Pathfinder 1E Sandboxes? Forked from Paizo reinvents hexcrawling

[Raven Crowking]

From every single other sandbox proponent in this thread, except from you. I actually agree with a lot of your positions (even if I believe they apply to a very small set of players and GMs), but I fear that you are not extreme enough for the other sandbox people.

Well, then, look at the West Marches example. There is plenty of "fixed set" because the environment is (largely) fixed. What can be done is sharply limited, not by the GM's decision as to what the PCs should do, but by the nature of the environment itself.

Which is rather the same thing one experiences in the real world, which is the point, AFAICT, of a sandbox game.

In order for options to exist, there must be both (1) context, and (2) the ability to choose.

Context includes both availability of information and consequence. Without context, you might as well roll randomly for every action. No one in this thread, AFAICT, is suggesting that a sandbox should not have context. Well, maybe Umbran...... That consequence is a necessary part of context is why I am against fudging in the game. Let the dice fall where they may!

The ability to choose requires that options not be pared down to a single path. Without that ability, what remains is determinism. Frankly, if I wanted to follow a predetermined course, I'd read a novel. If I wanted to drag others down a predetermined course, I would write a short story.

I.e., the major difference between a sandbox DM and a linear DM (AFAICT, IMHO, and IME) is that the linear DM asks "What should the players do?" while the sandbox DM asks "What can the players do?". Both questions offer structure, but they offer different kinds of structure. The sandbox structure offers the players freedom of action (within limits), whereas the linear structure offers the players freedom from the need to make choices (also within limits).

The linear structure offers the GM the most room for creativity in terms of creating plot, whereas the sandbox structure offers the most room for creativity and economy in creating environment (in that the environment will be reused, and multiple areas of various difficulty must be crafted).

Now, if any sandbox person (a Tusken raider, perhaps?) wants to tell me I am "not extreme" enough, let him or her speak. (Shrug) Perhaps I have fallen victim to the fallacy of the unbounded middle.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

Woohoo! Now I'm an EXTREME sandbox person!

 

[The Shaman]

. . . any sandbox person (a Tusken raider, perhaps?) . . .

Damn, RC, you're too fast for me!

 

[coyote6]

Sammael, Hobo -- I think you guys should try to take the time to read the West Marches posts on Ars Ludi. They're really interesting. FWIW, Ben & co. aren't exactly "sandboxers 4 life" or anything -- that was one game they ran. Nowadays, they're working on their own indie narratavist RPG, Microscope.

Amusingly, I see the Lame Mage crew just posted to Ars Ludi Monday, for the first time in a while -- and it's about the New Century City game, which Ben ran after the West Marches game ended. The post starts by describing some of the ways it differed from their West Marches game.

Now I must figure out how to use the Plot Grid for my M&M game!

 

[Desdichado]

Oh, I'm not mistaking the meaning of them. In many of the other venues where I discuss RPGs there aren't nearly as many (or in fact any) rules for civil discourse. Which means that folks don't have to revert to passive aggressive resistance against those rules.

I've witnessed many a discussion on playstyle where the meaning was crystal clear.

At ENWorld it takes more the form of a subtext, of course, because outright accusations of "Your playstyle sucks donkey-!" is frowned on.

 

[Desdichado]

Sammael, Hobo -- I think you guys should try to take the time to read the West Marches posts on Ars Ludi.

Actually, the more I see you guys chatting about it, the more interesting I find it. Besides, not to be pedantic (well, who'm I kidding? Yeah, to be pedantic) I never said I wasn't interested in reading the blog, just that I didn't need to read the blog to know I wouldn't be interested in playing the game. I always did kinda mean to getting around to following the link and having a look-see.

As I said, reading some of the discussion here has prompted me to try and find the time.

 

[Sammael]

As I said, reading some of the discussion here has prompted me to try and find the time.

Ditto.

 

[Beginning of the End]

I'm not surprised by it either, I'm merely objecting to the use of elements that are not specific to sandboxes to, in fact, define sandboxes.

Could you give some examples of that? You seem to be replying to a bunch of people who aren't posting in this thread.

I'm struggling a bit with that too, and maybe you're also mischaracterizing me a bit. Even in a sandbox the players knowledge of what options there are to pursue is surely limited by how much the GM is able to communicate to them, right?

The difference is qualitative, not quantitative. (The characteristic of "sandbox" is also not limited to a single decision point, but let's set that aside for a moment.)

For example, the PCs are at the crossroads. Somebody says, by way of example, "In a sandbox, they can choose to go north, east, south, or west. It's up to them."

