Sandboxing and bringing wonder and the unknown into DMing

[Ariosto]

Well, I should content myself with speaking for myself anyhow. If I keep shooting in the dark, I might shoot myself in the foot.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Frank, I'm sort of taking a shot in the dark here, or maybe just a patch of shade, but I don't think that's what Mercurius means by 'sandboxing' or 'wonder' or "the unknown".

What I'm looking for, and what I'm asking of the kind and wise folks of ENWorld, is any and all of the following, or whatever else you can think of by way of suggestion, but these give you a starting point:

***Tools for Sandboxing, especially oriented around time-saving.

Hm, well, I thought I was offering a tip for saving time when sandboxing. Sorry I wasn't clear. Here's me taking another stab at it.

When I do a sandbox campaign, which is the only type I do, I ask the players what type of PCs they're going to play, then ask them what their goals are, then ask them if there's anything else they want to see in the campaign world.

Then I start building the world. But I don't have a lot of time, so I cheat. I take maybe five scenarios and think of how they could fit into at least fifteen different paths the PCs could take. That's what I was trying to describe in my previous post: you take one dungeon and think about how you can file the serial numbers off and chisel in a new set.

Then, when the game starts, the PCs can do whatever they want. They decide that they're going to go northwest and chase the bandits, great; southeast and defrock the corrupt priest, super; due south in search of the lost gold mines of Alston Crumbeard, excellent. Because whatever way they go, you're prepared. You've got one or two dungeons that could fit all of those with just a little bit of alteration (which you've already considered).

To me, that seemed like an idea that fit with the request of "Tools for Sandboxing, especially time-saving." I agree that it doesn't do a whole lot for wonder.

But maybe I'm just off in la-la land. Nothing wrong with that; then I won't have to suffer through the Wolverines' upcoming football season.

 

[LostSoul]

Wow, great table! Have anymore? An email would be grand: jonnybardo at yahoo dot com.

I like your combination of "random rolls and imagination." That is what I'm going for.

Thanks! Check out the attached documents in this post: http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-dis...-hack-fiction-first-playtest.html#post5208403

The "hex crawl" one has all the tables. It's missing a couple of the Ruins entries because I pulled them directly from the Planet Agol blog and I didn't want to present that as my own. It's for 4E, though there isn't too much 4E stuff. I wouldn't use the random encounter level modifier table, since in play that turned out to be too random.

There's a science-fantasy vibe to the tables; you'll probably want to get rid of the entries you think are stupid and insert your own.

I'm not sure it will make any sense, so if you have any other questions let me know.

edit: Kellri's CDD #4 is really good, though I was never satisfied with the NPC motivation tables. I actually find the ones in the 4E DMG2 to work out well.

If you're looking for a good fantasy novel, try The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson. Good stuff.

 

[Ycore Rixle]

Not sure what you mean here? (And who is Frank?).

I'm Frank. I was trying to offer an idea that covered some of what I do in a sandbox campaign to save time up above. But maybe it was just too garbled.

When I sandbox, I don't build the world much ahead of time. That takes too much time. I fill it in as the party explores. I see it like the fog of war in a computer game; if the party hasn't been there yet, and might never go there, I best not spend tons of limited time developing that spot.

Maybe that's not sandboxing to most people. To me, giving the players the options to do whatever they like, explore wherever they like, is sandboxing. I know the overarching concerns of the world (after I've built it based on what they tell me they want to play), and I know the themes and the major players and factions, but I don't fill in every hex with details until the party gets there. And my trick is that I have in my head a couple different scenarios per session, and no matter where the party goes, one of those scenarios is somehow adapted to where the party ends up and what they do.

It's a lot of fun for me. I never know what's going to end up where, how things are going to be connected, who's going to die, who's going to see what. For instance, in the campaign I ran when I was out in Buffalo, I knew that Far Realm forces were infiltrating the elven empire. But that wasn't supposed to be revealed for a long time. Then, in the very first session, the elven ranger makes two natural 20 spot checks in a row while glancing behind the arras in a palace dressing chamber. Wow! So, I went with it, told him that he saw the castellan's head lift up out of his body, dangling a gory spine, then float over to a new headless body and insert itself. It changed the whole tenor of the campaign! Of course the PCs were discovered, and chased, and ended up spending levels 1-7 hiding out in the lands of dwarves and men far to the south. So there is that bit of wonder and surprise that comes from my method.

Anyway, yeah, that's what I was trying to offer. Sorry if it didn't come through (and especially sorry if it's still not coming through).

