D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AbdulAlhazred]

I've been thinking on Blades in the Dark vs Scum & Villainy as well as Neverwinter Campaign Setting 4e vs PoL 4e. I think there is absolutely a central lesson here in terms of "what constitutes a sandbox." I probably need to develop my thoughts more, but I think the central points of transition to and away from sandbox are:

• Is there a prepped and keyed map with crucial sites, where novel qualities of locales, spatial dimensions, and spatial relationships are nailed down and of sufficient resolution such that they are actionable for the players' and GM's respective decision-spaces?

• Are there a fairly sizable number of factions with clear and provocative motivations which animate them and are enough of them at-odds with each other to generate momentous conflict which compels players to declare a side?

• A coherently constrained space.

I think you need to have all three of those things and of a sufficient magnitude for play to cross the "Sandbox Rubicon" threshold. I think the differences between Blades in the Dark and Scum & Villainy (which are tied up mostly in that first and third bullet points, but a little bit of that second bullet point as well) do really good work to demonstrate just how big of a difference, subtle perturbations in this formulation can make. In contrast with Blades in the Dark, Scum & Villainy has substantial "No Myth Creep" (let's call it) which you absolutely detect all through play when you both run it and play it. In S&V, there is an active element of building-out setting locales, dimensions & spatial relationships, and factional conflict in real time which is just not present in Blades. Those things are already nailed down and animate play in BitD.

Honestly, IMHO, the 'classic' sandbox lacks point 2. It's more a kind of static situation in which the PCs are the main instigators of action. As the character of the campaign moves more to a dynamic world in motion it gains more character of 'the GM show' and less of player's playground.

 

[The Firebird]

Sure, it's possible. But we were talking about the idea that prep adds depth, and so I was asking how deep a setting may seem to the players after only an hour of play.

In my experience, how deep the setting will feel after only an hour of play is going to depend on what the players bring to the game.

To me, a lot of the problems that have been mentioned... the players deciding to nope away from the GM's cool setting stuff and similar issues... arise because the GM has a significant amount of investment in the setting before play even begins, and the players simply will not have that right away, if at all. They may be content with what play involves, they may even flat out love everything from the very start... if so, that's great!

But if that doesn't happen. Or if things take too long to "get to the good stuff", it's possible the players may get bored or antsy or not pick up what's being put down by the GM... they may then seek to find some interest in some other way.

If on the other hand, the sandbox is generated as a group activity, using the ideas of all participants, and using methods that are tailored to this approach... there's little chance of such a mismatch in setting investment.

I get this argument and at one point found it convincing. I think there's still something to it, in that something the GM is very invested in can lead to an expectation mismatch.

That said, I do think a setting can feel significantly more deep after an hour of play. What changed things for me was actually playing in a high-prep sandbox: the DM said he spent over 1000 hours working on the setting, and you could tell instantly. We had a small starting village, and he had specific names and professions thought out; it was clear what the village had and what it didn't have, and this gave our choices a real specificity from the get go.

That level of investment is not going to be typical. But you absolutely feel it. In this case the DM had run other campaigns with us all previously (mostly linear APs) so he knew the players and their interests and lack of buy in wasn't an issue. I don't think you should present a campaign like this to players you haven't gamed with.

 

[robertsconley]

I don't think you should present a campaign like this to players you haven't gamed with.

I ran a number of game store campaigns where anybody could drop in from week to week. If I was using something distinct like Dark Sun, or Tekumel that would be a big issue. But as a result of living in a rural area with not a lot of players to game with. I kept my Majestic Wilderlands fairly approachable and relied on fantasy archetypes and stereotypes I could count on folks to know even when I ran campaigns with GURPS.

The result is that the Majestic Wilderlands generally felt familiar at first glance, but for the players who stuck around, they started to notice the depth and prep I put into the setting. Also, their actions often had lasting consequences, often to their benefit. And from my side of the screen, as I got to know the players, I would make sure I had stuff prepared that I knew would interest them specifically.

 

[Campbell]

At the very least I think your standard for something being a railroad should be more significant than has some choices about means but not aims. Because if our standard is it's not a railroad if you buy a ticket on the train or there is some very minimal amount of choice involved than railroad as a term for real discussion becomes near useless.

I also think that there are some sandboxes that are effectively the tabletop equivalent of theme park MMOs where they are effectively a menu of available linear adventures. That's not like a bad thing, but it's pretty far from say the sort of player freedom that Stars Without Number expects in its outlined GMing advice. I think that is worth acknowledging.

 

[Faolyn]

Sure, it's possible. But we were talking about the idea that prep adds depth, and so I was asking how deep a setting may seem to the players after only an hour of play.

In my experience, how deep the setting will feel after only an hour of play is going to depend on what the players bring to the game.

