The many types of Sandboxes and Open-World Campaigns

[Reynard]

It is a primary one, and I don't think it, or any other reward needs to be used as a lever to get the players to do what the GM wants them to do. That sort of breaks the whole idea of a sandbox, which I had not thought of GM's doing that, and people being against it, even if it makes sense now, that is what is happening.

It doesn't have to be, or have to be present at all.

As to the rest: motivating players to engage the sandbox is the best way to keep it a sandbox. Some players come fully motivated. Others less so. Recognizing what kinds of rewards motivate players and using that knowledge is an important GM skill.

 

[dragoner]

It doesn't have to be, or have to be present at all.

As to the rest: motivating players to engage the sandbox is the best way to keep it a sandbox. Some players come fully motivated. Others less so. Recognizing what kinds of rewards motivate players and using that knowledge is an important GM skill.

It's also easy to reward them with a +1 at a milestone like the end of a campaign arc; sometimes its even cool to sit back and watch them build a backstory around it, like they were training zero-G in the cargo hold.

 

[Reynard]

It's also easy to reward them with a +1 at a milestone like the end of a campaign arc; sometimes its even cool to sit back and watch them build a backstory around it, like they were training zero-G in the cargo hold.

Ok. Sure. What are we disagreeing about?

 

[dragoner]

Ok. Sure. What are we disagreeing about?

That this is not a reward, or not rewarding anything:

It is what I use, though in Cepheus Engine, at the end of an adventure or campaign arc, +1 to a stat or skill. There are some variables in there, trying and failing I'll let someone roll, studying too, and I look at time in general; it could almost be said that time is xp. Real world as well, if we are doing 2-3 sessions a month, then they should be getting rewarded at least every 2-3 months, maybe more.

 

[Reynard]

That this is not a reward, or not rewarding anything:

Did I say that? All I said at the start of our interaction was that it doesn't have to be XP to be a reward. And that was based on an obvious misunderstanding of what I thought you said. So I'm still confused.

To be clear: I don't think you need XP in order to reward PCs. There are lots of alternatives. At the same time I think rewards of some sort are important.

 

[dragoner]

Did I say that? All I said at the start of our interaction was that it doesn't have to be XP to be a reward. And that was based on an obvious misunderstanding of what I thought you said. So I'm still confused.

To be clear: I don't think you need XP in order to reward PCs. There are lots of alternatives. At the same time I think rewards of some sort are important.

That was the conversation.

Anyways, I like a variety of rewards, and I find the elusive xp to be as good or better than a finance, or gear reward. I will often use prestige and have them get score in that, and sometimes random luck, because that is cool, semi-realistic too.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Reward systems of some sort seem to be pretty key to sandbox style games. The open nature of such a game benefits from the direction that rewards offer.

I don’t think that XP needs to be the only reward system, but advancement of some kind is usually a good idea.

 

[Ixal]

Want to see a sandbox done right? Play the old Fallout 2 video game.
You can go everywhere you want (and face the consequences for it which can include a quick death) but also has an expected path for you to thake through hints and locations placed on expected travel routes. Still it never becomes a railroad and leaves you freedoms.

 

[Aldarc]

No. As you can see, I got cut off. Its usually based on time, or if a formal adventure is in use, a certain point in process (though certainly MMI is entirely possible too). As an example I used earlier, Fragged Empire has you level every three session/levels. I've occasionally had it drag out to four from sessions cut short, but its not really discretionary in any general term.

Okay. I see. But I will say that milestone leveling can sometimes become "Mother May I Level?" when it's unstructured or detached really from player character action. It's sometimes only attached to the whims of the GM, deciding when they think is best. I'm not a fan of milestone leveling that amounts to "GM says."

For something similar to what you mention, Shadow of the Demon Lord uses the completion of the adventure/module, with adventures being categorized in four level-based tiers: Starting (Level 0), Novice (Levels 1-2), Expert (Levels 3-6), and Master (Levels 7-10). One benefit of this structure is how it tends to shut up the "How much XP do we get for that?" and "Have we earned a milestone level now?" players. You get a level once the adventure is done.

This is likely not, however, a progression structure that I would use for sandbox or open world games. As mentioned before, as a result of survival video games I am now more inclined towards providing diagetic rewards for the character progression treadmill.

 

[aramis erak]

That's just the thing that kept my up last night. "Railroading" is a thing that a GM can do. But does that mean that "a Railroad" is a thing that actually exists?
This is getting weirdly onological very quickly.

Yes, the railroad exists. The most egregious are the linear dungeons... only one way to go, so in you go...

Then why have XP at all?

Classic Travekker doesn't have XP, It is often (even by me) run as a "motivated sandbox"...
You have a ship. You have a crew. The goal is to "keep flying" and, often, "Pay the bills or outrun the skip tracer," possbily with "Amass a couple MCr, and retire somewhere comfy."
You also have patron encounters, and random encounters.

The metric of reward is in play itself, and possibly in the wealth of the PCs.

That said, it's not without skill improvement... that's just painfully slow (multiple character years kind of slow).