Quote from: rgrove0172;981834Im swallowing my pride here though and am asking earnestly - as someone who wants to learn - how to you sandbox types do it? When I hear of someone playing a session completely with multiple towns, businesses, NPCs, encounters etc. all from the notes on the back of a napkin I have a hard time ...
1)believing they are telling the truth
2)believing the result doesnt suffer from "pulled it out of my backside, minimal background, itis"

I know that published settings, adventure modules and the kinds of games those that preplan everything put out include a great deal of effort to make sure the componants of the game fit into the setting, the regional history, the culture and so on. It seems it would be hard to wing this sort of detail at the gaming table on the fly. Obviously some of you do it regularly.. so Im asking how... lend us a that would like to try it a bit of advise.

The only way I can imagine it possible is for the GM to be intimately familiar and I mean INTIMATELY FAMILIAR, with the setting the way I have been when running games set in my home town, places Ive visited etc.

So help a poor, over-prepping, occasional RR conducting GM out!

You are suffering from focusing on details to the expense of broader outline. This is very common in most artistic disciplines, and improvisation is no different in this respect. It's why you hear about thumbnail sketches, first drafts, and all those tools you've come across in school -- they are there to give clear broader vision so as to ready oneself for detailing.

So, let's do a quick example exercise: A summer day in 1960s Rome, Italy, next to a fountained plaza.

Now give me locations, objects, people, images, smells, scenes...

Normally most people would be able to fill this out easily. But how, none were trained in improv? Simple, everyone's filled with ideas and expectations (in modern 'net speak, "memes and tropes,") about things in life. And all I did was define very big Scope factors on down. I went Time > Weather > Space > Culture > etc., using keywords that instantly evoke ideas and expectations of their own.

I don't need to know Summer, the 1960s, or Italy and fountains, all that well. I don't need to know the elements down to every last detail. I just need to know easily evoked shared impressions.

And here's the next secret: commit to what you've put down. (Also known by Bob Ross as "Happy Little Mistakes Are Just Opportunities!")

And now you know why sketching a thumbnail (or scribbling an outline) "on a napkin" is so prolific and useful.

Quote from: Headless;981953Didn't we have these discussions 6 months ago when you first joined?

That said I think the best advice for you comes from the little green one.  "You must unlearn, what you have learned."

Adopt a referee mind set. Give up intention.  If you find you have a plan or a path a goal, pause go take a smoke break, (actully never smoke) and step back.

As for the Inn example I think there might be very sosphisticated things about information theory happening here but I can't quite tease them out.  

In terms I can tease out, remember you are discovering the world along with your players.  You need to be able to say "Oh thats where the black goat in is, I had heard of that place but never been."  Unless its one of the hard points of your game it doesn't matter where it is.  If it is one of the hard points you shouldn't move it but have as few hard points as possible.  

Even if you can't move the inn you can move parts of it.  You can move the floor plan to the new inn.  You can use the densins.  Just roll up a few new names to put in the black goat if and when they ever get there, you can reuse the wine list, and where you can't it will become obvious to you.  For example if the new Inn is called The Golden Crow, the ale probably isn't called goat piss.  And its good enough that its just called ale.  If the Inns are a long way from each other and there is a Red local to the Black Goat, if you Keep it at the Golden Crow you know there us a trade route, depending on the level of animosity between the kingdoms their might be smugglers.  ....  I could go on for a while.

Short answer.  In a sand box you can be suprised by your own world.  In a sand box you don't create, you discover.

We might have Headless... at least something similar. If we did I was probably coming at it from a more defensive posture though. I am actually listening here and curious but Im not sure I like the idea of relinquishing control of the world's content. Allowing players free reign? Sure, I get that of course but building my world based on random charts or spur of the moment whims and the like is very different. I do a bit of that when solitaire gaming, using various engines to randomize the setting, NPC actions etc. but as GM I prefer a bit more artistic control. Afterall, the players may come and go but the world that is created becomes a permanent part of my gaming library.

