Do you run or play in a Sandbox or Linear game

[Hussar]

On Mission Based Campaigns:

IMO, it is possible to do a very limited sandbox in a mission based campaign, depending on the nature of the mission. If the missions are based on the idea of entering unknown (or at least little known) areas, without specific goals beyond exploring and discovering, then you could have a mission based sandbox.

Stargate SG1 in the early seasons makes a pretty decent mission based sandbox. The SG teams travel to planet X every mission with the instructions to find out what's there and deal with it.

Star Trek, IMO, works better linear. "Explore the planet" isn't really the point of traveling to the new planet. Each planet has a specific plot (the Nazi planet, the Tribble Planet, the underground monster eating miners planet, etc). The PC's deal with that plot and move on to the next planet. Surveying the star system isn't usually the main focus of a Star Trek mission.

Military based campaigns, IMO, make poor sandboxes as well. You generally have a strong chain of command and very specific goals. "Explore the setting" is almost never a military goal. "Go here with your forces, recon the region" might be, but, just as easily might not be. It can be done - particularly with a base plot of the PC's are cut off from their superiors, but, then, you no longer have a chain of command.

 

[Krensky]

Stargate SG1 in the early seasons makes a pretty decent mission based sandbox. The SG teams travel to planet X every mission with the instructions to find out what's there and deal with it.

No, no it doesn't. Early series is more linear. Go to planet X and deal with what the GM has prepped for that world. You don't even have the chance to go elsewhere as you're no dialing the gate yourself, and if you refuse you're being a jerk because we all sat down and decided to play a SG-1 game with you guys as a SG team.

Later series, when Earth becomes a player and gets a navy allows some more sandbox like play since the team is given more vauge orders like "Find the Grail".

Military based campaigns, IMO, make poor sandboxes as well. You generally have a strong chain of command and very specific goals. "Explore the setting" is almost never a military goal. "Go here with your forces, recon the region" might be, but, just as easily might not be. It can be done - particularly with a base plot of the PC's are cut off from their superiors, but, then, you no longer have a chain of command.

To some degree, it depends on the preconditions and premise. At certain times, for certain groups their orders might be vague goals without any detailed mission structure or plans. Similarly, a campaign with the players as (for example) a cavalry troop in Western frontier on the US (or it's fantasy equivalent) might be very sandbox like, with the garrison given only the vaguest of orders (Defend the fort, protect the locals, keep the peace). Properly structured, HQ becomes another challenge to be delt with (poor supply, disconnects with reality, etc).

 

[Garmorn]

No, no it doesn't. Early series is more linear. Go to planet X and deal with what the GM has prepped for that world. You don't even have the chance to go elsewhere as you're no dialing the gate yourself, and if you refuse you're being a jerk because we all sat down and decided to play a SG-1 game with you guys as a SG team.

Later series, when Earth becomes a player and gets a navy allows some more sandbox like play since the team is given more vauge orders like "Find the Grail".



To some degree, it depends on the preconditions and premise. At certain times, for certain groups their orders might be vague goals without any detailed mission structure or plans. Similarly, a campaign with the players as (for example) a cavalry troop in Western frontier on the US (or it's fantasy equivalent) might be very sandbox like, with the garrison given only the vaguest of orders (Defend the fort, protect the locals, keep the peace). Properly structured, HQ becomes another challenge to be delt with (poor supply, disconnects with reality, etc).

Agree, Prime Directive was more of the SP ops unit type. The missions them selves can be a often are very sand box. HQ does not normally tell a Special Ops unit how to do their job once they are in the field.

Now I said the structure was very rigid if we took the same people/characters and made them a small scout/patrol unit in a very small ship the you could have a sand box also.

The first calls for a more rigid and almost railroad structure for the campaign but allows a small amount of sand box in the missions/adventures. The second can be almost pure sand box. Same system just a different setting on the characters level. Both can be fun. Heck I expect a very god GM could do a little of both in the same campaign, but would have to lots of good fluff or hand waving to switch back and forth.

 

[the Jester]

Meh. There's no such thing as a real sandbox game. Consider its supposed properties:

- The PCs can go anywhere they want to, with no predetermined plot.
- For all the locations that the PCs never visit, life goes on, consequences happen.

The problem with these two things is that they're all but impossible to implement in a tabletop RPG....

