What makes a Sandbox?

[Cyronax]

What on Earth are you talking about???.

Aristo,

I don't mean to call you out personally, but would people please leave the poster they're quoting in their post?! These are 10+ page threads and your often typically out of context one-liner responses to people without proper reference are confusing if other posters want to comment.

I post semi-regularly and in just the last two days I've been seriously following the multiple 'sandbox' threads I've seen this practice continually.

I've been following EN World for years and referencing an author you're quoting is typical practice.

With Respect,
C.I.D.

 

[Snoweel]

What on Earth are you talking about???

If the players choose an adventure, in the original D&D sense of the term, then there is no need for the DM to do anything in particular with an orc patrol. The adventure is, in fact, whatever the players choose to do.

If their characters are living in an inn, an undetermined amount of time after their previous adventure/venture/quest/the-most-recent-loose-end-of-interest-has-been-satisfactorily-wrapped-up, and the elements required for the adventure the players and DM have decided upon don't yet exist in the PCs' perceptions - e.g. an Orc horde, a lost Dwarven city, a planar portal, a certain dangerous artifact, etc - then they have to be revealed to the characters (and the players obviously) in a way that maintains verisimilitude.

Supposing the NPC-coming-to-moan-about-it has been overdone lately, then the hook needs to be delivered another way (an Orc patrol, a Dwarven tomb-robber, a wizard's diary, an abandoned village, etc).

If the players are in fact role-playing, then there certainly is a "hook" -- if only the notion that a quest might turn up the Fountain of Youth or the Seven Cities of Gold. The object need not "exist" in the imaginary world in order for such an adventure to be undertaken, any more than it was necessary in the real world.

I think you make a lot of assumptions, to which other posters aren't privy, which make you frustrated and rude when people don't understand you.

 

[Ariosto]

No, Snoweel, I'm frustrated because I don't understand your assumptions, to which none of us is privy!

Why the heck must D&D players instead play some waiting game for a "hook [that] needs to be delivered"? Where in the world did you get that notion???

There is no need at all for such "Mother may I". If you were somehow able to impose that on the rest of us, then of course our player-driven games would be 'impossible'.

 

[Snoweel]

No, Snoweel, I'm frustrated because I don't understand your assumptions, to which none of us is privy!

Puerile.

Why the heck must D&D players instead play some waiting game for a "hook [that] needs to be delivered"? Where in the world did you get that notion???

I just explained that. In my last post.

If the players, out of character, and the DM had a discussion about where they'd like the game to go, and that direction involved a location, event or NPC the characters were not aware of, then it must be presented to them in-game, else you have to assume (retcon) they already know about it; that it has already been part of the characters' experience of the world.

There is no need at all for such "Mother may I". If you were somehow able to impose that on the rest of us, then of course our player-driven games would be 'impossible'.

Could you re-phrase this in light of my clarification/reiteration? Because I don't know what you're talking about. Are you making some kind of assumption about my intent in this thread?

 

[Ariosto]

If the players, out of character ...

'Nuff said.

There is a TV cartoon that is "Dungeons & Dragons" because that's what TSR called it.

My D&D, though, is not a cartoon.

There are different kinds of things that are all "role playing games" because that's what someone chooses to call them.

My D&D is a game that one plays from within a role, not a production directed "out of character". That, to me, is a pretty fundamental part of its special appeal. YMMV.

I want actually to explore and discover, not just go through the motions like Shakespeare strutting in his Globe. The procedure you would add might well 'improve' the classic game from your perspective, but it would ruin the experience that is my reason for playing it in the first place, the very aspect that originally set it apart from previous game forms.

Different strokes for different blokes, I guess.

 

[S'mon]

If the players, out of character, and the DM had a discussion about where they'd like the game to go, and that direction involved a location, event or NPC the characters were not aware of, then it must be presented to them in-game, else you have to assume (retcon) they already know about it; that it has already been part of the characters' experience of the world.

In a sandbox game, the PCs shouldn't be sitting at the Inn waiting for plot hooks. In the Gygaxian system which is now called sandboxing, the PCs proactively seek out information, looking for lucrative adventure opportunities. The PCs then choose which leads to follow up on. There is no OOC discussion or GM retconning. There is no, or minimal, cooperative worldbuilding. The emphasis is on exploration of a GM-determined environment, the sandbox, and surviving/defeating its challenges. Long term, the PCs seek to impose themselves on the environment by bending it to their will.

 

[Snoweel]

'Nuff said.

There is a TV cartoon that is "Dungeons & Dragons" because that's what TSR called it.

