Pathfinder 1E Sandboxes? Forked from Paizo reinvents hexcrawling

[ExploderWizard]

I don't think we've been quite that vague, though.

Honestly, to me part of the issue is that the essence of what is really "sandbox" isn't really deep, and it isn't complicated.

The GM makes up a sandbox, and populates it. The PCs are dropped into it, and told they can go where they want, and try to do what they want. The GM takes no particular pains to get the PCs to go in any particular direction. When they choose to go somewhere or do something, the GM does not alter what he'd prepared to meet the PC's abilities.

That, really, is the core of it. All the rest is variable:

This is pretty much it. What exactly is confusing or unclear here?

 

[Desdichado]

Then you'll have to define 'sandbox' -- and in a way that leaves out the OD&D instructions.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I made no reference to any game, especially not OD&D, and neither has anyone else except for you. It already is defined without "the OD&D instructions", whatever exactly it is you mean by that. It's a definition that's completely independent of what game you play. For that matter, the label itself appears, as near as I can tell, to have come out of computer game design theory anyway, not pen and paper design theory. You're trying to tie sandbox to a specific era of play of a specific game. I certainly am not.

The only comment I made that was even in that same general vague direction was an offhand remark that prior to the so-called Hickman Revolution, I suspect that games were "more sandboxy" than they were during and since.

 

[Desdichado]

But sandbox seems to be the updated term for non linear adventures now. In a way I think it is a good thing, because it sounds a lot better than non linear does.

Well, I disagree on that. Faddish new labels for things that already have perfectly serviceable labels already in use is a pet peeve of mine.

 

[Rechan]

What's the point of naming fictional genres? Or business processes? People still seem to manage to have discussions about them.

Except that you can define a genre, go over its tenets, say what it is and isn't, etc etc. Same with business process. I can tell you all the qualities of the "Noir" genre, define it, explain how it's been used, different ways it's been used, etc etc.

But you're saying it's too vague to define.

That, really, is the core of it. All the rest is variable

And to me that's not very different from a plot game. Or at least, any game that I've ever done? As I said, the Pcs can leave at any time, come across any hooks they want, and follow them.

Are all of the pre-populated elements active? Again, doing that for every single person and critter on a planet isn't practical.

I think it's a gross mischaracterization to reply to "Everything is in stasis" with "You can't have every single person active!"

The point being that if there's a Cult in the cave over there, stealing people in order to sacrifice for a Ritual, and the PCs pass that cave without going in, then the ritual takes place and something happens because of their inaction. The stuff that you PUT in your sandbox will continue to happen, even if the PCs don't show up, not that you need to micromanage the day to day lives of every single NPC. The PCs aren't to be concerned with the farmhouses and the tax collectors etc, they're not relevant to the game, so bringing them up in response is really a mischaracterization of the point I'm trying to make.

And using the Cult Stealing People and Doing Bad Things, the PCs can walk across it and discover it, the PCs can address it, or they can leave it alone. But the Cult Stealing People is a plot. Just like a plot in a plot game. The only difference is that there are pre-made, multiple mini-plots.

 

[Ariosto]

Or, you'll have to accept that "old style" may be more than "OD&D instructions".

I do. I do not accept that it therefore must mean nothing at all. I do not accept that I must be limited to using language dictated by those who pursue such hair-splitting quibbles, disagreement that accomplishes nothing but to be disagreeable.

The OD&D instructions are objectively older than any "style" outside of the Blackmoor and Greyhawk campaigns. They are also an objective, independently verifiable phenomenon: a text.

Finally, and most critically, they are the fountainhead of what -- in my experience -- people have in fact usually been talking about in recent years when they used the term 'sandbox'. That is the only use that I have had for it.

The term, as far as I can see, arose precisely because "Dungeons & Dragons campaign" had come not to be commonly understood as possessing that meaning. In fact, it has come overwhelmingly to mean "adventure path". The old terminology, one might reason, not only no longer facilitated communication but could be made contentious -- as easily as Umbran picked a fight with "old style". The 'sandbox' usage, at least as I met it, was chosen to serve a practical purpose and avoid tempting such pointless conflict.

But now it's a "damned if you do and damned if you don't" proposition. Since it makes no difference whether one bends over backwards to be "politically correct", why bother?

You can accept that "old style" does mean "old OD&D instructions", regardless of whatever else it might mean. You can accept that my game is a "Dungeons & Dragons campaign", whatever your "D&D campaign" might be. You can consider context, and treat language as an actual tool for conversation.

 

[Desdichado]

Except that you can define a genre, go over its tenets, say what it is and isn't, etc etc. Same with business process. I can tell you all the qualities of the "Noir" genre, define it, explain how it's been used, different ways it's been used, etc etc.

But you're saying it's too vague to define.

Err... no. We're saying that it's already defined, and we've kinda moved past the definition phase of the discussion.

