How to ease players into a sandbox style?

[Mark CMG]

I find asking players not "what" they want to do but rather "how" they want to conduct themselves gets things on track for creating a sandbox that they will find compelling to explore.

 

[Incenjucar]

In my current 4E campaign, I've been spending the Heroic tier with a geas-based railroad situation in order to train all the neophyte players in the group and to give them a solid foundation in the world, where they can make allies and enemies without flailing. Once they hit paragon tier, they'll complete their geas and be able to choose which of these allies and enemies to pursue. The major plots lined up in heroic tier will be active, whether or not they act on them.

Of course, I've been very careful about making the Heroic railroad something they'd do anyway and to give them a lot of freedom within it, and to make the geas a very strong part of the world around them rather than a contrivance to keep the players under control.

 

[Quickleaf]

There's also the possibility your group could just not cut out for sandbox play. Either it just doesn't fit their personality or their tastes. You can't make them, and if they genuinely prefer linear games, why fight it?

There's preference and then there's acculturation. My read of the group so far is that it's the later. If I get the message that it is more about preference, then I'll cut back on my sandbox efforts. So far, however, they seem to have enjoyed the freedom (albeit suffering analysis paralysis).

Having been on these boards for years, and I have to say I find there to be a pervasive attitude that the sandbox is the be-all end-all, the thing to aspire to and the pinnacle of DMing. Story/linear/Adventure Path games are looked down upon for being railroady/all about the GM/players don't matter, etc.

Wait you mean the sandbox isn't the end all be all of gaming?

I find asking players not "what" they want to do but rather "how" they want to conduct themselves gets things on track for creating a sandbox that they will find compelling to explore.

Can you expound on that a bit Mark? Do you mean conduct themselves as in heroes vs. mercenaries? Or do you mean instead of listing geographic options you might provide different allegiances? Or do you mean the main quest is pre-defined and their choice is about the strategy of how to pursue it?

 

[Mark CMG]

Can you expound on that a bit Mark? Do you mean conduct themselves as in heroes vs. mercenaries? Or do you mean instead of listing geographic options you might provide different allegiances? Or do you mean the main quest is pre-defined and their choice is about the strategy of how to pursue it?

All that can certainly be part of it. The nice thing about an open-ended question is that the way the question is answered tells you much about the priorities as the substance. But, primarily, the point of asking How instead of What is that What speaks mainly to a noun-oriented answers and How is going to be targeting verb-related answers. In a sandbox, How is the purvue of the players, so getting them to focus on their actions, exploration modes, etc. is the main challenge for the GM. The GM can put all sorts of What (nouns, people, places, objects) into the setting, but the players have to begin the game with a decent sense of How or the Whats are just going to be sitting out there with distance between them and the players. The Hows are the bridge and if the GM can understand how the players think in terms of How, then putting in the Whats, and which Whats, becomes a great deal more easy. Plus, I find that the players not knowing the Whats in advance is one of the main draws of a sandbox.

 

[S'mon]

Wait you mean the sandbox isn't the end all be all of gaming?

I'm sure it's a question of preference. I ran good games in the '80s, then had disastrous experiences in the '90s (GMing both AD&D and Traveller: The New Era). Back then I didn't know the terminology, but in retrospect I now realise I had been railroading, whereas my '80s games had been open and player-centric. I've always tried hard not to repeat that mistake. Even my somewhat linear Willow Vale campaign 2008-9, while open at the scenario level, mostly worked to impress upon me the importance of the fully open campaign.

Also, I tried playing in a linear Savage Worlds campaign recently, and it didn't work for me. I felt constrained and strait-jacketed. My PC's potentially plot-derailing super-high-persuasion ability was arbitrarily negated to keep the plot on track. That sucked. I'm not doing that to any of my players.

 

[Zelda Themelin]

Well I am pretty aware my turtling player's issues. They are many, turtling is only one of them. He prefers AD&D, I prefer D&D3.x. He complains a lot. For one he has issues about how 3.x nerfed magic. Ok, but then he goes on complaing about some powerful spells. And yet again when he runs/plays AD&D he uses the most irritating spells there is (hold person, ironguard, stoneskin, flesh to stone, contiguence-spells, etc. His real issue of course is he knows his houseruled 2nd edition AD&D well, but can't make even normally effective characted in D&D 3.x. He tries to go for too complicated things, same problem why he stopped whiningly playing starcraft. He was always planning tactics that would only work if enemy left him alone for long time.

He also wants nothing bad ever happens to his character and yet wants game to be interesting, but doesn't want it to force his character to do anything.

I have asked him many times what kinda of game he wants to play (I have no problem to change system) and he starts to whine about some ages old games (most of which I was not involved any way) and generally intrupts game often to talk some pointless stuff (and irritating jokes made by other people times past). Sometimes he actually enjoys the game, but despite feels need to whine about things "that might happen":

He was kinda like that, but not as badly as after playing 7 years of wow. That killed that bigger group into 4-5 people. I don't think our current playstyles are good match. We play togeter for old times sake, and because we are friends, and because they don't have any other people to play with. Honestly because I and my 2 other friends are only ones that still want to play rpg:s with them. Whiny behavior without saying what is wrong or what he would rather play. I think it just might be he doesnt' like table top games anymore. As they are too unpredictable.

