Sandbox gaming

[chaochou]

After putting a pitch to which the players agree - "Samurai + the mythical world of early 90s Hong Kong martial arts movies" or "D&D based in the world set out in the 4e books, and by the way every PC should have some reason to fight goblins built in to their backstory" - the players then build PCs. As part of this, they will create backstory - families, locations, religious details etc that then become incorporated into the gameworld.

As GM, I will also work out details of the gameworld - maps, but more importantly history and NPC organisations, antagonists, gods etc - which I will link to elements in the PC backgrounds. Some of this I will tell to the relevant player, some of this I will keep to myself for subsequent big reveals. This sort of detail can run from half-a-dozen pages at the start to dozens of pages by the end of a campaign.

I think the critical thing here is that you get the characters designed and then build the world around them.

That's another great approach. Not one I tend to choose as I don't really enjoy designing worlds. Too lazy

But I think we end up with the same thing - characters' ideas, goals, problems, obligations and NPC relationships (good and bad) built directly into the world.

Actually, in my experience, the 'ultimate' sandbox is the anathema of meaningful choices: Whenever players are free to do whatever they please, no meaningful gameplay is the most likely result.

I can't argue with your experience, but I think it's a pity you've reached that conclusion.

I think you're right to highlight meaningful choices though. Without knowing what constitutes meaningful choice for you as a player, I can't comment further.

However, in my initial example, I described a process by which the players themselves create the gameworld and then their characters in it. The idea is that meaning gets built in by the players.

Have a look at the situation that the two characters are in as the game starts. I'd argue they both have some very, very meaningful choices to make but with no way to predict what the situation will be tomorrow. What I think I can guarantee is that there will be a situation tomorrow, with more meaningful choices.

 

[Nagol]

Also, even if you intend a campaign to take place in a sandbox, it is necessary to provide motivation (i.e., "hooks") throughout the lifetime of the game, and stronger motivation at the beginning.

Example: A sandbox could start with a treasure map. The PCs do not need to pursue it (or it would not be a sandbox), but they have a concrete goal available to them from the outset. As the PCs pursue that goal (or not), the GM continues to throw hooks at them for other possible goals -- both short term (haunted house on the hill, abandoned ruins) and long-term (dragon sighted, pirate raiders, slavers). Some of these are, of course, recursive (i.e., smugglers in haunted house are linked to pirates, humanoids in abandoned ruins sell captives to slavers, pirates and slavers both pay tribute to dragon, and so on).

In a well-run sandbox, the problem should never be "There's nothing to do" but rather "We can't pursue all of these possibilities".


RC

That was the start of my current campaign -- the PCs started with a map to a treasure set up to a level 1 challenge. They followed up when they were level 3+ and wondered why it was so easy!

 

[Ariosto]

There is a thread already devoted to arguing over terminology, and what is Fun (TM) and what is not:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/297961-railroading-just-pejorative-term.html

Do we really need another?

Call it "slurtlzptaaqning" if you like, and let us move on. By any name, it shall be as little to your taste. Caucus among yourselves, and let those of us who want to get on with talking about it in practical terms know what we are permitted to call it.

 

[Ariosto]

If nothing is predetermined by the DM, every player choice results in something completely random, i.e. there cannot be meaningful choices.

By "nothing", you of course mean what we have actually been talking about:
** outcomes **. We let players make any legal moves; we roll the dice to apply the results, not just for show.

Apparently, your notion of "completely random" covers pretty much everything from Chess to Drang Nach Osten and beyond. It is a very unusual notion.

 

[pawsplay]

I think you can run the epic quest + reluctant hero as a sandbox game, but it's going to take a lot of lumber. The GM has to put into play some serious forces. There is also a hidden danger. The player may not realize that in a sandboxy scenario, a large amount of danger in unexpected places. If they play like Frodo Baggins, they'll probably be okay. OTOH, if they treat the game as a serious of action set pieces, they're heading for problems, because if you are dealing with such a powerful foe, your biggest problems aren't fighting off a few wraiths/stormtroopers/etc., it's finding places to stay, finding allies without betraying them to spies, looking for ways to win big against an opponent who has every advantage in conventional terms. Aragorn's appearance in LOTR, when he gripes at the hobbits for attracting attention, is very well-placed advice.

To run a sandbox epic quest, the GM has to lay down some preparation. Instead of the usual rivers and valleys and bandit camps, and so forth, the GM has to create events of personal relevance to the PCs. Relatives must be killed, villages burned, honor stained, places to run cut off, etc. If the GM can pull it off, though, it's actually quite satisfying. There are few things as satisfying to me as a GM as when the players hate, really hate the villains, and respond with real emotion to their crimes and the eventualy victory they (may) achieve over them.

