Sandbox gaming

[rounser]

A sandbox campaign like the type I am wont to run contains no railroads at all. Predetermined outcomes are the anethema to these types of campaigns as they are the opposite of player agency and meaningful choice.

That's all well and good, and that's a sandbox too. But a series of adventure hooks that lead to railroads that you can choose from is also a sandbox, for any reasonable definition of the term, IMO. Sandbox doesn't have to mean "must wander round the map wherever I choose to go at this moment" and "things occur without PC intervention", although it can mean that too, and I'm a proponent of both.

I know what you're referring to, it's just that my definition is a lot broader (and possibly more useful, in that it's less exclusionary) than yours. If you knock back the series of adventure hooks leading to adventures-with-a-plot-of-sorts which players can choose from model as being "not a sandbox", then you've made what sandboxes are very narrow indeed, and possibly impractical.

The problem with arguments like this is that they always seem to go back to broad vs narrow definitions of terms, and thus misunderstandings.

 

[Ariosto]

Rounser, I submit that the term is useful precisely to the degree that it is narrow enough actually to mean something.

Whatever you choose to make of "sandbox" really makes no difference whatsoever to the practical matters at hand. You might as well huff and puff about how Baseball is "really" just the same as a raven or a writing desk.

It would be better to let the Baseball players describe their game, to talk with them about the affair actually at hand.

 

[pemerton]

Chaochou, my games tend to have more GM control over setup than you describe in your original post.

After putting a pitch to which the players agree - "Samurai + the mythical world of early 90s Hong Kong martial arts movies" or "D&D based in the world set out in the 4e books, and by the way every PC should have some reason to fight goblins built in to their backstory" - the players then build PCs. As part of this, they will create backstory - families, locations, religious details etc that then become incorporated into the gameworld.

As GM, I will also work out details of the gameworld - maps, but more importantly history and NPC organisations, antagonists, gods etc - which I will link to elements in the PC backgrounds. Some of this I will tell to the relevant player, some of this I will keep to myself for subsequent big reveals. This sort of detail can run from half-a-dozen pages at the start to dozens of pages by the end of a campaign.

Play will generally begin by me, as GM, initiating a situation which relates to elements of PC backstory so as to engage the players. As those situations are resolved, new situations will be initiated by me that engage the players based on a mixture of backstory plus prior events that have unfolded in the course of play.

In your example, you were playing on very personal features of the PCs - family life, romantic attachments, reputation among fellow villagers, etc. In my games, these things can come into play from time to time, but more often the reputation and status that are in play connect to more political elements, or more fantasy/mythic elements: relationships to gods and devils, attitude towards fates/karma, the mythic history of the world etc. (And in my games politics and myth tend to be bound together - it is a fantasy game after all!)

When these are the elements of the gameworld that the PCs are connected to, and that the players are engaging with, I think it is important that the GM not enforce morality/divine law as part of play - so if, for example, one PC wants to make a deal with a devil or demon, as a GM I see it as my role to roleplay the fiend in question, but to leave it to the player in question to decide whether or not his/her PC can successfully deal with such a creature. Of coures, other players may have their PCs react to what is going on - this is part of the fun of play, like the conflict in your example between the two PCs' attitudes to Jenna - but as a GM, if I try to impose a "right moral answer" then that will tend to kill the play dead. So for someone wanting to run this sort of game, I would strongly recommend not using alignment rules which (i) impose mechanical penalties for breaking alignment, and/or (ii) encourage the GM to use alignment as a tool for beating players round the head ("if you do that, it will be an evil act!").

On the whole I think the sort of game I run is pretty traditional fantasy RPGing - combat-heavy, and rewarding of mechanically skilled tactical play and character building, and the GM having a lot of influence over the details of game elements that the PCs encounter - but the story comes out of the players' choices.

 

[lamia]

It's been interesting for me to read through this thread and see all of the various opinions on what a sandbox constitutes. I've only ever played in one game that proclaimed itself as such, and I had zero fun.

From what that game showed, I thought a sandbox was basically a game with no story whatsoever and no real motivation to move my character from point A to point B.
For me, being plopped in front of a map of planets and asked where I want to go is not my preferred style since I play for the story.

