It seems like I need to run my Vampire Dark Ages
Game as a Sandbox. Given that I've never run one, what are the best books and GM sections of books on how to run a sandbox?
Quote from: PencilBoy99;838861It seems like I need to run my Vampire Dark Ages
Game as a Sandbox. Given that I've never run one, what are the best books and GM sections of books on how to run a sandbox?
Anything by Sine Nomine Publishing is a good guide on how to build a sandbox.
Stars Without Number (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/86467/Stars-Without-Number-Free-Edition?manufacturers_id=3482) is a free PDF. It's not the genre you are looking for, but I think you can still find some solid advice in it.
Other Dust (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/103502/Other-Dust?manufacturers_id=3482) is a post-apocalyptic sandbox game and Scarlet Heroes (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/127180/Scarlet-Heroes?manufacturers_id=3482) is a fantasy one. You need to pay money for those though. They are all every inspirational books regardless of whether you ever use the system.
Quote from: Baulderstone;838864Anything by Sine Nomine Publishing is a good guide on how to build a sandbox. ...
+1000 - Solid, fun stuff chock full of good ideas.
Also, I've found Engine Publishing Guides (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/3323/Engine-Publishing) full of great ideas for GMing, prep, etc.
I ran my VtM game (way back in the 90's) as a sandbox set in our hometown of Tacoma, WA. I worked out all the major players, various threats, and a stock pile of NPCs. I had some three binders full of stuff. The players founded a night club and the set about solidifying their power base. I must have ran that for a couple years with some short breaks. One of my most memorable games!
At it's simplest, you'd do something like this:
1) Sketch out a small starting area for your sandbox. A city, the major players, at least one clear conflict and preferably two or three. Don't worry about making the details or stats of anything, just figure out what the city's deal is and who wants what in it.
2) Make up a single session's worth of adventure. Don't worry about making a sandbox out of it, just give the group of new PCs something to show them the city, let them know about the conflicts, and let them get settled into the situation. It shouldn't take more than one session of play to wrap up.
3) At the end of the session, dangle at least three obvious hooks for them, ones that tie into the local struggles. Make them screamingly obvious, in case your players aren't really accustomed to the whole sandbox style. If the players choose to do something else entirely, that's perfectly okay too- the goal is to get them to commit to some next course of action at the end of the session, whatever it may be.
4) During the downtime between sessions, create whatever content you need to handle the next session's play. Don't overbuild. You can burn yourself out on a sandbox all too easily if you try to cover every possible contingency. Whenever you're about to make something, ask yourself if you're going to need it for your next play session or if you're having fun making it. If you can't answer "yes" to at least one of those, put it down.
5) Rinse and repeat. At the end of every session, find out where they're going next and build what you need for it. If they don't go some places or leave parts of your prep untouched, strip off the names and recycle it later when you need quick content of that type. Got a creepy noble they never meet? Peel off his name, change his face, and stick him in the next time you need a noble. Save your scraps; you can use them later.
Eventually, you'll build up enough of the world that you need less and less prep for each session, since you've already established a bunch of facts through play. So long as you keep good notes and are willing to pull in a bunch of other stuff as emergency filler when the PCs take a left turn at Albuquerque, you should be fine.
I remember a bit of advice told by a comic during an interview (can't remember who.) He was discussing improvisational comedy, particularly with a partner, and advised that, when in doubt, you should always say "yes." Whatever your partner asks or whatever silly thing he does go along with it, don't fight it or say "no."
Likewise, I remember an interview with Howard Stern where he said the key to his style is that he is intent on not editing himself, always tell the truth and put whatever is in his mind out there. Whenever he feels like he is about to hide something he reverses course and tells it. That opens the door to him saying the most outrageous things, being "edgy", controversial, etc.
So, if your players say or suggest something, say "yes." Go with it. Don't hold back. If they want to go north, let them go north. If one wants to flirt with a Dryad, let him flirt, let the Dryad be receptive to advances. Etc. Whatever silliness the players come up with work it out together with them.
I'm playing in a sandbox Pathfinder game now and one player has purchased the property deeds to two towers outside of the main city. Why? Because his homeless street urchin character never had a home of her own before. We cleaned out the towers, she had the cash, she had a lawyer, so the GM let her make the purchases. The same PC wanted to buy and train an elephant for a mount. Why? Because it's different, there were some in the neighborhood and they can carry lots of loot. The GM just went with it.
