What makes a Sandbox?

[ExploderWizard]

Could one run a sandbox where the PCs are not strangers to the campaign area? Where their backgrounds can potentially have a greater impact on the setting?

Certainly. The PC's starting in a small town that they have spent thier entire lives in, is a common beginning point in some campaigns.

But does it invalidate a campaign as 'sandbox'? Or does it just make the campaign less of one?

Or does the distinction not even matter?

Authorial control outside the scope of the character drifts the game out of rpg waters to say nothing of sandbox style.

Where is the discovery in such a game? An author reading his own book for the first time still knows what will happen. If the group does not enjoy exploration/discovery then there are other playstyles available.

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[Umbran]

Now, I have something else to add. This post is entirely rhetorical, and I don't expect, or want, responses to it. However, there's some things that ought to be said.

Yes, a couple people who have been repeatedly rude have been booted from this conversation. Many of you may be sitting back either happy, or wondering what took us so long. I want you to think on something else.

The fact of the matter is that it takes two or more to tango. How many of you failed to disengage? Think back, and consider whether you "fed the troll". We have an ignore function - you don't even have to see posts by people who say things you don't like, much less have to respond to them.

Sandbox or other styles of play do not have honor that must be defended or torn down. Nobody gets to claim ownership of them. Nobody is going to "win" a discussion on the internet. You earn no points or honor for having the last word, or making someone else look bad.

The time when you feel most compelled to respond is probably the time EN World most needs you to step away. We are talking about games, folks. Entertainments. Hobbies. If you think defending your way of doing a hobby is more important than treating other people well, EN World is probably not the place to have the discussion. If taking people down a peg or two is your goal, EN World is not the place for you.

 

[howandwhy99]

Collectively creating the world as a group around the PCs is something I foresee happening, at least minimally, every game session. However, my players do not know when they are adding to the world and when they are not during actual play. That is part of nature of playing the game IMO. Creating a background out of game is more to the heart of truly collaborative creation given my understanding of the word because the players know definitively these things exist. I still work with them to incorporate those elements into the hidden rules, but they are the creator. I do this on a descriptive level with the players until they are satisfied and consider it part of playing the game because it often leads to revealing aspects of the hidden rules.

An exploration game must have hidden elements, unknowns, kept from the players. If it doesn't, then exploration is not really what the group or game is about (barring the introversive game of self exploration of one's own wants and desires). A game of exploring something exterior to one's self means both the players and PCs are strangers to whatever parts of the world not created in the backgrounds. Backgrounds can have a big impact on the configuration of the world, but they still require most details to be unknowns for the players to discover via exploration.

I think a good primary characteristic to add to the definition of sandbox is the spatial world exists in every direction for the PCs to explore. Like drawing a maze and starting those on the other side of a screen in the middle, the maze continues in every direction with enough drawn to last the length of a game session. More may drawn between sessions depending on the endpoint of the last.

More than just the spatial aspect can be predetermined and enlarged in this manner, but I think the above is what most folks think of as a sandbox campaign. And I'm not pressing to make it any more than that: a nonlinear exploration of a fictional world. Can G1-3 or another adventure path exist within this world? Sure, I don't see why not. But if the "maze" is in front of a screen being drawn up by players together, than I do not believe the game is a sandbox game. That's just my honest opinion. I see the other as a game of making a maze together and not solving one, a necessary component to external discovery. Are the players discovering their own wants and desires in such a collaborative game where they jointly draw up the maze? Sure, but there are no unknowns about the fiction to explore. In fact, unknowns would be detrimental to play because one cannot explore their own feelings toward a concept never presented to be addressed.

 

[Cyronax]

A few months ago our group finished running the Savage Tide adventure path, and we saw our campaign go from a fairly "railroady" (not a true railroad, per say) campaign to a more wide open "sandboxy" campaign.


And I think a campaign can switch from sandbox to not-sandbox (or vice versa) pretty easily, as in my example above. The campaign can start out as a big sandbox with five or six hooks the PCs can bite, but if they bite into one hook and keep going with that hook, only biting on other hooks that look related to the first hook, then the DM may choose not to introduce any more hooks and keep going with that one plot-string, taking the campaign away from "sandbox mode". Then later on if the PCs seem to be getting tired of that one plot-string the DM can start introducing more hooks again and bring the campaign back into "sandbox mode".