And you say, "But in my campaign I give them the choice to go north, east, south, or west. I'm almost religious about making sure my players have enough information to have several meaningful choices with regards to direction in which the campaign can go."

Which is great. But that was only an example. In a true sandbox the players could also say "we'll just wait here at the crossroads" or "I'll fly into the sky" or "I'll hop over to the Ethereal Plane" or "let's dig straight down and see what happens" or "I'm going to build a new road going southeast" or "screw this, I'm teleporting back to town". Or anything, really.

In your game, OTOH, that's the point where you say, "I brought a north-south-east-west game to the table tonight. Are you going to engage it, or insist on doing your own thing to the detriment of the session and the group overall?"

Meanwhile, over in the sandbox, the PCs have settled down to a life of banditry preying on the merchant caravans passing through the crossroads.

But they're picking from the options that I'm presenting them.

And that, right there, is why you're not playing in a sandbox. You believe that the theme/structure/direction of the campaign flows from the GM. In a sandbox campaign, OTOH, the theme/structure/direction of the campaign flows from the players.

It's the difference between saying:

(1) "I bought several lego sets: You can build a space station or a pirate ship or a skyscraper. If you want to build something else, I'll go out and buy you a different lego set with instructions for building something else."

(2) "Here's a bucket of legos. Build whatever you want."

Yes, it's true. In both cases we're talking about legos. But you're missing the forest for the trees.

Sandbox campaigns do not have a structure.

This is incorrect. A sandbox campaign does not have a structure supplied solely by the GM. But the GM is not the only one sitting at the table.

I just think it requires an extraordinary set of players

I think it only requires players who aren't spoiled 5 year olds. Do you really have this much trouble finding people who aren't completely unfamiliar with the concept of "cooperation"?

I find it more puzzling that you find yourself baffled by the utility of the West Marches format in such a case: It's specifically designed to allow people to easily sign on to the stuff they're interested in while skipping the sessions they're not interested in. If your players really aren't capable of finding any sort of common ground, the West Marches would be the perfect solution for your problem. A linear campaign that tries to force a common ground down their throats, OTOH, doesn't sound like a viable solution at all.

Why is it that sandbox proponents just love to put the words in other people's mouths?

I love that you claim I put words in your mouth and then went on to repeat exactly the same thing a second time.

"Chosen structure" implies that there is a fixed set of options to choose from.

... unless it's the GM choosing it?

It's specifically this belief that players are little children who need to be led around by the nose is one that I don't understand at all. I wouldn't want to play with people like that.

As a GM I have no ego at all. I don't presuppose that my choices are superior to the choices of my players (particularly when it comes time to answer the question, "What would my players find fun?"). Your mileage apparently varies.

 

[Ariosto]

As I've said before, conflating a sandbox with merely a reasonably well run game means that sandbox as a term has no usefulness whatsoever.

It has the usefulness of freeing us from calling all other kinds of games "not even merely reasonably well run".

players visiting random dungeons ... which most "old skool" AD&D adventures were

Not from what I have seen. Why would one routinely choose a dungeon at random? Why (other than for solitaire play) would dungeons generated wholly at random predominate?

Seeing the question of your "old skool" definition as at best a red herring, I wonder on what basis you consider that randomness to characterize most AD&D adventures at any given period. It is certainly not the game I saw described in the books and magazines, although that included probabilistic features as part of the Dungeon Master's tool kit.

 

[Sammael]

As a GM I have no ego at all

So, what exactly do you get out of the game? I'm really curious, I'm not faking it.

In fact, I think the game you described needs no GM at all. The GM is superfluous. It'll work like a charm, just as it worked when we didn't have a GM back when we played cops and robbers or cowboys and indians in 1st grade.

I'm really confused. Feel free to label me dense. My groups include several PhDs, and, believe me, when presented with a sandbox, those guys literally freeze. Last time I gave some of them charte blanche to do whatever they wanted, they asked me "so, where's the story?" I told them - "look, I gave you a description of the world, introduced you to the NPCs, go ahead - make one up - follow your gut insticts." What was their reply? That making stories up was my job. Odd little world. Perhaps I should have held a gun to their heads and said "make up your own goddamn story, bastards?" Maybe the sandbox police will come to arrest me the next time I actually give my players what they want. Or maybe... just maybe... not all players who dislike sandboxing are "spoiled 5 year olds."

I never make decisions for my players. But if I don't present them with choices and explain what the choices are... well, they do nothing. Even the ones that are usually really good at thinking outside of the box. Sometimes, they'll come up with more choices, which I didn't anticipate, and I gladly let them choose from those, as long as they're aware of the game-world consequences. But that's apparently not good enough.