Sandbox gaming

[Ariosto]

The entire "What is a railroad?" thing is.... a distraction rathole, as the OP has pointed out already.

I agree -- and observe that there is another thread for it already.

 

[rounser]

If the only "dungeons" with which you are acquainted are built the same way as the Dragonlance scenarios that told the DM what the players must be made to do, then I guess it might superficially seem reasonable to assume that all dungeons are so.

Even without actual experience, though, you ought to be able to see your error and figure out the real case if only you will bother to think about it carefully.

The dungeon or underworld as described in the original Dungeons & Dragons game has countless possible paths through "no less than a dozen levels down, and new levels under construction so that players will never grow tired of it."

There are also many paths through the mountain valley maze of that dragonlance module, and you could backtrack, too. Yet it's still considered a railroad. Try again.

 

[Ariosto]

There are also many paths through the mountain valley maze of that dragonlance module, and you could backtrack, too. Yet it's still considered a railroad. Try again.

How about we try going somewhere else?

We tried just that back in the '80s, and got pretty quickly fed up. If that had not been enough, then a later scenario that has the players getting captured and recaptured and trundled about like so much baggage -- then literally told where to go -- would have done us in, I am sure.

How hard is it, really, to grasp that what we don't like is getting arbitrarily forced to go "through the mountain valley" no matter what?

No DM has ever forced me to enter a proper dungeon! Moreover, its features include:
(1) There are multiple ways in, out, up and down. The DM cannot say for sure even where an expedition will start.
(2) There are countless possible paths through it, simply in literal terms of spatial movement. The DM cannot say at all where an expedition will go beyond the start. Even knowing the intended destination only suggests likely routes.
(3) At any moment, there are countless possible sequences of events -- and those are in continual flux as one expedition or encounter produces consequences that propagate into later ones.

The absence of means to enforce a "plot line" is perfectly in keeping with there not being any such thing in the first place. The DM has no reason to keep the players from going anywhere or doing anything.

The players are perfectly free to remodel the place, removing walls and filling in passages or making new ones.

The players are free to come and go as they please, just as they are regarding all other points on the map.

None of this is arcane relative to experience with many other games! If there is a rule that prevents a move, then dealing with that is part of the game. The purpose of the RPG equivalent of Three Card Monte is the same hustle: to present what appears to be a game, when in fact it is just a manipulation.

 

[Ariosto]

To clarify about DL1:

The abortive affair was not memorable enough for me to recall details. I have only rounser's word that whatever particular bit he has in mind is "considered a railroad". There was just in sum too much that we choked on while the DM tried to shove it down our throats.

I vaguely remember a "sing-along" from another go at DL. Seriously, the DM handed out freaking sheet music from the game book. "At this point, you all break into spontaneous song" is too much stage direction for my taste.

The "saga", as I learned later, as a whole was rigged (IIRC, right down to which PCs had to die when). Certain things happening in sequence was what made it a "saga" when it was still just pieces of paper.

The individual scenarios permitted varying degrees of wandering within their borders. However, they were very definite scenarios, with beginning and ending points that had to match up fairly closely to the over-arching plot in order for the other modules to "plug in" properly in series.

The scenarios were written with that assumption permeating them. It would have taken extra work (more or less depending on module) to flesh out material that simply was not designed with full-fledged campaign use in mind. The undertaking would have been somewhat easier if one waited the couple of years or so (I don't remember exactly) that it took to get all the modules.

One other thing to keep a DM from adapting the material from "story chapters" into dynamic sites in a living campaign: The "Saga" was the great big ballyhoo!

There is no script in Checkers, or Chess, or most other games. There certainly was none in the games that directly influenced D&D. Choosing one's moves is generally the point of playing a game!

 

[gamerprinter]

@ Rounser...

Its not fair to compare all dungeons or all linear adventures to the Dragonlance fiasco - the railroad of all railroads. The problem with DL was all those damn books created a metaplot that exceeded any kind of normal game play, as might be expected in a world where your character could make a difference. You weren't subject to the normal expectations of success or failure by the roll of the dice, rather your entire existence depended on what Margaret Weiss said on page so and so of chapter whatsit.

Just so you know, as far as D&D goes, metaplots are something to be avoided, far more greatly than other supposed railroads, and is worth its own disgusting discussion. But you're confusing the two, or at least saying they are the same thing. A metaplot is an uber-railroad, but most linear adventures don't even come close to how forced was a DL adventure. Metaplot and railroad, arent' 'apples and oranges', more like 'oranges and tangerines' - close, but not the same thing. Metaplot and linear plots are 'apples and horseshoes', not anything the same at all.

Metaplot, thank god, is missing from most settings. Most linear adventures are nothing like DL, so its bad karma to compare the two.

 

[Wiseblood]

I ran a game that I would call a (successful) sandbox game once. It was the best game I ever ran. There was a plot but not linearity(sp). I made sure the world took note and responded to the players it (the World) also did it's own thing so to speak.

I have tried to repeat this success and failed because players often crave direction. When none is given they pull apart to persue their own intrests or meta-plot that they have contrived for their character.


The sandbox game for me means a responsive world without NPC's or PC's being granted immunity to player actions because of their importance to the plot.
I still am trying to recapture that magic.

 

[Ariosto]

the Dragonlance fiasco - the railroad of all railroads

It's certainly a long one, but maybe no longer so remarkable even for that. For sheer horribleness, I nominate Vecna Lives!.

You weren't subject to the normal expectations of success or failure by the roll of the dice, rather your entire existence depended on what Margaret Weiss said on page so and so of chapter whatsit.

No escape! You can't even commit suicide, because it's not your time to die. "Woo-hoo! Cheat mode is on, baby!" No, actually trying to use the rule to play a game must get quashed.