There is no sandbox. Just linear with a focus on developing locations, vs. linear with a focus on developing events (perhaps with varying degrees of predetermination vs. improvision).

Thanks for the attack on badwrongfun.

You don't need to worry about every place in the campaign world all the time, you just need to know what's going on where the pcs are.

The key to a sandbox game is that the pcs have the freedom to go where they want. Don't tell me that my campaign and playstyle don't exist. Just because you've never seen it doesn't mean that it isn't there.

 

[Sadrik]

Meh. There's no such thing as a real sandbox game. Consider its supposed properties:

- The PCs can go anywhere they want to, with no predetermined plot.
- For all the locations that the PCs never visit, life goes on, consequences happen.

The problem with these two things is that they're all but impossible to implement in a tabletop RPG....

There is no sandbox. Just linear with a focus on developing locations, vs. linear with a focus on developing events (perhaps with varying degrees of predetermination vs. improvision).

I think you have it backwards, it is impossible to implement this anywhere but a table top RPG. The people sitting around the table have an infinite number of options to draw from and a computer is a very finite number of options that it can draw from (whatever is programmed).

Of course, there are predetermined sites, plots and events linked to the background and story of the campaign setting. It is not like the PCs are in a void. Also the creativity of the GM is given ample room here to devise the best story, angle, hook, arc, thread, event or site that they can.

This stuff is not on the fly either, because you can develop something knowing your PCs backgrounds you can key a thread to one or all of them and all but force them to at least take a look at the thread. In a linear game you force them down that path, regardless of their story link or their choice.

Good random tables and good synthesis of those tables can really make life easy too. If you roll for a random event every day. When they come up, those events can be fit seamlessly into the story and in some cases they can enhance the overarching arc. Again this requires good synthesis of what is rolled and simply what the players do.

Additionally, you only track the stuff that matters, you are playing on a stage and you lift the curtain to what the PCs can see. You don't throw it back and let the players see everything. That would be as you say, "Impossible to implement". You only do what is possible and you make it work at whatever level of detail you can.

 

[pawsplay]

Heck some settings work best with a rigid sturcture. One of my wife's favorite games is called Prime Directive. You have to rail road your players from one adventure to another. After all they are military personnel. (Star Trek - Starfleet special op types for landing parties.) Even the equipment is suppose to be assigned each and every adventure.

Not necessarily. You could put them on a planet, have something bad happen, have their commanding officers order them not to do anything about it, and then make it impossible not to do something about. Hilarity ensues.

 

[Garmorn]

Not necessarily. You could put them on a planet, have something bad happen, have their commanding officers order them not to do anything about it, and then make it impossible not to do something about. Hilarity ensues.

You must have missed my next post, where I stated that the missions could have some sand boxing to them.

Here is another thing to consider: Does having a rigid frame work mean railroading or prevent sandbox play?

See the above quote for an example of sand box in a rigid frame work.

 

[Ariosto]

A "free range" campaign tends to deliver more "bang for buck" the longer it lasts. If you're frequently starting from scratch, then you might have to put in a lot of work. If you're really very good at improvising material, then it might still be a quicker picker-upper.

(In my case, short-term and improvised worked -- but was weird and even "wacky" in ways that might not suit players who took their D&D Very Seriously.)

If you've invested a lot of time or money in a specific scenario, then it might be disappointing to see that "wasted". Again, that's less likely the longer you use the world -- but there are also important factors in what and how one maps and keys.

 

[the Jester]

Quoting out of order:

If you've invested a lot of time or money in a specific scenario, then it might be disappointing to see that "wasted".

Sometimes a good stew is really a lot better when it has had time to simmer. Which means...

A "free range" campaign tends to deliver more "bang for buck" the longer it lasts.

...this is absolutely true.

My experience is that a good sandbox gets used as the setting for many groups of pcs, often with time advancing years or centuries in between groups. The longer a sandbox is run for, the better the "stew" of people, places and things gets.

 

[pawsplay]

You must have missed my next post, where I stated that the missions could have some sand boxing to them.

Here is another thing to consider: Does having a rigid frame work mean railroading or prevent sandbox play?

See the above quote for an example of sand box in a rigid frame work.

What exactly can you do about if they take the ship and go rogue? Happened in a Star Trek movie.