D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.
- Thread starter Reynard
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Mod Note:
Whatever you are saying, you are, in effect, shouting at people.
If that's the level of aplomb you are going to bring to the discussion, you will be removed from the discussion going forwards.
Keep your cool, or take a break. Those are your options.
robertsconley
Adventurer
If you're running a sandbox campaign, a certain amount of setting prep is required no matter what system you're using.
You need a Bag of Stuff , locations, NPCs, factions, conflicts , ready to go when play starts, so you can establish a good Initial Context for the players and bring the setting to life using World in Motion. Procedurally generated content and random tables can help to a point, but they are not a substitute for the human imagination the referee brings, nor for the final polish needed to make the campaign elements a consistent whole.
The things you mentioned, like creating multiple adventure locations and building multiple random encounter tables, come with the territory of creating a setting that works well for sandbox campaigns.
Some systems provide better tools to generate the Bag of Stuff more quickly for particular types of settings. But the need for the Bag, and what it needs to cover at the start of the campaign, doesn't change based on the system you're using.
That being said, there is a tendency to overestimate what is actually needed. What you need is sufficient detail, enough to remain consistent with the rest of the setting, and enough to flesh out the location or the character if the players decide to go east instead of west, left instead of right. If they never go east or left, then you haven't wasted prep time fleshing out details that weren't needed.
Finally, I know I used some specific terms. If you're interested in reading about them further, I organized all my blog posts about sandbox campaigns onto a page of my Bat in the Attic blog:
I have to ask, could it be that classic D&D is not well suited for the type of fantasy setting you want to use for your sandbox campaign? If that's the case, I agree another system may be better suited for handling that type of setting.
But if it's an issue about prep time, and your concerns are things like random encounter tables and creating multiple adventure locations , I can help. I have experience working with AD&D 1e back in the day, as well as with my Majestic Fantasy RPG, which is based on OD&D in the form of Swords & Wizardry.
Publishing is something I do as part of my limited hobby time. I have to juggle it with the time I spend playing and refereeing tabletop roleplaying campaigns. Family and job come first. As a result, I’m not keen on spending hours and hours on prep either. Much of what I write and publish is material I made to make my hobby time more fun and productive for when I run campaigns.
Also, keep in mind that the processes I used for classic D&D are the same processes I use for another systems like GURPS, Hero System, Fate, Fudge, etc.
To me, this is all strange.
Without getting too metaphysical, a game is a type of social activity that is characterised by the rules, principles and practices that govern how it is played. Change those, and you change the game.
Obviously, it does no good to be too prescriptive about these things. For instance, when I play backgammon it is for fun with family members, and we don't use the rules for doubling; whereas I imagine that serious backgammon players with money on the table would use those rules - and yet I'm still happy to describe my game, and theirs, under the common label backgammon.
Likewise, we still call the game chess whether or not it is being played with a clock.
But just as we don't want to be too prescriptive, we don't want to be so loose that we lose all purchase on fundamental contrasts. Focusing very narrowly just on what dice are rolled or what bonuses are applied won't shed much light on how play is actually working in a RPG.
In a RPG, the most important thing that has to happen, for the game to work, is for the participants to all agree on (i) what actions are permissible for the players to declare for their PCs; and (ii) on what happens next, in the fiction, after a player declares an action for their PC. The systems of a RPG are aimed towards providing answers to these questions. So a radical change in how the answers are generated means a change in system.
GMing a sandbox seems to generally imply two things:
First, it strongly suggests, or implies, a certain relatively broad range of permissible action declarations for the players. They are permitted to declare that their PCs do things or journey to places without the GM having provided a prior cue that the players are expected to have their PCs do this thing or go to this place.
This range of permissible action declarations is at least part of what people are getting at when they talk about the "freedom" that players enjoy in a sandbox; and when they contrast sandbox play with very highly curated GM-driven play.
A game having, or not having, these sorts of permissions is pretty significant. For instance, if I am trying to work out whether or not I will enjoy playing an offered RPG session, knowing what sorts of permissions I will enjoy in relation to action declarations is much more important than knowing whether basic action resolution will be d20 or d%.
The second thing implied by "GMing a sandbox" is adoption of a particular way (or perhaps one of a bundle of ways that are related in various ways) of determining what happens next: rather than the GM determining that by reference to a script or pre-authored plot, the GM does so by some other process that is more open to "variability" and more sensitive to where the players are having their PCs go, and perhaps also to what they are having their PCs do.
Not every process other than following a script will necessarily be sandbox-y, however. I already mentioned upthread that I think it would be misleading to describe Burning Wheel as a sandbox game; although it is a very non-script-y RPG. To count as a sandbox, I think the process has to make journeying matter in some way - journeying has to have a distinctive sort of heft in resolution.
But there are different ways of establishing that sort of heft: the map-and-key, tracking-movement-on-a-map style of classic D&D; the progress-tracks-and-waypoints style of Ironsworn; the landmarks-on-a-map-create-toll style of Torchbearer 2e; no doubt others too.
If I am thinking of joining a RPG that describes itself as a sandbox, I would want to know what sort of method is being used to handle journeying, and to permit resolution without scripting. These are all crucial aspects of the system. If @Hussar tells me that he is playing D&D - because he's using the D&D combat rules - but then I turn up and travel is being done via his adaptation of Ironsworn rather than map and key and movement rates, I'm going to get a bit of a surprise despite the trademark on Hussar's rulebooks!
