What makes a Sandbox?

[Nagol]

Hm. Take a look back at the OP for a moment. "What elements must be present in a game for it to be a sandbox?" Looking for definition by inclusion.

Much of the following discussion has been definition by exclusion - looking for things that make something "not a sandbox".

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. If the thing also has lasers, that doesn't make it not a duck. It is just a duck with frikkin' lasers.

One can take the question one step further - What can a GM do to foster and use player-direction?

There are different levels of player direction. Most of those levels make the game not-a-sandbox.

No player interaction -- no game. The players are essentially listening to narration

Player interaction through tactical control of characters is a static universe -- heroquest or equivalent board game.

Player interaction through character control limited by DM/OOG constraints -- not a sandbox. This limitation can be a "you don't do that", automatic failure, a railroad track, or the refusal to present any other opportunities to the group until the current one is dealt with.

Player interaction through character limited only by environmental constraints -- may be a sandbox depending on how the DM prepares and presents material for interaction

Player interaction through character control and collaborative imput into world design -- not a sandbox

Player interaction through shared story-telling and narrative control -- collaborative storytelling.


At least as fundamental is how the DM prepares the material for the environment. I think there are a few telling signs the DM can check to see if he is prepared to sandbox.

• Is the DM willing to live with the campaign consequence of any plot being ignored / refused / undermined?
• Is the DM willing to present the material to the group and abide by their choices as they affect the game world regardless of a preferred outcome?
• Is the DM willing to place any behavioural / action constraints expected of the players into the game environment?
• Is the DM willing to examine the actions of the PCs and have the environment react?

I think sandboxes work best as status quo universes, but I'm uncertain that that is a actual requirement.

 

[pawsplay]

Whether you are playing a sandbox game or a more programmatic game, multiple ways to succeed is a good idea. The PCs should be allowed to move about and try different things. The fundamental distinction I would make is this:

1. In a very sandboxy game, there are multiple interesting things to do present in the environment.
2. In a very programmatic game, the planned adventure is the only game in town.

In a hybrid game, then, you would expect there to be more than one or two possible "plots," but less than lots. The playbook for a sandbox game is a campaign sourcebook and your notes on local places and events, your playbook for a programmatic game is a planned adventure. The hybrid games uses all of the above, and really highlights the meaning of the word module.

 

[pawsplay]

There are different levels of player direction. Most of those levels make the game not-a-sandbox.

I'm not sure I have followed all of these ideas to their ends, but I like your point that there are more categories of play than sandbox and not-sandbox.

 

[Janx]

I'm arguing that if there are no dragons in a sandbox setting and you want the DM to include some then you should be able to talk to him out of character.

Even this can be quite complicated.

What if in my world, there are no dragons. Or as in one campaign I ran, they were the hidden masterminds of the big epic conflict and had led the world to believe they were only myth? Thus, no dragons to be found (barring REALLY exhaustive effort by the PCs).

What if the land is presently being overrun by rust monsters.

Sure, you want to go fight dragons, but the world is going to pot if you don't deal with the problem,

Does this become a negotiation between the DM and players? There are some game elements that dominate the game until dealt with.

Plus, there's the factor of the nagging child syndrome. If you keep whining that you want to fight a dragon and get a flaming longsword, it'll be a cold day in hell until you get one.

If there aren't any dragons around these parts, you might just have to accept that. If you want to do murder mysteries (maybe you just saw Sherlock Holmes), you might want to start a detective agency. There are some elements of influencing the GM that the players can do, some they can't.

I think this is a challenge of just about any gaming style. Even AdventurePath comes up to "we don't want to do a murder mystery" or not.

 

[Cyronax]

I dunno if I'd qualify that as "ceasing to be a sandbox", though. I don't think a sandbox stops being a sandbox just because the PCs have decided to spend 10 sessions pursuing a single goal.

-----

The use of the word "trajectory" is quite brilliant, I think.

First, I didn't mean that focus on one quest to the exclusion of others makes a campaign lose elements of sandbox-style. I was trying convey that such an occurrence is normal, in fact it shows that the world ENABLES realistic planning and is more than just a series of site-based encounters.

Somewhat a tangent .... but just look at our political debates in the real world.

Over the last month the cable news has focused on one BIG domestic issue, which I'll leave unnamed. Then just a few days ago, the legislative schedule had cleared slightly, but we were then confronted by a big foreign national security crisis.

I digress into real world examples, because I tend to look at the pace of events in the real world and try to figure out how different NPC's and factions would operate in a living complex sandbox. (With or without the involvement of the PCs).

For instance, in my last campaign, I had a lot of airships and a lot of fortified bases that were being used for airship manufacture. It was a tense international situation, because these different fortified bases and airship flotillas belonged to several aerial-focused city-states.

This was all in the background and had little relevance to the self-chosen quests the PCs were on. BUT the airship arms race actually affected who the PCs might run into in several instances, because some big NPCs were ordered to remain with their respective nation's strategic military-industrial nodes.

All this setup helped me figure out ways to make the world seem more complex and real to the PCs. That was my intent, it falls to my players to say if that type of planning was beneficial to all of their individual types of play.

