Sandbox gaming

[chaochou]

Yuppers. By definition, unless the PCs have burrowing equipment, any dungeon with walls is going to involve railroading. My definition of sandboxes definitely includes dungeons, so...

Without wishing to appear combative, there's a perfectly good railroading thread to discuss such things in.

More generally, I think a distinction needs to be made between giving a player a choice and giving a player a decision to make.

To me, a choice is simply having options. A decision means having options where the player can try to anticipate expected outcomes and has to try weigh them against each other.

Going to village A or B gives players a choice, but if a player has no other information they may as well roll a dice to choose. It's meaningless.

Going to village A to save your sister or Village B to stem the orc raids involves a decision. The player can try to deal with one situation but will suspect that the other may well get a lot worse. That's a decision.

In my games I don't aim to give players choices - I aim to give them decisions they care about based on the character they've created. It's what I meant in the OP when I talked about 'creating the tension'.

 

[chaochou]

Two examples from a 4e game, both using H2 Thunderspire Labyrinth.
...

Cheers!
I would xp you, but I can't.

 

[pawsplay]

Yuppers. By definition, unless the PCs have burrowing equipment, any dungeon with walls is going to involve railroading.

Not unless there are no forks and the dungeon prevents you from leaving. For an example, see module K-9 The Mall People Mover of the Blackest Flame. A dungeon is an archetypal sandbox, not a railroad.

 

[Celebrim]

I don't know if this has been said yet, but a Sandbox can be defined to within a very close approximation by a simple definition.

A Sandbox is a campaign where the DM preps a significant amount of material he that he does not know if he will need and which he may in fact expect he will not use.

The greater percentage of the material that you prep for which you don't have an immediate need, the more of a 'sandbox' that you have. The greater percentage of material that you prep which you expect to immediately use, the more linear your campaign and the less of a sandbox that you have.

So, for example, if you have a map and you don't expect all or even most of the map to be explored by the players, then you are trending toward a sandbox. The same is true of prepping large numbers of NPC's, or world buidling not linked to the immediate plot (myths, history, geography, etc.). The consumate sandboxing tool is the random table, whether its random events or random encounters or wandering monsters. Because almost by definition, when you create a random table you don't expect to necessarily use every entry on the list (and certainly not in the short term).

I say that the definition works to within a close approximation because it doesn't deal with the case of little or no preparation for the setting, and I'm going to have to ignore that case for now because I know as soon as I describe it it's going to start a flame war.

 

[Mark CMG]

Not unless there are no forks and the dungeon prevents you from leaving. For an example, see module K-9 The Mall People Mover of the Blackest Flame. A dungeon is an archetypal sandbox, not a railroad.

There is also the option to go back the way you came. A "railroad" isn't a matter of place, it's a matter of the forced narrative from the DM/GM/Referee/Facilitator.

 

[chaochou]

I don't know if this has been said yet, but a Sandbox can be defined to within a very close approximation by a simple definition.

A Sandbox is a campaign where the DM preps a significant amount of material he that he does not know if he will need and which he may in fact expect he will not use.

That doesn't describe the games I run. Ive written up an outline prep in the OP. I can't see how it fits your definition and, in fact, I've never, ever run a sandbox game according to that definition.

The prep required for my sandbox games is decided by the decisions facing the players. The hypothetical fact they have unlimited choices doesn't really matter - it certainly doesn't need prepping for. The flow of prep follows the decisions being made by the players. See my post above for how I'm using the terms choice and decision.

 

[Umbran]

That doesn't describe the games I run. Ive written up an outline prep in the OP. I can't see how it fits your definition and, in fact, I've never, ever run a sandbox game according to that definition.

Be that as it may, what he defines is the classic/traditional form of sandbox, as I understand it. The GM creates a large amount of content ahead of time (the sand within the box, so to speak), and the players play around in it.

 

[Ariosto]

A Sandbox is a campaign where the DM preps a significant amount of material he that he does not know if he will need and which he may in fact expect he will not use.

I don't give a fig how much "material prep" someone has done!

I care about whether I am free to make any legal move, to go all over the map just as in any of the countless boardgames, and engage in activities not previously defined as in many of the Game-Mastered games and campaigns, that informed the creation of Dungeons and Dragons -- the original adult role-playing game.

It is of only historical interest how many previous expeditions into the dungeons beneath Blackmoor Castle or the wilderness beyond have been made over the years when it's the first time for me. Over how long a period records of the environs grew from the initial sketchy maps is only of similar interest.

What matters is how we play.

The difference between an old-style campaign and a limited scenario is simply stark. It is as obvious as it would be in a non-fantasy wargame campaign, or a Braunstein or "Killer" game, or what have you.

It's not some navel-gazing metaphysical issue with there being (literally or figuratively) an edge of the board or -- at least nominally -- some other limit to the game. We could theoretically push that envelope if we hit it, but those artificial barriers are slamming shut WAY before then.