Quote from: rgrove0172;981834Ive been guilty of throwing some bad attitude towards the "sandbox" crowd before as I normally lean heavily on pre-game prep to a crazy degree. The closest thing I can say I typically come to sandbox (except for a couple of exceptions such as when playing in the modern world) is a massive amount of preparation completely surrounding the PCs so that Im ready no matter where they go. (and they still typically manage to pick some corner Im weak in)

Im swallowing my pride here though and am asking earnestly - as someone who wants to learn - how to you sandbox types do it? When I hear of someone playing a session completely with multiple towns, businesses, NPCs, encounters etc. all from the notes on the back of a napkin I have a hard time ...
1)believing they are telling the truth
2)believing the result doesnt suffer from "pulled it out of my backside, minimal background, itis"

I know that published settings, adventure modules and the kinds of games those that preplan everything put out include a great deal of effort to make sure the componants of the game fit into the setting, the regional history, the culture and so on. It seems it would be hard to wing this sort of detail at the gaming table on the fly. Obviously some of you do it regularly.. so Im asking how... lend us a that would like to try it a bit of advise.

The only way I can imagine it possible is for the GM to be intimately familiar and I mean INTIMATELY FAMILIAR, with the setting the way I have been when running games set in my home town, places Ive visited etc.

So help a poor, over-prepping, occasional RR conducting GM out!

The planet my game is set on is the size of Jupiter (yes I hand wave gravity - magic you know:eek:) and my players are over 20 game years into circumnavigating the globe and they have encountered multiple dozens of different cultures along the way. We play out the ocean travel, I work ahead by creating a rough map of the the areas ahead of them and to the north and south of them and keep expanding that as we go as their route varies as they keep jogging from island to island to continent and so on. I know my world and I have roughed out what they are to expect and then I fill in the details during play. It is easy for them to go outside the lightly prepped areas, that is where it becomes almost pure winging.

I have lists of names for all sorts of things because those are harder to come up with, everything else is IMO easy. I can get as detailed as the players want on the fly, creating as much background as needed. My world has a vibe and while there are regional differences, those were defined long ago in rough, but any area the players have not yet visited can be tweaked all the way up to them arriving there. Outlines are very helpful, I don't use them a lot, but I have and outlines with short phrases work really well IMO. Another thing is always have a notebook with you and if at all possible write down any idea you have. The act of writing it down will help you remember and enhance your ability to flesh that idea out, and to do it on the fly if you need to. Think about your world, get to know it, make it live and breathe and you will find winging it gets easier and easier. Yes, I urge, you to become INTIMATELY FAMILIAR with your campaign world/setting.

My axioms of sandbox campaigns

First off a referee has to be willing to let his players trash his setting. If you are going to get bent about the players taking out the Emperor or the local tavern keeper then a sandbox campaign is not likely going to be enjoyable. Assuming that the players are exhibiting good sportmanship (i.e. good manners while playing a game), what is the worse thing you can imagine the players trying to do? If it occurs can be you remain fair, and will the campaign still be enjoyable for you? If the answer is yes then you will succeed at being a referee of a sandbox campaign.

I loosely based what I do for my campaigns in several categories, the Initial Context, the Bag of Stuff, and a World in Motion.

The Bag of Stuff
This is where I do world building. For me, the three main items I need are geography, NPCs, and locales. Of the three locales wind up looking like a traditional adventure after it written.  I have two broad grouping of the stuff; the specific (for example the City State of the Invincible Overlord), the generic (random castle town of 500 to 1000 people). For NPCs specific (Llewellyn the Blue, wizard of City-State), or generic (Tharian Horselord 6th level fight equivalent to a knight socially).

When I use something generic and it something that the players will continue to interact with then I will make notes , copy and paste the generic writeup and make something specific out of it.

In general I have a lot more generic material than I do specific. In addition I use material from other setting constantly notably Harn and Ars Magica altering to what I need. If players keep interacting with the place I will gradually replace it with something similar that my own original work. Although I usually do this between campaigns not during a campaign.

I wrote a series called How to build a Fantasy Sandbox to help people to jump start their Bag of Stuff. For me what happened is that I started out with the Wilderlands of High Fantasy and keep running campaign after campaign in the setting. Over the years it morphed into it own thing the Majestic Wilderlands. It my experience that most referee do not stick with any one setting for long. However with the way I did for the Wilderlands, you can start small with a bare sketch of the larger world and keep adding to it as you run successive campaigns. The "How to make" series start off with making that larger sketch and then narrows down to a specific area with the things you need to build a toolkit to handle whatever direction the players opt to pursue.

