Game Masters: Shooting Your Own Campaign in the Foot

[Umbran]

The West Marches is an example of a sandbox with walls.

Every sandbox has walls. In order to not have walls the GM needs to have infinite sand.

Though I used the term sandbox, the posit applies to any game style - every campaign has limits. Maybe they are in the fictional area of play. Maybe they are in the themes and allowed actions. There's always something a player can do that will screw the whole thing up for everybody.

And maybe that's fine - it ends the campaign, and you start a new one.

 

[MGibster]

You gave the players choices and they acted in a way that had a direct impact on the world they interacted in. I dont see a problem at all. Now it would be a problem to say, sorry no you guys cant do that. Why couldnt the group have just relocated to say to say Las Vegas or Los Angeles and the campaign continue? Did they all die? If they did I'd just have had them roll new PCs and pick up in the wake of their old PC's.

Junktown had two main enemies: The Mutant King out of Las Vegas and General Throckmorton and his robot forces from Denver, and the two belligerents had recently formed a military pact with the expressed purpose of wiping out their common enemy Junktown. We had spent the better part of a campaign establishing player character ties to Junktown's community, including ownership of their own building, and one of the PCs family was well entrenched in the city. And, no, they didn't die. They ended up accomplishing something fairly important but their city was destroyed. But that all probably could have been avoided had I not set it up to happen. I just didn't expect a player to go down that route.

Not that I blame the player. I'm the one who presented it to him.

 

[Ace]

Given how devious players can be unless you create really tight campaigns and game worlds you have to embrace the crazy sometimes.

I've had players blow up a magic UFO in a Faerie forest, travel to other worlds, fight a lich lord and become Marcher Merchant Lords all in one game, also seen them pet the Fenris Wolf and make friends with him, blow up a parallel world after stealing its magic , nuke cities with naquada and unleash literal Hell on Earth . You just got to roll with the punches.

if you can't select setting where this just isn't possible, low power magic, procedural and grittier games can help contain it . Just know your group and your setting and you'll be fine.

 

[Lanefan]

We often hear stories about some of the interesting choices made by PCs which makes the game go in an unexpected direction. But sometimes game masters make choices that end up taking their campaign in unexpected places. For example, giving your D&D group a Deck of Many Things to play with.

A few years back, I made a grave miscalculation regarding what I expected a PC to do and it changed the course of the campaign. I was running Deadlands: Hell on Earth (post-apocalypse United States), and the players were based out of Junktown (formerly Salt Lake City). There was a very wealthy well loved man who kind of took the PCs under his wing providing them with jobs and handsomely rewarding them for it. One of my PCs was a mafia hit man before the bombs fell, and some of his old contacts reached out to him about assassinating this nice guy.

What I expected to happen: The PC agrees to the job, but tells the rest of the group and tries to find out who is ordering the hit.

What happened: The PC took the money and murdered the nice guy. He became a fugitive and was hunted down by his former party members. This nice guy was vital to the success of the city and his lack of presence contributed to the destruction of the city at the end of the campaign.

I'll own that one. I messed up with that. Anyone else?

Just by that story, unless there's a lot more to it I don't think you messed up at all.

You probably did ruin a bunch of stuff you had planned and-or prepped, but them's the breaks. Now they have to find a way to adventure in post-destruction Junktown...

 

[Ovinomancer]

Sorry, I thought it would be clear. Maybe as a kid you didn't actually play in a literal sandbox? If you leave the box... there's no more sand!

Very droll. I wonder if I would have the same leeway to be sarcastically dismissive as you seem to enjoy?

The literalness of the sandbox is the problem -- there's no literal walls or sand in a sandbox game. It's a metaphor, a term which you can learn about at this link, as it appears you may not have learned about them as a kid?

They are arbitrary to start, but then.. the GM fills the box with sand. The GM does not have infinite sand on hand - it takes a lot of time and effort to create sand. There is no Las Vegas sand at this time.

At this time, indeed. There's no reason the GM cannot create Las Vegas sand, or, specifically in the example given, why the sand he already has must wither and die because of a single grain being removed. The location of an arbitrary wall is malleable, not fixed, because it's arbitrary. Any inflexibility is on the part of the GM.

I mean, in this case, you're saying that the GM shouldn't create Las Vegas sand because it's time consuming, but he still must watch the sand he's created get used as the cat's litterbox and be flushed away! You're arguing a position about fixed walls from on top of shifting sand!

If you don't like that analogy, let's try another one:

GM says, "Hey, folks, how about we gather at my house for dinner. Here's the menu..."

Players agree, and come over and eat the first course. But then, they turn up the heat on the oven and burn the entree. I'm sorry, that dinner party is over. The host didn't shop to have multiple dinners available for you tonight. Maybe the players should go home, and the GM can decide on what the next dinner party might be.

Good grief, what a tortured metaphor to try to fix your point -- you're as immovable as the imagined walls you're defending! We aren't talking about a single session, but a campaign. For your example to work, the GM must be unable to ever cook again!

Sessions going in unexpected directions that require more prep and so end early are not the topic of discussion. GM's painting themselves into corners they cannot seem to escape which upend the campaign is the topic. You're arguing that walls are so set that a GM cannot move them, ever, if players do unexpected things? Again, this only ever happens if GM's are locked into a plot that hasn't been presented in game yet -- ie, they're too in love with their cool story to be able to cope with situations that break their unplayed-out plans. Your example was a great one for showcasing a GM unwilling to part with their plans which causes the game to end. Plans are literal walls, just as a campaign is not a literal sandbox. Saying sandboxes have walls doesn't explain why GMs insist on building walls that cause their game to crash headlong into them. Or, they're unable to shoo away cats, which is a different problem, and really one of a different bad metaphor.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The West Marches is an example of a sandbox with walls.

