I think you are fairly smart and should be able to fill in the blanks. Maybe you are soo unfamiliar with the concept that you can't. That's fine. But railroading doesn't align with the key principles of living sandbox play. In a living sandbox the players are allowed to craft their own story within the GM's world.
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there’s not an explicitly well defined process for most of this stuff as there is in story now play. That’s part of the reason that when examples with this kind of detail is asked for that it is shrugged off because there’s always a number of ways this kind of fiction can get generated (and yet it always seems like the most railroady method is assumed by story now advocates)
I think I'm pretty familiar with what you call a "living sandbox". I've run that sort of game, though not in the past 25 or so years.
There doesn't need to be a "well-defined process". All I'm asking is for you to describe how things actually happen at the table. Eg when you say "the PCs move around in the GM's world"
what is actually happening at the table. I've offered my account of this -
the GM has notes on a setting/backstory - geography, NPCs, factions, possible timelines of events, etc - and
the players declare actions for their PCs, some of which "activate" the situations implicit or latent in that backstory/setting material. Eg the GM has a note that
The clerics of Pholtus hate Cuthbertians and then the player of the cleric of Cuthbert declares
I go down to the temple of Pholtus, wearing my full regalia and symbol, and the GM then extrapolates how the Pholtus clerics respond by a mixture of intuition, reaction rolls, etc.
I'm not sure whether or not you are accepting or rejecting this account of how it works.
It really makes me feel like you aren't listening to what I'm saying about the playstyle.
It would help me if you would describe the actual process of play at the table.
Who says what? How are action declarations resolved?
As it is, I'm drawing on my own conception, based on my own play experience together with conjecture as to what you have in mind.
That can happen in a number of ways. A non exhaustive list of examples
- The DM uses a behind the scenes mechanic to determine what world information the PC's learn and then picks an appropriate NPC conduit to disseminate that information (behind the scenes mechanics)
- The players approach a member of said faction where that member tells them about the war (trigger event)
- They are witnesses to a battle between the factions breaking out right before their eyes (this could be either dm fiat or behind the scenes mechanics depending how the dm decided to place that scene there).
This all seems consistent with my account of how a sandbox works -
NPC conduits are either an example of setting that is waiting to be "activated" by an appropriate action declaration (eg
I ask the tavernkeeper what the news is in these parts), or a situation/scene that the GM frames independently of player action declarations (eg
A stranger comes towards you. It seems that she has something to say). Witnessing a battle could be mere colour - if it just described to the players with a presupposition that they are spectators - or (a bit like the approach from a NPC) could be a scene framed independently of player action declarations.
In any event, within this sandbox the players can take a side, ignore the war, attempt to leverage the war to gain something they want, etc. It's up to them how they handle this information and this situation. IMO this means that the method of GM fiction creation matters a lot less in this style of play - as regardless of the method that some particular detail is created and disseminated to the players they have full control over whether that becomes a focus of play or a background element of play.
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Upon learning of the faction war they may take that as the opportunity to explore the factions and decide which if either they will help.
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Presumably that was either decided in the DM's notes or via some behind the scenes process he created.
This all seems to be talking about how it is that the players, in play, learn about and engage with material established by the GM as setting/backstory material.
pemerton said:
The world "going on" without the characters is the GM authoring more setting/backstory behind the scenes and from time to time revealing that to the players, either as colour (As you walk down the street, you see the shops are all boarded up to protect against violence - the faction war seems to be getting worse, not better) or as part of framing a scene/situation (As you walk down the street, you see one of the faction couriers coming towards you - from the look on her face, you can see she's about to ask you for a favour!).
I'm not sure what you are trying to say here
I'm saying that
the world "going on" without the characters is the GM authoring material - setting/backstory material (eg that such-and-such a faction leader does such-and-such a thing with such-and-such a result on the faction's relationship with the temple of Pholtus). And the players learn about this material either as
colour - ie it informs the GM's narration as "background" or "flavour" or "depth/verisimilitude" but not actually mattering to any action resolution - or else uses it to frame a scene/situation (eg when the PCs go to the temple of Pholtus, the relationship between the temple and the faction feeds into the way the situation is framed and unfolds).
