Game Masters: Shooting Your Own Campaign in the Foot

MGibster said:

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.

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I'm wondering if part of the confusion here is that you're using 'sandbox' to mean an open setting with more or less hard walls, where the term is more commonly used in gaming-speak to mean (or strongly imply) an open setting without any walls; where the players can if they like adopt an attitude of "where the map is blank, we'll go" and it's then up to the DM to deal with it.

In other words, in a true sandbox their dropping San Francisco for Seattle would be nothing more than another hittable curveball tossed your way.

Lanefan said:

I'm wondering if part of the confusion here is that you're using 'sandbox' to mean an open setting with more or less hard walls, where the term is more commonly used in gaming-speak to mean (or strongly imply) an open setting without any walls; where the players can if they like adopt an attitude of "where the map is blank, we'll go" and it's then up to the DM to deal with it.

In other words, in a true sandbox their dropping San Francisco for Seattle would be nothing more than another hittable curveball tossed your way.

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Reminds me of the last campaign I ran. We ran a session zero and decided on a campaign theme, location and the PCs the players were going to play. I had a general story outline in my head of how the campaign might go but nothing set in stone. I whipped up a quick first session adventure, introduced a MacGuffin, and just let the players have at it. After that I stopped writing adventures and just created brief outlines most of which were based more on the results of their actions rather than anything I had planned. Unfortunately the game broke up because of players work schedules, but it was really funny as the campaign ended up miles away figuratively and literally where we started. They got obsessed with infiltrating this warehouse that was initially nothing more than warehouse. As the game went on though I added it as a point of interest to be explored if they wanted to. I just set the stage and then let them do whatever they wanted and just reacted. One day a few weeks before the game broke up me and one of the players were talking about the game and he was asking me a bunch of questions about things that had happened, if they were supposed to do this, what would've happened if they had done this instead of that, etc and I said honestly I dont know we're all just making it up as we go along.

I don't think any of my campaigns have ever gone this out of control. But there was this one time when the players befriended the villain and convinced her to abandon the evil cult she was leading. Now that was an unexpected turn of events.

I've been doing this for a bit, let me recollect;

1) I once had an enormous army of orcs with awesome flying barges setup to "encourage the PCs to go another way". Yes I was young. This was one of my first campaigns. The PCs kept marching forward. I captured them, and tortured them, and then they were demoralized and didn't engage my "escape the orc encampment" scenario. This is where I learned that a) players don't like characters to be tortured (duh) and b) you need SOME sand in your box so you can adjust to the players... Had I just not worried about the direction they were going and adapted I could have avoided my stupid-escalation.

2) Once, in a Vampire game, I tried to ambush the arrogant Tremere wandering around the ferry alone. The lone Gangrel struck but the Tremere won initiative and promptly used telekinesis to lift the G up, hang him upside down, and decapitate him. It was very anti-climatic. After that I just assumed his reputation got around and he could walk where ever he wanted. Alone even. That escalated the "power level" of the city way faster than I wanted.

3) I used the "damsel in distress to place an evil spy" stick way too many times. It got to the point where the PCs were murdering anyone too insistent.

4) I've had several games where I thought I was being all brilliant and the PCs solved the mystery in the first act and I had to scramble to adjust. I'm really starting to wonder how brilliant I really am... (as an aside, I'm currently running The Stygian Darkness AP for The Void RPG and the Plot Point thing they use is brilliant. I'm feeling pretty cheeky for the first time in a bit...).

Sounds actually pretty cool. I mean, THAT'S what freeform sandbox RP is all about, right?

I've never had anything like that happen as GM, but I'm exclusively playing premade published campaigns.

Ovinomancer said:

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.

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Actually, it's a feature of the game. When you start a Vampire chronicle, you get all the players together and as a group you decide what kind of campaign is being run, the location, etc., etc., and the players build characters accordingly.

My point is that calling this issue of prep something like the "walls of the sandbox" is foisting off the responsibility.

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I'm not sure what responsibility you think is being foisted off nor to whom.

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.

