Sandbox gaming

[Gilladian]

I play a fairly sandboxy game. I have a large city (Ptolus, slightly modified) over a huge dungeon... and I have several rivalries set up for my PCs to discover, and to take up, if they so desire.

My current group has decided to devote themselves to creating a zoo and a tech-school of sorts. So I keep dropping leads to things that interest them, and they weed through them and pick what they like.

At the same time, I'm building a crime-lord who hates them, and an insane mass murderer who thinks they work for him (he's in prison, for now...). Whenever I think the plot needs thickening, one or the other of them sticks an oar in. What the PCs do in return is up to them.

One of the group is also supporting an orphanage; the crime-lord is going to take advantage of this weakness. But if the PCs suddenly abandoned the orphans and went off in another direction, I'd move with them.

My trick to running a sandbox is to repurpose everything. A thug can be a bandit, an alleybasher, a pickpocket, or a kidnapper with very minor changes. A half-dozen sets of stats for commoners and experts can be bartenders, fences, moneylenders, news-agents and bar-brawlers as well. A dungeon can go from being the mad wizard's lab to being the crime-lord's drug den with very little change; just recolor the rooms a little, and instead of abberations and oozes, define the monsters as magical beasts and dire animals. Of course, it is easier to do with a few days to prepare rather than five minutes, but I've done it both ways and had it work.

 

[chaochou]

I agree (from learning the hard way) that a sandbox works best with player characters with goals, motives, relatives, NPC friends and enemies, dependents, etc right from the outset.

I remember a Runequest game I ran where the group followed an A to B scripted plot very happily for about 15 sessions. They were having a great time. Then they got to the city of Pavis, a place bubbling with scheming, intrigue and insurrection. And with no clear plot lead they were totally lost. Sat in Rowdy Djo Loh's drinking and discussing what they could do instead of actually doing anything.

And these were good, experienced, imaginitive players. But the switch from a clear path to loads of alternatives totally threw them off. I think it's because none of them really knew what their characters wanted, had nothing really to achieve without the GM providing 'something to do'. They hadn't needed to think about it.

That was badly my fault, switching playstyles on them. But it showed me the need to be clear about the expectations on the players, which in a sandbox is to create 'a character' and not just a bunch of numbers, abilities and equipment.

 

[Ariosto]

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the sandbox is simply not a great campaign for a certain sort of player, one with a certain definition of what a "great campaign" is.

When your "reluctant hero" gets driven by events out onto the road of Destiny, it is not necessarily the case that the game has ceased even locally to be one of free player choice. It is not necessarily the case that Destiny is any more than illusion, that there is truly a Story to which all in the end shall conform.

There was once a PC in one of my games who was anything but reluctant, and "heroic" only in being recklessly ambitious. However, the effects of his delusions could as well have been produced in a humbler figure by the machinations of a mysterious Druid come to Shady Vale, or a Wizard frequenting the Shire.

He imagined himself also to be "heroic" in capability after absconding with a sword of legend, and found out the hard way that he in fact could not defeat a horde of Chaos-spawned monsters. His demise (by his own hand) was really rather anti-climactic.

What I mean to suggest here is that none of the possible histories of plotted scenarios magically disappear from a "sandbox". The fact of the matter is really quite the opposite: it is by culling possibilities that one reduces a "sandbox" to a plotted scenario.

 

[Gilladian]

I will never forget the most railroady game I ever had the misfortune to play in; each of our PCs was invited to the royal court for some reason - we were all traveling by pre-arranged methods and arrived in a seemingly random village at the same time.

We were all put up in the inn, and served a meal. During the course of the meal, we all realized we had been poisoned. At that point, for the first time in the session, the DM asked us for our input into our character's actions. Until then, he'd practically been reading from a script. We began to try to figure out who had poisoned us, why, and how to cure the poison. We could discover nothing. No clue, no solution. Eventually we all succumbed. Dead. The DM later told us that "we should have KNOWN something would happen to us" at the Inn, and refused to stay there, or eat the food... in other words, by the time he offered us a CHOICE of action, the fatal blow had already been delivered. Worst railroad ever!

So my opinion is also that the DM needs to look to his own pattern of behavior in encouraging or discouraging sandbox play...

 

[rounser]

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the sandbox is simply not a great campaign for a certain sort of player, one with a certain definition of what a "great campaign" is.

And a railroad is?

A sandbox can be as simple as a choice between two or three railroad threads, instead of just being railroaded into one.

Sandboxes, to me, are a superset of railroads, and therefore everything a railroad can do can also be done by a sandbox, because good sandboxes contain railroads.

A railway station, and a choice of destinations, rather than all aboard this one train and no other.

 

[Ariosto]

Rounser, you clearly have not understood that post of mine, and maybe did not even read it all. We are unlikely to have a productive conversation via hasty "sound bites".

 

[Nagol]

And a railroad is?

A sandbox can be as simple as a choice between two or three railroad threads, instead of just being railroaded into one.

Sandboxes, to me, are a superset of railroads, and therefore everything a railroad can do can also be done by a sandbox, because good sandboxes contain railroads.

A railway station, and a choice of destinations, rather than all aboard this one train and no other.

A sandbox campaign like the type I am wont to run contains no railroads at all. Predetermined outcomes are the anethema to these types of campaigns as they are the opposite of player agency and meaningful choice.

 

[Raven Crowking]

a sandbox campaign like the type i am wont to run contains no railroads at all. Predetermined outcomes are the anethema to these types of campaigns as they are the opposite of player agency and meaningful choice.

+1.

 

[thejc]

A sandbox campaign like the type I am wont to run contains no railroads at all. Predetermined outcomes are the anethema to these types of campaigns as they are the opposite of player agency and meaningful choice.

I find this interesting because I have always viewed adventures/ap/campaigns as a series of interlocking railroad-sandboxes. I also find it interesting that these terms come into play usually when DMs and players don't see eye to eye. Communication is huge.

Is there a third term that can describe campaigns and such?

I will also share my worst railroad game. Some backstory. After checking out a new store that sold paintball/gaming supplies. I was invited to play a little d&d no slouch or novice myself I agreed. Created a rogue arrived an hour early to game my way into the session. Im in an inn approached by a man named "dark" he's a shady looking fellow. Starts talking about the tyrannical reign of the current ruler blah blah blah...I take a job(mainly because I thought it was the hook) to smuggle some weapons into the palace. Was subsequently arrested jailed and told I am beheaded. No dice, no sandbox, not even a railroad. Like one of those choose your own adventure books and I turn to page 43 to read "You died".

I had to refrain from physical violence for wasting my time, so I just left, and I told him his paintball gear sucked balls

 

[Raven Crowking]

Is there a third term that can describe campaigns and such?

Linear Nexus Model.


RC