Pathfinder 1E Sandboxes? Forked from Paizo reinvents hexcrawling

[catsclaw227]

But if someone wanted to build a stronghold and then manage his demesne, it seems logical that he would turn to the DMG or PHB to show him how to do it in mechanical terms, am I right?

Only if someone were unclear on some utterly fundamental things besides "the DMG is for DMs".

The "someone" I mentioned could be a player or a DM helping the player with trying to find some rules for how it is done within the gaming rule set. I assumed this was understood, I am sorry I wasn't more specific.

"I want to manage a rise in local or national power hierarchy" is just too vague and abstract for anything but a vague and abstract game. Try Risus, maybe. "I've got 4 dice in my Richard J. Daley cliché!"

How about a question like "OK, so you tell me I have been counseling with Duke Landlord the Experienced for about six months now; I should know a few things. So how many different hirelings should I have to handle protecting the roads and collecting taxes and managing the guilds in the villages that are within my lands?"

Some may like that part of the game, and since it's a sandbox, the DM should be accommodating, right?

So, do you just make it up?

There are some good 3PP references out there from Dragon Magazine or for later editions, but we are talking about the instructions in the 1e PHB or DMG.

In AD&D, it's like managing any other campaign. First, you inform yourself by engaging the game world via your character. Then, you form a plan of action and -- again, by engaging the game world via your character -- carry it out.

Do you ever talk to your DM, or have you ever had your players talk to you about how some things are handled mechanically? I am talking about outside the game, like in an email or forum or even face-to-face.

Not everything about D&D or AD&D or a sandbox in general is done by engaging the game world via your character.

Some gamers inform each other outside the game with questions like, "How do the rules handle XXX?" or "Are there some mechanics I can follow that show me how to handle managing my lands?"

 

[Ariosto]

If the information isn't the books, then it is just winged by the player and the DM, therefore really just collaborative storytelling, because there aren't rules or mechanics managing these things. How else would you describe it?

As playing the game in accordance with how the game was designed to be played. It's also in accordance with a long tradition in wargames (hobby) going back as well to war games (military training and operations research tool).

"Really just collaborative story telling?" Far from it.

The real world precedes our models, not vice-versa. The imagined world of Dungeons & Dragons gets its shape by reference back to countless things we understand from our experience and other reading.

These rules are as complete as possible within the limitations imposed by the space of three booklets. That is, they cover the major aspects of fantasy campaigns but still remain flexible. As with any other set of miniatures rules they are guidelines to follow in designing your own fantastic-medieval campaign. They provide the framework around which you will build a game of simplicity or tremendous complexity -- your time and imagination are about the only limiting factors, and the fact that you have purchased these rules tends to indicate that there is no lack of imagination ...

New details can be added and old "laws" altered so as to provide continually new and different situations. In addition, the players themselves will interact in such a way as to make the campaign variable and unique, and this is quite desirable.

 

[catsclaw227]

As playing the game in accordance with how the game was designed to be played. It's also in accordance with a long tradition in wargames (hobby) going back as well to war games (military training and operations research tool).

The problem with this statement is that it doesn't tell me anything. How you played the game may have been different with how I played the game which is likely different than the way others played the game.

I don't really know if there is a single "how the game was designed to be played". What is this long tradition you are talking about? The one at your table? Gary's table? Jim down the street's table? We never played wargames, so we didn't have that experience at our table.

There may be a long history of various ways 1e AD&D has been played, but I would disagree that there is a long tradition. Just look at the varied definitions of sandbox we're tossing around in this thread, or how different individuals of the OSR disagree about what old school means, or how some people ran just modules and others had huge campaigns, or the vast and varied 1e house rules that have been used and/or discarded over the years.

Unless of course, by long tradition, you simply mean that AD&D grew from wargaming roots, then sure. But that doesn't address my initial question.

 

[Ariosto]

Some gamers inform each other outside the game with questions like, "How do the rules handle XXX?" or "Are there some mechanics I can follow that show me how to handle managing my lands?"

Ask, and ye shall receive an answer.

If the "problem" is that you have too little interest and initiative to ask, then either
a) it's not really a problem to you; or
b) you've got problems dice can't solve; or
c) you're just a hypothetical straw man

 

[Ariosto]

I don't really know if there is a single "how the game was designed to be played".

Your lack of knowledge is not more convincing to me than the statements of the designer himself.

 

[Ariosto]

So, catsclaw227, I invite you to fill in that "XXX" blank. What exactly do you want to do in terms of "managing your lands"?

Driving out enemies, collecting taxes, building structures, raising and equipping armies, aerial and naval operations, sieges, personalities of NPCs and your beloved "mechanical" factors for interactions with them -- those are all covered. You can appoint a steward/castellan to look after the logistics of keeping up your castle garrisoned, supplied and in good repair. You can hire sages, "the encyclopedias, computers, expert opinions and sort of demi-oracles of the milieu all rolled into one".

