The many types of Sandboxes and Open-World Campaigns

[Yora]

I've been pondering over the last couple of days about what people really mean when they are talking about sandboxes, hexcrawls, or West Marches campaigns. In many cases, people are simply repeating a term they've seen used for a specific campaign described with more or less detail, and assume that everyone using the term is thinking about the same parameters as in that one example. That does lead to some discussions about whether the campaign someone outlining is really a case of X as claimed, but I think even more often than that people assume they are talking about the same thing but appear to have some significantly different assumptions of what is actually being discussed.

The most simple example would be the term West Marches. That title is literally the name of one specific campaign that the creator described very well with a good amount of detail. But in addition to the play procedures and game structure, that campaign also included the aspect of being an open-table game in which the GM left it up to players to organize parties for essentially serial one-shot adventures, which have to be completed in one go, and the players can't set up adventures with identical groups for metagame reasons. Are the organizational procedures of that group an integral part of the game structure? Some people assume it is, others assume that this has nothing to do with a campaign being a West Marches campaign or not.

But you also have hexcrawls, where there isn't a clear consensus whether any campaign that uses a hex map is also a hexcrawl, or if it has to be a dungeon crawl shifted to a wilderness environment with a hexmap. And does sandbox mean the campaign just has to be open world, or does it include the additional element of the PCs changing the game world towards their desired state through their actions?

No clue where all of this might be going or if anyone has anything meaningful to respond to this. But I think that when it comes to open world campaigns, there are actually many more unspoken assumptions than commonly established parameters regarding what kind of campaign people are actually talking about. Sandbox as a term covers such a wide range of different things, that calling a campaign a sandbox might actually introduce more confusion than narrow things down. Can we do something to bring a bit more structure into this very open space of vagueness and ambiguity? Are there actually distinctively different approaches to setting up and running open-world campaigns that would make useful categories to work with?

 

[Reynard]

There is also the issue of whether the "sandbox" is fleshed out or procedural. Did someone (the GM or a publisher or some combination) create all the sandbox content and now the PCs are discovering it, or do random tables and whim fill out the sandbox as the PCs explore? Or somewhere in between, with some defined locations but procedural generation in between.

As you said, there is a lot of room in the general idea and people should probably be specific when discussing what they mean.

 

[payn]

When folks say sandbox I just take as a general term for open world. Maybe its a strict West Marches game, a hexcrawl, or an AP like Paizo's Kingmaker. The specifics don't matter to me until they do. At that point, either the person clarifies, or I ask questions so I better understand. I just assume that's natural discourse.

Back in the identify more than linear/non-linear campaign styles thread, I didn't think you needed to define them any further. Though, your post shows that there are ways to dial it in further for understanding. So, we got some loose terminology that I wont fret over unless the person is way off like calling an adventure league module west marches for example. I do think the terms should be generally understood, but I fear the conversations here (online) often get bogged down in the weeds. Where how a person constructs their campaign is the interesting bit, but we argue over how to name it for dozens of pages instead. YMMV.

 

[Yora]

Which is why I've been increasingly avoiding using any technical terms over the time. Describe the thing, but don't classify the thing. Because you're only going to get people debating the classification but not contributing to the thing.

Creating more terms surely isn't going to help. Somehow people are debating what railroading is, even though the term couldn't be any more clear.

But I still find it interesting to take a closer look of what meaningful differences there are between different types of campaign within the greater sphere of open world games.

I think perhaps the most significant one to me personally is "Are codified procedures for overland travel between settlements and sites an integral part of the campaign structure?" I occasionally keep surprising myself when I remember that the answer isn't automatically yes.

 

[payn]

Which is why I've been increasingly avoiding using any technical terms over the time. Describe the thing, but don't classify the thing. Because you're only going to get people debating the classification but not contributing to the thing.

Creating more terms surely isn't going to help. Somehow people are debating what railroading is, even though the term couldn't be any more clear.