Honestly with him, only thing to do is either stop playing/play when it works. His dm:ing is best for 2-3 sessions then he gets attached into our character, stops running modules and game starts to suck. So there is more peer pressure to make him continue running modules. He never cheats as player, but he tweaks (cheats) combat all the time when dm:ing, we are killing mobs too well, oh, hp and ac goes up. We are in danger, suddley mobs start to die very easily. This doesn't happen (except to save us) when he is running modules. Also his own adventures try to steal us away forcibly where action is, often by some random time travel. I like time travel in time travel games, but he only does this to keep us in some dumb village for year "because we can't do anything or we disturb the timeline". If we still try to, some universal correction thingie puts us back to track.. to do nothing. Oh we can get some professions in village and do some boring stuff, but as he is not also very good at playing npc:s or likes character-action, and doesnt' like "finding lovers or even friends" stuff. It really suck. We have quit 3 games that got us into stagnant situation. And he doesn't get what is wrong and argues back to me when I call it boring. He sometimes quits games too himself as he can't come up with more things.

Maybe next time I should run some AD&D game with freedom to do anything and some availabe dungeons to investigate. Without any plot to confuse him. Yeh, it might work. His character motivation could well be need lots of money to happily retire. It just might be, I have started to think after reading this thread, that his problem might be he wants back to some pure and innocent days of dungeon crawling with gaming system of those days. Honestly AD&D has different feel than 3.x.

Problem with this is I don't have time/energy to even read let alone create my own dungeon adventures. But maybe I would pre-read like 3 modules and let him choose one of those and if not I would whip out my random encounter tables.

Though he really likes 2nd edition AD&D (which I am mostly ok with) and Forgotten Realms (which I refuse to run). 2nd edition Forgotten Realms brought in my mind some annoying complexity that kinda ruined the game for me. I ended up playing lot of other games until I finallly got back for 3rd edition. Which I like, because I enjoy the character building and how system runs.

So we can't agree on which complexities are cool, so maybe simple gaming brings fun back. Yeh, all hope is not lost. I think I try this, honestly I have trying to force too much of my game system preferancs on him.

 

[nedjer]

All that can certainly be part of it. The nice thing about an open-ended question is that the way the question is answered tells you much about the priorities as the substance. But, primarily, the point of asking How instead of What is that What speaks mainly to a noun-oriented answers and How is going to be targeting verb-related answers. In a sandbox, How is the purvue of the players, so getting them to focus on their actions, exploration modes, etc. is the main challenge for the GM. The GM can put all sorts of What (nouns, people, places, objects) into the setting, but the players have to begin the game with a decent sense of How or the Whats are just going to be sitting out there with distance between them and the players. The Hows are the bridge and if the GM can understand how the players think in terms of How, then putting in the Whats, and which Whats, becomes a great deal more easy. Plus, I find that the players not knowing the Whats in advance is one of the main draws of a sandbox.

Enough whats to power a bulb (badwrongpun), but I couldn't agree more. If players aren't familiar with coming-up with their own ways to think of cool stuff to do it seems a lot more useful to look at how we prompt them; instead of assuming they are incapable of coming-up with cool stuff and shaping their own games. The How approach you suggestion looks an ideal way to unpack what players may wish to do, but have difficulty articulating when new to RPGs

 

[Gentlegamer]

"There are bleak hills to the east, a fetid swamp to the south, and a dirt track leads north into scrubby woodland".

"We return to the Keep on the Borderlands to hire more mercenaries."

 

[Quickleaf]

Enough whats to power a bulb (badwrongpun), but I couldn't agree more. If players aren't familiar with coming-up with their own ways to think of cool stuff to do it seems a lot more useful to look at how we prompt them; instead of assuming they are incapable of coming-up with cool stuff and shaping their own games. The How approach you suggestion looks an ideal way to unpack what players may wish to do, but have difficulty articulating when new to RPGs

Yeah seeing the players come up with their own stuff is a real joy for me.

Can you guys explain what the difference in presenting a "how" vs a "what" would be? Maybe an example? I'm getting lost in the abstraction.

 

[Mark CMG]

Yeah seeing the players come up with their own stuff is a real joy for me.

Can you guys explain what the difference in presenting a "how" vs a "what" would be? Maybe an example? I'm getting lost in the abstraction.

How - I'm going to travel the world doing heroic things, preferably by boat.

What - I'm looking for a sword that can spout flame so I can do heroic things.

How - We're going to act as an arm of the local government gone rogue in enemy territory.

What - We want to infiltrate a lizard kingdom where they think diamonds are sacred.

How - Part of our mission could involve starting our own religious sect.

What - I want to own a temple.

How - We want to be a spy unit traveling as bards presenting theatre in each town.

What - There should be a neighboring kingdom of downtrodden people with a king we can topple.