Pathfinder 1E Sandboxes? Forked from Paizo reinvents hexcrawling

[Raven Crowking]

Hobo,

Can you tell us how your game is linear? That might be more helpful when trying to find out how your game differs from The Shaman's.


RC

 

[Desdichado]

Because, from my experience, the vast majority of D&D players can't deal with that. When placed in a sandbox, those players are simply overwhelmed with the idea that they can go anywhere, do anything... so they basically waste session upon session on pointless bickering regarding their party's direction and goals. If they even manage to form a party in the first place (since forcing the characters to start as a party sort of defeats the point of the sandbox).

It seems that a sandbox faces some risk if the personalities of the players aren't adapted to it. I said earlier that a sandbox requires players (not necessarily characters) to think and act like entrepreneurs, but maybe that's too simplistic a characterization.

If none of the players think that way, then they are likely to be frustrated and unhappy with a sandbox beginning, in which they feel like they have to go beat the streets looking for work rather than have, "this is the adventure right here, guys" signs all over the place. I've seen groups that have that dynamic. Sandbox style seems particularly poor for that group. If one player thinks entrepreneurially, and the others are content to follow his lead, then the sandbox can work like gangbusters. But what if two players think entrepreneurially? What about three? What about all of them?

If also seen plenty of campaigns fall apart because they offered too many options... and the various players never really agreed on which ones they wanted to pursue.

It's all well and good to say, as The Shaman does, that the sandbox doesn't require groups to stay together, but realistically speaking, if you don't, then what exactly kind of game do you have? If everyone's trying to go different directions, that's not a viable game.

Like I said from the very beginning, my experience shows that an overly sandboxy game can be just as problematic as an overly railroady game. Both of the examples of game fail that I mentioned in this post? I've seen 'em. First hand.

A sandbox style is not a one-size-fits-all solution to how to game. With the right group, it can be a lot of fun. There's a lot of potential for it to go wrong with the wrong group, though, and I think the wrong groups are probably pretty prevalent.

 

[Raven Crowking]

If everyone's trying to go different directions, that's not a viable game.

Of course it is.

It is just not necessarily the best way to run every game session.

ars ludi » Grand Experiments: West Marches

I quote from the above link (note that I am not the "I" speaking):

West Marches was a game I ran for a little over two years. It was designed to be pretty much the diametric opposite of the normal weekly game:

1) There was no regular time: every session was scheduled by the players on the fly.

2) There was no regular party: each game had different players drawn from a pool of around 10-14 people.

3) There was no regular plot: The players decided where to go and what to do. It was a sandbox game in the sense that’s now used to describe video games like Grand Theft Auto, minus the missions. There was no mysterious old man sending them on quests. No overarching plot, just an overarching environment.

My motivation in setting things up this way was to overcome player apathy and mindless “plot following” by putting the players in charge of both scheduling and what they did in-game.

A secondary goal was to make the schedule adapt to the complex lives of adults. Ad hoc scheduling and a flexible roster meant (ideally) people got to play when they could but didn’t hold up the game for everyone else if they couldn’t. If you can play once a week, that’s fine. If you can only play once a month, that’s fine too.

Letting the players decide where to go was also intended to nip DM procrastination (aka my procrastination) in the bud. Normally a DM just puts off running a game until he’s 100% ready (which is sometimes never), but with this arrangement if some players wanted to raid the Sunken Fort this weekend I had to hurry up and finish it. It was gaming on-demand, so the players created deadlines for me.

Setting: Go West Young Man

The game was set in a frontier region on the edge of civilization (the eponymous West Marches). There’s a convenient fortified town that marked the farthest outpost of civilization and law, but beyond that is sketchy wilderness. All the PCs are would-be adventurers based in this town. Adventuring is not a common or safe profession, so the player characters are the only ones interested in risking their lives in the wilderness in hopes of making a fortune (NPCs adventurers are few and far between). Between sorties into the wilds PCs rest up, trade info and plan their next foray in the cheery taproom of the Axe & Thistle.

The whole territory is (by necessity) very detailed. The landscape is broken up into a variety of regions (Frog Marshes, Cradle Wood, Pike Hollow, etc.) each with its own particular tone, ecology and hazards. There are dungeons, ruins, and caves all over the place, some big and many small. Some are known landmarks (everbody knows where the Sunken Fort is), some are rumored but their exact location is unknown (the Hall of Kings is said to be somewhere in Cradle Wood) and others are completely unknown and only discovered by exploring (search the spider-infested woods and you find the Spider Mound nest).

