Gaming Style Assumptions That Don't Make Sense

[Celebrim]

That's a good example. I've found that 'sandboxes' don't really work for my usual group of players. When I'm a player I also usually look for rumours or clues to decide what to do next. So, in a pure sandbox, I'm also struggling. I'm not a fan of 'let's go, plunder the countryside/dungeon', just because. I want a reason to do it.

Sandboxes can go badly wrong for two reasons. The situation you describe of players that are primarily reactive rather than active is one of them, but in my opinion its something a good DM can overcome.

But the even more common cause of sandboxes going wrong is that DMs without the temperament to run a sandbox are attracted to them by the notion that sandboxes require less preparation, or that interesting stories just organically arise without effort in a sandbox, or you can rely on the player's to create the content for you when running a sandbox. All three assertions are categorically false. Sandboxes require more preparatory work than adventure paths. Sandboxes won't organically create interesting events. And players in a sandbox can make things and eventually the content can start to generate itself, but a sandbox isn't in that state by default but has to be cultivated till it reaches the point that you can begin to harvest the rewards of all your hard effort.

The defective version of an adventure path commonly goes by the name of "Railroad". The analogy here is that the GM has so little envisioned player choice in creating his content, that the players are completely unable to change course and are forced to go through the motions of the one thing that the GM has imagined. The GM has envisioned one set of consequences so by golly there will be one set of choices.

The defective version of an sandbox is the opposite. The GM is willing to allow the players to choose anything they want. But the GM has spent no time imagining what the consequences of those choices might concretely be. The world is uncreated, empty, and amorphous and the GM leaves all the effort of making the content up to the players. For this situation I've coined the term "rowboat world'. The GM supplies the players with a rowboat, strands them in the vastness of an ocean, and then says, "Row wherever you want." The players have a surfeit of choices, but they still have no more agency than the players stuck on the railroad because none of those choices matter (particularly in the short term). Row as hard as you want south or north, it's all the same, and it's the players 'fault' if they don't find the little islands of content in the vast ocean.

For my part, I pity players in a rowboat world more than ones on a railroad. At least the folks on the railroad have some scenery to look at and can get to a destination without days of frustrating effort. Heck, it might even be a fun destination, and really - so long as you don't try to get off a railroad - usually you don't notice the rails. I'm not saying groups on railroads or in rowboats can't manage to have fun and enjoy the game, but in either case it's more like watching a movie because you've got nothing better to do rather than watching a movie because it's awesome.

The truths about sandboxes:

1) Sandboxes take more work to run than an adventure path. If you don't enjoy doing game preparation for its own sake, spare your players by running an adventure path or a series of vignettes, preferably using professional published adventure. When you run a sandbox, essentially what you are saying is, "I'm ok preparing far more content than I will ever use." In fact, if I wanted to give a functional definition of a sandbox, it was that it had content that was irrelevant to play.

2) Sandboxes have multiple potential adventure paths within them. Sandbox content looks a lot like a jumbled together set of adventure locations, adventure path hooks, and villainous plots - each of which could consume an entire campaign. In fact, if you take a setting defined by its adventure paths - say Golarian - eventually if you have all those paths in play simultaneously each of which the players can trip over, you end up with a sort of Sandbox. Making a good sandbox looks a lot like making many modules and mini-adventure paths, where you don't choose for the players what they are interested in. A good sandbox is not a world without roads and road signs. Instead, it looks like a road map, with broad highways, narrow trails, and even a few rail lines, crisscrossing all over it. This is what you are talking about when you say, "I usually look for rumors or clues" to decide what to do next. Those are your road signs telling you where you can go, and hopefully why. The really ironic part of this is that many DMs that think they run functional sandboxes are actually running functional adventure paths. Instead of creating a sandbox, what they do is functionally make up one "sign" and one "room" at a time, and the players simply bite the hook that they are given and follow the cues they are given about what there is to do around here. The DM may be laying the rails one at a time, but it's still ultimately a railroad. A real sandbox though has a density too it and the DMs knowledge of what all is out there is always bleeding into whatever path the players take. It's details that empower players and give them leverage to shape things and do the unexpected.

