Pathfinder 1E Sandboxes? Forked from Paizo reinvents hexcrawling

[Gimby]

Setting aside well-trodden roads, and getting into wilderness: If dragons are a standard risk in the wilderness, but fairly infrequent, and twice as likely on the plains as in a swamp, then that might not be too costly to learn from a sage. But if a dragon slaughters a party in the wilderness, is there anyone to hear the screams? That's a Bad Place, and all normal men need to know about going deep into it is that people who do tend not to come back. People who do take their chances, and if the dice indicate a dragon sighting in swampland, then so be it.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Theres a subtley here that I think may be part of the confusion. Earlier in the thread it was suggested that a fully simulated "sandbox" was impossible. In that putative state, the DM knows that there is a dragon in the swamps and it's current position and plans. If the party crosses it's path, they will encounter it. If they don't, they wont - no dice come into it (outside of whatever spot/hide style checks are approriate for your game). It is perhaps that level of attention to the game world that is being proposed as impossible.

As you say, what is done instead is the random encounter roll. The DM may decide there is a dragon and roll to see if the players encounter it, or may decide that there is a probablility that there is a dragon and rolls to see if there is one and if it is encountered. If a dragon comes up on the table then it becomes resolved - there is a dragon and it is here (and attempting to roast you alive). If it doesn't, it remains a potential for dragons.

As the party moves away from the point where they encounter the dragon (however the encounter ends) then the DM can update the world, however, to keep the work involved to an appropriate level, this may be abtracted. For example, if the PCs kill the dragon then they may replace it's entry on the encounter table with "Nothing","New Dragon","Hoard seekers" or whatever.

In this way, only the area that is directly percived by the PCs is simulated to the highest fidelity of the system, whereas the further out you go, the more abstracted things get (Dragon-moving-on-graph-paper becomes Dragon-as-line-on-random-encounter-list, for example).

This may be, I think, part of Hobo's point. The fully simulated world, where every bandit group and diplomatic envoy is tracked is not feasible. Compromises must be made. And indeed, compromises are (or at least, from this thread) seem to be made.

 

[Desdichado]

See? You're getting all stressed out. I'm not targeting you, or anybody, in fact: I am commenting on the tenor of the thread. You need to relax. I'm relaxed and much more objective.

Whether or not it is a front of the edition wars, and I still believe there's certainly an element of it that is, this discussion has certainly taken on the tenor of an edition war.

Part of what prompted me to start this discussion was that it seems most if not all discussions about this question that last long enough take on the tenor of an edition war.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Whether or not it is a front of the edition wars, and I still believe there's certainly an element of it that is, this discussion has certainly taken on the tenor of an edition war.

Part of what prompted me to start this discussion was that it seems most if not all discussions about this question that last long enough take on the tenor of an edition war.

Perhaps, but that comes from both sides.

I have read the entire thread, but I am honestly not sure at all what your position is. Sometimes, I think I am reading "The sky is blue" and I agree. Other times it seems like you are saying "The sky is red" and I am wondering what you are trying to say. Then someone says "If you think the sky is red...." and I find myself nodding along with them until you respond and point out that you said the sky was blue.

(And, no, I am not trying to put words into your mouth, I am offering an analogy of why I am having a hard time following your position.)

So, for those of us who are dim of wit (apparently, including me), could you please restate your position in clear terms? How are you defining "sandbox", and how does your game differ from one?


RC

 

[Desdichado]

A sandbox is the opposite end of a playstyle spectrum from a railroad. A sandbox, a "pure" sandbox, puts all of the control in the hands of the players, with no prompting or prodding from the GM. The players, if they so choose, can simply wander around interacting with any element in the setting that they encounter. This also means that the setting needs to have an extraordinarily robust level of detail behind it, or barring that, an extraordinary amount of material allowing the GM to simulate that detail via randomization.

I don't consider my own games to be sandboxes, because as a GM I work collaboratively with my players to develop a campaign direction. I don't just sit back and wait for them to tell me what they want to to, I'm actively and wildly putting potential activities in front of them to see which ones they find interesting, and once they "bite" on something the others tend to fade into the background and we concentrate and collaborate together on the plot potential that they've elected to pursue. In addition, I strongly believe that for every group I've ever run for or played with (and barring exceptional circumstances, every group I ever will run for or play with) that the players in particular need some direction at the start of a campaign. I also plan from the beginning on the idea that my campaign will be of limited duration and will end at some point, probably six months or so from when it began, so as we get closer to the endpoint, the campaign arguably becomes even less sandboxy, because I stop giving them new things to react to and start closing in on open campaign elements that I don't want to leave "dangling" at the end of the campaign.

Also, in addition to all that, my background into RPGs was that I was a fan of fantasy fiction first, not wargames. As such, I like to take tricks, tips and techniques from literature, including session pacing, campaign pacing, and other elements that cause the end result to more resemble a fantasy novel, just one that we're writing collaboratively instead of one that I'm writing, and integrate them into my game.

