Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="PeterWeller" data-source="post: 3894052" data-attributes="member: 55795">Hussar, that's a good point about Trek.  Your point that Kirk and friends were trapped in their weekly scenario without the ability to just say, "screw this," and leave does make Trek a weak example of a sand box style campaign.  I was really only thinking about it in the sense of setup and central campaign conceit.  Trek's Five Year Mission is basically a call to go out and explore the giant sand box that is space, similar to the central motivation of a sand box campaign, "explore this(these) world(s)."  But you're right, when you look at it on an adventure basis, Trek still rail roads its "party" through a series of scenarios, and thus is more episodic than sand box.I agree that a sand box campaign has the players' choices and motivations at the fore.  You're right in that the DM is largely playing a reactive game.  John Snow is also right in that it's a difficult style of campaign to DM, and really, it's more about creating the illusion of a sand box than it's about creating a full sand box.  A DM will never be able to do enough prep work to cover every single thing the player's may want to do.  Instead, you'll probably detail out the things that they are most likely going to want to do, and half the time, that prep work won't be enough, and you'll end up having to wing it.  It's hell of difficult and hell of rewarding for everyone involved.  Players and DMs have to be very experienced with the game for this to work.Edit: I should point out that I think that an entirely reactive DMing style when running a sand box style campaign can be detrimental.  I believe that sometimes the DM should take proactive measures and introduce his own plots into the game.  The reason for this is that if the campaign is truly trying to emulate a big sand box, other "players" should be active in that sand box.  The world and the story shouldn't only develop on the players' whims; the DM is responsible to have other actors at large, either in assistance to the players or at odds with them.  This, IMO, creates the most vibrant and interesting campaigns.Edit the second: I should also say that the nature of a sand box campaign does not preclude developing a single ongoing plot.  If the players decide their ultimate goal is to become gods and thus embark on a quest in the sand box to determine if they can do so, and if they can, do so, there will be an overlying story arc to everything.  The important point being, of course, that the players decided to embark upon that quest by their own choosing.</blockquote>

Verification