Prior to writing ACKS, I wrote a series of essays for The Escapist about how to build and run a sandbox campaign. Here are the links:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/checkfortraps/7797-Tops-and-Bottoms
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/checkfortraps/7864-Go-Go-Gazette
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/tabletop/checkfortraps/7928-Worlds-in-Motion
Here is my basic set of reminders and high points (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/60581028/Vreegs%20Rules%20of%20Setting%20and%20Game%20Design).
Just Be Lazy! (http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?580891-Lazily-GMing-a-sandbox-campaign)
And, since we have no 'like' function...I will just post and say I like many of these.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;838861It seems like I need to run my Vampire Dark Ages
Game as a Sandbox.
Judging from that other thread, where you seem disappointed at your players' lack of initiative, I'm not sure your players are a good fit for the style (which assumes proactive players as the chief driving force of the game). But if you
want to run a sandbox, well, it's worth a try!
Quote from: PencilBoy99;838861Given that I've never run one, what are the best books and GM sections of books on how to run a sandbox?
In any case, read up on what these other fine gentlemen have written and linked. I can vouch for SineNomine and amacris as I tend to buy everything these two put out. :D SineNomine's post is concise and gold. Alex's essays are great, even if I find his style
way more hardcore than mine (which incidentally is why I love his ruleset -- it's like having a smarter kid do your homework for you while you and your friends slack off :D). LordVreeg has nearly three decades' worth of experience with the format and you can take his principles to heart.
Justin Alexander, who also posts here, has written extensively on the subject (http://thealexandrian.net/gamemastery-101) as well.
But in the end it's about crafting a piece of an imaginary world with interesting NPCs with agendas of theor own, and offering the PCs opportunities to interact with these agents and their plots.
Quote from: The Butcher;838928Judging from that other thread, where you seem disappointed at your players' lack of initiative, I'm not sure your players are a good fit for the style (which assumes proactive players as the chief driving force of the game). B
QFT. I have played with groups that WANTED linear campaigns. We didn't have a lot of time to game, and they didn't ant to be faced with too many choices that they might not ultimately find fulfilling. They much preferred a linear approach from their GM. So I give 'em what they want.
Just reading about those triggers on the Escapist site. That's what I miss in nWoD. Old WoD games had big global triggers when you first entered the setting. Vampire the Masquerade has Gehenna and the wars between the Camarilla, the Anarchs and the Sabbat. I think playing vampire the Dark Ages triggers the War of the Princes.
So those old games have more world in motion build in than the newer ones. I think that's great if you want your campaign to become more epic over time. If you want it smaller you should add local triggers to your setting.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;838944Just reading about those triggers on the Escapist site. That's what I miss in nWoD. Old WoD games had big global triggers when you first entered the setting. Vampire the Masquerade has Gehenna and the wars between the Camarilla, the Anarchs and the Sabbat. I think playing vampire the Dark Ages triggers the War of the Princes.
So those old games have more world in motion build in than the newer ones. I think that's great if you want your campaign to become more epic over time. If you want it smaller you should add local triggers to your setting.
So much of it is based on the length and depth of the campaign you plan. Event Chains, large and small, should be connected somewhat, and should be set up so that player intervention matters, even when you give the impression it does not.
"The World In Motion is critical for Immersion, so create 'event chains' that happen at all levels of setting design. The players need to feel like things are happening and will happen with or without them. They need to feel like they can affect the outcome, but that these events have weight of their own. Event-chains need velocity, not just speed.
Cause and effect from an event-chain cements the feeling of setting-weight and the march of time to the players. It's not enough to have an election in a town, the effect of that election must be there when the players return to that town. It is not enough that a band of trolls and giants is spotted, what devestation due they cauase and what actions do the locals take, and from there what wreckage and ruin?"
"It is the interesting task of the GM to create a feel in the world that everything, every event-chain, is happening around the PCs without the least concern whether the PCs join or not, while in reality making sure the game and these event chains are actually predicated on PC volition. The setting consistency should never be compromised, and a good GM should be able to keep both setting and PC needs logical at the same time ""
Quote from: PencilBoy99;838861It seems like I need to run my Vampire Dark Ages
Game as a Sandbox. Given that I've never run one, what are the best books and GM sections of books on how to run a sandbox?
Ummm...maybe you could tell us a bit about the scope of your campaign. A lot of the advice I'm seeing here – that I recognize anyway – has a lot more to do with PCs moving freely across a large environment. Vampire – at least my understanding of it (I'm not a fan) – has always been a lot more personal horror and vampire court politics between the rival clans; machiavellian scheming and maneuvering through the courts of power. I'm not sure how different DAV is, without the masquerade to worry about. But I'm pretty hex crawling is not going to be that helpful.