So, to sum up, I feel like "sandbox" has more to do with the number of hooks available to the PCs than anything else. More hooks = more sandbox, fewer hooks = less sandbox.

I wanted to go back to Mekuri's post, since I think it got overlooked.

I totally agree with your characterization of moving between a linear (or directed) campaign mode to an open or sandbox campaign mode. I think the number of plot hooks can ebb and flow normally over time, especially if you're playing in a complex campaign that leans more to the sandbox side of the continuum more often than not.

I think this is a good thing and just represents that when the PCs are busy with a BIG priority quest that they may or may not have generated for themselves, that other matters tend to fall by the wayside for awhile.

While persuing their mission, their probably less likely to just to blanket Streetwise or research skill checks in cities or sites to seek out new quests, since the one they're on is pretty important. Maybe?

C.I.D.

 

[Janx]

I think a good primary characteristic to add to the definition of sandbox is the spatial world exists in every direction for the PCs to explore. Like drawing a maze and starting those on the other side of a screen in the middle, the maze continues in every direction with enough drawn to last the length of a game session. More may drawn between sessions depending on the endpoint of the last.

so a sandbox can have a location based emphasis.

a DM makes a ton of locations in all directions around the PC.

I would assume that the DM might plan out to a certain radius. If the PCs venture farther, he'd stop the game and make more content, or make it up on the fly, as such "making new content at the edges" is just a function of resolving the PCs looking at what's not been documented yet.

As for whether a murder mystery can happen, it assumes a murder happens. If the PCs declare they open a detective agency, it's proably obvious to the DM to make some murders. Otherwise, the thought may never occur to the DM (unless he has some tables for random crimes that happen in the area.

If it is a simple crime, clue A leads to clue B leads to the killer. Assuming the PCs actively investigate, it's fairly flexible in how long it might take (1 day, 2 days). This might still qualify as 'sandbox'. Much like a trip to room 5 in the dungeon, there's a fairly obvious path (from the GM's perspective) as a natural linear adventure, but the timing doesn't really matter, nor is it hard to deal with players doing something else.

If there's some series of murders for a ritual (and a few more murders remain) or the bad guy has a time table of other tasks and places to be, there's some linear elements. Does that in turn makes writing the adventure less "sandboxy" and more AdventurePathy?

I suspect time tables and such encourage a certain style of content writing, namely adventure path.

 

[S'mon]

Couple of points:

1. The PCs can start at one edge of the sandbox, they don't have to begin in the middle of it. Eg in Vault of Larin Karr the PCs start at a village at the SW corner of the campaign area. In the West Marches campaign the base town is at the east edge of the sandbox.

2. Organic development in any direction the PCs choose to go is a feature of a true Open campaign, but not of a sand box campaign as such. Look at West Marches (seriously - go read the Ars Ludi blog posts about it) - if the PCs go east, they have left the adventure area and they go 'off stage'. The sand box is a defined play area - in VoLK it's Quail Valley, in West Marches it's the wilderness west of the settled lands. The GM might agree to a player request to expand the campaign in the direction the players choose to go - unlike a CRPG sandbox which can't do this unless a new supplement is published - but if anything that's a derogation from the sandbox concept: all sand, no box.

 

[Nagol]

I run a sandbox campaign. Early on, the players got involved in a murder mystery simply by arriving at the location where a murder was about to be committed.

The plarty was approaching the local baron about the possibility of being allowed to bear restricted arms and armour. He was killed their second night there as part of a pre-established timeline.

The party took it upon themselves to find and return the killer -- they were motivated by the fear they'd be implicated more than the propsct of reward, I think.

Getting involved in intrigue / being near events that can spawn opportunity is a matter of player style. As the characters grow in power, they can be around other powerful folk. Those folk are more likely to be the cause of and be affected by events that will spawn opportunity.

 

[Mark]

The sand box is a defined play area (. . .)