 

[Mercurius]

No, that's great and very clear, Frank/Ycore. I think your approach is pretty much what I'm going for. I'm not a video game player, but it reminds me a bit of one of those games where as you explore a map and go into a new area, a whole scene gets revealed, but only when your avatar can see it. It seems that this sort of "linear revelation" can correspond nicely with the usual "gradually coming into focus" approach of long-term worldbuilding, and it can--hopefully--became a dynamic and reciprocal process. And more so, it can be exciting for the DM because he or she doesn't necessarily know what's in the forest until the PCs get there.

I already have a basic template for a setting approximately 250-300,000 square miles, or a bit larger than the Iberian Peninsula. It is divided into five major regions plus my version of the Underdark; I have rough details of about a dozen towns and cities (it is very much a Points of Light style setting, so there are only about a dozen moderately sized settlements), the major political entities, deities, races and sub-races, as well as geographical areas like forests, mountains, marshes, etc. I don't have the details worked out or many personages yet and I have only ten or so major adventure hooks. What I feel I need to do now is something similar to what you mention: work on a bunch of scenarios that can be placed spontaneously.

But I really like the approach you mention of "riffing off of" a spontaneous detail and building future adventure seeds from that. I've always tried to employ that in principle but have found that since I've been mainly using pre-published adventures, I don't think of it as much or don't allow myself that freedom.

I'm thinking of adapting Ari Marmell's new Tomb of Horrors to my campaign as it seems open-ended enough and is about the right level (the PCs are 8th, almost 9th level, so are getting close). I like the idea of using a larger published campaign that I can alternate with smaller scenarios, and more so one that can be taken in bite-sized chunks.

p.s. Thanks for the image of the "dangling gory spine."

 

[Ariosto]

edit: Kellri's CDD #4 is really good, though I was never satisfied with the NPC motivation tables. I actually find the ones in the 4E DMG2 to work out well.

Where are they in the 4e DMG2?

 

[S'mon]

(revoked prior post - got confused)

I think with sandboxing it's great to improvise and riff off player ideas and motivations, but the GM has to be very very careful about any "relinquishing of creative control" beyond the stuff that is normally within player purview, such as details about the backgrounds & families of the PCs. Giving players extensive world-creation authority can very easily destroy the sense of exploration for them, which IME also destroys the sense of exploration for the GM. It works better in more narrativist games where the emphasis is on exploration of premise, rather than exploration of setting.

By contrast, the GM definitely should *not* seek to map out the whole world in advance. He should develop in play, following (influenced by) the direction set by the players, with judicious use of random elements. This way the GM too is constantly finding out new things about the world, but not at the direct determination of the players.

The only reason sandbox computer games create everything in advance of play is because they lack the ability to develop in play in response to player input. IMO taken literally they are a terrible model for a round-table game.

 

[The Shaman]

Giving players extensive world-creation authority can very easily destroy the sense of exploration for them, which IME also destroys the sense of exploration for the GM. It works better in more narrativist games where the emphasis is on exploration of premise, rather than exploration of setting.

By contrast, the GM definitely should *not* seek to map out the whole world in advance. He should develop in play, following (influenced by) the direction set by the players, with judicious use of random elements. This way the GM too is constantly finding out new things about the world, but not at the direct determination of the players.

The only reason sandbox computer games create everything in advance of play is because they lack the ability to develop in play in response to player input. IMO taken literally they are a terrible model for a round-table game.

Could someone please smack S'mon with some XP for me, please?

 

[Nameless1]

I think with sandboxing it's great to improvise and riff off player ideas and motivations, but the GM has to be very very careful about any "relinquishing of creative control" beyond the stuff that is normally within player purview, such as details about the backgrounds & families of the PCs. Giving players extensive world-creation authority can very easily destroy the sense of exploration for them, which IME also destroys the sense of exploration for the GM. It works better in more narrativist games where the emphasis is on exploration of premise, rather than exploration of setting.

I agree 100%. I am not sure how the GM has any sense of exploration at the table in a sandbox though. Discovery and exploration are definitely destroyed by the ability to just make things up. So in essence, I see a need to heavily divide GM-player authority in an effort to allow the player a sense of exploration at the expense of GM exploration.

Please explain how a GM can keep a sense of exploration in a sandbox game.

 

[LostSoul]

Where are they in the 4e DMG2?

Page 32 in the DMG2. I don't think they are great, but they have worked well for me so far.