"The game was set in a frontier region on the edge of civilization (the eponymous West Marches)... PCs get to explore anywhere they want, the only rule being that going back east is off-limits — there are no adventures in the civilized lands, just peaceful retirement."

There's absolutely nothing actually stopping a GM from creating all kinds of civilized lands adventures in the east, if the GM is so inclined. A wall that ephemeral isn't much of a wall.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Every sandbox has walls. In order to not have walls the GM needs to have infinite sand.

Though I used the term sandbox, the posit applies to any game style - every campaign has limits. Maybe they are in the fictional area of play. Maybe they are in the themes and allowed actions. There's always something a player can do that will screw the whole thing up for everybody.

And maybe that's fine - it ends the campaign, and you start a new one.

You're confusing prep with limits on the game. Prep is just the GM's thinking before play starts. If you're locked into prep as the only way the game can go, that's on you, it's not a feature of the game. I know, because I don't have that problem.

And, let's not start postulating bad faith play to try to prove a point about how games work. Those aren't about how the game works, they're about not playing with jerks.

 

[MGibster]

You probably did ruin a bunch of stuff you had planned and-or prepped, but them's the breaks. Now they have to find a way to adventure in post-destruction Junktown...

They were launched into space, went through a wormhole, and ended up on another planet that was colonized before the apocalypse. It's just that they got to watch their homes destroyed before all that. Their homes being destroyed because of the actions one PC took that totally wasn't my fault. So that as win for me.

 

[MGibster]

You're confusing prep with limits on the game. Prep is just the GM's thinking before play starts. If you're locked into prep as the only way the game can go, that's on you, it's not a feature of the game. I know, because I don't have that problem.

This is one of those situations where I think it's very easy for people to talk past one another. Last time I ran a Vampire game we established what city it was located in, what factions the PCs belonged to, and the tenants each PC was expected to live by lest they be penalized. San Francisco, the entire Bay Area actually, was the sandbox I poured all my creative energy into. I created multiple NPCs, political factions, religious groups, humans, etc., etc. to build a rich campaign setting but the PCs were free to do whatever they wished. They could work to overthrow the Prince, switch factions, make friends, make enemies, and do whatever their little black hearts desired. They had free reign in the sandbox.

But if they decided things were too tough and abandoned San Francisco in favor of Seattle they would have effectively left the sandbox. I would be totally unprepared for such a thing to happen because I haven't outlined what's going on in Seattle. That's what going out the sandbox means to me.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is one of those situations where I think it's very easy for people to talk past one another. Last time I ran a Vampire game we established what city it was located in, what factions the PCs belonged to, and the tenants each PC was expected to live by lest they be penalized. San Francisco, the entire Bay Area actually, was the sandbox I poured all my creative energy into. I created multiple NPCs, political factions, religious groups, humans, etc., etc. to build a rich campaign setting but the PCs were free to do whatever they wished. They could work to overthrow the Prince, switch factions, make friends, make enemies, and do whatever their little black hearts desired. They had free reign in the sandbox.

But if they decided things were too tough and abandoned San Francisco in favor of Seattle they would have effectively left the sandbox. I would be totally unprepared for such a thing to happen because I haven't outlined what's going on in Seattle. That's what going out the sandbox means to me.

Right, but this is a prep issue, and only exists where the GM is protecting their prep. Not a bad thing, mind, but it's not a feature or requirement of the game, but instead a requirement the GM has created. If protecting this prep is also what causes a GM to shoot their campaign in the foot, it's a GM caused issue.

My point is that calling this issue of prep something like the "walls of the sandbox" is foisting off the responsibility. Again, if you've done this, if you like games with heavy prep (both in terms of effort and in terms of immobility), that's awesome. The only right way to play is the way that's fun for you. But, if you're going to analyze this, you need to be honest about what part you've picked out for yourself. This is not a necessary way to play, so you cannot pin it on the "walls" of the sandbox -- walls that are entirely established by you where you want them. Honest evaluation of the gamestate is sometimes not flattering, but this is a good thing -- you don't have to be flattered to enjoy a thing.

My example of this is that I establish themes for a game that I'm running, and I want the game to focus on those themes. I get buy-in from my players on these themes, and leave room to explore other things they might bring with them, but abandoning those themes is not what I'd like in that campaign (perhaps another). I wouldn't call these the walls of the sandbox, though, because it removes my agency in establishing and enforcing them. If sticking to these themes derails a game, that's on me, not the nature of the game. I don't have to stick to them, and I don't have to let them derail my game -- I'm perfectly free to change them, and still have a fun game (sometimes this happens). But, my preference is to stick to the themes.

And I say themes intentionally, because that what they are -- overarching elements of play. I'm not a heavy prep person for my 5e game, although I do prep. I'm also not very attached to my prep -- if something better comes along in play, I'll happily and greedily switch. I've found that exposure to other games, where prep is so different as to be unrecognizable as such in a D&D sense (Blades in the Dark, for instance, actively fights against prep), has improved my ability to prep in 5e games. It's focused my prep away from anticipating outcomes and only on making sure I have what I need to easily adapt to play. I've found I tend to prep locations, not plots. In other words, my "walls" have become unnecessary because I'm not trying to constrain play (within the agreed themes, of course, but, honestly, this is an easy thing to just reinforce in play via framing).