The Good Sandbox Thread [+]

[GrimCo]

Most of my nWoD/CoD games were essentially sandboxes. They were very minimal prep, usually few short bulletpoints, but heavy on improv. One thing that made it easy to do is setting. I used real world in real time (so if first session was on 2.9.2012, in game it's also 2.9.2012). So, whatever happens in the world, it happens in game. Also, games always started in our home town and all characters needed to be local and know each other. With that in place, it's very easy to improv because everything is very familiar, i just did few supernatural spins on some stuff. Before starting game, everyone would told me how they came to know supernatural things are real ( be it they witnessed something, or their characters became something). Once game starts, it's all on players. What they want to do, how they wanna do it, where they wanna go etc. I'm just there to run the world.

In D&d, my most recent sandbox game has 5 shortish bullet points of campaign notes and half of them are names of monsters i wanted to try, name of the city they are in, main factions and who is at war with who. That's it. They got description of setting, city they are starting in, what's happening in city and immediate surrounding and that's pretty much it. Everything else is blank canvas. Players, trough their actions and interests are ones that give prompts. If they want explore ruins of ancient civilization, i make ruins. If they wanna start smuggling operation, i'll make something that's profitable so they can smuggle it (along with competition and authorities that wanna stop them). If they wanna do slice of life and just go around town, talk to people, do mundane stuff, we can do that to. This kind of play requires very engaged players who are both proactive and have developed both their characters and party motives and goals, along with plans of how to achieve them. Even then, people have sessions where they aren't at their A game. Then i throw some hooks or make them part of someone else's problem (wrong place, wrong time kind of stuff).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Most of my nWoD/CoD games were essentially sandboxes. They were very minimal prep, usually few short bulletpoints, but heavy on improv. One thing that made it easy to do is setting. I used real world in real time (so if first session was on 2.9.2012, in game it's also 2.9.2012). So, whatever happens in the world, it happens in game. Also, games always started in our home town and all characters needed to be local and know each other. With that in place, it's very easy to improv because everything is very familiar, i just did few supernatural spins on some stuff. Before starting game, everyone would told me how they came to know supernatural things are real ( be it they witnessed something, or their characters became something). Once game starts, it's all on players. What they want to do, how they wanna do it, where they wanna go etc. I'm just there to run the world.

With things like google maps, it is very easy to run modern world as a sandbox. Also I've found modern settings much easier to ad lib in general (I tend to know what kinds of stores and locations are going to be in a city for example: it is very easy to ad lib players going to a convenience store or an office building). In the 90s this was one of the things I liked about playing games like Vampire, you just had more intuitive sense of the layout of things than you would in a fantasy settings that is based on historical material and literary source material. I have never been to New York city, but I feel like I have had enough exposure through movies, TV, etc that I could swing the party ditching Maine for NY

 

[TheSword]

Probably the best sandbox I’ve seen and ran is Dungeons of Drakkenheim. Very well done.

• Very evocative setting and location that has a clear incentive to stay and explore.
• Excellent factions set up and roles which naturally drive rumours and exploration.
• Great NPCs. Well detailed, motivated and plausible
• A decent amount of mystery and exploration that makes it more than just combat.
• Smallish dungeons of 3-10 rooms with clear reasons to exist and themes.

For me this campaign is the best example I’ve seen so far of balancing all three pillars of play. It’s the new model that I will measure other campaigns against.

 

[Piperken]

An index of the changes between/across these versions can be found here: Classic Traveller Editions–A Section-by-Section Comparison

Comment to say thank you for this. I discovered my first exposure to Traveller was through the Starter Edition box set!

 

[Micah Sweet]

With things like google maps, it is very easy to run modern world as a sandbox. Also I've found modern settings much easier to ad lib in general (I tend to know what kinds of stores and locations are going to be in a city for example: it is very easy to ad lib players going to a convenience store or an office building). In the 90s this was one of the things I liked about playing games like Vampire, you just had more intuitive sense of the layout of things than you would in a fantasy settings that is based on historical material and literary source material. I have never been to New York city, but I feel like I have had enough exposure through movies, TV, etc that I could swing the party ditching Maine for NY

I used Google Maps for my near-future sandbox game. Started with my home city and then threw a tidal wave at it.

 

[payn]

Thank you for all this detail! I hope your third group is more like the first than the second.