IME, after just an hour of game the players are still trying to get to know each other and figure out why they're hanging out together. The depth of the setting rarely matters at this point.

The depth of the setting matters, in my experience, after that. When the players really begin exploring.

To me, a lot of the problems that have been mentioned... the players deciding to nope away from the GM's cool setting stuff and similar issues... arise because the GM has a significant amount of investment in the setting before play even begins, and the players simply will not have that right away, if at all. They may be content with what play involves, they may even flat out love everything from the very start... if so, that's great!

I've never experienced that at all, except in cases where (A) the setting is a commercial one (the Realms, or the World of Darkness) and (B) the GM expects the players to know it all from the beginning rather than uncover it during play.

But if that doesn't happen. Or if things take too long to "get to the good stuff", it's possible the players may get bored or antsy or not pick up what's being put down by the GM... they may then seek to find some interest in some other way.

That depends on what is defined as "the good stuff."

If on the other hand, the sandbox is generated as a group activity, using the ideas of all participants, and using methods that are tailored to this approach... there's little chance of such a mismatch in setting investment.

Of course, then there's a potential for a mismatch in player interests. Like, in my group, we have a couple of players who really like anthros and I... don't.

I do agree that having players work with the DM to make the world is great--but have to note that not every player wants to be involved in worldbuilding. Some find it boring. Some players have lots of time to invest in it, and others don't, leaving those players feel left out.

These would all be different situations than the one I described.

Yes. Why focus on on the potential negative?

Sure. And here's the thing... those settings aren't exactly deep, either. There's metric f-tons of material for them, especially the Realms, but most people wouldn't really call the Realms all that deep in and of itself. Can it be made so? Sure, parts of it... with the right group. Otherwise it's very much just a mish mash of genre and tropes and so on.

I think you may have a very different definition of "deep." The Realms may be a mash of genre and tropes but there is a lot of world info and lore.

Apocalypse World and Blades in the Dark both spring to mind. They both include advice about changing the game... so it's not that either is saying that every single rule needs to be followed absolutely at all times. But each has plenty of direction on how to GM and what to do or not do, and why.

In the case of BitD, that has a very distinct world and purpose to the game (play as member of the criminal underbelly). So for that, it really wanted to focus the game on what it's intended for. And AW was literally the first game of its kind and thus was trying to differentiate it from the other games.

Well, if I'm being railroaded, do you think it really matters if it's something that the GM wrote weeks before or that he just decided?

We're talking about sandboxes, not railroads. And that's on that particular GM, not the game or type of game.

 

[robertsconley]

Honestly, IMHO, the 'classic' sandbox lacks point 2. It's more a kind of static situation in which the PCs are the main instigators of action. As the character of the campaign moves more to a dynamic world in motion it gains more character of 'the GM show' and less of player's playground.

Most of my early sandbox campaigns revolved around the players becoming conquerors, and I often developed various factions to make this interesting beyond fighting out battles.

However, you are correct in saying that there were sandbox campaigns that didn't feature factions. Or if they were there, nobody paid attention to them in favor of doing something else, like looting a dungeon.

I think folks like @Manbearcat miss the point by trying to define a sandbox campaign beyond saying that players are allowed to trash the setting. Making trashing the setting interesting has always been the real trick, in my opinion. Letting them trash is easy, just let go of the idea that the campaign has to go in a particular way or has to be about a particular thing in the setting.

But more than a few folks seem to think that unless there is a point or a narrative, the only thing that happens is a bunch of amoral character adventure a result of transactional motivation.

I still have some of my notes circa 1983

Although I touched up the map because the pencil marks I originally used rubbed off.

 

[robertsconley]

I also think that there are some sandboxes that are effectively the tabletop equivalent of theme park MMOs where they are effectively a menu of available linear adventures. That's not like a bad thing, but it's pretty far from say the sort of player freedom that Stars Without Number expects in its outlined GMing advice. I think that is worth acknowledging.

I think it's important to be careful with broad characterizations like this. It would be helpful if your points were supported by an analysis of specific examples to see how these differences actually play out.

 

[Manbearcat]

At the very least I think your standard for something being a railroad should be more significant than has some choices about means but not aims. Because if our standard is it's not a railroad if you buy a ticket on the train or there is some very minimal amount of choice involved than railroad as a term for real discussion becomes near useless.

I also think that there are some sandboxes that are effectively the tabletop equivalent of theme park MMOs where they are effectively a menu of available linear adventures. That's not like a bad thing, but it's pretty far from say the sort of player freedom that Stars Without Number expects in its outlined GMing advice. I think that is worth acknowledging.

Yeah. Exactly.