World in Motion
This is about what you do during the sandbox campaign to bring it to life. For me there are several things I try to do.

First I view the current situation from the PCs perspective, I visualize in my mind what they would be seeing if they actually were standing there. Then I use what I know about their interests, goals, and motivation to filter that into something that hopefully fun and interesting. I also rely heavily on stereotypes and assumptions to cut down on the verbal bandwidth needed.

I have to stress if you want to use stereotypes and assumptions, then you have to make sure they are true MOST of the time.  For example a common issue I see that many players won't interact with NPCs because they all got plots and plans that at the very least complicate the PCs lives if not direction hinder what they are trying to do.  I make sure that I roleplay most of my NPCs as people just trying to get on with their lives. That by and large they will be somewhat friendly and helpful if there no other reason to dislike the PCs. Especially for merchants.  Keep a running count on a notepad if you have trouble with this.

Next the setting has a life of it own and doesn't give two shits about what the players want to do. To handle this I list out goal and motivations of the NPCs most likely to effect the PCs' circumstances. It can range from the King to the local barkeeper. Then I construct a time line of what will happen as if the PCs didn't exist. This timeline is used as a Plan of Battle. A plan of battle is useful because it provided a military force a framework in order to achieve its objective. However history is full of example of general who lost because they were rigid about executing their plan. A good general will change and adapt as the circumstance of the war changes. So it is with this timeline.

The timeline is a framework which is meant to be changed after and during a session in light of the PCs did or did not do as their characters. In a sandbox campaign this where most of the referee creativity will be focused on. When the PCs do something most of the time there will be a lot of possible consequences. One or two may be the most plausible. However you do not have to pick the most plausible outcome. Rather pick the outcome that is both plausible and interesting to you and the players. Also like with the example of the NPCs above, be aware of your bias. At first keep a running count of how you decide things and if you are bias to a particular type of outcome then make a chart to roll on to change things up. Most everybody can spot consistent patterns especially in social interactions.

Initial Context

Most sandbox campaigns fail. Why? Because of the lack of a good initial context. Many mock character histories and background but if you going to get a sandbox campaign you are going to need a least a half page of specifics for each players and a half page of general information for the group as a whole.

Players who enjoy being plunked down in the middle of a blank map and told "Go forth and explore" are few and far between. About as common as players who enjoy playing GURPS with all the options in play at once. Most players want to feel their choices have meaning. Picking one of the six surrounding blank hexes is not a choice with meaning. So work on the initial situation so that it is interesting and give the players enough information to make some valid decision of what to do.

Conclusion
This is the tip of the iceberg about a topic I been writing about for the past decade. I will be happy to give specifics about any of the above. I will stress that it gets better with practice. The main problem with sandbox campaigns is the initial learning curve and getting comfortable with the free-form nature of how it flows.

Here is a link to all my blog posts on the topic. Also I suggest searching through Lord Vreeg's post. (He the one who coined World in Motion).

Quote from: Crimhthan;981948This part I am in disagreement with. An RPG sandbox exists when the referee provides many hooks(options) for the players and those can take many forms. The players get to choose whether or not they pursue one of those options or they can decide to pursue some other option(s) that the ref did not think of.

It's the latter element that's vital for "this is a sandbox".

I don't really know where the sandbox/non-sandbox line is. My Runelords of the Shattered Star campaign is no sandbox, even though the players have at times gone far off-script, because there is a general direction to the campaign that is not player defined - "The Runelords are Rising! You need the Shattered Star to stop them!"

I'm confident my Wilderlands game is a sandbox, and pretty confident of my White Star game though it's early days yet. But there is a vast sandbox-y-ish grey area in-between.

Quote from: S'mon;981974I don't really know where the sandbox/non-sandbox line is..