I'm not sure what you're struggling with exactly here.

And to me that's not very different from a plot game. Or at least, any game that I've ever done? As I said, the Pcs can leave at any time, come across any hooks they want, and follow them.

You do realize, I hope, and can imagine how perhaps other people don't play the same way you do?

In a railroad, what you just said is not true. That's the whole point of a railroad. And yes, a railroad is generally viewed as a "Bad Thing™" by most people. But not by everybody. And just because it's a bad thing doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of bad GMs out there who do it, or at least approach that condition. Hence the definition.

So I don't know why you want to insist that we not have these terms to define the endpoints on the spectrum of linear vs. non linear axis of playstyles just because none of your games have approached the endpoint.

I've been in games that have approached the "railroad" endpoint. I've been in games that approach the "sandbox" endpoint. For my money, both are equally undesireable. But that's my personal opinion, and I started this thread because I've percieved that there's a wave of support for the sandbox as not undesireable, and in fact, the way RPGs should be played. I find this surprising. Not terribly so if it's just a few people here and there who have niche tastes, but I percieve, whether rightly or wrongly, that it's more than just a few people, it's an actual disorganized movement or fad by now.

And using the Cult Stealing People and Doing Bad Things, the PCs can walk across it and discover it, the PCs can address it, or they can leave it alone. But the Cult Stealing People is a plot. Just like a plot in a plot game. The only difference is that there are pre-made, multiple mini-plots.

Nobody in any discussion I've ever heard of, in gaming or literature, calls that a plot. That's a "plot hook" or a potential plot. Plot is either what happens when the PCs do something about it, or in a more railroady scenario, what the GM has already decided the PCs will do about it and how they will proceed, and if the PCs attempt anything else, it'll fail just because, that's not what was written beforehand. Plot, in this case, does not take on a new definition that you've made up for it, but uses a very similar one to what plot in a discussion of a book or movie would also use.

 

[The_Gneech]

On the concept of NPC "stasis"...

This is something of a misleading artifact, I think. Within the NPCs' frame of reference, they've got a past, a present, and plans for the future. But none of that stuff "really" exists in the game until it's observed by the players, whether first hand or in the form of rumors, or what-have-you.

So in this conceptual sandbox, you've got the cult of the spider god "on pause" in the middle of their ritual until the PCs show up. This doesn't mean that it's actually happening for all eternity, and will keep on happening forever if the PCs never go there. All it means is that if this week the PCs decide to go into the cave of the spider god cult, that's what they'll find.

That doesn't mean it isn't a sandbox ... what makes a sandbox is an open environment where the PCs run the show, by choosing what interests them to pursue. That may be as simple as the GM saying, "Okay, there's a cursed temple north of town, zombies in the sewers, or lizardfolk in the swamp ... choose and perish." Or it could be as elaborate as a matrix of NPC factions who have different goals and the PCs' attempts to gain favor or work them against each other.

The big problem with the "sandbox" model is you have to have the right players for it. I once had a group where I just dropped them into my homebrew Lankhmar equivalent and they'd make their own adventures, all I had to do was moderate the dice rolls. But I've also had a group who, if I said, "What do you want to do?" would stare at me like deer at an oncoming pair of headlights and eventually say, "I don't know, what am I supposed to do?"

First group: right at home in the sandbox.

Second group: first in line to buy tickets for the AP railroad.

-The Gneech

 

[Desdichado]

*sigh* Ariosto, is it possible for you to engage in a discussion about RPGs in general without forcing the discussion down paths of OD&D in particular?

Really, this discussion wasn't meant to have anything whatsoever to do with any edition of D&D or even specifically of D&D at all. If in fact it's true that OD&D specifically called out a playstyle that we would call a sandbox, but prior to the widespread adoption of that term (which I personally doubt, but since I didn't really start playing D&D until the AD&D and BD&D sets were the ones everyone was using, I can't confirm via primary sources) then, hey, thanks for making us aware of that minor note of historical trivia, but that's not really germaine to the discussion we're having here today.

Unless, that is, you're attempting to put forth the hypothesis that sandbox spread as a recent fad because a bunch of people got a hold of the OD&D ruleset and swiped the idea from there. If that's in fact what you're trying to put forth, please do so clearly!

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Hmm, it's been stated that the definition of "sandbox" was already settled in the discussion (which I'm really trying to follow!). Alas, I seem to have missed it.

So, just for the record, could someone please define "sandbox" here, or point to a generally accepted definition online?

I'm curious because I'm seeing lots of differing views in conflict with each other, as well as with my own. That would really help the lurkers on this thread, I think!

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, but if the PCs just choose to leave the sandbox entirely - the entire area the DM has fleshed out - that's different how? They're no longer on the pre-set sandbox.

Either way, they all have stories and the PCs can ditch them.

Refusing to play in the sand box is like refusing to play the adventure path, yup. But so what?