Am I right? Am I wrong?
While it isn't the right era, I would look at Black Vulmea's blog (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com). His game is very urban centric (Paris) where the players have to deal with a fair share of social conflicts and courtly intrigue. So while the era is different, a lot of the themes should carry over nicely.
Tom
Quote from: LordVreeg;838954"The World In Motion is critical for Immersion, so create 'event chains' that happen at all levels of setting design. The players need to feel like things are happening and will happen with or without them. They need to feel like they can affect the outcome, but that these events have weight of their own. Event-chains need velocity, not just speed."
Crap! Yes! This is exactly what I was talking about in my post on the other thread.
To Lord Vreeg, listen! ;)
Tom
Quote from: Blusponge;838974Ummm...maybe you could tell us a bit about the scope of your campaign. A lot of the advice I'm seeing here – that I recognize anyway – has a lot more to do with PCs moving freely across a large environment. Vampire – at least my understanding of it (I'm not a fan) – has always been a lot more personal horror and vampire court politics between the rival clans; machiavellian scheming and maneuvering through the courts of power. I'm not sure how different DAV is, without the masquerade to worry about. But I'm pretty hex crawling is not going to be that helpful.
Am I right? Am I wrong?
While it isn't the right era, I would look at Black Vulmea's blog (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com). His game is very urban centric (Paris) where the players have to deal with a fair share of social conflicts and courtly intrigue. So while the era is different, a lot of the themes should carry over nicely.
Tom
Good point, Tom. The original
Chicago by Night was an excellent social sandbox, complete with charts showing the social relationships between all the characters. It had a lot of genuinely interesting characters as well, with backgrounds largely defined by actual historical events. This was before the WoD crawled up its own ass and became completely insular. It no longer felt like vampires in the real world, instead being completely overtaken by its own convoluted mythology.
While it is modern day, the same approach could be used for vampires of any era.
It wasn't heavy on rules, but the old 7th Sea Montaigne sourcebook had an interesting social mechanic and social mini game about courtly drama and intrigue. It might be worth a google search or a look at the PDF to see if it would be helpful. It was pretty simple, about two pages, and was pretty portable and adaptable to different game systems.
Might make a good alternative to Chicago by Night.
Does VDA have an equivalent of CbN? 1st edition or 2nd edition?
Tom
Quote from: Blusponge;839029Does VDA have an equivalent of CbN? 1st edition or 2nd edition?
If you are asking about CbN 1st or 2nd edition, I prefer 1st edition. I think 2nd edition was the beginning of WoD going off the rails. Actually, I should say "on the rails". First edition set up a city which lots of intrigue for your players to get into. There was big conflict on the horizon, but what happened next was all up to you.
Then 2nd Edition came along and told you what happened. It told you who lived, who died, who ended up where in the power struggles. What you've been doing in your own game all this time doesn't matter. It was the point where they stopped providing a setting to play in, and just started telling us a story.
Get the d30 sandbox companion, it's a handy little resource for generating content on the fly, plus if I recall correctly it's pretty cheap.
As to advice, don't over think. With something like Vampire the Dark Ages you actually have a good bit of your work done for you as the broad setting assumptions and some finer details have been worked out. Pick a historical locale in Europe that interests, read up on it a bit and use the interesting bits you find as inspiration for places, npcs, factions, quests, etc.
Sketch out your area. Make a list of who is who, then what they want, who they like/dislike, etc. Really plan out your first session but don't think much beyond that, what happens in your first session should give you lots of ideas for where to go from there.
All good advice! Thank you.
I'm finally comfortable at being a procedural GM. I can' vaguely run a campaign where there's a series of "situations of the week" that player's stumble into and then interact with.
Two of my players have played more VtM/WW games and LARPs then I ever will. I got them to agree in the house rules that I could do whatever I wanted with canon (that was the first thing to overcome). However, when I started setting out plot hooks to follow, they didn't follow them (which is fine). However, I didn't have anything else for them to do.
My new-style response would be - we agreed we'd be running this game, so it's YOUR job to come up with a motivation to engage with the response. However, we never explicitly had that conversation. Their expectation seems to be that it's more sandboxy.
That is, they could decide to do anything any session. I spoke to one of them and he explained that when he runs things he just makes up tons of stuff on the fly (which THEN become things that need to be statted up, documented).
They're currently in the city of Florence in 1230.