It start with are you willing the let your players trash your setting/campaign and go with the flow? In short if the players are willing to let Runelord rise to do their own thing will be able to keep on trucking (so to speak) with the campaign? Mind you there will be plausible consequences for not stopping the Runelord from rising. But suppose that the players are aware of those consequence and still say "fuck it we go here instead do this X, Y and Z.). Is something you will be able to handle and have fun with?

And will you be still be able to come up with interesting situations for the players to deal with. I use the word interesting deliberately because letting the "bad" guys win will plausibly make the setting a more unpleasant place.

Also as a follow up to my reply to S'mon. A sandbox campaign is not something that is A, B, and C. It ultimately rests on your willingness to let the player trash your setting or campaign and keep on going. I have run sandbox campaigns where players were all members of the city guard. They could at any time have quit the city guard and go off to their own thing. There would be consequences to such an action like being outlawed for desertion.

Some would say "Well that still a railroad". However the difference lies in that the players choose to start off as members of the city guard knowing about the consequences of desertion. They also know there are other areas of settings they could reasonable reach that minimized that consequence. I felt (and confirmed with OOG discussion with the players) that if they ever felt desertion was warranted they had the information needed to weigh the pro and cons fairly from the point of view of their characters.

And they knew from my past campaign, is that if they had a good plan I would not arbitrarily nix it*. If it worked it works and the campaigns continues.

*However there is the chance of some random fuck up occurring when the plan is executed. But I don't have any thing special just the usual range of random encounter tables I always use.

Quote from: rgrove0172;981959.....but as GM I prefer a bit more artistic control. Afterall, the players may come and go but the world that is created becomes a permanent part of my gaming library.

Again going with the green one. "That is why you fail." Sorry if thats a too confrontational but Yoda's a bit of a douche.  

Honestly you are coming accross a bit like a guy who invites someone over to play vedio games and then makes the watch him play vedio games.   Or to be really cruel but its a vivid and familiar touch stone, Will Farrel in the lego movie.  Thats harsh, but you asked.  How do you run a sandbox game? Answer don't be Will Farrel.  I don't think you're as bad as that, I would love to play in one of your games.  

As for your gaming collection, you have to realise every sigle rabit hole goes all the way down.  Every sistuation has the potential to be infiantly cool, infanitly intersting.  Which means every choice is equally intersting ewually cool.  And it is all make believe so it only holds meaning as far as you share it and as far as it resonates.

Quote from: estar;981978It start with are you willing the let your players trash your setting/campaign and go with the flow? In short if the players are willing to let Runelord rise to do their own thing will be able to keep on trucking (so to speak) with the campaign? Mind you there will be plausible consequences for not stopping the Runelord from rising. But suppose that the players are aware of those consequence and still say "fuck it we go here instead do this X, Y and Z.). Is something you will be able to handle and have fun with?

And will you be still be able to come up with interesting situations for the players to deal with. I use the word interesting deliberately because letting the "bad" guys win will plausibly make the setting a more unpleasant place.

Yeah, like I said my Rise of the Runelords/Shattered Star game definitely not a sandbox. My Wilderlands 3e box set based game definitely is. But I have run somewhat sandboxy games like Loudwater http://frloudwater.blogspot.co.uk/ that are in a grey area, I probably wouldn't call it a sandbox but it was largely unplotted and had major sandbox elements. I think the reactive "superhero team" type style of the game kept it from being a real sandbox and left a lot of my sandbox-type material unused.

Quote from: Headless;981983Again going with the green one. "That is why you fail." Sorry if thats a too confrontational but Yoda's a bit of a douche.  

Honestly you are coming accross a bit like a guy who invites someone over to play vedio games and then makes the watch him play vedio games.   Or to be really cruel but its a vivid and familiar touch stone, Will Farrel in the lego movie.  Thats harsh, but you asked.  How do you run a sandbox game? Answer don't be Will Farrel.  I don't think you're as bad as that, I would love to play in one of your games.  

As for your gaming collection, you have to realise every sigle rabit hole goes all the way down.  Every sistuation has the potential to be infiantly cool, infanitly intersting.  Which means every choice is equally intersting ewually cool.  And it is all make believe so it only holds meaning as far as you share it and as far as it resonates.

Headless, your posts are great, but maybe a bit of review/spellcheck/edit prior to posting?

