Building a Sandbox

[DeadlyUematsu]

I like sandboxes too but they really require the right kind of players unless play is intentionally structured to encourage it. Tools such as calendars, hex area maps, random encounter charts, rumor tables, instigative events and characters, quests/missions (with clear but not always truthful victory conditions, rewards, and consequences), and signposts to work towards (economical power, rulership, etc) are most helpful in this endeavor.

 

[Blackwind]

What Uematsu said.

Also, get a 'wish list' from each player. Talk to the players openly, OOC, about what kind of stuff they want to do in the campaign. Have the players give you lists of long term and short term goals for their characters. Sandbox play can be challenging for you, as a DM, because you can't predict what the PCs will do. Therefore, anything that helps you predict what the PCs will do is really helpful. Personally, I find improvising really difficult in 3.x, which is why my DMing style has shifted toward the more linear adventure path mode. In 2E I found 'winging it' and sandbox style play much easier. Hopefully 4E will make this possible again, since I really prefer sandbox style play...

Also, I recommend Ray Winninger's original Dungeoncraft series fromm Dragon magazine.

http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/dnd/dungeoncraft/

Above all, pay attention to the PCs and what they do, and what each individual player enjoys. I once had a casual gamer in my group, playing a fighter, who really enjoyed fighting in the arena. The gladiator stuff really got him interested in the game, so I created a guild for him to join and work his way through the ranks. That kind of thing can make all the difference. Pay attention, figure out what parts of the game your PCs enjoy, and then riff on that.

Good luck.

 

[Blackwind]

For example, let the PCs know that there's a haunted dungeon below the ruins of some castle, that the great wyrm Whatzisnehm lairs on mount Overthere, and that there are job openings for guards for a caravan heading across the Hotanddry Desert, but don't bother actually putting together the dungeon or the dragon's lair or the desert until the PCs actually get there. Just have some preparatory ideas about what's there and ad lib the rest if they start digging up info. It's worked great for me and I wouldn't do it any other way.

I'm going to ask you for some DMing advice.

What do you do when, in the middle of the session, the PCs start heading for Whatzisnehm's lair but you don't have any encounters statted out?

Several years ago I was running a sandboxy FR campaign, and the PCs would occasionally do something unexpected like that, and I would find myself having to call a 15-minute smoke break while I rushed to stat out, say, a gang of bandits, or prepare an encounter, or whatever.

How do you deal with this?

 

[Reynard]

Above all, pay attention to the PCs and what they do, and what each individual player enjoys. I once had a casual gamer in my group, playing a fighter, who really enjoyed fighting in the arena. The gladiator stuff really got him interested in the game, so I created a guild for him to join and work his way through the ranks. That kind of thing can make all the difference. Pay attention, figure out what parts of the game your PCs enjoy, and then riff on that.

While "in-play" advice is certainly welcome, if for no other reason than to expose me to the way other people do things that I think I have a pretty good handle on after 20 years, I was thinking more about the construction of the region itself. IOW, focus of effort between organizations and lairs/dungeons, say, or how to work out a good random encounter chart that encompasses all levels of play or what the distribution of various "levels" of adventure hooks should be.

 

[shilsen]

I'm going to ask you for some DMing advice.

What do you do when, in the middle of the session, the PCs start heading for Whatzisnehm's lair but you don't have any encounters statted out?

Several years ago I was running a sandboxy FR campaign, and the PCs would occasionally do something unexpected like that, and I would find myself having to call a 15-minute smoke break while I rushed to stat out, say, a gang of bandits, or prepare an encounter, or whatever.

How do you deal with this?

Personally, I handle it with a combination of different things, picking among them and placing emphasis where most appropriate in the given circumstances. If it seems possible and appropriate for the PCs to have a combat encounter, I'll just make one up on the spot. Since I usually DM with a laptop and am online, I can easily pop into the SRD (which I usually keep open at all times for reference purposes) and pick some interesting enemies. Plus I write up my notes for each session (including stat blocks) in a Word document, so I can also pop into one of them and pick out an appropriate encounter. But usually I just find it easier to crunch some numbers in my head really fast and throw together an encounter.

I might also throw in a non-combat encounter (or at least a potentially non-combat one), especially one which has the potential to give the PCs more information about the place or situation they're heading for. So while it delays them from getting there, it's not just a meaningless diversion but something which could make a real difference to their future and (presumably) eventual success.

Since my games tend to be heavily player/PC-driven and the character backgrounds play a large part in them, I usually also have a number of results of their backgrounds and previous actions which I can throw into the game at a moment's notice. NPCs who are friends or enemies or just acquaintances, plots they are or have been involved with but which still have threads dangling, etc.