Quote from: Baulderstone;839031If you are asking about CbN 1st or 2nd edition, I prefer 1st edition. I think 2nd edition was the beginning of WoD going off the rails. Actually, I should say "on the rails". First edition set up a city which lots of intrigue for your players to get into. There was big conflict on the horizon, but what happened next was all up to you.
Then 2nd Edition came along and told you what happened. It told you who lived, who died, who ended up where in the power struggles. What you've been doing in your own game all this time doesn't matter. It was the point where they stopped providing a setting to play in, and just started telling us a story.
So nwod is probably more like 1st edition. A social sandbox. All the chains of triggers are local though (nothing worldwide) and there are no chains or triggers in the core. The Dark Ages books are somewhere in between old and new wod I think.
A low-key overview as to what to do. Fantasy, yes, but the advice is basic:
Opening Gambit: Your town and its NPCs (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/10/starting-from-scratch-pt-i.html)
Faith Manages: Designing religions (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/10/starting-from-scratch-pt-ii-wednesdays.html)
Setting The Table: Party composition and equipment (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/10/starting-from-scratch-pt-iii-wednesdays.html)
The Appetizer Round: Tips on portraying your world's NPCs (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2013/12/starting-from-scratch-pt-iv.html)
The Main Course: Your First Adventure (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2014/02/starting-from-scratch-pt-v.html)
The Dessert Round: Random tips and suggestions (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2014/03/starting-from-scratch-pt-vi.html)
Spicier Cities (http://ravenswing59.blogspot.com/2014/02/spicier-cities-stuff-you-can-use.html)
Quote from: jan paparazzi;839092So nwod is probably more like 1st edition. A social sandbox. All the chains of triggers are local though (nothing worldwide) and there are no chains or triggers in the core.
Sort of. The big factions are all more or less global in their ubiquity, even if local chapters behave like cells that do not necessarily coordinate much.
A good degree of conflict between factions is built-in.
There are a few potentially world-threatening antagonists, such as the Idigam or the Annunaki, but they are few and far between and mostly early enough on their Earth-shattering agenda that PCs have a decent chance of stopping them.
But then I
am biased, as "social sandbox" is pretty much my default WoD (old and new) GMing style.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;839053They're currently in the city of Florence in 1230.
I ran my longest-running V:tDA game in Florence, circa 1198 AD... by 1230 the city should be an even bigger Guelph vs. Ghibelline mess. Pretty sure Dante Alighieri has been exiled by then. Good stuff. :)
Do tell us about your game!
Quote from: The Butcher;839130I ran my longest-running V:tDA game in Florence, circa 1198 AD... by 1230 the city should be an even bigger Guelph vs. Ghibelline mess. Pretty sure Dante Alighieri has been exiled by then. Good stuff. :)
Do tell us about your game!
Love that time period.
And do tell us.
I picked Florence because at that time it was very cosmopolitan and in the middle of the dark ages map.
The big picture arc is the following: all of the characters sires don't exist. That is, the character's remember them existing, but no one else remembers them. Anyone they ask ignores the fact that they don't have sires, and can't even conceive of it being a problem. For example, a grandsire will just assume that this chile is one of his "other" chiles creation. What has actually happened is that a super evil cabal of all sorts of people, including elements of the Technocracy, powerful elders, etc. came up with a plan to stop Gehenna by empowering the existing Vampires, creating an eternal darkness for the world, shrouding it in a technomagical "anti-greenhouse warming" thing (that's what mortals will think is being done). Their sires, using some sweet True Brujah time travel action, were involved in a conspiracy to stop this. The bad guys have erased them from existence. They don't know much of this plot so far.
I gave the city to two rival princes, twin childer of the previous prince of the city, both Lasombra. His importance allowed him to essentially will it to them, so that within bounds, they may rival until one of them shows themselves worthy. The city was in real life large enough then to support lots of Kindred. The players inadvertently escalated tensions in the 2nd adventure by delivering one Prince's ally to the other prince.
One of the other nifty plotlines is the Giovanni attempting to consolidate their power by creating a series of "ghost roads," which will allow Kindred safe travel over vast distances. This requires murdering boatloads of people, and will become a problem later.
I've made the Prometheans into two groups - those that are sort of noble sabbat-like and want to free themselves from the oppression of elders and blood bonds, and cabals of Ghouls that have decided that revolution is required. They ran into these two plots when they stopped to rest for a night at what had been a Giovanni build site for the ghost road, which had instead been taken over by the revolutionary ghouls, who had been waylaying and eating Kindred for some time.