The most successful campaign I've run in recent years has been an ongoing weekly sandbox style game. Not sure how much I meet everyone's definition of sandbox, but basically I have no idea what the players will be trying to do from one session to the next and I just sort of let them explore, plan, interact with things as they choose. It can be challenging but the biggest piece of advice I would give based on the experience is relax. If you worry about how things should unfold, whether you are doing it exactly 100% the right way, etc you are probably going to have a worse session than if you just relax and realize you can adjust things as you go to see what works and what doesn't.

I am not sure how the gamemaster/author gives up any control over his world in sandbox styles of play.  He defines some things which are definitely located (the Black Goat tavern, in previous examples), some things which are provisionally there, (the tavern in Riverton which is near a bridge, and a temple but we won't define which yet until we need to), or are there potentially, (here is a really cool tavern which has some interesting feature which I will drop in when I get a chance.)

But the key point that defines the style to my way of thinking is that every NPC's wants something, (even if it is only a bottle of booze after passing by so many taverns) which they will operate upon even if the Players aren't aware of it.  It is through dropping these bits and pieces out there that the players are given the opportunity to interact with the world.  

Also, if a player gets ahold of the wrong end of the stick, and stumbles across something better than I thought of, I reserve the right to put it in there.  In this way, I came up with a magic constipated bear as an item of treasure once, but the tale is too long to tell at the moment.

So, if NPC 1 wants the Magic Dingus of Doom, he will act to get it.  If the players hear about this, and clues will be strewn out to that effect, they can work to help NPC 1, hinder him, or try to get the Dingus for their own.  If in the process they pass through the same area repeatedly, then the Black Goat tavern will still be there, as a fixture, and the characters there will remember the previous interactions, and have goals of their own.

Quote from: rgrove0172;981899Lots of good stuff here guys. Thanks! Ive got reading material for a week!

One element I THINK Im hearing but would have trouble with is the notion of making up locations/NPCs/situations etc. and just moving them around depending on where the players go. If I understanding this you conjure up a tavern for example and then just plop it down in whatever town the PCs visit, that way you dont waste it should they go in a different direction.

If thats common practice, I gotta say Im not a fan. I consider part of what I do as GM as "World Building" and if the Black Goat Tavern was generated to exist on the outskirtz of Harlington, beside the old bridge... thats kind of where I want it to be. I like to think that its there even if the PCs never go there...ever. Ill grant you that doing this does generate a lot of campaign material that may not have an effect on the game (at least for the moment) but it is fleshing out the world in which the players are adventuring in. Im not sure I like the idea of a campaign where taverns, dungeons, NPCs and whatever mystically appear a few seconds in the PCs future along the path they happen to be travelling down. It seems, well artificial and contrived.

At the risk of raising hackles - what is the difference between a railroading GM arranging for the PCs to head in the direction of the Black Goat and another plopping it down in front of them no matter where they go?

Admittedly, maybe Im not understanding this notion completely and if so, Im open to explanation. Im not knocking it, just trying to get my head wrapped around it.

Only one person said that, and frankly, they're wrong.  That is the OPPOSITE of a sandbox.  If the Goat's Anus Inn is in the town of Fuckmorton, then that's where it is, period.  If the trolls' nest in the first level has six trolls, it has six trolls.  If you search this site, you will find about 95% of the people advocating sandboxes agree with this.  Moving shit around so the players WILL encounter it is the very definition of railroading.

Quote from: rgrove0172;981932Well if its not specifically located.. there is no problem of course. Ive done this sort of thing too... described a city has having a temple then placed it once the players go there and I work on the map. In your case Im talking about the tavern being moved to the other side of town or even in an entirely different town should they players ask to visit a tavern on their way somewhere else.

The only tavern that does that is the Old Phoenix.

Quote from: Bren;981956Honestly, I'm not sure if you guys are agreeing about what a sandbox is and quibbling over how to word the definition or if you are disagreeing about the definition.

I'm disagreeing with the notion of asking "Okay, what do you want to do next session."  Sandbox to me requires more of the world for its own sake for that, rather than "the players say they want to go into the dungeon so I draw a dungeon, the players say they want to loot the Temple of the Frog, I design the Temple of the Frog," etc.