The many types of Sandboxes and Open-World Campaigns

[Thomas Shey]

Trying to model how people learn and grow, as well as backslide, is beyond the capability of any RPG system I have ever seen.

A slow experience system would have still done a better job than, essentially, saying no one learns by doing. Honestly, the very pre-experience system itself seems to imply some of that in some of the advancements it gives.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I'm not advocating for XP or metagame carrots here, though it's possible that we have a difference opinion about what constitutes the latter. I am proposing here in-game rewards, hence "diagetic," much like in survival games (though not all). In a number survival games, you need to find materials, recipes, and supplies in order to survive and upgrade your gear/base/character. But acquiring those things requires open world engaging in open world exploration and facing dangers. Lather, rinse, repeat. This is the in-game progression treadmill rather than XP.

I've probably simply gotten you confused with someone else in the thread.

 

[overgeeked]

I haven't read the thread, but here's what I mean when I use these (and related) words and phrases. I generally run West Marches games (open-world sandbox with an open table). I do have a hex map most times, but I wouldn't call it a hexcrawl.

Sandbox. The players can try anything. Overcome obstacles in whatever creative ways they can think of. This is how it's used in video games and that's how I use it. In TTRPG circles that's typically called shenanigans and sandbox is used to mean open world.

Open World. The players can go where they want and engage with the world however they choose.

Hexcrawl. A game focused on exploration of an overworld area. Going hex by hex to see what's there. Usually sweating the details of travel time, food, water, wilderness survival and exploration, etc.

Pointcrawl. A game focused on exploration of an area. Going from point to point to see what's there. Abstracted form of a hexcrawl. Might or might not sweat the details of travel time, food, etc.

Dungeon Crawl. A game predominantly set in a dungeon. Usually sweating the details of travel time, food, water, light, exploration, etc.

Open Table. Whoever is at the session plays. Anyone can come or go as they please.

Closed Table. A set group of players.

Linear adventure. Not to be confused with a railroad. A series of locations or events that are generally played in a sequence. Linear adventures become railroads when the DM limits PCs' ability to creatively solve problems or forces the PCs to engage with certain content in certain ways.

Railroad. Is an odd one as it can be used as an opposite to both sandbox (limiting PCs' creative problem solving) and to the open world (limiting PCs' freedom of choice). "No you can't turn left, you have to go right" or "Okay, you can go left, but I'll just move the stuff from the right to the left so you still face what I wanted you too anyway".

West Marches. An open-world sandbox game that also has an open table.

 

[overgeeked]

That's never a problem I have encountered. more often, the problem is:

GM: Where do you want to go?
Players: Where should we go?
GM: That's the thing -- you can go anywhere! You could go to the bandit camp you guys heard about from the smith, or to that weird obelisk on the horizon. Anywhere!
Players: So, you want us to go to the bandit camp?
GM: [prepares random dragon attack against party]

That's the worst.

 

[overgeeked]

Also, a good sandbox isn't static. It's a living thing with multiple powers interacting with one another regardless of the existence of the PCs. This not only helps you figure what to do when the PCs wander off in a random direction, it also gives the PCs things to do that aren't just location based. There's a shadow war between the Assassin's Guild and the Necromancer Academy? Pick a side!

I think that's a key that a lot of people miss. The world doesn't sit around and wait for the PCs to arrive. The NPCs have goals, factions have goals, the monsters move around and they have goals. Etc. The more stuff the DM puts into the world, the more stuff the PCs have to bounce off of, and the more consequences there are for the PCs' actions and choices. If you set it up dense enough, all you have to do is start the first session and the rest of the campaign (or dozen campaigns) can be played just based off the logical consequences that go from there.

 

[overgeeked]

This is an aspect where system really starts to matter a lot. In theory, you can tell players that they can do whatever they want. But in practice the mechanics of the rules system influence what kinds of behaviors are beneficial or detrimental to the players. Character advancement being the obvious number one. Players will gravitate towards behaviors that increase the rate ot character advancement, like doing things that get them XP. Establishing clear rules for what will get them XP and how much is a very great tool to guide the campaign without ever giving the players any directions in where to go and what to do.