(note i drop all sorts of hints about the plotlines and their progress).
The Canite Heresy is much more aggressive. They believe that Kindred are divine beings who should be worshipped as such, and eagerly drive towards Cain's imminent return. The party inadvertently gave control of a major city to the Heretics. This will be a problem at some point, as they told the Prince they had handled the matter.
A near term major plot is the 3 Sisters. I decided that the Fall of Rome had been much more precipitous for Kindred. At some point, in fairly short order, all of the Kindred had been driven out or killed in very short order in Rome and many of the surrounding cities in Italy. This was so terrifying that some Kindred actually fled into the sea (these aquatic kindred will be a problem soon) and hid there. What actually happened is that the wicked depredations and debauchery of Rome's kindred were so great that mortals despair were able to raise 3 martyred sisters up as pagan wraiths of vast power. They've been slumbering for some time, since Kindred have kept their nose clean because of all the superstitions about the dangers of central Italy. However, open war in Florence (along the lines of the Guelphs and Ghibellines in the mortal realm) is likely to rise them from their slumber. Things will not go well if this happens.
I've only hinted at werewolves. I'm thinking of going way outside the box and making them essentially a line of very powerful rogue Revanants (Gangrel), enslaved during the 2nd city to serve under great cruelty. They pacted with something (maybe Lilith), which granted them their freedom and much more power. They pretty much want to exterminate all of the Kindred and anything like them.
One of the players is a cool Tzimisce who is searching for the perfect form. I'm super into rewarding anyone who doesn't want to play Tzimisce as people that turn other people into flesh cathedrals, so I'm going to use the thing as a goal for him where Tzimisce who pursue the perfect form can achieve a sort of Golconda.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;838861It seems like I need to run my Vampire Dark Ages
Game as a Sandbox. Given that I've never run one, what are the best books and GM sections of books on how to run a sandbox?
The best book I've read is Gamemastering at http://gamemastering.info/
Add-on books would be the ones from http://www.enginepublishing.com/
Quote from: PencilBoy99;839151I gave the city to two rival princes, twin childer of the previous prince of the city, both Lasombra. His importance allowed him to essentially will it to them, so that within bounds, they may rival until one of them shows themselves worthy. The city was in real life large enough then to support lots of Kindred. The players inadvertently escalated tensions in the 2nd adventure by delivering one Prince's ally to the other prince.
(...)
The Canite Heresy is much more aggressive. They believe that Kindred are divine beings who should be worshipped as such, and eagerly drive towards Cain's imminent return. The party inadvertently gave control of a major city to the Heretics. This will be a problem at some point, as they told the Prince they had handled the matter.
Yup, sounds a lot like my game. :)
I too, took the "two princes" tidbit from Three Pillars, and had the Cainite Heresy as a major player (in my game, keeping both princes at each other's throats).
Your game sounds like a hoot, but by now I am hopelessly biased. Love what you did with the Giovanni and the Prometheans.
Quote from: The Butcher;839129Sort of. The big factions are all more or less global in their ubiquity, even if local chapters behave like cells that do not necessarily coordinate much.
A good degree of conflict between factions is built-in.
There are a few potentially world-threatening antagonists, such as the Idigam or the Annunaki, but they are few and far between and mostly early enough on their Earth-shattering agenda that PCs have a decent chance of stopping them.
But then I am biased, as "social sandbox" is pretty much my default WoD (old and new) GMing style.
That upcoming Dark Eras book will probably have settings with a chain of events build in. So that will provide me with some triggers to start a campaign with. That's what I miss now in the books. No chain of events, so no real starting point (unless you make something up out of the blue). I find it easier to react to something that happened or to give a spin on something that happened. Now it's a bit static.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;839403That upcoming Dark Eras book will probably have settings with a chain of events build in. So that will provide me with some triggers to start a campaign with. That's what I miss now in the books. No chain of events, so no real starting point (unless you make something up out of the blue). I find it easier to react to something that happened or to give a spin on something that happened. Now it's a bit static.
We've had this conversation before and I think I understand where you come from, with regards to the oWoD's (esp. from VtM 2e on) very detailed, "metaplotty" setting vs. the nWoD's broadly outlined factions and conflicts (actually quite a bit like oWoD 1e in this regard, as someone else already remarked).
Have you looked at the nWoD 1e setting books? (New Orleans for VtR, Chicago for crossover, Boston for MtAw, etc.) If so, how'd you rate them in terms of providing what you call "triggers"?
