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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest&nbsp; 85555" data-source="post: 9543483">I think this is a style consideration though. Part of wanting to be surprised, is for both players and GMs to be open to catastrophic outcomes and failures. A total party kill for example. For some styles that is a nail in the coffin of a campaign, for others it just makes everything that happened a prelude to something else. I like games where you aren't thinking "is this appropriate for a 20th level fighter". I am not overly rigid about it, sometimes you have to throw threats at a party that feel appropriate for whatever reason. But I genuinely don't want to know how things are going to turn out if the players decide to take on The Iron Palm Mistress and her cult. I don't think about the power disparities when I introduce them and when things move in the direction of conflict. This isn't out of an attempt to simulate the harsh realities of a world, but simply because I honestly like not knowing will the players succeed or fail if they go that way (and if I am weighing that when I design elements of the campaign, then my finger is on the scale) I am glad I am conveying my intentions. I don't like attacking or 'owning' people in threads. So I just wanted to be clear that me throwing that back at you was a genuine feeling of someone isn't getting something here. I think I wasn't speaking very clearly when I first said that. What I meant was I do sandbox because once you prep a sandbox, they are kind of like ecosystem terrarium that become self sustaining if you do them well. You still have to maintain them, and you often have to still do heavy lifting right before each campaign even if you have  a lot of material already, but I personally find them less prep week to week than when I run say a murder mystery investigation campaign that is more focused on being structured around points of investigation or set pieces (or something like an adventure path where you are carefully planning encounters and locations along an anticipated adventure). I would agree in that this is how I tend to prep sandboxes, but I think there are lots of different ways to approach sandbox and one based on generating content through something like improv and random tools could also work and would be low prep. I find that approach a little thin myself so I like prepping more in advance, but I wouldn't label a less prep heavy approach non-sandbox. Just to give a sense of how much prep went into my most recent sandbox: I had already built a world and published that world. Not all of my sandboxes are based on material I published but this example gives a solid paper trail to show how much prep I effectively did (keeping in mind the core book in question had substantial sections devoted to system and abilities). So my effective prep would include (note I am using affiliate links for these): The broad strokes of the setting, the cultural details of the setting, major sects, NPCs, and a region in focus called the Banyan: <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/191631/wandering-heroes-of-ogre-gate" target="_blank">WHOG rulebook </a>This had several hundred pages of setting material plus I had a binder filled with maps and notes. And that gave me enough to effectively run  sandbox in one region. But as the campaign expanded I worked on more material and that became this book for this region: <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/222763/ogre-gate-inn-and-the-strange-land-of-li-fan?affiliate_id=478053" target="_blank">Ogre Gate Inn and the Strange Land of Li Fan </a>That gave me an additional client kingdom. And I had lots of notes on other areas of the world map but often had to develop those as the players explored or went in different directions. Then my campaign shifted to another region of the world so I wrote another supplement, but never published it, instead putting it on my blog: <a href="https://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2018/04/war-of-swarming-beggars-introduction.html" target="_blank">War of Swarming Beggars</a>I also had an organization in my setting called the house of paper shadows. I really considered them more of a background threat but one of the players got pissed at them and decided to attack them. When he said that I said okay, but give me two weeks and I prepped all the material that became this book: <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/250688/house-of-paper-shadows?affiliate_id=478053" target="_blank">House of Paper Shadows</a> Then I did more expansion with <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/229133/the-tournament-of-daolu?affiliate_id=478053" target="_blank">Tournament of Daolu</a> and <a href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/415372/sons-of-lady-87-an-ogre-gate-campaign?affiliate_id=478053" target="_blank">Sons of Lady 87</a> (the first one provided information on a major city in the empire, the second on a key prefecture).So by the time I ran my most recent campaign, I think it started in October or so of 2023, I had a wealth of setting material in my binder, on my computer, and published in print. And to run this campaign I made a campaign document which sort of set the stage for things (I wanted to advance the timeline by ten years, add in some more organizations, etc), and I described that here in this blog post: <a href="https://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2024/01/wuxia-inspiration-state-of-martial-world.html" target="_blank">State of the Martial World</a> (which was part of a series of posts <a href="https://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-wuxia-sandbox.html" target="_blank">called wuxia sandbox</a>)Again I tend to be in agreement with this being the way I like running a sandbox, but I don't think someone generating this stuff randomly, ad hoc before the rubber hits the road (something I call 'pinning it down'), etc would make it not a sandbox. I think your sandbox is a more interesting approach for how I like to play. And as I said before the other approach can feel too thin in my opinion, but I would still regard it as a sandbox I think this example needs a little more explanation. I think if you introduce something and you can only imagine it being used one way, therefore you railroad the players or use railroad like tactics, sure that is a railroad. But inventing something on the fly doesn't automatically lead to railroading. The way you should invent in a sandbox in my opinion is largely through extrapolation. But even if you don't and you just say "there's a castle here now", as long as you aren't telling the players what they have to do about it, it isnt' a railroad. One solution is not be fixated on hooks. In my campaigns a castle like that, one I didn't create but make during play on teh fly, is likely to arise because players are asking questions like "are there any castle lords in the area?" and I would then try to very quickly in my notes establish basic facts, that are hopefully also interesting, about the castle. This doesn't persuade me. I mean even if you are literally inventing everything as the players say they go this way or that way, you are also in that process establishing points of interest, NPCs, power groups, conflicts, etc and the players can interface with those things how they want. They can say "hey let's go back to Dee and see if we can recruit Master Wu to help us take out the bootleggers up north".</blockquote>

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