The many types of Sandboxes and Open-World Campaigns

[kenada]

What I’ve done is told my players they can go off the side of the map if they really want, but they need to tell me that ahead of time, so I can prepare a new map, and nothing will ever take them in that direction. I also find the conversations about goal-setting useful. The result of those can then act as a constraint without my having to impose one.

 

[dragoner]

World building is neutral I feel, a rough frame to stretch the story over, the theme should be decided before, talking with the players. No sense prepping for one type, if everyone wants something different.

 

[Yora]

I'm not so much talking about the map but more about the focus and the framing of the campaign. What it is about and what elements of the world are relevant to the campaign or not.
That can always be adjusted when it becomes clear that certain things become much more interesting than initially planned. But there should still be a plan before you get to the point of making changes to it. Discovering the focus and structure of the campaign over the course of playing it may sound attractive on paper, but I think that's mostly blind hope to find a good campaign before everyone gets bored.

 

[dragoner]

Usually I let the players go, and it has run for years, sometimes not though, sometimes things fall apart. Still focus and structure seem to me better decided before the game starts. Part of this is that I like game to start in the middle, and not "in the tavern".

 

[kenada]

I'm not so much talking about the map but more about the focus and the framing of the campaign. What it is about and what elements of the world are relevant to the campaign or not.
That can always be adjusted when it becomes clear that certain things become much more interesting than initially planned. But there should still be a plan before you get to the point of making changes to it. Discovering the focus and structure of the campaign over the course of playing it may sound attractive on paper, but I think that's mostly blind hope to find a good campaign before everyone gets bored.

That’s the goal-setting conversation. When we first started my campaign, I showed the players a map, and they pointed out something they were interested in doing that they couldn’t do right from the start. Every session, we talk about and set goals. If they stop completing them, or if their goals take them away from the thing we established at the beginning (the campaign’s stakes question, so to speak), then it’s time to confirm whether that’s intentional (and the answer to the question becomes a firm “no, they did not do it”) or accidental. We can decide next steps based on how that conversation goes (start a new campaign, readjust, etc).

 

[Yora]

I had not actually been thinking about continuous worldbuilding as the campaign progresses. I somehow had it mentally filed away as something that belongs firmly into the Setup category, not the Progression category.

Of course you can expanding the worldbuilding of the setting to provide more support for the shifting focus of play. And perhaps even reduce barriers simply by adding material, without the need to contradict previously established facts.

 

[dragoner]

Contradictions can be attributed to an unreliable narrator. In my game, the world only solidifies when the players interact with it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I am of the opinion that both reward systems and worldbuilding should actively be designed to restrict player freedom. Complete freedom for player is not desirable and an active impediment to play. When everything can be done, then every option is equally valid and none any better than any other. In a sandbox, you need restrictions to enable the players to make choices.

I don't think this follows. Just because everything can be done does not mean everything has to be equally attractive. I suspect that's not what you mean from the rest of your post, though.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I had not actually been thinking about continuous worldbuilding as the campaign progresses. I somehow had it mentally filed away as something that belongs firmly into the Setup category, not the Progression category.

In practice, you can still find yourself doing that unless you vastly overprepare here; the scope you imagine and the scope the players will force may not be the same thing.

 

[Yora]

I don't think this follows. Just because everything can be done does not mean everything has to be equally attractive.

Yes. That's what I was getting at. Reward systems and worldbuilding should be set up to make certain ways of play particularly attractive, while making the rest comperatively less so.
Anything can be done, but a good setup has the players gravitate towards certain things that are meant to be the focus of the campaign. Without the GM having to force any of their actions.