I think what I'm describing here is pretty standard "living sandbox" stuff.
Doesn't that depend on scope though? It's only in the most immediate context that the outpost raid becomes the focus of play. But zoom out to the next level and you clearly see the outpost raid was a means to an end about what the player is driving play to focus around - avenging his brother.
I guess it's all a matter of degree. In some sense, the Doctor in some of the early Dr Who series is trying to return from his exile on Earth (I think I'm thinking of Jon Pertwee's Doctor) - but that's not really what most of the episodes were about.
In the classic Monkey TV show, ostensibly the goal of the protagonists is to travel to India and collect the sutras, but again that's not really what most of the episodes are about.
What is your criteria for determining which has priority then? It seems at this point that you are declaring one to be the priority by sheer fiat.
It doesn't make sense to talk about priority of play and then talk about situation first flowing out of as opposed to into something. Those are 2 different concepts that you are using the same word to describe.
You can't prioritise setting, character and situation all at once.
In a sandbox, setting/backstory generally takes priority - the factions, the locations, the NPCs, etc - that figure in the GM's prep work, and then situation flows out of that (eg the PCs go to the temple of Pholtus, and the clerics there ask them to help deal with the faction that is pressuring them). Sometimes the GM might frame a situation independently of the players' action declarations for their PCs (eg the faction war breaks out in front of the PCs) but typically that should still flow from the backstory/setting - that's where the "depth" of the world resides.
A contrasting approach to play is one in which situation is prioritised. And then backstory flows from that. To frame situations without drawing on setting/backstory requires other ways of establishing the situation. One way to do this is to lean heavily on genre conceits/tropes - Prince Valiant and The Dying Earth are two RPGs that take this approach. Another way is to draw on elements built into the PCs. This is how Burning Wheel works.
Let's explore how a very similar story emerges in living sandbox play.
All of this you listed above is backstory and is applicable to living sandbox play as well (only caveat is that the GM would have some power to veto particular background elements). There's no divergence yet assuming the background was accepted.
When it comes to whether the Iron Tower Order has fallen the GM would have some notes regarding them and their enemies. He would then proceed to use a non-player facing mechanic to determine what happened to them. The players wouldn't necessarily learn of this happening unless they went out of their way to explore it.
Here we have
story before. That is, the pre-authorship of material that bears directly upon the protagonist's dramatic/thematic trajectory.
D&D Sandbox players wouldn't necessarily declare their own checks, but instead would say something like I investigate the area for clues about what caused this homestead to be abandoned. I also check the obvious spots for where there might be gold. Drawers, underneath mattresses, chests, etc.
Nearly everything so far fits nicely into a D&D sandbox campaign.
But the resolution of those declared actions is via map-and-key. It is
backstory/setting first, and those notes already determine what the story will be vis-a-vis the abandoning of the homestead and Thurgon and Aramina's engagement with it.
The episode of Burning Wheel that I described was
situatin first - ie there is an abandoned homestead in the area that Thurgon is committed to guarding (in virtue of being a Knight of the Iron Tower). The backstory/setting detail flows out of the resolution of that situation.
Your check for gold determined the presence of the orcs. In a living world sandbox the most likely reason for encountering the orcs might be the PC's lingering to long triggering a behind the scenes GM check to see if the orcs arrived.
Here we see some more
story before.
Sounds very much like typical D&D living sandbox play. Players can choose to engage or not engage with elements presented.
Well, in all RPGing that I'm familiar with the players declare actions for their PCs, and hence can choose what elements of a situation to engage with. What distinguishes various approaches - such as "story before" and "story now" is the basis on which those elements are being authored, and how the consequences of declared actions are resolved.
Very possible in sandbox play (probably based on triggering event) instead of however the Elves were generated in the Story now fiction.
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For the same action a D&D GM would probably call for a history check and the playthrough afterwards could be very similar.
The GM made up the Elves. He likes Elves, and brought them onto the stage - a bit like your faction war.