3) Sandboxes are DM created living settings. A sandbox occurs in a world where things happen. There are DM driven events. There are things that happen - earthquakes, wars, festivals, plagues, visitations of the gods, intrigue, crimes, etc. There are DM driven personalities with their own agendas. There is in other words a 'real' world to interact with. Many GMs get the false idea that sandboxes are primarily player driven. But sandboxes being primarily player driven is a state that sandboxes evolve to as the players gain more mastery and knowledge of the setting, and as player character's gain power and influence and relationships with the NPCs in the setting. They always start out as DM driven because otherwise the players have nothing substantial and tangible to grapple with and turn to their own purposes. The DM may be eventually willing to turn the buckets, shovels, Tonka trucks, wooden blocks, and so forth over to the players once they are inspired, but you bloody well have to at least create the sand, the tools, and some spark of inspiration before that's going to reasonably happen.

And if a player really could create all of that by himself and you the DM aren't doing it, then maybe that player should be the DM.

Even the best sandbox usually needs a good introductory vignette to get newly introduced players involved in the setting.

 

[delericho]

For this situation I've coined the term "rowboat world'. The GM supplies the players with a rowboat, strands them in the vastness of an ocean, and then says, "Row wherever you want."

I don't really have anything to add to this discussion, except: This is a great term.

 

[Umbran]

The defective version of an sandbox is the opposite. The GM is willing to allow the players to choose anything they want. But the GM has spent no time imagining what the consequences of those choices might concretely be. The world is uncreated, empty, and amorphous and the GM leaves all the effort of making the content up to the players. For this situation I've coined the term "rowboat world'. The GM supplies the players with a rowboat, strands them in the vastness of an ocean, and then says, "Row wherever you want." The players have a surfeit of choices, but they still have no more agency than the players stuck on the railroad because none of those choices matter (particularly in the short term). Row as hard as you want south or north, it's all the same, and it's the players 'fault' if they don't find the little islands of content in the vast ocean.

There is another way in which Sandboxes can go wrong - the GM can have the content, but he or she doesn't communicate it well to the players. A proper sandbox (IMHO) also requires a whole lot of setting information be given to the players, so that they know what content has been created, so they can find it. The result is... archipelago world? There's places to go, and stuff to find, but if you don't have a map, you're rowing at random and may not land on any of the islands.

 

[Celebrim]

There is another way in which Sandboxes can go wrong - the GM can have the content, but he or she doesn't communicate it well to the players.

I would put that as a particular case of the general category.

I'll admit that in earlier periods I was prone to similar problems, particularly the leaving it up to the players to find the content through some natural process of discovery, while not actually putting enough landmarks out there to make that process likely. I've created some of these rowboat worlds of my own with islands of content lost among the vast wastes of empty hexes or meaningless NPCs. It wasn't as bad as it could have been, because I usually start with a quest and a hook to at least get a group moving, but I do know that at least one very promising campaign I started fizzled because the players felt lost in a rowboat and never realized what was out there.

From that, I learned that first hooks of a campaign are like first pages of a novel.

In truth though, I'm find that even though I'm running something of an adventure path now (by request), I'm still having the same weaknesses. My desire to have the clues be natural artifacts that are believable in context and not clearly gamist constructs to keep the plot moving, is running into challenges in that my heroes don't always find it obvious what I find to be obvious. I'm usually pretty good at guessing the plot of movies or mysteries, and I'm finding that I'm leaving out the blatant expository scene that lays it out while thinking that I've made it obvious - when really I've made it obvious only to Hercule Poirot or Columbo. Yes, it's great to give the player's a chance to solve the mystery and feel like a detective character from a mystery novel. But if they don't, you don't want them to feel stupid either. Regardless of how obvious you make it, I think they'll eventually enjoy and be satisfied with the discovery. Something to work on.

