The many types of Sandboxes and Open-World Campaigns

[hawkeyefan]

No. In the sense of “My quest is to walk across the street, there I completed it, that’s 1,000,000 XP. Thanks.” Unless the DM has control over what a quest is, when it’s completed, and what the rewards are, most players will simply award themselves 20th level and declare victory.

Yeah. That’s players. That’s what they do when given free reign. I’ve never seen a single player not try to game every system and subsystem they encounter when given the chance.

No. That may describe your players, but it does not describe all players.

I can say that because I’ve been a player in games where XP rewards are decided by the players and I’ve not abused the system, and I’ve also run such games and never saw the system abused in such a way.

Honestly, I think you may need to examine how you approach your games and how you interact with players. The likelihood that all the players you’ve had have all been these untrustworthy, gonna-game-the-system types seems far less than the likelihood that you foster such a dynamic.

Seriously, you may want to examine that a bit.

 

[Hussar]

I’m thinking @overgeeked might be projecting just a teensy bit.

 

[overgeeked]

The bar isn’t even that high! Goals are meant to be reminders to players to do something during the session. If players want to make boring crap goals, they’re going to get a boring crap game.

“Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.”

 

[kenada]

“Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.”

Doubling down on the cynicism? Really? You need to find a better class of player. They’re out there.

Edit: Are we even talking about the same thing? I don’t care about optimizers. They’re system dependent. Some systems have it worse than others. The bad faith players I’m talking about are ones who aren’t interested in engaging with the game’s premise and just want to be stupid. If someone just wants to make a number go up on a sheet regardless of what the game’s about, they’re missing the point. That’s a social problem, and it’s something the GM needs to handle out of game. There’s no reason to put up with that.

 

[Hussar]

Maybe stop playing with mmo players? This absolute distrust of players is so toxic.

 

[overgeeked]

Doubling down on the cynicism? Really?

At least you edited the rest of that line. That's nice.

You need to find a better class of player. They’re out there.

Been looking for almost 40 years...haven't found (m)any yet.

Edit: Are we even talking about the same thing? I don’t care about optimizers.

I do. They suck the fun out of the game because, as you say, they're missing the point.

The bad faith players I’m talking about are ones who aren’t interested in engaging with the game’s premise and just want to be stupid.

That's a broad statement. What exactly are you talking about here?

If someone just wants to make a number go up on a sheet regardless of what the game’s about, they’re missing the point.

Agreed.

That’s a social problem, and it’s something the GM needs to handle out of game.

It's the overwhelming majority of players in my experience. As I said, the bulk of the players I've dealt with in going on 40 years.

There’s no reason to put up with that.

Again, my choices are: 1) never play in or run a game, or; 2) deal with players like this. There's no 3.

 

[Malmuria]

I’ve thought about doing milestone leveling in a dnd game where the players decide when to level. Basically it would just be the players communicating what power and complexity level they’d like to play at. So what if they level themselves up to lvl 20? Basically that’s the same as deciding to run an epic tier game.

 

[Hussar]

/snip

Again, my choices are: 1) never play in or run a game, or; 2) deal with players like this. There's no 3.

Are you serious about wanting this to change? Because, honestly, from a totally outsider point of view, the only common element I'm seeing here is you. Which means, again, judging with very little information here, that it's possible that you might be part of the problem. It sounds like you've gotten into this competition loop with your players and somehow it just continues to escalate every time you play with any group of players.

So, here's my totally unsolicited and poorly thought out bit of advice. The next campaign you run, just say yes. To everything. No matter what. Player wants to play a jedi in a bunny mech suit armed with pocket nukes? You say yes. To everything. Don't try to manage balance. Don't try to manage anything. You run whatever scenarios and campaign you want to run, but, whatever the players ask for, they get.

I submit, that after a very short adjustment period, the players will stop pulling against you and resisting you. They will govern themselves and each other FAR more effectively than you ever can. Give them 100% of the power over breaking the campaign and it becomes astonishing just how self-limiting players will become. They will be far, FAR more aware of game balance than you and will act on it.

I know it's not an easy thing to do. But, it's worked for me very, very well. I actually wind up being the one to suggest more powerful options to my players frequently. One player wanted an owl folk in my latest campaign and another player objected saying flight was too powerful. I didn't really care and said yes. And, funnily enough, the character hasn't dominated anything. Totally in keeping with the rest of the party. Having flight has mattered in a couple of scenarios - but, overall? Not a big deal at all.

Players are far, far more self-regulating than you will ever be. But, if you TELL them that they have to regulate, they will resist you to the end of time. Tell them to go left and they'll go right, just out of spite. But ask them which way they want to go and they'll almost always go the way you wanted them to go in the first place.

 

[kenada]

At least you edited the rest of that line. That's nice.

Yeah, sorry. I found the comparison exasperating. There’s a different dynamic between video games and tabletop RPGs. The latter isn’t dependent on an upstream developer to provide content or constrained to do just a prescribed list of things. It would be terrible to put the kind of grinding players tend to optimize around in MMOs into a tabletop RPG.

Been looking for almost 40 years...haven't found (m)any yet.

Unless you’re doing open table or public play, surely you’re able to filter players over time until you end up with a group that aligns with what you want to do?

I do. They suck the fun out of the game because, as you say, they're missing the point.

I’ve built and played optimized characters. It’s pretty fun. I would guess many of the people you decry are also having fun. That’s why I don’t care all that much about optimized characters. The players are still usually engaging with the rest of the game, especially since mine aren’t just about overcoming mechanical challenges, so it only becomes a problem in certain cases (e.g., when one specialist is way better than another at the same thing, which is highly system-dependent).

That's a broad statement. What exactly are you talking about here?

Games are about something. In mine, the players pick what they want to do for the campaign (“loot the fallen capital” in my current game), and then we play to find out what happens. That’s the premise. I expect players to engage with what the game is about and not be disruptive to that end.

I played in a group that had a player who was notorious for being disruptive. After he got his character exiled in the first hour of play in L5R, they told a story of how he got the party TPK’d after offending a bunch of NPCs. Why would you invite back a player who disrupts and destroys games habitually?

It's the overwhelming majority of players in my experience. As I said, the bulk of the players I've dealt with in going on 40 years.

I’ve been playing only a couple of decades, but my experience has been that the number of really problematic players has been in the low single digits. Not questioning your experience, just saying how mine differs.

Again, my choices are: 1) never play in or run a game, or; 2) deal with players like this. There's no 3.

That sucks.

 

[dragoner]

Why would you invite back a player who disrupts and destroys games habitually?

I would not either, in my experience, disruptive players are not fixable by the game rules, they will always find a way to sabotage the game.