I love working with systems that are sensitive to guild/factions. So few are.
I caution any novice GM signing onto the "sandbox" bandwagon. It's the hip meme on forums, but few actual players are significantly proactive. If you have them great, but most players are reactive, prone to be looking to the GM for the "adventure of the week".
Also, the ability to make up stuff on the fly is different than the ability to make up good stuff on the fly. My players compliment me on my ability to riff out great stuff from nowhere, but it's not magic, its hard won expertise. I have volumes of my own writing, bookshelves I've devoured and decades of experience that I'm calling upon at that moment.
For all the online hate against railroads, let's not forget the most popular products in RPGdom are railroad adventures and the weekly 4 hour choo choo railroad is the entire business model of organized play by WotC and Paizo.
That said, there is great advice in this thread, but as you pour it all into your margarita glass, don't forget to salt the rim.
Google "Bat in the Attic" + "fantasy sandbox" and there is whole manifesto that is pretty useful even if you don't go for the author's personal fantasy preferences.
Quote from: Spinachcat;839564I caution any novice GM signing onto the "sandbox" bandwagon. It's the hip meme on forums, but few actual players are significantly proactive. If you have them great, but most players are reactive, prone to be looking to the GM for the "adventure of the week".
Also, the ability to make up stuff on the fly is different than the ability to make up good stuff on the fly. My players compliment me on my ability to riff out great stuff from nowhere, but it's not magic, its hard won expertise. I have volumes of my own writing, bookshelves I've devoured and decades of experience that I'm calling upon at that moment.
For all the online hate against railroads, let's not forget the most popular products in RPGdom are railroad adventures and the weekly 4 hour choo choo railroad is the entire business model of organized play by WotC and Paizo.
That said, there is great advice in this thread, but as you pour it all into your margarita glass, don't forget to salt the rim.
Spinachcat has conducted a survey of all players and GMs to back up these assertions as well, you know. Just ask to be pointed to the reams of data.
I would not have run this game if I had known it would be sandbox style. My fault for not stating up front "this game is about players doing X". The worst that will happen is that I'll learn a lot and become a better game. I still prefer mission based games - still situations, I just prep a situation and let the players decide what if anything they want to do, but sandbox-style isn't good for people that are naturally anxious!
Quote from: PencilBoy99;838861It seems like I need to run my Vampire Dark Ages
Game as a Sandbox. Given that I've never run one, what are the best books and GM sections of books on how to run a sandbox?
and
Quote from: PencilBoy99;839581I would not have run this game if I had known it would be sandbox style. My fault for not stating up front "this game is about players doing X".
Hang on, I am confused ...
You are the GM.
You run the campaign how you want to run it.
So, how can you not know what style of campaign you are planning to run?
I know, from your other thread, that you have encountered some issues with your Vampire players, but that doesn't force you to change your GMing style to something you are not comfortable with.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;839581The worst that will happen is that I'll learn a lot and become a better game. I still prefer mission based games - still situations, I just prep a situation and let the players decide what if anything they want to do, but sandbox-style isn't good for people that are naturally anxious!
If you prefer to run mission-style campaigns, then run a mission-style campaign. Simple as that.
If the players decide to go off-mission, then run a couple of one-off scenarios, but come back to the missions.
It's your game, run it and play it however you want to.
Quote from: jan paparazzi;839092So nwod is probably more like 1st edition. A social sandbox. All the chains of triggers are local though (nothing worldwide) and there are no chains or triggers in the core. The Dark Ages books are somewhere in between old and new wod I think.
Yes, that's exactly what I like about nWoD. Well, that and the mechanics, which actually are getting somewhere as of God-Machine Chronicle:).
Quote from: The Butcher;839129(...)
But then I am biased, as "social sandbox" is pretty much my default WoD (old and new) GMing style.
"Social sandbox" is my defauly GMing style even for OSR games or technotriller/cyberpunk. Of course, in that case you have to situate "violence" on the social spectrum.
It helps that it's already part of said spectrum, of course;).
Quote from: LordVreeg;839422I love working with systems that are sensitive to guild/factions. So few are.
Me too, but I wouldn't say they're all that few. I mean, between Reign, The Great Game of Weapons of the Gods, Runequest Empires, Price of Power, An Echo Resounding (from Sine Nomine, in the same setting as Scarlet Heroes), and Spellbound Kingdoms...I should have all the systems I need.
Quote from: Matt;839575Spinachcat has conducted a survey of all players and GMs to back up these assertions as well, you know. Just ask to be pointed to the reams of data.