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This is how I run my games as well and I would call them walls though I don't feel as though I've lost agency as a DM by doing so. You say potato and I say potato I guess.

Lanefan said:

In other words, in a true sandbox their dropping San Francisco for Seattle would be nothing more than another hittable curveball tossed your way.

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Grand Theft Auto III is considered a sandbox game in that the player can pretty much do whatever they want. They can't leave Liberty City but it's still a sandbox game. So I'm using sandbox in the same way video game developers have been using it for a number of years.

MGibster said:

Actually, it's a feature of the game. When you start a Vampire chronicle, you get all the players together and as a group you decide what kind of campaign is being run, the location, etc., etc., and the players build characters accordingly.



I'm not sure what responsibility you think is being foisted off nor to whom.

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To be direct, what you say in the first bit is the foisting. The heavy prep is something the GM does -- it's not a feature of the game. The GM chooses to limit things. This is fine, I've freely stated I limit my D&D games with themes, so it's pretty clear I don't think this is a bad thing. But, when it causes a problem, it's better to recognize that this is a decision of the GM, not a function of the game. It's not a "wall" of the sandbox, it's a choice the GM has made. By claiming that this is a feature of games, like a sandbox wall, the effect is to move the responsibility from the GM to a feature of the game. But, it's not actually a feature -- it's always a choice by the GM (at least in D&D games).

This is how I run my games as well and I would call them walls though I don't feel as though I've lost agency as a DM by doing so. You say potato and I say potato I guess.

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As you noted above, this might be talking past each other. So long as "wall" is being used as a descriptive term of your choice as a GM and not as a presumed feature of the game, there's little daylight between us. I prefer to keep things more clear and state that it's my choice as a GM and not a wall, because that implies it's a feature of the game instead of my choice as GM. To me, claiming things are unavoidable features of the game when they're actually my choice is me disclaiming my agency -- I've made this choice, the consequences are mine, I own them.

To point back to the topic in the OP, your story is interesting. I think it's weird how we sometimes introduce options to destroy our own plans, as you did with the contract offer to the PC, but you let it play out. You followed what you thought should happen from that and it resulted in your prep eating itself. That's cool. I think it's important to point out that this was your choice entirely and not a necessity. It's only if you've decided your prep is immutable (a valid approach, btw, not knocking it) that this occurs. It's a choice of the GM. Still, this strikes me as a fun game, where you allow your players leeway to play and follow the consequences.

MGibster said:

Grand Theft Auto III is considered a sandbox game in that the player can pretty much do whatever they want. They can't leave Liberty City but it's still a sandbox game. So I'm using sandbox in the same way video game developers have been using it for a number of years.

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This is an excellent illumination of the limits of heavy prep! The designers of a video game must release a fully prepped world -- they cannot present new content based on the player's actions. Here, though, it's still very clear that the "walls" are the choices of the designers. Why can't you leave Liberty City? The designers made that choice. That they made it because there's only a finite amount that they can prep to the quality they desired within their budget isn't the point -- the issue is that this "wall" is a choice made by the designer of the game -- the GM. The results of this choice, say a player very frustrated they cannot go to a different city and not playing the game, are due to a choice the GM made. The responsibility for those choices is the GM's, not a feature of the game.

D&D doesn't have this issue unless the GM chooses it. So, if you're using "wall" as a euphamism for "choice the GM made", then great, we're copacetic. If you're instead saying that "walls" exist as limits on the GM's ability to present a game, then we're in disagreement. The GM chooses what limits to apply, even to themselves, and the responsibility lies with the GM alone.

Now, if a GM presents limits to the players and they agree to them, but then later try to buck the agreed limits, either the GM can modify the limits or the player is in the wrong according to the table agreement on what to play. To go to the video game metaphor, the GM can issue DLC or the player can deal with it.

I can't think of ever having this sort of thing happen. I've had more than one TPK, but I've never used a setting where the PCs could end the campaign through their actions. They have been barred, banned, and hunted in various portions of a given campaign world, but that's just how things play out. Power and nature abhor a vacuum, and things will adjust no matter what happens.