But that's an example of what plan for to build what I see as a sandbox style campaign.

---

Also, I like the term 'trajectory' too. It sounds like something you'd use for Game Theory .. i.e. Prisoners' Dilemma.

I took a few Game Theory classes for my international security/econ degree in undergrad, and I always found the modeling and underlying themes were helpful for worldbuilding and DMing.


C.I.D.

 

[Nagol]

Even this can be quite complicated.

What if in my world, there are no dragons. Or as in one campaign I ran, they were the hidden masterminds of the big epic conflict and had led the world to believe they were only myth? Thus, no dragons to be found (barring REALLY exhaustive effort by the PCs).

Then you tell the player that unfortunately, he doesn't know of the whereabouts of those mythical creatures and perhaps he needs to contact a sage / high-level bard / other font of obscure knowledge.

What if the land is presently being overrun by rust monsters.

Sure, you want to go fight dragons, but the world is going to pot if you don't deal with the problem,


Does this become a negotiation between the DM and players? There are some game elements that dominate the game until dealt with.

That up to the players and the consequences they can tolerate. If none like metal anyway (druid / monk / wizard group) and they don't want to get involved, it's going to be a bad year for the iron smelters!

Don't include the plot unless you are willing to go through with the consequences.

Plus, there's the factor of the nagging child syndrome. If you keep whining that you want to fight a dragon and get a flaming longsword, it'll be a cold day in hell until you get one.

If there aren't any dragons around these parts, you might just have to accept that. If you want to do murder mysteries (maybe you just saw Sherlock Holmes), you might want to start a detective agency. There are some elements of influencing the GM that the players can do, some they can't.

I think this is a challenge of just about any gaming style. Even AdventurePath comes up to "we don't want to do a murder mystery" or not.

If the group is presented with a murder mystery and chooses to ignore it then the murderer will be caught or not by outside forces. Consequences to the group will depend on how the group was involved and the group can move on to something that catches their fancy.

 

[pawsplay]

Based on the last couple of pages, I think I want to shift my view that sandbox play is an independent trait bipolar with programmatic games and instead say that sandbox games are a particular play style that involve more than one variable. however, I don't think status quo encounters are one such characteristic, they are not present in all sandbox RPGs (and cannot be in games that used tailored encounters or flat character development) and not in all CRPGs to which you would apply the term.

My list so far:
- The primary meta-game goal is discovery/exploration, which subordinates the meta-game goals of plot and cohesion
- The game is high on GM control of background, but low on GM control of events. In terms of trajectories, they remain constant until affected by the PCs, and the secondary effects of the PCs' actions.
- The environment is rich in things to do, rather than one thing being obviously more interesting than other choices.
- Encounters and events are emergent rather than programmatic.
- When the players affect the environment, the GM presents logical consequences from a realistical standpoint, rather than a poetic viewpoint.

Tweaking any one of those items would change the game. For instance, if the players defined the world collaboratively and asked the GM to "tell them a story" with them as the characters, you would have what White wolf calls a storytelling style but which I might more specifically call an existentialist-storytelling style. In poetic terms, it resembles the storytelling style of someone telling a bedtime story... meaning is intended, but the audience presents the situation and no particular end to the story is mandated.

Conversely, if it has most of the sandbox elements, but there is really only one interesting thing to do, it looks like the classic delve/quest style.

 

[S'mon]

If it is, then it is less far toward sandbox along the sliding scale between sandbox and linear than some other campaigns.

A definition of sandbox that requires there be no box seems silly to me, but I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

 

[S'mon]

There are different degrees of input, however. There's a continuum between "I want to fight a dragon!" and "Here's the lair of a dragon that I mapped up for my PC to go explore". The latter end of that scale would, IMO, move us pretty solidly out of sandbox territory; but the other end of the scale wouldn't.

Yes, I basically agree. If the player says "I want to find a dragon to fight", the sandbox GM may:

(a) Have already decided there are no dragons in the campaign area, the PC is out of luck.
(b) Have placed one or more dragons in the campaign area; he will adjudicate the PC's search for the dragon(s).
(c) Not have determined draconic presence in the campaign area. He may then decide there are or are not dragons, extrapolating from existing campaign elements, or assign a probability and roll - eg 1e AD&D includes % chances that any particular sort of monster is present in an area where it could be found.

If the GM has already decided there are no dragons in the area, but retcons in a dragon lair, where before there was none, as a response to player request, that seems to me to be an approach to world building which is against the sandbox ethos. If it is more fun for all concerned then it's not a problem, though. It's not inherently badwrongfun.

 

[Mark]

A definition of sandbox that requires there be no box seems silly to me, but I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

The "box" part of "sandbox" is what figuratively separates it from the actual world of reality. It is not meant to imply that any limit or restriction can be placed on it such that one person can define its limitations for another (except insofar as what is agreed upon by mutual participants in a game). It's an arbitrary outline to metaphorically define it as a virtual space.

In context with your previous statement, and my clarification, that is to say that it is not a "defined play area" as a concept, only in practice.