PCs get to explore anywhere they want, the only rule being that going back east is off-limits — there are no adventures in the civilized lands, just peaceful retirement.

The environment is dangerous. Very dangerous. That’s intentional, because as the great MUD Nexus teaches us, danger unites. PCs have to work together or they are going to get creamed. They also have to think and pick their battles — since they can go anywhere, there is nothing stopping them from strolling into areas that will wipe them out. If they just strap on their swords and charge everything they see they are going to be rolling up new characters. Players learn to observe their environment and adapt — when they find owlbear tracks in the woods they give the area a wide berth (at least until they gain a few levels). When they stumble into the lair of a terrifying hydra they retreat and round up a huge posse to hunt it down.

The PCs are weak but central: they are small fish in a dangerous world that they have to explore with caution, but because they are the only adventurers they never play second fiddle. Overshadowed by looming peaks and foreboding forests yes. Overshadowed by other characters, no.

Scheduling: Players Are In Control

The West Marches charter is that games only happen when the players decide to do something — the players initiate all adventures and it’s their job to schedule games and organize an adventuring party once they decide where to go.

Players send emails to the list saying when they want to play and what they want to do. A normal scheduling email would be something like “I’d like to play Tuesday. I want to go back and look for that ruined monastery we heard out about past the Golden Hills. I know Mike wants to play, but we could use one or two more. Who’s interested?” Interested players chime in and negotiation ensues. Players may suggest alternate dates, different places to explore (”I’ve been to the monastery and it’s too dangerous. Let’s track down the witch in Pike Hollow instead!”), whatever — it’s a chaotic process, and the details sort themselves out accordingly. In theory this mirrors what’s going on in the tavern in the game world: adventurers are talking about their plans, finding comrades to join them, sharing info, etc.

The only hard scheduling rules are:

1) The GM has to be available that day (obviously) so this system only works if the GM is pretty flexible.

2) The players have to tell the GM where they plan on going well in advance, so he (meaning me) has at least a chance to prepare anything that’s missing. As the campaign goes on this becomes less and less of a problem, because so many areas are so fleshed out the PCs can go just about anywhere on the map and hit adventure. The GM can also veto a plan that sounds completely boring and not worth a game session.

All other decisions are up to the players — they fight it out among themselves, sometimes literally.​

I highly recommend reading the entire blog.


RC

 

[Sammael]

As always, I think all extremes are bad unless the entire group is completely homogeneous in their desires and capabilities. Since most groups consist of individuals with differing play style preferences, I believe the key to good DMing is to give each player a bit of what they want every session. This applies to the various player archetypes (powergamer, storyteller, etc) and to their approach to sandbox vs. railroading.

Unless asked to do otherwise (which happened with one of my current groups - they asked me explicitly to run a semi-railroady campaign because they don't want to work too hard to investigate various adventure hooks), I run games as "crisscrossing railroads running through a sandbox." Not sure if that makes any sense, but let's try: there are usually several overarching plots moving forward in the game world ("trains"). The players can get on the trains when they want to, follow them for as long as they like, and can get off the train to either catch another one or to make a trek through the wilderness or cityscape ("sandbox") until something comes up. However, once they get off a particular train, there is no guarantee that they'll be able to catch it again - or, if they do, that their old tickets will still be valid. Plots will move forward with or without their interference. Sometimes, another group of heroes will intervene. More often than not, they won't, and the party will have to live with the consequences of their actions or non-actions, as the case may be.

 

[Sammael]

Of course it is.

It is just not necessarily the best way to run every game session.

ars ludi » Grand Experiments: West Marches

I quote from the above link (note that I am not the "I" speaking):

snip​

I highly recommend reading the entire blog.


RC

Not a game I'd like to run or be a part of. Not even experimentally. That much chaos would make my head explode.

 

[Desdichado]

Hobo,

Can you tell us how your game is linear? That might be more helpful when trying to find out how your game differs from The Shaman's.

Fair enough. I'd say most of the linearity in my games tends to be front-loaded. Instead of having players create their characters, show up at the first session, and hope that they find enough common ground to adventure together, I start out with a premise. "You're all passengers on such and such a ship, bound for the port of Razina, hoping to find work." "You all work for the magistrate of the city of Terrassa, and while he gives you a free hand to pursue your mission of keeping the peace as you please, from time to time he hands you specific cases and tells you that they must be solved." "You're all guards on a caravan bound for Sinharat. You can come up with your own reasons why you want to go that direction". Something like that.

