Plots in a Sandbox

[GlassJaw]

This is a great thread. I've been contemplating running a sandbox campaign for a while now and getting a handle on various plots has definitely been something I've been trying to figure out.

From what I've been reading, it seems that in a sandbox campaign, the players' motivations is almost more important than in a traditional campaign since there are choices. For example, in an Adventure Path, there is essentially an unspoken agreement between the players and DM to follow the leads that are presented.

So I'll pose a question:

In a sandbox campaign, do you think it's bad to tailor plots to the characters, and in some respect, the players themselves?

One idea I've been toying with is instead of having each player create backgrounds for their characters at the start of the campaign (my group is very beer & pretzels, kick in the door), I'll simply ask them what their character's motivation is for adventuring.

I figure that way, it will give me a leg up in planting rumors and adventure seeds that they will be interested in.

For example, our current party is very neutral. While no one is evil (well, one guy is borderline ) there's only one "good" character. We will go after the bad guys but sometimes it's a tough sell.

If I'm creating a sandbox campaign for these characters, I can't assume that they will always help the little old lady across the street. I have to cater to their greed.

That doesn't mean I can't present choices to them that do involve going after the bad guys. If they continuously choose to ignore obvious threats, it may come back to bite them.

Thoughts?

 

[Sadrik]

GlassJaw:
If you throw enough spaghetti at the wall something will stick. I particularly like when a master thief and some of his hirelings come into town and stir up things just with the rumor they will arrive. This may be the road that is best for you. Why is he here, there is something he wants, what is it? Just that one thing spins off on so many what ifs that the players will go buggy trying to figure it out. Perhaps a huge shipment of imperial gold or an adventuring party coming back from some long lost tomb are bringing back magic items he wants. The possibilities are endless and the party can oppose him or join him...

 

[bardolph]

In old D&D: Let the players choose whatever they consider 'appropriate'. An environment set up like the dungeon -- with greater challenges and rewards on deeper levels -- makes that especially easy.

Problem is that it's usually the DM who makes this decision, not the players. And if the DM isn't good at predicting the difficulty level of an encounter, it's very easy to accidentally wipe out a party.

Otherwise, use real life as a model; then, players can as well. What warning signs alert us to things out of our league? Adjust as necessary for a good game; some "sudden death" situations might be mis-applied "realism".

This is more a function of the storytelling skills of the DM rather than real life modelling. In real life, predators often rely on stealth plus overwhelming force to obtain their prey, which if applied to the game should end in the quick and tragic demise of the PCs.

However I agree with your point that the DM should be giving the PCs ample warning before they end up in over their heads, and if the PCs insist on disregarding those warnings, let 'em have it.

In new D&D: There seems to be an assumption that the DM is responsible for making each encounter 'level-appropriate'. That might not be compatible with "sandbox", but I leave it to you to define your terms. In any case, the 4e DMG is chock full of advice and tools to help you make such encounters.

I disagree. What 4e does is define what "level-appropriate" is, which is a good thing. There's no mandate to keep adventures within that level-appropriate box, but it's always nice to know where the boundaries of that box are.

The Keep on the Shadowfell is an example of a WotC-published adventure where one of the standard encounters is notoriously not level-appropriate!

 

[Raven Crowking]

1. You cannot have too many plots in a sandbox. Every schemer has at least one. I feel that the more threads you dangle in front of the pcs, the better.

2. Tons.

3. What do you mean by "make a difference"? I think it's best to have npcs' plots on a similar scale to the npc, e.g. the king's plots involve things on the scale of his (and neighboring) kingdoms, while the head of a city's thieves' guild should have plots involving the city, nearby trade routes, etc.

4. Not at all- the whole idea of a sandbox is that the world is independent from the pcs and evolves regardless of what they are doing- which is not to say that the pcs shouldn't have an influence on the world! They should see the results of their actions or inaction vis-a-vis the various plots that they follow up on, as well as the ones that they ignore.