Whether one characterises these rules as "hard" or not doesn't really matter to me, and I don't see why it would matter to anyone else either. A rulebook for a voluntary leisure activity doesn't exercise power in itself - all RPG rules get their purchase by being taken up and accepted by a game's participants. But the idea that there is no particular correlation between mechanics and other rules and principles isn't right at all: for instance, Apocalypse World's resolution system, which requires the GM to decide what happens next at many points in the resolution process, will break down if the GM ceases to be a fan of the players: the hardholder's steading will be destroyed, the gunlugger's guns all broken down or wanting for ammo, the hocus's followers all committing ritual suicide, etc. Or to pick a different example, Burning Wheel without its rules for framing and consequence just becomes a particularly brutal dice pool variant of Rolemaster or RuneQuest.
In the context of sandboxing, the map-and-key technique of classic D&D won't be very satisfactory if the GM is just making up the map on the spot (and I don't mean here determining in a procedurally rigorous way, like Appendix B of Gygax's DMG, but literally just making up as the fancy takes them). Because how is just making it up any different from the scripting that sandbox play was supposed to be an alternative to?
TL;DR - to talk about system without addressing the basic points of what action declarations by players are permissible and how it is decided what happens next is to miss what is most important about the rules and principles that we use when RPGing.
But this isn't true for all sandboxing. @Hussar has used Ironsworn as an example of a system to support sandboxing, and it doesn't need this sort of stuff to be prepared by the GM.
You're assuming a particular sort of approach both to how situations are framed (ie by the GM drawing on GM-prepped stuff like NPCs, factions, etc) and how actions are resolved (by reference to GM-prepped stuff like those details of NPCs and factions, the map-and-key, etc). But this thread has already had extensive discussion of how those are not the only possible approaches.
Given how new Ironsworn is, perhaps you should not rely on folks accepting it within the core scope of sandbox play just yet. Player freedom is one aspect of sandbox play, but not the only quality many find important in the playstyle, and you shouldn't shove those out because of one new-ish game on the scene.
robertsconley
Adventurer
I'm not sure why.
You spend several paragraphs arguing that referee practices are part of the system, which shows you understood that my point was about how a referee chooses to run a campaign.
My reply is straightforward.
I disagree. I believe that system and referee technique are independent, even if they interact in play.
As to why , that will take two paragraphs.
System and referee techniques are independent because the system provides procedures for resolving actions, but sandbox campaigns emerge from how the referee organizes the world and responds to player choices, not from mandatory rules embedded in the system.
This observation is based on four decades of experience running sandbox campaigns using multiple systems and multiple settings. Most of my key insights come from taking my Majestic Wilderlands setting and running campaigns in it using different fantasy RPGs for different groups of players, starting out in a variety of Initial Contexts.
@Hussar has described Ironsworn as a sandbox-supporting game. Upthread @Faolyn posted a list of systems that (putatively) support sandboxing, and Dungeon World was on it (as was Apocalypse World). Ironsworn isn't very different from Dungeon World in the context of this discussion.
If, by sandbox, we have to mean map-and-key-based prep and resolution, then none of those systems is a sandbox-y one. But this thread seems to be working with a more expansive/inclusive notion of what can be a sandbox.
Procedures for resolving actions and how the referee responds to player choices are not distinct things. They are intimately connected.
hawkeyefan
Legend
I think there may be some bit of range with some systems and how they are handled by the GM… but yeah, the idea that they are separate seems strange to me. I mean… some games explicitly say for the GM to do X or Y… that’s clearly system dictating GMing technique.
There’s probably a subset of RPGs that approach GMing with a more toolkit approach… often suggesting to find the right tool for a given job. But even those games have enough GMing direction provided by the rules that it should be obvious that system and GMing techniques are related.
How broad or deep do players get in under an hour?
Do you think it’s a good idea to have one person highly invested in the setting because they’ve spent months and months alone with it, while the remaining participants are pretty much brand new to it? Doesn’t that imbalance seem potentially problematic? I mean… what if the players don’t see the appeal quickly enough and decide to bug out away from the GM’s prep? What if they never see the appeal?
I disagree with this. I’ve read plenty of rule books that have said “never do this” or “always do that”. I think most RPG design would benefit from more explicit and specific rules. We all know we’re free to change a game… everyone who’s ever landed on Free Parking and gotten some cash for it knows that… so the wishy washy approach to rules mostly just creates wishy washy rules.
There’s probably a subset of RPGs that approach GMing with a more toolkit approach… often suggesting to find the right tool for a given job. But even those games have enough GMing direction provided by the rules that it should be obvious that system and GMing techniques are related.
How broad or deep do players get in under an hour?
Do you think it’s a good idea to have one person highly invested in the setting because they’ve spent months and months alone with it, while the remaining participants are pretty much brand new to it? Doesn’t that imbalance seem potentially problematic? I mean… what if the players don’t see the appeal quickly enough and decide to bug out away from the GM’s prep? What if they never see the appeal?
I disagree with this. I’ve read plenty of rule books that have said “never do this” or “always do that”. I think most RPG design would benefit from more explicit and specific rules. We all know we’re free to change a game… everyone who’s ever landed on Free Parking and gotten some cash for it knows that… so the wishy washy approach to rules mostly just creates wishy washy rules.
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