Building a 4E sandbox: How would you do it?

[Halivar]

So far, for the last two campaigns, I've done a fairly standard 4E "everything is scaled to the players" approach to encounter-building. To be fair to the system, this is largely because I also did this in 3.x. The game world was a facade I would build around the players as they traveled, a la "The Truman Show". Everything was carefully crafted to provide exactly the right amount of danger.

One problem with this approach I've come to notice is the absolute cocksure attitude players are taking to threats in the game. They are literally frightened of nothing, because the players know, from a meta-perspective, that they can face anything I throw at them.

Creating a sandbox game may be the perfect way to reintroduce my players to danger and uncertainty. There may be a mountain on the map with a level 16 dragon. It's a big deal, so the heroic party knows about it. At level 6, they get big britches and decide to go off and fight it. Whoops.

Here's how I would like to do it: start with a map. The map is divided into discrete geographic and thematic areas, with natural obstructions to channel foot traffic through specific points, allowing the DM to create locales with high probability of encounter. Each area has a level range. Much like an MMO, there's a level 1-5 "newbie" area where quests and encounters are local scale, and where adventurers begin the campaign. This area is connected to a few areas that are levels 3-5, or 5-10, or whatnot. A 5-level spread allows for diversity of monster difficulty to keep players guessing about the monsters they're fighting if they are unfamiliar.

Determine the makeup of creatures in these areas, and have a few elite "sub-bosses" at the upper range of the level, and one Solo Elite running the show at maxlevel+2. IOW, the 1-5 newbie area has got a level 7 solo elite that is appropriate for a level 5 group, but completey inappropriate for anything less. The party MAY even skip it and come back later. And if they do, it's still a level 7 solo elite.

One advantage of this method is it's sort of a "Montessori" approach to DM'ing: players choose their own level of advancement as they choose what level of difficulty they can handle. This is, of course, a meta-gaming description for something that is likely to happen organically within the narrative of the campaign. In some cases, the players will learn from Streetwise checks what the relative level of difficulty of an area (or boss) is. In other cases, they won't know until they're running out of a cave, carrying a couple dead party members.

The "quests" in this game world should support balance by pointing players towards areas that are appropriately levelled. But if players decide to take a shortcut through the Valley of the Unholy Fane? It's a choice they can make. With great risk comes great reward.

Making sure the game is cinematic but deadly has taken me a bit longer to think of. Here's an idea I got, but I'm not sure how well it will work. It's also injecting a bit of non-sandboxiness to make the whole shebang work a little better in 4E. When the party is in an area, and they are of an appropriate level, the monsters are standard; i.e. a normal mix of minions, standards, and rare elites. When the party is above the area's level range, all creatures in that area become minions (except the elites and solo's; if they players are coming back for blood, you still want a bit of a challenge, right?). If, on the other hand, players are below the level range of an area, it's much more of a challenge. There are no minions, and more of the creatures are elites (if not by hit-points, then at least by saves and action points). I can see players "dipping into" a harder area simply for the rich experience points and treasure to be had there, before scurrying back into a safer locales.

Anyone have any ideas on how to improve on this, or holes in it? I understand that this does not exactly meet the textbook definition of "sandbox", since things still don't really exist until the players see them, but I'm hoping to still catch the benefits of the sandbox approach nevertheless.

 

[weem]

This is a topic I am really interested in, so I'm hoping you get a lot of feedback!

I myself am coming to the end of the campaign I am currently running. Doing the sandbox thing is really appealing to me, but I'm not sure how I will pull it off, or to what degree it will really be a 'sandbox' style campaign.

At the moment, the idea is basing the players in the frontier - a place where there are only a few established towns - they are small, don't have many resources, and are the only few places that are relatively safe.

I'm thinking there will be opportunities to do many things, but not time to do them all. I was telling one of my players they may hear rumors, be asked to do things for money, or out of the kindness of their hearts, etc but that none of these things will be required by any means. There would be an over-arcing story/plot, but I'm not sure I want to apply any pressure with regards to time limits, etc -- but then again, I don't want the players to flounder and feel unsure of what to do ever (my players are the kind that tend to need to be pushed along).

Anyway, those are the basic ideas I have all of which could change, and like I said, I'm hoping you get some good feedback here as this is a very interesting topic to me

 

[drothgery]

The big problem with sandbox games in 4e is that it's often not immediately obvious in combat that you're completely outclassed and should run away -- especially if you've got your daily powers, action points, item dailies, and most of your healing surges available. And despite the DMG's recommendation that oppoents up to the PC's level + 5 should be okay, enemies higher level than the PCs tend to produce grind (which is why Stalker0's guide to anti-grind puts a 'never do this' flag down there).

This is in contrast to the big problem with sandbox games in 3e, where running away without teleportation magic (or something similar) is quite difficult (most monsters can move faster than PCs), so about the only time running away is an effective strategy is by DM fiat (having the monsters choose not to pursue) or when mid-level PCs who have just acquired teleportation magic are facing high-level opponents (when 3.x PCs are high level, you worry more about the monsters being able to run away from them).

I'm not sure how to deal with it, though. I mean, it may be helpful to have low-level elite/solo, mid-level standard, and high-level minion versions of the same monster (say, a hobgoblin soldier), and to use the right one when the PCs get around to facing them. But that's the only idea I've got.

 

[S'mon]

I'm running a 4e sandbox - 3e Vault of Larin Karr adapted for 4e. I'm seeking to use monsters as-is and not have them scale to the PCs. This risks grind - yesterday the 1st level PCs took on a Gelatinous Cube with ca 156 hp and it went on forever, until a PC dumped a sack of salt on it. Turns out cubes are like slugs.