I also like to use the background method from Spirit of the Century that creates the barest hint of a backstory for each character, and more importantly, creates ties in the backstory for characters. They're not just complete strangers who happen to be standing around in the tavern at the same time when adventure calls; they're people who know each other and to some extent may have worked together in some capacity before.

For a session or two, I actually bring a game. I envision a specific problem that needs to be solved, and quickly. Pirates or bandits attack. You find out that the crown prince is on board incognito. Once the pirates or bandits are fought off, he invites them to the palace to be rewarded. Once in the palace, several court functionaries approach the PCs with problems that they believe the PCs might be their best agents to resolve. There are more problems for the PCs to solve than can really realistically be solved. Some of them might even be mutually exclusive.

This is where the linear function starts to dissolve and the players start to control the game. They pick which ones they think sound most interesting. They start figuring out how to tackle that problem. As they dive into it, I start actually making up the ramifications of the problem, usually based on what they decide to do rather than something I've got preconcieved. The example right there was one I ran not long ago. Another recent campaign, the prisoners woke up in prison, with no memory of the last three months. They find out they were accused of murder of a major crime lord. A few minutes later, a corrupt guard who's been bribed to look the other way lets them go. They have not idea what happened to them, or for that matter, what to do... so they start asking questions and digging around for answers.

Actually, come to think of it, that scenario isn't really all that linear, except in the set-up itself.

Notably, I like to imagine what might happen with the stuff that they don't pursue. So, the Queen asks them to go find out what's going on in her homeland where rumors of her father's kindgom being besieged by fey are filtering in by ship. The Crown Prince asks the PCs to check up on rumors of an army amassing in Cryx. The ambassador of Jekkara makes a lot of noise about invading Praetorians from Kurushat, the militaristic hobgoblin empire. The players decide that they can do the Crown Prince's work for him on the way to the Queen's homeland, so they attempt to kill two birds with one stone. However, the Praetorians of Kurushat don't stop just because the PCs aren't interested in them, so later when they come back, they found out that the King and his entire household have been slaughtered, the city is under martial law, and a puppet king, the Crown Prince, is on the throne. And that the army that was amassing in Cryx was actually at his behest in a hostile takeover bid.

Anyway, a few actual examples. When it's obvious to me that a campaign has run its course, or if I'm tired of it myself, I start pulling stuff together so that on a given session, all of the stuff that's been going on can get wrapped up, cut off, and satisfyingly concluded, rather than left dangling.

I'm not sure if that's actually an example of linearity so much as it is of me manipulating the pacing a bit, though.

 

[Raven Crowking]

So, if your games are not very linear, why are you having trouble understanding why some might like less linear games than APs?

 

[Desdichado]

Of course it is.

It is just not necessarily the best way to run every game session.

A sandbox style is not a one-size-fits-all solution to how to game. With the right group, it can be a lot of fun. There's a lot of potential for it to go wrong with the wrong group, though, and I think the wrong groups are probably pretty prevalent.

I highly recommend reading the entire blog.

RC

Just based on that quoted text alone, I can guarantee that that game would be a disaster for my group. The chances that we'd actually have any sessions at all would be slim, and the chances that anyone would be satisfied with them even slimmer.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Just based on that quoted text alone, I can guarantee that that game would be a disaster for my group. The chances that we'd actually have any sessions at all would be slim, and the chances that anyone would be satisfied with them even slimmer.

You'd have a better idea how good (or poor) the fit would be if you didn't base your opinion on the quoted text alone.


RC

 

[Desdichado]

So, if your games are not very linear, why are you having trouble understanding why some might like less linear games than APs?

Who says that's what I'm having trouble understanding? I never once asked that question.

My question is, was, and probably yet shall be: why the sudden high visibility of sandboxes? A correllary to that could be why do the sandboxers continue to put forward the implied--if not explicitly stated--notion that a sandbox approach is the best approach and the default "mode" of D&D, or even roleplaying as a whole, when clearly there are vast swaths of groups out there for whom the approach would fall completely flat?

My question was about the phenomena of sandbox discussion online. I'm OK with branching out to a discussion of the benefits and pitfalls of running sandboxes, but that wasn't what I actually intended to discuss when I started this thread, really. Nor is, "why do you like sandboxes?"

Even in this second, more polite version of the thread that we've migrated to, I still feel like there's a vibe running through if of, "well why don't you like sandboxes?" and if I describe some pitfalls of sandbox play, I get told that I'm just doing it wrong. Or that my groups must lack imagination. Or whatever.

Well, no... not really. It's just that a sandbox approach isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to gaming. For certain groups, it's a terrible approach. For others, it's a great approach.