My D&D, though, is not a cartoon.

There are different kinds of things that are all "role playing games" because that's what someone chooses to call them.

My D&D is a game that one plays from within a role, not a production directed "out of character". That, to me, is a pretty fundamental part of its special appeal. YMMV.

I want actually to explore and discover, not just go through the motions like Shakespeare strutting in his Globe. The procedure you would add might well 'improve' the classic game from your perspective, but it would ruin the experience that is my reason for playing it in the first place, the very aspect that originally set it apart from previous game forms.

Different strokes for different blokes, I guess.

Quite a fundamental difference in strokes too, it would seem.

Some DMs are open to the idea that their game could be improved with some player input.

In a sandbox game, the PCs shouldn't be sitting at the Inn waiting for plot hooks.

Let's do away with the insulting strawmen shall we?

There might be loads of plot hooks dangling around waiting for the PCs, who are only sitting in an inn because that's where they finished the last session but the players have decided none of the hooks seem interesting. They might tell the DM that his setting contains none of the kinds of challenges or situations that appeal to them but could we maybe have something like (blah)?

If the elements of (blah) don't exist in the setting then the players can surely ask the DM to include them. I understand they could always go elsewhere but for some people, finding a game isn't so easy. And anyway, a good DM should be able to accomodate his players.

 

[pawsplay]

Let's do away with the insulting strawmen shall we?

I don't understand what you are saying at all, Snoweel. "In a sandbox game, the PCs shouldn't be sitting at the Inn waiting for plot hooks," is so bloody obvious, it borders on restating the definition of a sandbox game.

 

[ExploderWizard]

There might be loads of plot hooks dangling around waiting for the PCs, who are only sitting in an inn because that's where they finished the last session but the players have decided none of the hooks seem interesting. They might tell the DM that his setting contains none of the kinds of challenges or situations that appeal to them but could we maybe have something like (blah)?

If the elements of (blah) don't exist in the setting then the players can surely ask the DM to include them. I understand they could always go elsewhere but for some people, finding a game isn't so easy. And anyway, a good DM should be able to accomodate his players.

If the existing elements in an area do not appeal to the PC's then they should haul thier behinds out of the inn and go search for it. If the DM has nothing happening in the rest of the known multiverse except "the dungeon" then he /she fails.

Pc's need to be proactive if they are picky about the types of adventures they want. Sitting around and requesting that such adventures be served up to them is player failure.

 

[Snoweel]

I don't understand what you are saying at all, Snoweel. "In a sandbox game, the PCs shouldn't be sitting at the Inn waiting for plot hooks," is so bloody obvious, it borders on restating the definition of a sandbox game.

That's why it's an insulting strawman. That quote that is "so bloody obvious" was in response to something I wrote, yet had nothing to do with it.

I never said the PCs were sitting around in an inn waiting. I said they finished the last session there. In fact, I said this by way of clarification:

There might be loads of plot hooks dangling around waiting for the PCs, who are only sitting in an inn because that's where they finished the last session but the players have decided none of the hooks seem interesting. They might tell the DM that his setting contains none of the kinds of challenges or situations that appeal to them but could we maybe have something like (blah)?

That's what I said, and it in no way implies that the PCs are sitting around waiting for a plot hook. Instead, the PCs are in an inn because the players are between sessions, and because they don't like any of the hooks on offer, they have approached the DM with a proposal.

If the existing elements in an area do not appeal to the PC's then they should haul thier behinds out of the inn and go search for it. If the DM has nothing happening in the rest of the known multiverse except "the dungeon" then he /she fails.

Even if the DM provided rumours about a dozen dungeons of varying types, these players still might not be satisfied because they don't want to engage in open exploration. They want a defined quest beyond killing monsters and taking their stuff (and no they don't have a problem with killing monsters and taking their stuff, they just want that to be secondary to the mission).

And personally I don't like dungeons, for a variety of reasons.

Pc's need to be proactive if they are picky about the types of adventures they want. Sitting around and requesting that such adventures be served up to them is player failure.

What if they want a mystery to solve or a plot to thwart? They can't just go find one if they don't know where to look. I don't like the concept of Adventurer's Guilds, and asking all their contacts if they "have any mysteries to solve or plots to thwart" sounds kind of hokey.

Your information gathering model seems to imply there is nothing going on that isn't freely available knowledge to somebody that just goes and looks around, as though the PCs can go to the elven internet cafe and just Google 'secrets'.

There's no proactivity involved in becoming privy to secrets. They're the kind of thing that either falls in your lap or it doesn't.