Agriculture, mining and (especially) trade are usually concerns beneath your station, apart from taxing them. It's not the sort of thing for which there was very much demand for rules in "adventure" games. However, if you really want to get into fodder, bushels, pigs and ducks ... the C&S Sourcebook (1978) says Fiat Lux! Yes, even the famously comprehensive C&S had initially glossed over matters "down on the farm".

 

[robconley]

I don't get the debate at this point. Aristo is very clearly describing elements of a sandbox campaign. However I don't get the sense that Aristo is saying that it is the only to use an RPG. A RPG is like a swiss army knife it can be used in many difference with many different types of plots, adventures, settings, charactesrs and so on.

A sandbox in contrast is a specific implementation of managing a RPG campaign. Much of Aristo advice and comments is spot on as far that aspect of gaming goes.

Another issues is that RPG gaming styles are not black and white. The extremes can be distinguished easily enough but there are a lot of grays with multiple poles representing different styles. RPGs are that flexible.

Some of have been running sandbox campaign for a very long time. Even using the same setting (30 years of the Majestic Wilderlands). Thanks to the internet we can share our experiences and more important teach people how to do what we do.

However it doesn't mean it "better" most people learn what we have to say and then mash it up with all the other stuff they like. Which is how it should be.

. However, if you really want to get into fodder, bushels, pigs and ducks ... the C&S Sourcebook (1978) says Fiat Lux! Yes, even the famously comprehensive C&S had initially glossed over matters "down on the farm".

Actually Harnmanor from Columbia Games is a better rules system for that than what C& S had. Even as a few mechanic to make the experience more interesting than just crunching number. Most in the area of resolving what happens to the individual village families. Some of the result will require your personal attention as Lord of the Manor i.e. adventure.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

I've been following this rather long and partisan thread, and I'm bound to concur that it's a thinly-veiled edition war.

I think sandbox is merely a voguish term (c.f. "conceit," another voguish term); one which a significant portion of the (online) community has seized upon recently, possibly in reaction to the AP - although the last AP I ran was GDQ in 1986, so my perspective is rather dated. I admit, the idea of an AP which runs from level 1-20 or 1-30 is utterly bizarre to me.

I don't see the linear and open style as necessarily mutually exclusive, though; rather they are (ideally) mutually supportive. But they do not occur simultaneously. As soon as the game moves from the 'open' model ("Here's the world. What are you going to do?") to the closed environment ("Whoopee! Into the dungeon!") it tends to enter a linear phase.

The linear phase gives the DM a chance to recoup his mental energies (it is less demanding on his imagination) and gives the players a sense of immediate focus (specific goals, even if it's just "explore the dungeon").

Reversion to the 'open' phase requires a much more responsive/reflexive position from both players and the DM, and an ability to make sound (believable/verisimilitudinous) impromptu calls.

I always treated dungeons like mental down time. When they get boring, it's time to revert to the open phase.

 

[Erik Mona]

I don't think sandbox is some kind of new conceit.

I'd like to think that the recent uptick of internet buzz about it has something to do with Pathfinder and Kingmaker specifically. But I think the OSR folks have been talking about this for ages, so there's nothing really new about it.

I don't think third edition did a great job of this (I'm not convinced any edition actually has), but Pathfinder takes a great deal of thematic inspiration from first edition, just like the OSR. It's sort of a coincidence. Parallel development due to similar inspiration, if you will.

I agree with virtually every other word in your post. I think a lot of people play this way. I know I do.

 

[Ariosto]

We never played wargames, so we didn't have that experience at our table.

Bingo!

Not that Gygax did not try to explain a game master's role, when he came to write the AD&D books. The Dungeon Masters Guide is an extended discourse on the art.

However, it is an art, as is the craft of game design in which GMs are partners with the authors of RPG handbooks they use.

My interest as a DM lies not in any ideology but in a playable and interesting game. Action and drama are primary, but the challenge of problem solving has its place.

I DM the kind of game I prefer to play. I figure other people might have a similar preference, even if they have for long been familiar only with what's in vogue from the biggest publishers. After all, the AD&Ders who appreciated the difference in Dragonlance and later developments might not have been very keen on much of what had come before. RuneQuest had made a pretty respectable showing in direct competition with AD&D as a "sword & sorcery" game with a different take on nearly every aspect.

If there really is some sudden upturn in discussion of the free-range campaign, I sure don't see how it's much more than some visibility in quarters where it had been such an endangered species for so long as to make it seem exotic.

And here comes WotC -- Remember "back to the dungeon"? -- with its points of light in a dark age, heroes who venture into the great monster-infested wilderness! It's like deja vu all over again.