I built a 1st to 20th level 3.5/Pathfinder game that way, starting off with the characters as a group protecting a dwarf noble's caravan. I attacked the dwarves, infiltrated the local ruler's castle with not one but TWO master villains, turned the PCs into outlaws after their first big win over the bad guys, sunk a navy, and had their quasi-omniscient NPC wizard ally direct them to seek advice from an evil sorceress he was afraid to deal with personally. I let them acquire a powerful artifact that creates and controls undead, just to see what they would do with it. By the time things were rolling, they were 8th level, some of the most famous people in the world, and constantly on the run. They were attacked by assassins, had villages attacked simply for being hospitable to them, and slew some of the most fearsome creatures in existence just to secure potential allies.

At the front of my folder for that campaign is a piece of notebook paper. It describes the attack on the caravan, the wizard approaching them to hire them as a rescue team for the Baron's daughter, the name of the two master villains, and a rough sketch of the valley where they begin. When I embarked on the campaign, I had no real idea how, or when, they would fight the final battle. I simply settled on CR 23 for their final foe and started filling up the world with things to do. Merfolk to rescue over here. Lich castle over there. Most of the locales, in fact, were ripped off from the Final Fantasy Nintendo game.

 

[Ariosto]

Sure. It really comes down to whether the reluctant hero with an epic quest is free to succeed or fail on the basis of skill and luck, free even to choose another goal in life. If, in the imagined situation itself, the Fates have made prophecies that absolutely must be fulfilled -- or the hero is otherwise getting "railroaded" along a Story -- then there's nothing for it.

A replay of Oedipus Rex is not a prime candidate for a game, though!

 

[Ariosto]

The really big problem with the plotted epic is not the risk that, at the Cracks of Doom, Gollum might fail to save Middle-Earth from Frodo the Hobbit Lord. It's the risk that either the players or the dice will fail to follow the script long before the finale. Either the plot or the game must give way. Those who choose to keep the plot need to do what that requires. Those of us who choose instead to find out what happens in play have no such burden.

The plotted scenario can involve a lot of work for specific scenes that may be used just once, or not all if those scenes get bypassed. The free game demands investment instead in re-usable elements. Maybe it's meet to say that one thinks like the producer of a TV serial, not of a single motion picture.

The re-use approach pays more dividends the longer it runs, so that after a while one can referee a very rich session with very little preparation.

 

[thejc]

Seems to be an awful lot of hostility in these threads... Oh well. I think sometimes we forget that the DM and the players work in tandem. Each one has a role, if one or the other doesn't do their work the game fails to function as it should. Nor is it the Players vs. the DM

If you tell players to make up characters with no back story so many times(not all times, or anything emphatic) the players have little emotional vestment other than the sheet of numbers before them. Or to make a backstory ect. and then ignore it or act like it is a hindrance to your game

On the other end when you ask them to create a rich backstory with factions and npcs and relationships. It becomes complicated because you either ignore that or you now have to build things into your world you didn't envision(sometimes this is simple most times now). Then they ignore any work you may have done to spur hooks/quests/adventures/adventure pats ect. D&D is not an MMORPG, if you create boundaries and landscape and then say you do the rest some players inevitably decides their fighter wants to be a beet farmer...

So I think that we forget that we as players and dms have to work together. D&D was built for adventures. The pc are supposed to be adventurers. And the players have to work together also, where as they don't feel railroaded into the others backstory and such.

 

[Mark Chance]

My current campaign is a sandbox crisscrossed by railroad tracks. I throw out plot hooks. The players suggest plot hooks, and I throw those out there too. Each hook leads to a different train. The players choose a train to hop aboard, and then the adventure is off and running.

 

[nedjer]

It's been interesting for me to read through this thread and see all of the various opinions on what a sandbox constitutes. I've only ever played in one game that proclaimed itself as such, and I had zero fun.

From what that game showed, I thought a sandbox was basically a game with no story whatsoever and no real motivation to move my character from point A to point B.
For me, being plopped in front of a map of planets and asked where I want to go is not my preferred style since I play for the story.

It was just a bunch of pointless combat, which is about the opposite of what I enjoy. So I was just under the impression that a sandbox was for people who played the kill stuff/get loot/forget your own character's name because it's not important style!

I guess reading through this and the railroad threads I've just come to the opinion that either end of the spectrum can work if you are a magic GM. I am a fair to middling GM, so I'll stick to an in-between method!

How enlightened Not only modest about your own GM skills but looking for the mystic balance that reveals the path to true player choice. You need but seek out the posts of the guru Umbran to learn the way of the ninja GM.