It was just a bunch of pointless combat, which is about the opposite of what I enjoy. So I was just under the impression that a sandbox was for people who played the kill stuff/get loot/forget your own character's name because it's not important style!

I guess reading through this and the railroad threads I've just come to the opinion that either end of the spectrum can work if you are a magic GM. I am a fair to middling GM, so I'll stick to an in-between method!

 

[Ariosto]

From what that game showed, I thought a sandbox was basically a game with no story whatsoever ...

"A game" is sufficient. If you see "a story" in the playing out of any real contest, then that is fine; that is the kind of *emergent* story I enjoy.

If "story" is just a euphemism for "rigged game", then count me out.

This seems to me very, very far from a subtle distinction. You may prefer to see the undertaking not as a poor excuse for a game, but rather the game as a poor excuse for plotted performance art -- but that hardly argues for identifying the activities with each other!

It is as if people were to forget that "wrestling" is not just the popular choreographed athletic drama. It is also an actual sport, and has been for thousands of years.

Considering another aspect, it is as if people were to forget the full game of Chess and come to consider Chess problems such as those that appear in newspapers to constitute the game itself. The analog here is with the transformation of "campaign" from the original D&D game to its current use in describing a series of limited scenarios like those formerly used for tournaments.

I do not believe that this is really so hard to understand, for anyone with enough genuine interest in understanding to pay a modicum of attention. People with no previous acquaintance with RPGs have no trouble at all in my experience. That is hardly surprising, as there is no expectation in the general run of other games that the outcome is rigged to "tell the story".

 

[Jhaelen]

A sandbox campaign like the type I am wont to run contains no railroads at all. Predetermined outcomes are the anethema to these types of campaigns as they are the opposite of player agency and meaningful choice.

So, you're basically railroading your players into having to play in a sandbox setting?

A campaign offering choices between different 'Railroads' does not equate 'predetermined outcomes' and it also doesn't mean that it doesn't offer meaningful choices. Actually, in my experience, the 'ultimate' sandbox is the anathema of meaningful choices: Whenever players are free to do whatever they please, no meaningful gameplay is the most likely result.

If nothing is predetermined by the DM, every player choice results in something completely random, i.e. there cannot be meaningful choices.

 

[lamia]

I'm not entirely sure what provoked that attack, perhaps I am not wording things well.
All I was saying was that it has been an interesting thread to read, because the only exposure I had to the play style was apparently a poor example.

I have played in several campaigns over the last fifteen years, but this was the only one that was introduced to me as a "sandbox". I tried to enjoy it, and waited for it to get going. But after 5 sessions of nothing but fighting for no particular reason, I decided that it wasn't for me.

As previously stated, I have enjoyed reading the thread to see the different takes on what exactly it is. The extreme that I was presented with where the world does nothing and the NPCs are all nameless and faceless with no motivation was obviously a bad example. Just as many people who have had a particularly railroady campaign have had their experience colored.
I think in-between is perfectly fine. The game I run has plot bits and NPCs with motivations and plans. I don't have a story planned out to every last detail, but I do give the PCs something to interact with and learn about. What they choose to do with that is their business. I had to improv last weeks adventure in it's entirety because the group decided to get off the ship they were on and go riding hippocampi into some weird rocky area they spotted from the deck. I never tell them no.
But I still plan, and I really don't think that is a bad thing.
I'm sorry if you perceived my being insulting in my post somewhere, but that is not what was intended.

 

[Nagol]

So, you're basically railroading your players into having to play in a sandbox setting?

A campaign offering choices between different 'Railroads' does not equate 'predetermined outcomes' and it also doesn't mean that it doesn't offer meaningful choices. Actually, in my experience, the 'ultimate' sandbox is the anathema of meaningful choices: Whenever players are free to do whatever they please, no meaningful gameplay is the most likely result.

If nothing is predetermined by the DM, every player choice results in something completely random, i.e. there cannot be meaningful choices.

Nope! Playing in a sandbox setting is part of the explicit gaming contract at my table. The players can choose to participate or not with their eyes open.

The typical definition of railroad involves pre-determined situations that the players WILL traverse regardless of their will, so I think either your premise is flawed or we're not speaking the same language.