However the general principle is that the sandbox, Quail Valley, is suitable for 1st-5th level PCs, and the easiest stuff is likeliest to be encountered first.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Sorry, thats all far too complicated. It´s a SANDBOX - which means you don´t know what the players will do and have to improvise on the fly. Here´s how i do my 4e Moonsea sandbox:

a) Create an overview over the region the game is playing in. What has happened in the past / couple of groups active in the regions / couple of secrets / flesh out a hq city = done. Don´t sweat mechanics unti lthis point. No level ranges or encounter building - all fluff.

b) For first session, create a quick, enjoyable fight on-route to the hq city. Lots of roleplaying commences. Have a couple of gnoll ninjas ready if things get too boring and you have to pull the ninja chain.

c) Try to guess where they will go next - think about possible encounters and pull the statblocks out of the compendium. Overdo it - you´ll adjust encounters on the fly anyway. Use XP only to gauge how well they´ll do.

d) Profit.

This way, most to all prep is fluff prep. You only get statblocks when you need then, with now and then a couple of emergency encounters waiting in the wings.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I'm currently running a 4E sandbox, and this issue doesn't exist for me. It doesn't exist because the game is being run on a gather intelligence, then raid paradigm. The fact that the stuff out there in the dark will most likely kill you if you don't know what you're doing beforehand is common knowledge, and I have trained my players to do their research and have a clue where they are going. Bigger, badder stuff out there that will kill them is truly out there. My players also know I will TPK them without blinking an eye. I just make sure they know its out there and give them the tools to avoid it.

 

[weem]

Good information so far.

I can definitely see the benefit and reason behind working on fluff over mechanics in this kind of environment - and I also don't like the idea of the volume of work involved if I were to try and plan out all the surrounding areas and encounters ahead of time just so I am more prepared when really they won't hit most if it for some time.

At the same time, I would like to be prepared enough that I am not scrambling to put things together when needed.

I had this idea, so maybe I will run it by you all here...

When I started this campaign that is coming to a close, I (a few times) wrote out on 3x5 cards some quest descriptions and handed them to the appropriate people as we went... they were pretty simple - like - "[name] wants to talk to you about the sword your father gave him" etc. Everyone had one (or more) and they were specific to them. These didn't necessarily lead to combat encounters or skill challenges, and they didn't really have deadlines...

...so I was thinking of doing that this time as well - it would give the players a direction if things slowed down, or if they came to a given town, etc... "Oh yea, there is a guy in this town I should talk to" etc. I might even describe conversations in the town... "you over hear someone talking about a creek being jammed up" then write that down and hand it to someone. I thought I could tell the players ahead of time... "you will be handed these cards from time to time with little bits of information - you can act on them or ignore them - it's up to you, but not all of them will lead to adventure. Just because i spent the 2 minutes to write it doesn't mean it will lead to anything" etc.

The thing I liked about this was that there would actually be a sense of mystery as to whether this was something big or not, instead of "well, the DM mentioned this red door, so we better check it out" etc.

The one player I asked about this said he was into it (iirc). I guess my question would be, does that seem to meta-gamish to you as a player?

---edit---

Few more things...

1. In the next campaign, using this card idea I was thinking the players would have 4-5 of them at any give time

2. When investigating things, we would RP them out and seehow they go - may decide on the spot whether it leads to something else. They would not all be planned out ahead of time what their outcomes would be etc.

 

[Spatula]

As far as being outclassed goes, I think that knowledge checks and/or DM hints should make it apparent - e.g. you find evidence that a group of trolls have passed through the area recently, and you're informed by the DM (after making a nature check or somesuch) that trolls are out of your league.

Also, if you run across a group of monsters that you need 15+ to hit, you're probably in trouble.

 

[LostSoul]

Here are the issues I see:

1. XP is tied to combat, not exploration.

2. Combat may be exciting and non-grindy, but it still takes a lot of time.

3. The range of levels at which monsters work in combat encounters is small. Not much time passes before you can no longer use kobolds or goblins, and once you hit that point the dragon who controls a kobold lair numbering in the hundreds can't be used.

I'm not sure how to deal with it, though. I mean, it may be helpful to have low-level elite/solo, mid-level standard, and high-level minion versions of the same monster (say, a hobgoblin soldier), and to use the right one when the PCs get around to facing them. But that's the only idea I've got.

I think this is a good idea. You could stat up each monster in different ways, giving them a minion/standard/elite/solo template.

ie. A Tiger (MM2, level 6 skirmisher) could be a level 1 solo, a level 4 elite, or a level 11 minion.

True, each statblock will have different abilities, but that makes sense; the higher level it is, the fewer of its tricks work.

This is a solution to issue #3.

Another thing you might want to try - in order to make combats go by quicker - is to run them as skill challenges. I might give this a shot next game, not just to allow PCs to face monsters that would normally suck all the fun out of a combat encounter but to speed up the game and allow more exploration to take place.

The XP is the easiest to change, just change it to reward exploration more. I would make sure that you use a system and don't just hand out XP when you think the PCs should level - this allows players to choose their own advancement.

 

[S'mon]

I concur with concentrating on 'fluff' and doing statting ad hoc, relying on the book monsters. If you want you can make the orcs drudges (minions) or berserkers (brutes) depending on when and where encountered.

I use the Quest XP mechanic for exploration; discovering something significant can be a Major Quest.

I guess as long as the PCs are doing significant stuff you want them to be getting enough XP to satisfy them, probably enough to level once every 3-4 4 hour sessions.