Some plots can sit in stasis (bandits picking off the occasional merchant train) and some should not (slow-developing plans to take over the world).

In old D&D: Let the players choose whatever they consider 'appropriate'. An environment set up like the dungeon -- with greater challenges and rewards on deeper levels -- makes that especially easy.

Otherwise, use real life as a model; then, players can as well. What warning signs alert us to things out of our league? Adjust as necessary for a good game; some "sudden death" situations might be mis-applied "realism".

In new D&D: There seems to be an assumption that the DM is responsible for making each encounter 'level-appropriate'. That might not be compatible with "sandbox", but I leave it to you to define your terms. In any case, the 4e DMG is chock full of advice and tools to help you make such encounters.

These three posts, taken together, nicely sum up the advice that I would give:

1. Making NPC plots is part of making NPCS....and should be appropriate to the NPCs created. Some are important to the PCs, some are not. Most will see little, if any, play time. The village baker may care that his daughter marries into wealth; the PCs probabably will not.

2. Plots are ongoing, but some progress while others are sort of "status quo" until given a kick start. The baker may just dream until the PCs drop a load of gold on the tailor's son for some service.

3. Let player choice rule what plots their actions focus on, but the plots of the mighty shape the face of the landscape, bringing the tides of war, marriage, celebration, tragedy, and even new fads and fashions to the mileu throughout the course of any given campaign.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

How many is too many: When the players leave the table.

How many is too few: When the players aren't motivated to do anything other than play Papers & Paychecks.

Ideally, when all those consequences happen, the players hear appropriate information, so that they know that something is cutting into their profits, and roughly where. And, if people depend upon the PCs, they will surely depend upon them in ways that the PCs didn't anticipate/don't necessarily care for.

Watch The Godfather. When the PCs start being masters of the shop, some NPCs expect them to resolve (or help resolve) their own plots/problems. Can't the PCs help the baker's suitor gain enough status that her father will bless the marriage? Can't the PCs sort out who is right in this argument? Can't the PCs get revenge on the guys who attacked the undertaker's daughter?

There should always be something happening that prevents the PCs from becoming too comfortable.



RC

 

[Ariosto]

Problem is that it's usually the DM who makes this decision, not the players.

Huh? How? In a proper dungeon of the original D&D sort, that is definitely not the case. I am just more and more confused as to what people mean by "sandbox".

And if the DM isn't good at predicting the difficulty level of an encounter, it's very easy to accidentally wipe out a party.

As opposed to intentionally wiping out a party?! It is not the DM's job to hang players -- merely to give them enough rope. Thus, it is not -- in an original-style D&D campaign -- the DM's business to "predict the difficulty level of an encounter". That it is not predictable is rather the point of the game! Again, I can only wonder how many of us are on the same page as to what the "sandbox" under discussion is.

However I agree with your point that the DM should be giving the PCs ample warning before they end up in over their heads, and if the PCs insist on disregarding those warnings, let 'em have it.

My point was that some things in real life are sudden death without warning. There's a good chance that some folks, somewhere in this violent world, were this very day killed by a bomb they had no clear reason to expect and no chance to avoid.

If a DM without warning announces, say, "A passing dragon had a heart attack and crashed on the house in which your characters were sleeping. Roll up new ones!" then that might be "real life modeling" or "story telling" -- but whatever it is, it's not much of a game.

 

[Sadrik]

Level appropriate encounters are for random encounters.

All other encounters are strictly the business of - learn about it. I have a tarrasque trouncing around destroying another city. I have no thought in my mind that the PCs are going to go after it. In fact, I would hope they would turn tail and go the other way. However if they all of a sudden decided hey we are 6th level, we can take it. I would not try and dissuade them. PCs should treat some things like the weather, its a bad storm lets try and stay out of it.

I have an upfront policy that everything is not level appropriate. This goes a long way in keeping the setting organic.