My world is a living one; factions exist, events happen, and situations change. Many things are predetermined by the DM. Player interaction can alter any of those predeterminations though some are harder to affect than others.

I'm unsure why you think player choice should end up having random effect on the world. Player choices CAN be random, but I find few of the world-affecting choices are so. Players pick sides to support, undercut those they dislike, and work towards those goals that they believe appeal to their characters. Their actions can result in unintended consequence and that's often a case when working with partial information and/or 'going with the gut'. The times it feels random is when the PCs have competing or opposed goals and effectively undercut each other.

 

[Nagol]

I'm not entirely sure what provoked that attack, perhaps I am not wording things well.
All I was saying was that it has been an interesting thread to read, because the only exposure I had to the play style was apparently a poor example.

I have played in several campaigns over the last fifteen years, but this was the only one that was introduced to me as a "sandbox". I tried to enjoy it, and waited for it to get going. But after 5 sessions of nothing but fighting for no particular reason, I decided that it wasn't for me.

Dropping a bunch of players into a campaign universe where the players haven't discussed/expressed a desire for a particular direction can be a frustrating experience for both the players and GM.

I've always found that especially true with some systems, like Traveller, where character growth/advancement isn't tied to explicit game constructs and in fact where some in-game constructs present impediments to risk-taking. The best way I've found around that problem is to build a common goal into the gaming contract. "Let's play a group of Imperium trouble-shooters sent to subtly undermine the growing seccessionist activity in this sector!" or other common goal often works better than "Let's play Traveller, stat rolling!"

The explicit gaming contract doesn't undercut PC agency or free will, but it does focus the players into particular choices for PC design and GM expectation.

As previously stated, I have enjoyed reading the thread to see the different takes on what exactly it is. The extreme that I was presented with where the world does nothing and the NPCs are all nameless and faceless with no motivation was obviously a bad example. Just as many people who have had a particularly railroady campaign have had their experience colored.
I think in-between is perfectly fine. The game I run has plot bits and NPCs with motivations and plans. I don't have a story planned out to every last detail, but I do give the PCs something to interact with and learn about. What they choose to do with that is their business. I had to improv last weeks adventure in it's entirety because the group decided to get off the ship they were on and go riding hippocampi into some weird rocky area they spotted from the deck. I never tell them no.
But I still plan, and I really don't think that is a bad thing.
I'm sorry if you perceived my being insulting in my post somewhere, but that is not what was intended.

I have NPCs with motivations and plans -- that's part of the world. There are often too many things for the PCs to interact with or learn about -- the PCs have to make hard choices how to spend their time. I plan all the time: what particular locations are like, what NPC actions will cause events, what situations will develop around the PCs, when will the PCs hear about events further afield, and how the world reacts to recent PC action. In other words, your campaign sounds much like a sandbox.

What I don't do is have any preconceived expectation as to how (or if) the PCs will resolve a situation. How a situation develops will simply affect the world and possibly have further consequence in situation development. This is where a sandbox veers away from an Adventure Path or other linear adventure design. I don't know that the Baron will escape with the magic doodad and the PCs now have to rush to stop him before the next new moon. I do know that the Baron is only concerned about the magic doodad and will attempt to escape with it. if he manages to get free then he plans to use it before the next new moon at a particalr location and here is his route and timeline.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Also, even if you intend a campaign to take place in a sandbox, it is necessary to provide motivation (i.e., "hooks") throughout the lifetime of the game, and stronger motivation at the beginning.

Example: A sandbox could start with a treasure map. The PCs do not need to pursue it (or it would not be a sandbox), but they have a concrete goal available to them from the outset. As the PCs pursue that goal (or not), the GM continues to throw hooks at them for other possible goals -- both short term (haunted house on the hill, abandoned ruins) and long-term (dragon sighted, pirate raiders, slavers). Some of these are, of course, recursive (i.e., smugglers in haunted house are linked to pirates, humanoids in abandoned ruins sell captives to slavers, pirates and slavers both pay tribute to dragon, and so on).

In a well-run sandbox, the problem should never be "There's nothing to do" but rather "We can't pursue all of these possibilities".


RC