Please, could you do that? I'm interested.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;839581I would not have run this game if I had known it would be sandbox style. My fault for not stating up front "this game is about players doing X". The worst that will happen is that I'll learn a lot and become a better game. I still prefer mission based games - still situations, I just prep a situation and let the players decide what if anything they want to do, but sandbox-style isn't good for people that are naturally anxious!
There's an intermediate solution that might work for you.
Ask them what they're planning to do next session, then prepare that. It helps if you end each session either as them having a planning session in which they must decide what to do next. You, on the other hand, turn up next session with their mission.
Said mission might be "turn an ally of his against the Prince", or it might be "improve my herd, including powerful people". But once they tell you this, you can make it into a mission, right?
They might not actually decide it in character, but doesn't matter. What matters is the timing. They get the next two days after the session to decide what to do, after that they tell you and then you prepare what you're going to run next time.
If they take the two-days bonus, they've got to tell you the first approach they intend to take, as well. Next session starts with them doing exactly that.
Quote from: Matt;839575Spinachcat has conducted a survey of all players and GMs to back up these assertions as well, you know. Just ask to be pointed to the reams of data.
Damn right! Thank you Minion Matt! Keep up the good work and you just might be promoted to Assistant Marketing Minion!
Sycophants are the best!
Quote from: The Butcher;839407We've had this conversation before and I think I understand where you come from, with regards to the oWoD's (esp. from VtM 2e on) very detailed, "metaplotty" setting vs. the nWoD's broadly outlined factions and conflicts (actually quite a bit like oWoD 1e in this regard, as someone else already remarked).
Have you looked at the nWoD 1e setting books? (New Orleans for VtR, Chicago for crossover, Boston for MtAw, etc.) If so, how'd you rate them in terms of providing what you call "triggers"?
Oh, it's you. New profile pic again.
Yes, I think those books provide some of what I might be looking for. I know New Orleans and it has an interesting backstory about Vidal being betrayed by the CotC leader when doing a blood potency lowering ritual. It failed and now he hates Cronies and Nosferatu.
But ... I felt it was a bit hamfisted and it forced Catholicism and Voodoo into the covenant mold in a very contrived way. And I find the settings generally not so appealing in the new wod.
I usually play a wod mortal setting now which uses hunters and the spirit world, but I don't use any of the excisting groups. I made up all the factions myself and wrote a backstory for the world about the slowly eroding Gauntlet and all the extra manifestations that occured in the last few centuries. It mostly deals with a council of spirits who want more control in the material world and with a lot of mortal factions who all deal with the situation differently. Some see a threat, others an opportunity for occult study or a business opportunity. The Gilded Cage was a good book for mining ideas about those factions. I gave them clear goals btw, instead of ideologies.
My best adventures in the new wod are usually not due to the settings, but despite off the settings. It's best ignored and build from the ground up. I play a very different setting than the default.
Quote from: Spinachcat;839564I caution any novice GM signing onto the "sandbox" bandwagon. It's the hip meme on forums, but few actual players are significantly proactive. If you have them great, but most players are reactive, prone to be looking to the GM for the "adventure of the week".
In fairness, you only need one proactive player to make this work.
I agree with the part about making stuff up on the fly, though - I'm not great at improvising, so sandbox gaming can mean a lot of up-front prep work. On the other hand, if your players aren't too worried about verisimilitude, you can start with something pretty small and expand from there.
My school group was a sandbox-stye campaign, but all that meant in practice was that there were several dungeons nearby and they could choose which one they wanted to explore each time they went out. There was conflict in the town but they players never really chose to engage with it, preferring to hop from dungeon to dungeon. The game was a sandbox because I let them do what they wanted.
Quote from: Matt;839574Google "Bat in the Attic" + "fantasy sandbox" and there is whole manifesto that is pretty useful even if you don't go for the author's personal fantasy preferences.
Sorry I didn't see this thread before. First thanks for the shout out.
Here are the relevant links.
How to make a Fantasy Sandbox. An exhaustive overview of how to create your own setting with relevant details suitable for a sandbox campaign.
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html
Blackmarsh Setting Reference Document which has a brief sandbox how-to at the beginning as well as an example of a hex-crawl formatted setting.
http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/blackmarsh_srd.zip
This link is to all the sandbox articles I written on Bat in the Attic.
http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/search/label/sandbox%20fantasy
Starting in 2008 to date.