My wife and I were in a kinda rpg of the month type group for a bit and while I understand why some folks enjoy the ludic, system-exploration novelty aspect of the hobby, we both prefer the prolonged story of the long campaign.

For reference of my prep that might be helpful, I have broken the Trojan Reach into 3 parts.
The Dust Belt

This area of space contains the Florian League trade path. It also has the tyrants of Tyr and the resultant war between systems. The war rages on and is often the subject of humanitarian projects and charity medical supplies and such for the region. The empires care not about the war as long as trade goes unmolested. The Glorious Empire Aslan upstarts send in a lot of mercs to fight in the region under the guise of helping the oppressed. The agenda seems to be about getting a foothold in the reach...

The Sindalan Main

This region is the middle of all the trade routes and thus furthest reach from the empires. Here is where most of the piracy happens (Theev the Nassau of Trojan Reach), as well as the Oghdman raiders territory. Again, the empires see occasional piracy as cost of business and give little notice to this region as long as the wheels of commerce keep moving efficiently. Drinax is recognized as a toothless old lion of an empire. The floating palace is place of curiosity as a marker of ages long gone for the Trojan Reach.

The Borderlands

This is the main trade route between the Imperials and Aslan empires serving as a neutral border between them. Thus, its a fairly stable, al beit, independent region of space in the Trojan Reach. Megacorps have invested much into these systems to turn them into commercial and industrial nodes of significance. Due to the treaty between the Aslan and Imperials, they allow the development as long as it benefits them more or less equally.


Adventure types are obviously a bit different between these. Though, agendas and situations dont always respect boundaries. I sprinkle old Sindalan lore like Captain Envai's bugout bunker and tomb of the unknown spacer around them to encourage travelling. Otherwise, The dust belt tends to be more militarized and combat focused. That or doing things around mercs fighting each other. The Sindalan main obviously has piracy and pirate politics and such. The oghdman raiders leave a ripe opportunity for some interesting Star Trek type adventures. Finally, the borderlands is mostly corporate espionage, techworld shenanigans, empire politics etc..

 

[TheSword]

The issue I have with hex-ploration is the amount of dead space. I found this particularly when running Tomb of Annihilation. It’s basically a pretty map with hex overlay because folks aren’t exploring hex by hex.

I compare this to Kingmaker Adventure path which made sure pretty much every hex had something interesting to find but 7 or 8 key areas. I thought this was the gold standard of hexploration.

Then I saw how Owlcat had interpreted that Hex map into a series of routes - following landmarks, roads, rivers, valleys, forest borders with points of interest along them. (Sample below) Successful survival or perception checks can identify additional points of interest off the beaten track leading to detours. This seemed to be a great balance between freedom of exploration without dead space. It’s easy to work out journey times between points and random encounters can work any way along their length.

To be clear, in a TTRPG you could always allow players to chart their own paths - maybe with survival checks to short cut to another route without getting lost. The routes aren’t as important as the points of interest they join together. Obviously clues and rumours could fix points of interest the players can travel to on the map allowing the player to work out the best way to get there.

If I was running ToA again this is definitely the approach I would take to jungle exploration.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I use hexes but I wouldn't call my campaigns Hexcrawls. The way I use them is mainly as a way of measuring distance and knowing when to roll for Survival to see if the players have an encounter.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I used Google Maps for my near-future sandbox game. Started with my home city and then threw a tidal wave at it.

I used it for a short zombie apocalypse game I ran some years ago and it worked pretty well. I never did see if saving the maps and importing them into my VTT of choice would have worked well, as all the combats ended up being indoors.

 

[Manbearcat]

I use hexes but I wouldn't call my campaigns Hexcrawls. The way I use them is mainly as a way of measuring distance and knowing when to roll for Survival to see if the players have an encounter.

Are these Survival checks that you're making (a) at a regular interval that is a fundamental part of the core procedures of the wildneress crawl (like Wandering Monsters in Moldvay or The Grind in Torchbearer) and attendant decision-space for the players? If not, are these (b) irregular intervals discernible by players so that their decision-points regarding map interaction (outfitting, navigation, exploration, camping, etc) can account for them?

Beyond that, (c) are the players able to "build-out" the conceptual encounter table via reconnaissance, divinations, doing research in local towns, consorting with local populations, etc so they can fold that into their decision-space?