So regardless of how much I value player choice, and it's quite a lot, I think my approach and paradigm about the game are fundamentally not really the same as the sandbox style.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Thank you for the clear and concise reply.

As you are aware, I have given you XP too recently to do so again, so all you are getting right now is my thanks.

RC

 

[catsclaw227]

I am not going to look it up again. You can mighty well read your own posts. Does "What long tradition?" ring a bell?

Nice, I like how you did that. Pull a quote out of context, and rehash it, ignoring that I already addressed it. Interesting bait-and-switch method of discussion. That is also not conducive to a gentleman's discussion.

I know there's a "long tradition" that goes back to wargaming and war games, and I said that this didn't answer or address my question.

The way the game HAS been played is not necessarily how Gary had INTENDED it to be played, and he was very glad for it. He loved the diversity of styles and was humbled by the imagination and effort put forth by DMs and players around the world.

(Obviously, he didn't like the various directions that the business of the game took over the decades, but that's a different discussion altogether.)

I have not claimed otherwise. It is not relevant at all to anything against which you keep recycling it as an argument.

More to the point, you keep choosing to judge things that are not at all in your bailiwick.

I see no reason to acknowledge any more such posts from you, so you may "have the last word" to your heart's content.

I have much more in my bailiwick than you think. Though I prefer to maintain my anonymity.

Either way, one thing I am SURE we can agree upon: We both strive to run games for our players that are fun, challenging and exciting that allow our players to enjoy D&D, whatever edition, whatever gaming style we bring to the table.

For me, sometimes I run sandbox campaigns, sometimes I run APs, sometimes I run something in between with a sandbox interspersed with published adventures and a haze of a campaign story arc.

I imagine we have much more in common with how we game, than not.

 

[cildarith]

Whether or not it is a front of the edition wars, and I still believe there's certainly an element of it that is, this discussion has certainly taken on the tenor of an edition war.

Part of what prompted me to start this discussion was that it seems most if not all discussions about this question that last long enough take on the tenor of an edition war.

It is, I think, a "play style war" of which this discussion and edition wars are both a subset - with some inevitable overlap. In this case a either a "sandbox" or a "railroad" and anything in between can be run in any edition of any game.

 

[Raven Crowking]

It is, I think, a "play style war" of which this discussion and edition wars are both a subset - with some inevitable overlap. In this case a either a "sandbox" or a "railroad" and anything in between can be run in any edition of any game.

This seems correct to me, although I will note that some editions are far better at supporting any given playstyle than others, and that is probably where the "edition war" subset enters the "playstyle war".


RC


@ Hobo: Again, thank you for clarifying, and for doing so with civility. I believe I see where you are coming from. Although I don't accept your definition of "sandbox" as being functionally the same as mine, given your definition, your conclusions make sense.

What I think has happened in this discussion is, in a way, as though I started talking about "cars", meaning only my particular car, and people jumped in because my claims about the limited properties of "cars" only make sense from the perspective of "cars" = "my personal car".

Thus, claims made about the nature of a "sandbox" have been reacted to as though you were talking about something other than your personal definition of a sandbox.

"[A]ctively and wildly putting potential activities in front of [the players] to see which ones they find interesting" does not disqualify a campaign from taking place in a sandbox, IMHO. Other threads dropping to the background, also, does not, so long as the threads remain and there are logical consequences for ignoring them. Your endgame sounds more like closing the sandbox, to me, so that (from your description) the big ball of options that is the campaign milieu is a sandbox, but the endgame is not.

Others may differ, of course. If you don't think of your game as a sandbox, you certainly are under no compulsion to describe it as such!

Going back to your original question, then, AFAICT there is no large upswing in interest in sandbox-style play as you define it. AFAICT, the interest in sandbox games stems from a world which is active and reactive, which means that there will be a good deal of input from the GM. The GM, however, doesn't control the direction of the action as much as he adjudicates the outcomes of actions and consequences thereof. As I understand it, anyway. Others' Mileage May Vary!


RC

 

[The Ghost]

Thank you for the clear and concise reply.

As you are aware, I have given you XP too recently to do so again, so all you are getting right now is my thanks.

RC

Gotcha covered.

 

[Ariosto]

some editions are far better at supporting any given playstyle than others, and that is probably where the "edition war" subset enters the "playstyle war".

Might it not enter where an edition consistently puts forward one "play style" as the way to play the game, and mentions another (if at all) mainly to dismiss aspects of it as "not fun"?

How any one can read WotC's books and then claim with a straight face that "4E" is not designed to be played any particular way, that the designers are not telling people how to play it, is just beyond me. There doesn't seem to be any great difficulty for its partisans to wheel out "doing it wrong", "expecting it to be something else", etc., in response to observations by people who find it not working with their play styles.

And yet, people who do that also regularly object in threads to any hint that the Gygax-era editions were also designed.