I invited the Elf to travel with his soldiers south to Auxol, where we might host them. The GM had the Elf try and blow me off, but I was serious about this and so called for a Duel of Wits. Unfortunately my dice pool was very weak compared to the Elf's (6 Will dice being used for untrained Persuasion, so slightly weaker than 3 Persuasion dice vs 7 Will dice and 6 Persuasion dice) and so despite my attempt as a player to do some clever scripting I was rebuffed by the Elf without getting even a compromise. Here we have a player-authored plot moment. Although it ended in failure for the PC, it was all about what I as a player had brought into the situation. I'm pretty sure the GM hadn't anticipated this. So I don't know what he anticipated for the Elves' departure, but in the game it followed my failure to persuade them to join me.
And to play devil's advocate a moment - who brought the orcs in, who brought the elves in, the whole situation wasn't about what you as a player brought into the situation - though a good portion of it was?
The situation was all about what I as a player brought into it - the question of whether or not the Elves would travel with me (Thurgon) to Auxol. It wasn't about the Elves' motives (ie fighting the Orcs). Or the Orcs' motives (ie raiding the homesteads).
Seems very possible for sandbox play (though sandbox play doesn't require such in depth back grounds, though it isn't hostile to them either) just replace duel of wits with persuasion and the same thing happens in living sandbox D&D.
I see very few actual play examples posted of D&D play where this sort of thing happens - ie where a successful CHA check or extended resolution process generates a fundamental change in a NPC's trajectory (eg in this case, from leading the warband against the Orcs to joining the PCs in liberating their homeland). What I do hear very often is that, in D&D, the GM has to decide whether or not it is uncertain that the NPC might be influenced at all.
I'd be interested to hear more about examples of social resolution that put the player's goals for their PCs front-and-centre.
pemerton said:
Story before is about pre-authorship of plot, of resolution. @FrogReaver's example of the PC striking a deal with the faction looks to me like story before, because it seems to me that the options for that interaction are already foreclosed - either the PC walks away, or the PC agrees to raid the outpost - and then the GM pulls out the outpost maps and notes they just happened to have ready-to-hand! Of course I can't say this for sure, because @FrogReaver's example didn't describe how any of the fiction was actually established, so I'm conjecturing based on a general sense of how D&D is often played.
If your takeaway is that such an example is 'foreclosed' then your not understanding what I'm saying about living sandbox D&D play. The options you listed were examples of options not an exhaustive list. The PC's could literally do anything. Assassinate both faction leaders to cause the war to escalate, try to place both factions into a bidding war for their services - essentially any crazy thing they think they want to try to do can be accommodated in living sandbox play. Or more importantly they don't have to engage with it at all- if they decide they aren't interested in engaging with the faction war they can move on and have it fade into a background element.
My point was that, as you presented the scenario, the PC could either strike a deal with the factoin to raid the outpost in return for the information (which might include a bidding war), or else walk away - and perhaps eg try and assassinate faction heads. But neither in that earlier post nor in this one do you canvass that the PC might get the faction to help hunt down the brother's killer.
The whole way you have spoken about the faction gives me the impression that the GM is deciding what it is doing and aspiring to by reference to their own conception of what motivates the faction. So as I said, if you have actual play examples that resemble the exchange between Thurgon and the Elven captain - in which all the action is centred not on the Elves's goals (as conceived of by the GM) but the PC's goal (as conceived of by the player) I'd be interested to hear about them.
Given how closely the living sandbox play mimics this I don't see why the same things aren't being said of it.
I started the thread that I quoted from:
Player-authored plot in RPGing and that thread had a predecessor:
Who authors the shared fiction in RPGing?
No one posted any "living sandbox" example of play in these threads.
My own experience is that the more one, as a GM, looks to the players' priorities - as evinced in the play of their PCs - to frame situations, the less important it is to have prepared backstory of the sandbox sort. Backstory starts to be an output rather than an input.
Force can be used to cut through a bunch of minor stuff and get directly to big decisions. If there's any area where force should be acceptable then it's there.
Why is this Force? What action declarations are being thwarted or having their outcomes manipulated?
To put it another way: the idea that proactive scene-framing requires Force rests on a premise, that the "proper" way to frame scenes is to have them emerge out of the players' action declarations which then "activate" the situations latent in the pre-authored backstory ie that th game is a sandbox. Of course that is one way to play a RPG, but not the only way. Proactive scene-framing is consistent with prioritising
situation over
backstory/setting.