When failure is not an option in some (any) sense, there is not even an object of a game. With no object, there is no basis for the rest of a game.

But is that not the railroaders' objection to a wide open game? With no specific object imposed by a boss, there's "nothing to do"? Why, yes it is -- and it is obviously mistaken. Old D&D has a default object of scoring points, for which treasures are tokens. This is not as simple as Pac-Man, because the treasures are not laid out in a line immediately before you, but even without making inquiries you are likely to hear of the loot to be found someplace. If you have just joined a campaign with skilled adventurers, then joining (or talking with, or just observing) them will almost certainly pay dividends.

Moreover, you can choose whatever other appropriate objective you like and be free to succeed or fail at it. What is "inappropriate" depends on the focus of the game, but as a general rule RPGs are designed to cater to interests aligned with one genre or another of action-adventure fiction. The practical concern is that too much time and energy devoted to one eccentric player shortchanges all the others. If a group of RuneQuest players wants to field a Troll Ball team, then actually playing out full games may be appropriate. If just one player is interested, then we may be looking at a solitaire game or a very perfunctory treatment of the season.

At any rate, the idea is that if we are going to get into it then it is going to be a decent game -- because playing a game is what was billed in the first place!

 

[Ariosto]

most linear adventures don't even come close to how forced was a DL adventure

If most are quite brief, then they probably cannot have as many instances of forced action. However, it seems to me that some DL scenarios allowed quite a bit of roaming (e,g,, through dungeons) in between required events. In proportion, DL might have "not as much Spam in it" -- but big, lardy chunks.

The thing is, as soon as we introduce the possibility of a different outcome, the scenario becomes non-linear!

By "a different outcome", I don't mean just failing to do the equivalent of getting to the next screen or level in a video game. I mean the game continuing, but in a different direction.

Now, a prior map of possible events has branches. When it gets pretty complex, what does it resemble? It resembles a pretty decent dungeon map! When it calls for a third dimension, we are really cooking with gas (like Paul Jaquays, for example).

 

[pemerton]

I'm interested in what constitutes exploration in your view. Does it have to be geographical?

Probably not, but I think that, in practice, it overwhelmingly is. The classic D&D sandbox is a campaign and/or dungeon map. The classic Traveller sandbox is a starsystem map.

My own game features a fair bit of exploration of history/myth - but because that stuff has, in the gameworld, already happened, I don't consider this a contributor to sandboxing. (And the background that hasn't yet emerged in play is always subject to revision in light of what is happening in play, in order to make it more interesting/relevant.) This exploration of backstory is more about the players (via their PCs) gradually building up a richer set of game elements to engage with in the course of play. It also tends to give play an increasingly epic feel as the campaign unfolds. It's a type of player/GM resource that informs situations and decisions - but is not itself a field of action.

As an exception to that last sentence, in my current game I'm also hoping to build up to heroquesting (or, in the language of The Plane Above, journeys into deep myth). But this won't be exploratory sandboxing - the heroquesting opportunities that arise will be driven by the narrative logic of what has come before.

When you are roleplaying an NPC, does that NPC tend to make optimal or rational decisions?

To link this question to exploration - while in principle it might be possible to run a sandbox where the emphasis is on exploring relationships between NPCs, in practice this is going to require a GM with the skills of a serious fiction writer, to keep all those personalities distinct and in coherent relationships with one another. A lot of people criticised the 4e DMG for saying that stereotypes are best for giving personalities to NPCs - but in practice anything much beyond this is an overwhelming challenge. Even professional script writers for long-running TV shows have trouble maintaining coherent characterisation outside the boundaries of stereotype.

My own approach to running NPCs is therefore closer to (although not fully) No Myth. A few basic ideas about history, allegiance, personality etc but then I just respond to what the PCs say and do, as mediated by their dice rolls. Sometimes NPCs will take decisions that look objectively irrational (eg if they're successfully intimidated by PCs who, in fact, they could probably defeat in physical conflict) but whether or not they're irrational relative to the NPCs subjective desires is a bit hard to judge, because my prior account of those desires is likely to be fairly sketchy.

Is there some cumulative effect of 'random' encounters which over time must produce a different game to one which is solely improvised?

When running Rolemaster I use random encounters and random reactions for the same sort of reasons that The Shaman has given in his response to this question, and that Ariosto gives as his third reason.

Running 4e, I don't randomise encounters - because the prep demands are too severe - and instead of randomised reactions, I use the unfolding results of skill challenge resolution to introduce the element of surprise/lack-of-predetermination.

Now, a prior map of possible events has branches. When it gets pretty complex, what does it resemble? It resembles a pretty decent dungeon map!

One difference between the sort of open-ended game I like to run, and dungeon, is that in a dungeon the map is known to the GM in advance. The players explore it. In my game, the event-map isn't known in advance. So it is not explored. Rather, in the course of play it is created. This is another way in which my game has some resemblance to No Myth play rather than (what I think of as) a sandbox.

 

[Celebrim]

Riddle me this then, Batman; if DL1 is a railroad because the passes need to be blocked by deus ex machina guards, then how is a dungeon that has solid stone in place of guards not a railroad?

Because solid stone can be in extremis tunneled through, and in fact, a good many PC parties will include excavation gear in their standard tool kit.

This works unless of course the solid stone turns out to be made of Endurium, in which case it follows that it is a railroad.

It's not that the pass is blocked by gaurds that makes it a railroad. It's that the gaurds are made of Endurium. Walls are just walls, unless extraordinary effort made to serve a plot has been made to make them impassible.

Right, only thinking makes it so.

Wrong, and no.