(i) Setting Tourism (Theme Park) + (ii) Pick Your Own Railroad (from a menu) + (iii) Discretionally Break Your Railroad Up With Auxiliary Content ( (iiia) Side Quests or (iiib) Dollhouse Play) = A particular form of play. It might even be constitutive of "Sandbox Play" for one value of sandbox.

And that zoomed-out eval would certainly make for an interesting conversation. What that stuff individually and in-concert yields in terms of the machinery and experience of play (not the outputs of play...outputs aren't particularly interesting or revelatory in terms of understanding process and dynamics).

But I think that has to be only the beginning. It is where you start. From there, granular, exacting postmortem of Actual Play becomes enormously important for GMs and players to methodologically understand what they are doing to create a kind of play that can actually be replicated (by them later or by another group entirely) or avoided outright if that sort of play is undesirable to a person/group. And the iterative process is best left naked for all eyes to see and understand.

 

[Manbearcat]

I think folks like @Manbearcat miss the point by trying to define a sandbox campaign beyond saying that players are allowed to trash the setting. Making trashing the setting interesting has always been the real trick, in my opinion. Letting them trash is easy, just let go of the idea that the campaign has to go in a particular way or has to be about a particular thing in the setting.

No clue where you're getting this. (a) I don't "miss the point" generally here in this conversation (my contribution has been minimal) and (b) I definitely don't "miss the point by trying to define a sandbox campaign beyond saying that players are allowed to trash the setting."

No idea where you got that (maybe this is an accidental misattribution)?

Certainly isn't something I've conceived or put forth.

What you do in your games is not a mystery to me, sir. I understand it, and the general phenomenon, quite well. My questions are typically aimed at probing specific, gameplay-generating (or gameplay-absent) dynamics. I'm not going to waste time on overbroad "allowed to trash the setting" evaluations which could mean an enormously varying number of things while simultaneously telling me very little about what is actually happening in the moment-to-moment, blow-by-blow of play where the game's engine (system + prep + GM decision-making process) generates (or doesn't) compelling decision-trees for players to navigate. That is pretty much all I care about in these conversations; what is a game trying to do, how (very specifically) does it go about that, and is it successful?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Two things.

1) First, editing. If you do things in advance, you don't have to go with your first idea. You have more time to evaluate, to see if what you're generating makes sense, to connect it to other aspects of your world, to make it feel organic.

This is a valid point, yes. You can revise and edit whatever you like before play begins. Whether that's a good or bad thing will vary, but I can see the option to do so as a positive.

I'll only add that it's actually okay to revise things after play begins. I know that's like a mortal sin to some... but it's really not that big a deal. If you make a mistake (which, honestly, in my experience is more likely the more that is "set" ahead of play) you can just say "Oh remember last week when I said that it was the city of Southport? I meant it was Hurin's Gap." It doesn't cause the campaign to come crashing down around us.

2) Second, fixed content allows for greater player choice. Suppose the players can go to the Mountains of Magnatz or Port Perdusz. If the referee plans in advance, these can be detailed, distinct societies that will play out differently. If they haven't, then the content will be heavily influenced by what the referee is thinking at the moment.

Well, I'm not saying that there should be an entirely blank map at the start of play. Some details should exist... whatever's relevant to the starting situation and whatever the characters may have introduced. So if the player of the Barbarian talks about being the last of his clan, or an outcast from his clan... well, obviously there are some clans out there. Who are they? How many are there? What happened to his clan? And so on. Do this for each PC and incorporate a few other ideas, and you've got plenty to play with.

I get this argument and at one point found it convincing. I think there's still something to it, in that something the GM is very invested in can lead to an expectation mismatch.

That said, I do think a setting can feel significantly more deep after an hour of play. What changed things for me was actually playing in a high-prep sandbox: the DM said he spent over 1000 hours working on the setting, and you could tell instantly. We had a small starting village, and he had specific names and professions thought out; it was clear what the village had and what it didn't have, and this gave our choices a real specificity from the get go.

That level of investment is not going to be typical. But you absolutely feel it. In this case the DM had run other campaigns with us all previously (mostly linear APs) so he knew the players and their interests and lack of buy in wasn't an issue. I don't think you should present a campaign like this to players you haven't gamed with.

See, I've experienced that kind of game and it did nothing to make the world deep. All it made me think was "wow, this GM really thought up a lot of NPCs... like, even the ones that don't really matter have been detailed."

Depth, for me, comes from feeling that the world and my character are connected. That they're not separate things. My character (and those of the other players) have a place in this world, with connections and a history and some potential future.

One of my deepest campaigns took place almost entirely in 2 city districts. They were adjacent to one another, and the characters on occasion left to go to other parts of the city... but those were pretty few and far between. The characters never actually left the city. And yet it was all very visceral and personal... that place seemed real and knowable and understandable.