Sandboxing and bringing wonder and the unknown into DMing

[S'mon]

I agree 100%. I am not sure how the GM has any sense of exploration at the table in a sandbox though. Discovery and exploration are definitely destroyed by the ability to just make things up. So in essence, I see a need to heavily divide GM-player authority in an effort to allow the player a sense of exploration at the expense of GM exploration.

Please explain how a GM can keep a sense of exploration in a sandbox game.

Maybe you just don't get it - you don't get that sense of wonder, of discovery, from seeing the milieu develop in play. I know I do.

I 'make things up' but I don't know how the players will react or how it will develop in the future. I use a lot of random rolls, I don't know what the random tables will tell me. I didn't know there was a basilsik in that jungle until the dice told me so.

Also, using the published Wilderlands of High Fantasy, it's hugely detailed, I don't and can't know everything there is in the City State or the Wilderlands. So eg in my City State game when the PCs go left instead of right down an alley I'm discovering what's down there more or less alongside them, and riffing off what's described in the official book.

 

[S'mon]

Another thing, I think as GM I maybe see things from the players' POV more than some GMs do. "PC empathy" you might call it. So I get a big vicarious thrill from exploration and discovery by the PCs, or from them defeating dangerous monsters, gaining a valuable treasure, et al.

 

[IronWolf]

How would you compare the two books? And what does Gamemastery Guide have that the Ultimate Toolbox or, say, various editions of the DMG not have?

If you already have the Ultimate Toolbox I suspect you'd be fine to head forward with it and not need the Gamemastery Guide. But there are several good tables and lists of NPCs you could mine for ideas on top of basic GM'ing advice which you may or may not feel are useful. There is also a world building section that might be useful.

So since you already have the Ultimate Toolbox you might not want to buy the Gamemastery Guide unseen, but well worth flipping through it at the FLGS to see if it would be useful for what you need. I suspect it would.

 

[Mercurius]

I agree 100%. I am not sure how the GM has any sense of exploration at the table in a sandbox though. Discovery and exploration are definitely destroyed by the ability to just make things up. So in essence, I see a need to heavily divide GM-player authority in an effort to allow the player a sense of exploration at the expense of GM exploration.

Please explain how a GM can keep a sense of exploration in a sandbox game.

Maybe you just don't get it - you don't get that sense of wonder, of discovery, from seeing the milieu develop in play. I know I do.

I 'make things up' but I don't know how the players will react or how it will develop in the future. I use a lot of random rolls, I don't know what the random tables will tell me. I didn't know there was a basilsik in that jungle until the dice told me so.

Also, using the published Wilderlands of High Fantasy, it's hugely detailed, I don't and can't know everything there is in the City State or the Wilderlands. So eg in my City State game when the PCs go left instead of right down an alley I'm discovering what's down there more or less alongside them, and riffing off what's described in the official book.

To follow along with this, I think it relates to the sense of wonder and exploration one gets--or at least I get--from world building in general. When I sit down to cook up a new world, or further develop an already existing world, I experience a deep sense of wonder and exploration because I don't know everything about the world. As I said in an earlier post, the experience of world-building--and writing in general--is not only an experience of making or building, or intentionally crafting, it is also the experience of uncovering, discovering, and exploring.

I have two main worlds I've been working on, one for my writing that has evolved over decades and one that is about two years old that I have developed for my 4E campaign. In both cases, especially that of my writing, I feel that they are worlds that I have just as much "discovered" as "created." That is part of the joy of it.

It all relates to the question "Where do ideas come from?" Do we fabricate them with our rational thinking? Do we arrange different half-remembered memories into new configurations? Do they come from the Muses? Do they emerge from the Jungian collective unconscious? I suspect all of the above and more. But the key is that at least a good amount of ideas come from somewhere other than my conscious mind, so there is a sense of wonder and the unknown.