Yep. That's why I do something like the other poster where individual PCs have goals and get XP for accomplishing those, the party has a mission and gets XP for accomplishing that, I also do XP for gold as I enjoy the old-school exploration-based play that fosters. No XP for monsters though as the game I'm running isn't about slaughtering everything the PCs meet.

Another good one is supply consumption. In a campaign where food supplies are tracked for all PCs, hired NPC, and animals of the party, and running out of food has meaningful mechanical impact, many situations can play out very differently from a campaign in which food is not a mechanical factor. Lack of water or freezing or being burned to death outdoors are even more severe versions of that.

Absolutely. That's why I don't bother with worrying about those things in 5E. Too many bypasses and I win buttons in regards to food, water, and wilderness survival. It's just not worth house ruling or banning those to kludge the system into something where those would be meaningful.

Also weather. I find there’s often a lack of attention to weather and the effects that can have on play.

Hex flowers are great for weather.

It's called a Usage Dice and it's been around a while.
I find them really good and use them in all my Black Hack derived games. ( Very cool for a Ring of Wishes!)

I find usage dice to be way too gamey for my tastes. If it's worth tracking at all, it's worth tracking accurately. I think.

Ah. I was thinking who decided completion. I’ve played in enough games where the GM had a different idea about what I was trying to do that I ended up getting no XP for my aspiration/goal/whatever that I know how much it sucks. When I saw how BitD handles it (the player decides), I was like: yes, this is correct. I had already been using group consensus for individual goals, so it felt like a natural evolution.

I couldn't use that. The players would just endlessly game it and get infinite XP from the jump.

 

[Reynard]

I think that's a key that a lot of people miss. The world doesn't sit around and wait for the PCs to arrive. The NPCs have goals, factions have goals, the monsters move around and they have goals. Etc. The more stuff the DM puts into the world, the more stuff the PCs have to bounce off of, and the more consequences there are for the PCs' actions and choices. If you set it up dense enough, all you have to do is start the first session and the rest of the campaign (or dozen campaigns) can be played just based off the logical consequences that go from there.

One thing I have never mastered is an organized, efficient way of tracking all that movement (figurative and literal) happening that the PCs aren't directly a part of.

 

[overgeeked]

One thing I have never mastered is an organized, efficient way of tracking all that movement (figurative and literal) happening that the PCs aren't directly a part of.

Nor me. The best I've come up with is to only check on them when the PCs are nearby.

"No PCs have wandered through here in months...what have these factions been up to...roll some dice...oh, no..."

Even with spreadsheets, word processors, and wikis I just cannot keep it all straight. It's near infinite work...most of which will never see the light of day. So things like fronts and usage die connected to their plots and schemes is the best I've been able to do.

 

[overgeeked]

I don't think milestone XP works in a sandbox high on player agency because, well, there aren't any. I mean, "milestone" is literally a term for roads...

XP for actually doing things drives sandbox players. Milestone XP sets up required activities.

I use milestone XP, in part. It works great. "Go explore" is a milestone. "Discover something new" is a milestone. You just have to be a bit vague and loose with what milestones are and it'll work. Also letting players decide on their own goals is literally giving you milestones to use. Reward the behavior you want to see the players engage with.

 

[Reynard]

I use milestone XP, in part. It works great. "Go explore" is a milestone. "Discover something new" is a milestone. You just have to be a bit vague and loose with what milestones are and it'll work. Also letting players decide on their own goals is literally giving you milestones to use. Reward the behavior you want to see the players engage with.

I might be using a more specific definition of "milestone." If you get n XP for finding something new, that's not milestone XP, that's an XP policy that rewards exploration. A milestone, to me, suggests by it's very name that it is a step toward some specific goal, which itself implies a specific path.