But I still find it interesting to take a closer look of what meaningful differences there are between different types of campaign within the greater sphere of open world games.

I think perhaps the most significant one to me personally is "Are codified procedures for overland travel between settlements and sites an integral part of the campaign structure?" I occasionally keep surprising myself when I remember that the answer isn't automatically yes.

Part of it is the hang ups. I dont really believe in the idea that something is or isnt in these campaign terms. I think of them in degrees. So, railroading may seem obvious because some folks have so little tolerance for it, but others have such expansive definitions that many playstyles are just considered bad. I have my own preferences, so I get why that's important. However, if somebody is more liberal in their definition I'm not going to argue that in the long term. Eventually, for conversations sake, I'll just go with their definition and terms if conversation is to be had. I just see alot of the terminology as a starting place and not the end point.

 

[dragoner]

Mostly I think the difference between a "railroad" and totally open is like a number line, and if zero is the railroad, and ten open, most games at the table usually vary between three and seven. Sort of like freedom, everyone wants it, until it becomes anarchy.

 

[Yora]

Part of it is the hang ups. I dont really believe in the idea that something is or isnt in these campaign terms.

That's just the thing that kept my up last night. "Railroading" is a thing that a GM can do. But does that mean that "a Railroad" is a thing that actually exists?
This is getting weirdly onological very quickly.

 

[Reynard]

That's just the thing that kept my up last night. "Railroading" is a thing that a GM can do. But does that mean that "a Railroad" is a thing that actually exists?
This is getting weirdly onological very quickly.

There are certainly modules that are written as railroads, but you are right in suggesting a GM has to be on board to do that. A GM can make an open world into a railroad and vice versa, regardless of the author's intent.

 

[payn]

There are certainly modules that are written as railroads, but you are right in suggesting a GM has to be on board to do that. A GM can make an open world into a railroad and vice versa, regardless of the author's intent.

I also think there can be mini-railroads, as in, a single dungeon crawl might have forced outcomes on the party. This might be a one time thing, or an only during these times thing. Where the campaign usually allows player agency in most other parts of the game. That is what I mean about degrees. Some folks assume GMs who railroad do so obviously, in all aspects, and thats not always the case.

 

[kenada]

Can we do something to bring a bit more structure into this very open space of vagueness and ambiguity?

I like the Alexandrian’s definition of sandbox: A sandbox campaign is one in which the players are empowered to either choose or define what their next scenario is going to be. It doesn’t nail down a specific type of sandbox, but it can be suitably descriptive when paired with an appropriate adjective.

For example, I usually refer my campaign as an “exploration-driven sandbox”. That’s because the basic premise is going out into the wilds to find out what’s there, and the PCs are empowered to decide how to go about doing it.

Are there actually distinctively different approaches to setting up and running open-world campaigns that would make useful categories to work with?

Yes. Some approaches are very high prep. They demand a lot of detail, so the GM always has an answer when the players go somewhere. In that type of sandbox, play is about experiencing the details of the setting. The approach I fell into for my game is lower prep than that (except for the part where I decided to create a homebrew system to support it, but I don’t think that’s strictly required).

Before we started, I intended to have much more detail than I have been using. I generated a setting using the procedure described in Worlds Without Number. I put it into a mind map and then never bothered to write it up into anything. I also created a hex key, but it’s remained skeletal 10+ sessions into the campaign. I’ve added details here and there, but the plan going forward is to lean into the system and what the PCs discover to add details.

One part that I think is important for an open-world campaign is having some way for the world to continue in motion outside of what the PCs are doing. There are various structures to manage this (e.g., threats/fronts from PbtA games, factions in SWN or BitD, the GM determines based on various factors, etc). What works best will probably depend on one’s inclination as a GM as well as how the rest of the campaign is prepped. For my game, I’m leaning towards something faction-like (but the details are still a bit sketchy).