What I am trying to figure out is how much of this I can bring into a D&D game beyond world-building. I've experienced it to some extent but I'm looking for ways to further it and am thinking the sandbox approach, or at least a "sandboxy" approach, is ideal.

 

[Nameless1]

Maybe you just don't get it - you don't get that sense of wonder, of discovery, from seeing the milieu develop in play. I know I do.

To follow along with this, I think it relates to the sense of wonder and exploration one gets--or at least I get--from world building in general. When I sit down to cook up a new world, or further develop an already existing world, I experience a deep sense of wonder and exploration because I don't know everything about the world. As I said in an earlier post, the experience of world-building--and writing in general--is not only an experience of making or building, or intentionally crafting, it is also the experience of uncovering, discovering, and exploring.

I understand both of these points quite well. But if that is how we are defining discovery and exploration, then having some more narrative authority is in no way contrary to discovery and control, and I get it all the time as both player and GM of indie games which would be considered exploration of premise or nar heavy games. (Funny. I haven't used anything close to GNS speak for about 2 years, and I have been frequenting Storygames, The Forge, and playing with what many here might call Forgies. Weird.)

 

[malcolypse]

I am teaching a class in Worldbuilding in the winter.

I think I just fell in love with you a little.

That's enough to make me want to go back to high school. I think that I would have been a much better student with a little fun mixed in with my lessons.

Good luck with it, I hope it's a great success.

 

[The Shaman]

Please explain how a GM can keep a sense of exploration in a sandbox game.

Randomize. A lot.

 

[Ariosto]

What The Shaman said!

Page 32 in the DMG2. I don't think they are great, but they have worked well for me so far.

Thanks!

The limited selection is clearly directed to certain purposes.

For more variety and subtlety (if ever that's what you want) in Behavioral Traits, there are pp. 101-105 in 1st DMG. GDW's 2300 AD (and probably Twilight 2000 before) had a system using a deck of cards that may have been sort of in between AD&D's multiple factors with multiple points on scales, and 4e's selection basically of "TV Tropes", but my memory is fuzzy.

It's sort of funny that the entries don't have hip Tropes style titles, considering how flavorful powers and monster subtypes and other bits of jargon are -- plus the "flavor texts".

 

[Mercurius]

I think I just fell in love with you a little.

That's enough to make me want to go back to high school. I think that I would have been a much better student with a little fun mixed in with my lessons.

Good luck with it, I hope it's a great success.

LOL, thanks. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. One of the perks of teachign at a private school is curricular freedom; that's how it should be, of course. Maybe I'll post a report later in the year.

I understand both of these points quite well. But if that is how we are defining discovery and exploration, then having some more narrative authority is in no way contrary to discovery and control, and I get it all the time as both player and GM of indie games which would be considered exploration of premise or nar heavy games. (Funny. I haven't used anything close to GNS speak for about 2 years, and I have been frequenting Storygames, The Forge, and playing with what many here might call Forgies. Weird.)

Yes, that's exactly it, I think. The narrative authority is key to providing a sense of discovery and wonder for the players, but it is also not antithetical for the DM if he or she is willing to let go a bit and explore the unknown. Which leads me to...

Randomize. A lot.

Yes, that's key. But add to that one simply and very important word: IMAGINATION. Randomize, but be free to imagine, to play with imagination. Randomization + Imagination = the Holy Grail of Sandboxing goodness. IMO.

 

[Ariosto]

Also, using the published Wilderlands of High Fantasy, it's hugely detailed

I would say that of the Necromancer Games version, but not of the old 32-page booklet and accompanying maps.

So eg in my City State game when the PCs go left instead of right down an alley I'm discovering what's down there more or less alongside them, and riffing off what's described in the official book.

The old Revised Guide to the City State came to about 90 pages, IIRC. Sure, there were enough location entries to be surprising for a while. Then one started to go to the same locations again, and what kept it interesting was the combination of random factors with remembering (assisted by notes) what had happened there before, and applying consequences.

The Necromancer version may, as with the Wilderlands, be considerably more detailed.