The above are just examples of things which I can put into the game when I need to deal with a situation I haven't prepped for. I also find it really helpful to practice DMing on the fly, since the more comfortable I get with that the less a "situation I didn't plan on" bothers me. Similarly, I generally avoid making any assumptions about what the PCs will do, and so no choice catches me off-guard, since there isn't a choice I was counting on anyway. Using the above techniques has generally worked very well for me. I've run sessions where everything which occurred was something I planned on and every encounter was totally statted out, and I've run sessions where I've almost completely flown by the seat of my pants, and interestingly enough I've found that my players usually can't even tell the difference.

Hope that helped.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

For Sandbox games, I have found the following elements to be important:

1) Since it is open architecture, there are encounters within the boundaries that may be too much for the PCs to handle at first. This was pretty common in the oooooooold Judges Guild wilderness adventures.

Be Careful! IME, a lot of players expect every encounter to be winnable/solvable with current party resources, and may not run/retreat/avoid when that would be best. That's how you get TPKs. Try to make sure that you give your players ample hints when they are really about to engage with something out of their league.

2) Demand PC histories for each PC- give out "carrots" for particularly good ones. They will give you plenty of plot hooks and insight into PC/Player mentalities.

3) Find a way to keep the campaign's rumor mill going. Back in the 1990s, I used an "Agency Memo Sheet" for a 1900's Wellsian/Vernian superheroic campaign that had blurbs or detailed news of the world ("Riots on Mars!" "Museum Attacked by Mer-Men!" "Ship Destroyed by Bolt of Light off Coast of China!") and the accomplishments of other agents ("Super-Powered Indian Sympathizers Arrested!"). I left it posted on our host's corkboard, so people could check it out any time they wanted (nowadays, I'd just send out an email, have a Yahoo group or some such).

The blurbs stimulated the players' imaginations, and they often discussed the rumors as we were setting up, or even speculated about them in game. Essentially, I turned my players into an idea factory that prevented me from ever experiencing writer's block for the campaign's entire multiyear run. Sometimes, the players thought they had guessed right about some rumor or another, not realizing that, in fact, their table-talk inspired me to add something to the campaign.

What do you do when, in the middle of the session, the PCs start heading for Whatzisnehm's lair but you don't have any encounters statted out?

1) A region by region random encounter chart is your friend, and remember that you can have a set of stats and call them anything you want- last session's band of Human brigands who struck from ambush can quickly become Orcish mercenaries who are running from a battle they were on the losing side of.

2) Load up on some of the little mini-adventures out there, be they mini-modules or locales published in Dragon or some other magazine.

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

When I make a sandbox, I start with a basic adventuring hook, build an short adventure around it, and then expand outside of that adventure to focus on the base town, the surrounding wilderness, and interesting sites within that wilderness.

For the town, I create the authority figures, thier supporters, and fighting forces. I then create interesting NPCs and groups to interact with along with random encounter tables for that town. For the wilderness, I create random encounter charts for each important region within that wilderness. Finally, for the interesting sites, I prefer to first generate some monster lairs (using the organization entries as a guide) and then work on the possible dungeons, landmarks, and mysterious locales. Most of these places get a few key locations detailed along with a brief entry of what might be encountered there.

Personally, I am more interested in seeing examples of what people's sandbox notes look like.

 

[S'mon]

I like sandboxes too but they really require the right kind of players unless play is intentionally structured to encourage it. Tools such as calendars, hex area maps, random encounter charts, rumor tables, instigative events and characters, quests/missions (with clear but not always truthful victory conditions, rewards, and consequences), and signposts to work towards (economical power, rulership, etc) are most helpful in this endeavor.

Yup, those are all good things. For me the maps & the random encounter tables are perhaps the most important, I can riff off of those.

 

[S'mon]

Personally, I find improvising really difficult in 3.x, which is why my DMing style has shifted toward the more linear adventure path mode.

That was my experience also, and I think is the reason why the linear Adventure Path is the dominant mode of play in 3e, when it barely existed in 1e/2e.

BTW if you can, get the 2e Campaign Sourcebook & Catacomb Guide or the 1e Dungeoneer's Survival Guide. Both contain (the same) excellent discussion of Open (Sandbox), Matrix (semi-open/flowchart), and Linear (Adventure Path) campaigns, and how to run them. You can incorporate elements of Matrix play into a largely Open/Sandbox game for a more structured feel.

 

[S'mon]

how to work out a good random encounter chart that encompasses all levels of play

You can take the 3e approach of having low-level and high-level wilderness areas. This works pretty well, and if anything is more plausible than the 1e approach where the Wilderness was only for high level play (roughly 7-10). I wouldn't try to set a particular EL for an area, but you can have eg the Lonely Heath be suitable for 1st-4th level play, the Duskmoon Hills for 5th-8th, and the Bleak Mountains for 9th-12th.