But that isn't the only good intention that can go astray. Although it's played for laughs, Kraag Wurld - Nitro Ferguson's homebrew setting in Knights of the Dinner Table - is apparently a row boat world where Nitro has deliberately taken down all the signs that point to the content so as to not deprive himself and his player's of the 'joy of discovery'. Kraag Wurld shows a lot of creativity and even the capacity for depth, but the players are utterly lost in it because all the setting exposition occurs in play through "gotchas" that happen because the players lack any knowledge of the setting and the DM communicates no facts about it to the supposed inhabitants of that setting. I hear of and have occasionally experienced this before. Instead of saying, "You see a group of elves, which fills you with fear, as everyone knows that elves are cruel cannibals.", the PC's are only informed of that all elves are cannibals when they approach the elves on friendly terms and the elves attack them. "Gotcha. You should have known this fact that only existed in my head. Why aren't you a mind reader?" I sympathize with Nitro, but also try not to be Nitro. Lessons learned from 30 years of gaming.

Basically, if you theoretically allow the players to do anything, but you deprive them of sufficient information to make informed choices, it's a rowboat world.

 

[Umbran]

I would put that as a particular case of the general category.

That's fair - I called it as I did because I took it as a minor variant. Because some would read what you wrote, and go, "Well, I *created* lots of content in my world..." and not see the problem.

In truth though, I'm find that even though I'm running something of an adventure path now (by request), I'm still having the same weaknesses. My desire to have the clues be natural artifacts that are believable in context and not clearly gamist constructs to keep the plot moving, is running into challenges in that my heroes don't always find it obvious what I find to be obvious.

I think that's a common one we all have to watch out for. GMs and world-builders have the whole thing in our heads, so everything is always obvious to us. It can be difficult to step out and look at it from the point of view of someone who doesn't already have the right conclusion in their head.

 

[delericho]

A proper sandbox (IMHO) also requires a whole lot of setting information be given to the players, so that they know what content has been created, so they can find it.

Assuming the sandbox is supposed to emulate the sort of adventures seen by Conan, or Elric, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, I'm not sure that's necessary (if it's done well). One of the feature of their adventures is that wherever they went there was adventure to be found.

(Of course, that was because the authors had control over where they went and also what they found, but it still works in a sandbox - if you start in a central hex and there is adventure to be found in all six of the surrounding hexes, you're good. But on the other, other hand, that turns into a lot of work very quickly. )

 

[MarkB]

Regarding running away, one problem I've seen a couple of times as a player is that players will often compete to be the one who stays behind to hold off the enemy and let the others get away, to the extent that a whole round of multiple PCs doing the Gandalf and shouting "Fly you fools!" at each other goes by without anyone actually leaving.

 

[Umbran]

(Of course, that was because the authors had control over where they went and also what they found, but it still works in a sandbox - if you start in a central hex and there is adventure to be found in all six of the surrounding hexes, you're good. But on the other, other hand, that turns into a lot of work very quickly. )

It also tends to strain credulity. If there's "adventure" (which, let's be real, will typically mean something our murderhobos will find worth killing over) in *every* hex... how is it that this world still has a population? I mean, that's a pretty violent place, unless your hexes are really big, kn which case it is odd that hte PCs find the adventure. And, if you are running status quo, how is it that *all* these adventurous things are just sitting and waiting for the PCs to wander in? Why are the PCs special to be the ones to find the adventure in every hex that the inhabitants don't?

 

[delericho]

It also tends to strain credulity. If there's "adventure" (which, let's be real, will typically mean something our murderhobos will find worth killing over) in *every* hex... how is it that this world still has a population?

Well, it's perhaps crucial to note that the characters mentioned didn't just interpret adventure as "something worth killing over".

Anyway, presumably most of those monsters are just innocently minding their own business, until the murderhobos come and invade their homes. It may say "Good" on the character sheet, but does that really apply to PCs in your experience?



Seriously, though: yes, that's all true.

 

[Agamon]

Regarding running away, one problem I've seen a couple of times as a player is that players will often compete to be the one who stays behind to hold off the enemy and let the others get away, to the extent that a whole round of multiple PCs doing the Gandalf and shouting "Fly you fools!" at each other goes by without anyone actually leaving.

That reminds me of this: [video]www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aIfarMPmPQ[/video]