist--they're just simulating something else.

That usage may be intuitive to we of the hoi polloi, but the intelligentsia led by Ron Edwards at The Forge -- to the Great Threefold Model of which the "SNG" (more conventionally "GNS") is a reference -- do not stoop to such common measures. What they mean (I think) is what we might call "exploration" or maybe "immersion": delight in the imagined world as an entertainment in itself and for its own sake. One might think, perhaps, of Star Trek or Star Wars fans who love the little details that bring the planets and peoples to a semblance of life, quite apart from their functions in scripts.

(Likewise, "Gamist" in that context has more to do with an interest in competition with something or someone than with "game-y" rules contrivances. The latter tend in fact to be strongly embraced by Forge-y favorers of "Narrativism". The Big N, par for the course, is less about narrative per se than about narrowing the scope of a game down to specific themes. To the best of my fallible understanding, I am not a Forgespeak lawyer, YMMV, etc..)

 

[Glyfair]

Lately, however, I see an awful lot of people toss out "sandbox" as if it were the Holy Grail of gaming.

I would think that major publishers would be the first ones to focus on this. A true "sandbox" campaign shows what tabletop roleplaying can do that none of the modern competitors do. The RPG allows you to try what you want without any real limit except the imaginations of the players and GM. Even the supposed "sandbox" computer games are limited by the programming. If the game isn't programmed for you to take off your shoes and hit someone with them then you can't.

As for "old school," I think very old school had some sandbox elements, but in other ways were the antithesis of sandbox. Old school D&D tended to be a set of scenarios in dungeons. Initially nothing happened between those dungeons, although you could try what you wanted within the dungeons. The great thing about RPGs though was once someone wanted to play out the time between dungeons the game allowed you to roll with it.

 

[Rechan]

That's certainly the case when Rechan talks about 'sandboxes', and some other folks who "don't see how that works". It is not the rule I see when people here talk about their D&D campaigns moderated after the old fashion of Blackmoor, Greyhawk, Wilderlands, Forgotten Realms, and so on.

This reads really condescending and I don't appreciate it.

 

[Ariosto]

A "pure" sandbox is an extreme condition, far removed from any game that I've ever played in, even back in the late 70s and early 80s.

Some people keep insisting on such an ideal of "purity" or "truth". From what I have seen, they are not the ones actually running campaigns in the old style.

(The "grand" old style, with dozens of participants engaged in high-level strategy as well as in role-playing, does indeed seem vanishingly rare.)

 

[James Jacobs]

In fact my biggest fear about the Kingmaker Adventure Path is that, come instalment #33 (#34 at latest), the Paizo authors will revert to that model.

I just started working on the development of the penultimate Kingmaker adventure (Pathfinder Adventure Path #35), and while there HAVE been a lot of memorable NPCs so far... it's still sandboxy. And since we're moving to new regions often, the NPCs the PCs face will generally be new ones.

The entire adventure path takes place in the Stolen Lands. There's plenty of quests where the PCs can do stuff for NPCs, but there's also plenty of quests that the PCs can "assign to themselves" because they just happened to find the quest while poking around in the hills or swamps or forests.

Of course, the next 6 months or so will decide if we're successful in avoiding the pet NPC problem. I think we have so far.