Sandbox Setting?

[Toric_Arthendain]

Maybe I've been living under a rock for awhile but can someone please explain what a sandbox setting is, particularly a fantasy sandbox setting? I mean, I understand that it is a setting for a fantasy rpg but what are the defining characteristics of a sandbox setting? Could any published settings be considered sandbox settings or is this strictly the realm of homebrew settings? What makes a specific setting a sandbox setting?

 

[darjr]

Whoa...

Here is what I think, note that I'm probably wrong.

The Wildlands and B2 keep on the borderlands are probably two of the best examples.

Think of a place or geographic area with enough detail of specific areas or encounters sprinkled around the landscape for the PC's to find and interact with.

 

[fba827]

my understanding of it ... (though I am not an authoriative source) ...

sandbox is more about the campaign style than the setting itself (though the setting can feed in to such a style).

There are various plot hooks and adventures peppered around, but there is no predefined structure for the adventure.

Think of it as kids (PCs) in a sandbox (world). They have lots of sand (hooks) but really they sculpt their own sand castles (adventures) based on which pieces of sand (hooks) they pick up and use (follow).

A published setting can be used in such a sandbox style. Or it can be a homebrew make-up-parts-of-the-world-as-they-adventure-further type setting.

That's just my understanding of it as gleened from various mentions in context before.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I'd say it's a campaign style, not a setting, though it requires a setting with many opportunities for adventure. A sandbox game is the polar opposite of a railroad. In a sandbox the PCs can go wherever they want, at least within the GM's prepared area, and possibly beyond. There are lots of potential adventures to be had.

Examples of sandbox games: An old school mega-dungeon, Necromancer Games' Tomb of Abysthor and the computer games Fallout and Morrowind.

Detailed example:
The PCs start in the town of Goldenford. Here they can find rumours about bandits raiding the Coast Road to the east, the abandoned tower of the wizard Poktan to the north, stories about a secret cult worshipping Kali said to have a base beneath the town, the Caves of Blood where orcs, and worse, dwell in the mountains to the west and the Vale of Spiders to the south.

In addition the GM has several other adventure sites and plot hooks prepared, which aren't known to the townsfolk - the peculiar domed structure in the Dread Marsh, the faerie folk who kidnap children when the moon is full, the town merchant who is in league with the bandits, the secret cavern in the Red Mountains where Poktan still conducts his awful experiments. And so forth. The PCs may uncover these while exploring the wilderness or find clues that lead there. For instance if they deal with the bandits they may find a clue that uncovers the merchant or if they go to the tower of Poktan they may find a map of the Red Mountain cavern.

The important point is that all these areas have actually been detailed. Or if they haven't, the GM is quick enough on his feet to improvise. The PCs can go to any or all of them and have an adventure. (Except for the cult which doesn't really exist.)

 

[Toric_Arthendain]

Ah, okay. So the GM would need a setting but not necessarily a setting that provides pages and pages of detail of parts of the world that the PCs might never see. A smaller area would suffice to get the PCs going. In addition, the GM would have to have some good notes on encounters and adventure areas fleshed out enough so that whichever of the rumors the PCs decide to follow wouldn't need to be completely improvised on the spot (unless the GM is just good at that sort of thing).

 

[Ariosto]

Doug McCrae explained it very well!

I would emphasize the virtues of starting small, though. That detailed example is, IMO, something to aim for after maybe a dozen sessions.

As Doug noted, an "old school mega-dungeon" is itself a "sandbox" environment. The original D&D booklets recommend preparing at least six levels before the start of play, but I think that raises the bar needlessly high. For the first session, it should suffice to have just enough rooms so that the players can explore no more than 50% to 75%. Between sessions, you can add more -- and also sketch bit by bit the adventurers' home base and the surrounding region.

It's great if you feel up to doing more, but start playing sooner rather than later! A "great campaign" that exists only as reams of notes never actually used in a game is a stillborn product, and one that too often results when perfectionism and procrastination kick in.

Something "organically grown" over the course of extended play also tends in my experience to have a certain vibrancy and character usually missing from things planned out in isolation from the game process.

Don't be afraid to "wing it"! Tables on which to roll, and just sundry lists of things, can be very helpful (which is why the 1st edition DMG includes so many). Sometimes, the players may suggest something that had not occurred to you, and you may decide to "make it so".

 

[Cyronax]

I consider myself to be a Sandbox-type DM, even before I heard that term.

Basically as a DM I will not always scale encounters to meet the party's existing level. They have the chance of being overwhelmed and TPKed. That said (!) in cases where they are going towards a way-to-powerful foe, I will still give them fair warning (mostly in game, but occasionally out of game).

The way I create a campaign, in the Sandbox style, is to create a varied and disparate group of individual heroic and villainous NPCs (movers and shakers) who might affect the PCs or not. Basically its a game of pinball ... I let them go at it and see where it ends up.

The net result is usually more gratifying than a Lord of the Rings style defeat the Dark Lord type campaign. I have DMed this sort of campaign and its definitely easier, but I think it doesn't challenge the players as much.

C.I.D.

 

[kitsune9]

Maybe I've been living under a rock for awhile but can someone please explain what a sandbox setting is, particularly a fantasy sandbox setting? I mean, I understand that it is a setting for a fantasy rpg but what are the defining characteristics of a sandbox setting? Could any published settings be considered sandbox settings or is this strictly the realm of homebrew settings? What makes a specific setting a sandbox setting?

The way I read it from a blog is that in a sandbox setting, there are a ton of points of interests for the characters to run around in. For example, FR can be considered a sandbox setting because the cities, dungeons, ruins, and unique locations offers adventure. For a sandbox adventure/campaign, there is really no central story other than characters exploring a location, killing monsters, and getting treasure there. The appeal is that the story can be very player-driven in that they determine where to go and what to do. The caveat is that the DM has to do a lot of prep before the first mod is being played. If the players decide to go Ruin X, but then realize it's too tough and then do Ruin Y, and then want to go to Lost City Z and travel through Evil Forest A, the DM needs to have all that prepared instead of running the players through the guantlet of Ruin X and then onto the next location.

I will run Sandbox style for the Golarion campaign after I finish my Kingdoms of Kalamar campaign.

 

[LostSoul]

I think one important aspect is that the players choose the level of risk that they want to face. You do this by putting in things like long stairs, wells, chasms, elevators, etc. that lead to much deeper levels in dungeons, and simply rumours of danger in the wilderness ("The Fell Swamp is full of trolls").

 

[Ariosto]

The way I create a campaign, in the Sandbox style, is to create a varied and disparate group of individual heroic and villainous NPCs (movers and shakers) who might affect the PCs or not.

That's excellent! I find that once such NPCs are set in motion, the way their motivations interact with the consequences of the PCs' actions makes the next state of affairs usually very easy to determine.

That's a special case of a more general principle: Inject situations not meant to be quickly and decisively "solvable". When the players tangle with element X, they are unlikely to make it cease to exist; instead, they change it into element Y. Voids get opportunistically filled, alliances shift, the characters of places get transformed.

As a result, the longer you play, adding elements along the way, the richer the milieu becomes.