If it is, then it is less far toward sandbox along the sliding scale between sandbox and linear than some other campaigns. At the far end, closest to full sandbox, the area is only defined by where the PCs choose to go. This is pretty rare. While something might look like a full sandbox, there still might be limitations like the inability to planar or time travel. A campaign might be suggested to be "anywhere on the map" but in reality only allow for certain areas of the map to be explored because of physical limitations (a mountain range) or inobvious social limitations ("Evertime we get three miles from town, one of my PC's relatives is kidnapped!"). Each restiction nudges a campaign along the scale farther from full sandbox mode and closer toward the linear mode.

 

[Janx]

I run a sandbox campaign. Early on, the players got involved in a murder mystery simply by arriving at the location where a murder was about to be committed.

I don't know where this line of questions will go, but I'm hoping it reveals ways that a timeline or murder mystery can fit in a sandbox.

How did you determine the murder was going to happen?

Was it planned before the session?

Was it trigger based (you had notes that said "the day after the PCs show up, this NPC is murdered")?

Was it something you made up on the fly, as it made context within the session?

Does a timeline of planned events interfere with a sandbox?

What I mean is, between sessions, it's pretty easy to look at what the PCs did, and make adjustments to the world, move stuff around, make up new content as "reactions". If the PCs clear out a dungeon and 6 months go by, you can fill it with something new. If they whacked an overlord, somebody new fills in the vaccuum.

To the players, that looks like it was all planned and after the fact, there's a cause and effect and order of events.

Within a session, moving some orcs around, because they heard a noise in the dungeon, or the guards didn't report in also make sense, and the players might think there's a timeline, but there's not.

Running an actual timeline is a lot trickier, because a deviation early on can change everything, throwing off a chain of thought the DM had (which I believe can cause railroading).

Consider:
the butler (who will be the murderer) knows the household goes to sleep at 10PM.
at 10:30pm, he grabs the candlestick from the dining room
11:45 he listens at the master's door for snoring
11:55 he opens the door and sneaks in
12:00 he strikes with the murder weapon, killing the master
12:05 he wipes down the candlestick (missing a bit of blood in a groove)
12:10 he joins some stable hands in a game of poker, as an alibi, knowing they don't tell time too well
2:00AM he puts the candlestick back in the dining room
8:00AM the maid discovers the master is dead
9:00AM the inspector arrives to examine the scene

I'm not saying a murder mystery is run this way, only demonstrating a timeline for a murder, pre-PC interaction.

If the PCs are staying at the house that night as in Nagol's example, the original "murder timeline" might play out that way. It's even possible to abjudicate that the PCs slept through the murder like everybody else and awake in the morning to deal with the environment of the murder mystery itself.

However, its also possible (especially in a more complex case) that the PC are active, and thus can alter the timeline. That in turn presents a challenge in a complex case where the DM has built a mystery to be unraveled by controlling the variables to set it up.

Basically, a timeline before the PCs get involved is no big deal. That's fluff to help the DM make it make sense.

A timeline woven around the PCs is a bit more complex and might have some non-sandboxiness to it.

I might also note that a timeline is not the same as a time limit. The murderer having a ticket to board a train at noon tomorrow or the room filling up with water is a time limit. Time limits are fairly easy to abjudicate. WHereas each element in a time line assumes the outcome of the previous elements. Change an element and the whole thing is at risk.

This is unlike a dungeon, where by DM laziness if a PC clears out room 1, it doesn't have to affect room 2.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Who said anything was wrong with anything? Honestly, Snoweel, I am starting to suspect you are seeing offense intended where there was none.

I believe that I understand what Snoweel is saying, and that you are just not getting it.

To whit: Is it still a sandbox if the players, outside of the game, tell the DM what elements they would like to see included after the game milieu has been played in, and the DM tailors elements to match the players’ desires.

I would say that a sandbox can have these qualities, assuming that the DM has the PCs actively seek out these things in-game. If these things appear without being sought in-game, then not so much. IOW, it is how corner cases are handled that determines, for me, whether a game is more or less sandbox-y.

Also, there are too many folks in this thread that I cannot give XP to right now.


RC