 

[Snoweel]

This is more a function of the storytelling skills of the DM rather than real life modelling. In real life, predators often rely on stealth plus overwhelming force to obtain their prey, which if applied to the game should end in the quick and tragic demise of the PCs.

Except PCs always wear the PC-Halo, no matter how sandbox a DM claims his game to be.

Huh? How? In a proper dungeon of the original D&D sort, that is definitely not the case. I am just more and more confused as to what people mean by "sandbox".

I think the point is being made that there is no true 'sandbox' in the sense that one game is a sandbox and another is a railroad; in fact the term 'sandbox' is merely an indulgence used by avid world-builders.

Every game falls somewhere on a sandbox-railroad continuum whether the participants are aware or not.

My point was that some things in real life are sudden death without warning. There's a good chance that some folks, somewhere in this violent world, were this very day killed by a bomb they had no clear reason to expect and no chance to avoid.

If a DM without warning announces, say, "A passing dragon had a heart attack and crashed on the house in which your characters were sleeping. Roll up new ones!" then that might be "real life modeling" or "story telling" -- but whatever it is, it's not much of a game.

Suppose the PCs take action that leads to a much more powerful entity taking notice of them long before the level-appropriate-challenge system deems it fair, and then said entity engages in the equivalent of scry-buff-teleport and destroys the PCs because that's the only action in-character for it.

In my campaign that sort of thing could happen to any NPC, but it would never happen to a PC because it's just not fair.

It also precludes my game from being a sandbox, no matter what I might choose to call it.

 

[The Shaman]

1. Is it bad to have too many plots?

It's bad to have more concurrent NPC schemes than you can keep track of. Information management, both what the adventurers know (or at least believe to be true) and don't know or have not yet discovered, is critical.

2. How many plots should you have going on?

Every NPC has schemes and goals, so in a sense the number of plots, as used here, will be at least one per non-player character. However, some of these schemes will overlap: in the campaign I'm working on right now, there are major factions representing large social movements, frex the "good French" versus the "devouts," or the gallicans versus the ultramontanists. Many NPC schemes cn be related to the goals of these larger social movements, and any number of NPCs may be working at shared purposes within these factions.

3. Does the scale/scope of those plots make a difference?

Those are largely a function of the station and ambitions of the NPC. In my campaign there are characters literally scheming for ways to seize the crown of France or defeat the Habsburgs for dominance in Europe and characters who are looking to gain revenge against a business rival or woo a mistress.

The question is, to whom do the adventurers have access? Do they move in royal court circles? Do they have allies in the provincial government? Are they members of a social organization like an order or a confraternity? The NPCs they meet and with whom they interact on a regular basis may in large part govern the scale and scope of their schemes.

In Flashing Blades, characters may begin the game with contacts and secret allies possessing high social rank, so it's not a surprise to find them enmeshed early on in the intrigues of the wealthy and influential. At the same time, the adventurers may be new members of the royal bureaucracy, or of a club, or a military regiment, so that means I need some smaller, more personal sorts of situations as well as the grand intrigues of the age.

4. Should those plots sit in stasis until the PCs come along?

This will vary considerably with the scope and scale. If one of your NPCs is looking for an advantageous marriage but is rebuffed by another suitor, unless the adventurers somehow intervene to help there's a good chance this situation will not change significantly. On the other hand, large scale events will roll on subject to the adventurers' involvement or lack thereof.

As an aside, 'sandbox' is starting to experience considerable drift in its usage around here - for example, I don't agree with much of anything Janx wrote upthread - so to be clear, my own approach is to run what has been called a status quo setting in earlier sources. This means, despite what at least one poster claims, there is no 'plot or script immunity' for player characters; the adventurers may well find themselves at the mercy of non-player characters or institutions far more powerful and influential than they are if the adventurers are neither smart nor lucky.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Except PCs always wear the PC-Halo, no matter how sandbox a DM claims his game to be.

Ah. I was wondering how long it would take before someone would proclaim themselves an expert on how everyone else's game is run.