Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Enaknomolos" data-source="post: 9643698" data-attributes="member: 7047434">For me, Traveller is the ultimate sandbox game, so I'm glad to see the thread has already gone there!I think the key is that Marc Miller took something in OD&D and ran with it more systematically than anyone else: Traveller just consists of modular procedures that work at different levels. Those three tiny 1977 books let you procedurally generate people, animals, encounters, patrons, starships, planets, sectors of space, interstellar markets, and probably more.I think Mongoose gets this. Their World Builder's Handbook contains degree-level astrophysics, complete with equations; but you can just use the bits you want and fold the rest into the simple system in their core book, which is compatible with 1977 system, which is still compatible with the referee making something up and putting numbers on it after. They take the permissive 'support if you want it; but, hey, don't sweat it' approach to a ridiculous extent.By, stereotypically, making you a retiree trying to make mortgage on their starship, Traveller also illustrates a really important thing about sandboxes that I think people sometimes struggle with: you need a big obvious motivation to get the players started. That motivation doesn't need to structure the whole campaign, but you do need an initial 'what are we trying to do here?'Another game that I think does sandboxes really well is UVG. The endpapers are a giant flowchart that structures gameplay. If you follow that procedure, an escalating open-ended pile of entertaining chaos is more or less guaranteed. I did no prep at all between sessions, but it worked great.Finally, I'd say people often associate 'sandbox' with OSR-style play, but I think it's broader than that. To me, the threats and referee procedures in Apocalypse World, plus all the world creation implicit in the playbooks, are basically a brilliant set of tools for creating a very specific sandbox. The emphasis is a bit more on exploring relationships and a bit less on exploring the world, but even that is only a matter of degree.</blockquote>

Verification