Dump the notion that there is such a thing as "the adventure" or "the plot", and you are free of the necessity to do anything to cater to what was just a notion in the first place. The game proceeds just fine without it, just as do the vast majority of games in this wide world. It's a step back to the basics.

 

[Celebrim]

That doesn't describe the games I run.

There is a reason for that. I'm not at all sure that you are actually describing sandbox play. Instead, I think you are confusing an attribute of gaming usually associated with sandbox play, noting that your game has that attribute in spades, and drawing the conclusion, "I must be running a sandbox."

I'm not sure that conclusion is warranted. What you describe doesn't fit any classic definition of sandbox. It might be a Sandbox, but it seems to me that it has features not associated with sandbox play in general, so I think its up to you to prove that your game fits in the definition commonly understood for sandbox. Otherwise, it's just 'sandbox as I use the term'.

Naturally, maybe its my understanding of how the term is commonly meant that is in error, but we'll see.

Ive written up an outline prep in the OP. I can't see how it fits your definition and, in fact, I've never, ever run a sandbox game according to that definition.

Well, yes, that was one of my points.

Here's the thing; you seem to be describing a game which features alot of player empowerment. Player empowerment is usually associated with sandboxes, and usually not associated with adventure paths - especially by the sort of people prone to calling adventure paths badwrongfun. However, the question becomes, when we speak of 'Sandboxes' are we talking about 'player empowerment' as its most salient feature, or are we talking about non-linearity as its most salient feature.

Elsewhere, I've talked about how 'Railroads' are distinguished by linearity alone but by linearity plus low play empowerment. I've also suggested that we can't say that Sandboxes necessarily feature high player empowerment, using the term 'Rowboat' to describe this situation. You've described a collaborative world which is almost the definition of high player empowerment, but the fact that the world is collaborative and thus player empowering doesn't necessarily make it a sandbox. Personally, I think that you are describing something that resembles an 'Adventure Path' but with a very (very, very) high degree of player empowerment. The game is linear in a sense, but rather than having one person setting the agenda, you are having a group set the agenda and doing much of the preperation collaboratively.

While there is some sort of exploration going on, it's not exploration in the usual sense because with a collaboratively created world the usual sort of discovery - the players encounter something that they previously didn't know about - is taking something of a backseat in your game to other considerations.

Frankly, I don't think you are engaging primarily in Simulation/Exploration and the other priorities associated with Sandboxing. I think you have a game that is pretty strongly in the Narrative/Story corner of the triangle. Now, I resist that description because I disagree with some core tenents of GNS (to say nothing of the fact that hitherto in this post I've used a square rather than triangular geography mapping games), but nonetheless for the purposes of this discussion, I think that's additional evidence you aren't in a Sandbox, but rather in a Theater. The fact that your game set up and preperation resembles a traditional theater game more strongly than the game preperation normally associated with classic role-play games - and high simulation games in particular - is to my mind yet more evidence.

The prep required for my sandbox games is decided by the decisions facing the players. The hypothetical fact they have unlimited choices doesn't really matter - it certainly doesn't need prepping for. The flow of prep follows the decisions being made by the players. See my post above for how I'm using the terms choice and decision.

There are practical constraints to anyone's game that make talking about games in terms of absolutes difficult, and sometimes unhelpful. Nevertheless, I agree with you that in your game, "The hypothetical fact they have unlimited choices doesn't really matter - it certainly doesn't need prepping for." That is I think, with a slightly different emphasis, precisely my point. Your players are actually making some of their most relevant choices before entering a scene frame, and indeed making these choices at a metagame rather than in game level. That certainly doesn't sound like a sandbox to me, which is normally associated with continuous framing, GMs as nearly pure referees, and a high degree of simulation. You have players in the Director Stance, which is strongly associated with Nar play and not Sim play. Again, while I'm not sure there is a 100% correlation between the terms 'Sandbox' and 'Simulation', and I'm not even sure 'Sandbox' is formally defined anywhere, there is to me quite a bit of overlap between how I understand the communities that use the term are using them.

Don't mix up the metaphor - "a sandbox" - with the thing the term was coined to described.

 

[Ariosto]

It is no more a matter of a lot of material we expect not to use than it is when we draw up the maps and armies for a game inspired by the Seven Years War or the Second World War.

It may not be the case that every piece or every space is directly involved in a battle every game, but the scope contributes to range of different histories possible. Exploring those is what gives a game extended play and replay value.

Gamers have been in quest of those values ere Og and Ug got bored with Tic Tac Toe.

The role-playing game in its seminal form has no ending. Whatever becomes of any single character, whether death or glory, play can always continue with other characters.

It may be a while before a player interacts with something, but we expect to have a while and quite a few players! What is most unlikely in any random few hours of play can become a near certainty in the long run.