Quote from: Spinachcat;839564I caution any novice GM signing onto the "sandbox" bandwagon. It's the hip meme on forums, but few actual players are significantly proactive. If you have them great, but most players are reactive, prone to be looking to the GM for the "adventure of the week".
It is about the initial context. Players that can thrive and have fun with a blank maps are indeed not common. For the rest, trying to explore a blank map is as fun as trying to play a game of darts in darkness. The available choices in the beginning are random shots in the dark and not really choices at all.
The solution to this is to come up with a initial context for the characters and the group. This provide the foundation for the initial choices of the players as their characters.
The essence of a sandbox campaign is not in circumstances at any point in the game. It is in the willingness of the referee to let the players direct the action of the campaign regardless of his or her own wishes.
Most players want to advance their status or wealth by doing interesting things. So in general they will opt to pursue adventures. For the most part a sandbox campaign doesn't appear much different than a traditional tabletop campaign or even a Paizo style adventure path.
The difference comes in when the players have a desire to explore something else about the campaign for a few sessions. Or when the player mix changes and the ensuing dynamics changes the goals of the group. A sandbox campaign will give these choices equal weight and equal potential reward as if they opted to stay on the original path.
On my blog at a http://batintheattic.blogspot.com I have the accounts of several campaigns I ran as a sandbox. What common about all of these campaigns is that they have major phases. A phase is a long run of sessions where the group is pursuing a specific goal. However something changes, either in-game or out-of-game. Whatever the cause the result is the group pursuing a new set of goals often in a new locale.
The players find that I don't care about their change of focus. Even when it involves trashing major amounts of prep on my part. The worse that will happen is that I will end a session earlier so I have time to prepare some new material. But most times I just able to go along with as if it was my plan for the campaign all along.
To me the point of tabletop roleplaying is to be somebody else doing interesting things AS IF I AM REALLY THERE. In essence a pen and paper virtual reality. The fewer metagame bullshit, the better the experience. The body of advice about sandbox campaigns are the best methods I found to achieve this.
Thanks all. Now to my new set of problems!
Quote from: Spinachcat;839564I caution any novice GM signing onto the "sandbox" bandwagon. It's the hip meme on forums, but few actual players are significantly proactive. If you have them great, but most players are reactive, prone to be looking to the GM for the "adventure of the week".
This statement seems to be predicated on the belief that sandboxes don't have scenario hooks.
To the contrary: A good sandbox has scenario hooks hanging all over the place. The successful sandbox will not only be festooned with scenario hooks, it will also feature some form of default action that can be used to deliver more hooks if the players find themselves bereft of interesting options.
For example, a typical hexcrawl sandbox features a rumor table (which serves up some arbitrary number of scenario hooks to the PCs) and a default action if none of those rumors sound appealing (wandering around the map until you find something interesting).
A megadungeon sandbox similarly features a rumor table and a default action (go explore some unknown part of the dungeon).
Prepping this plethora of scenario hooks can be daunting for a GM who believes that every scenario hook needs to be linked to a distinct, unique plot. The trick to a sandbox is that you don't prep plots: You prep situations. (http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4147/roleplaying-games/dont-prep-plots) And for the sandbox you'll be able to hang countless hooks off of every situation. You'll also discover how sandbox situations "stay alive" even after the PCs have interacted with them (instead of being completely chewed up and discarded).
For example, let's say you've got a dungeon a fair distance outside of town that's the remains of a Neo-Norskan temple complex. It's currently being occupied by a Bandit King who has forged together an alliance of humans, goblins, and ogres. He's also renting skeletons off a nearby necromancer.
In terms of scenario hooks, there's all kinds of stuff you can hang on this situation: Bandit raids are terrorizing local villages. A powerful magical artifact was stolen from a local caravan. There are old legends about the Neo-Norskan temple and what it contains. Because of the skeletons, there are false rumors that the necromancer lives there. Or that the necromancer has allied with the Bandit Kings. (And you can salt these scenario hooks into the campaign in any number of ways: Rumor tables. Lore recovered from other locations. Allies of the PCs who are now in need. Et cetera.)
So one day the PCs grab one of these hooks and they go off and they kill the Bandit King and they take the magical artifact he was carrying.
Over and done with, right? Only not really, because the guy who originally owned the magical artifact still wants it, so now the PCs are getting attacked by bounty hunters attempting to recover the artifact. Meanwhile, they didn't wipe out all the bandits and the remaining goblins are renewing their raids under the leadership of the One-Eyed Ogre.
So the PCs go back to the Neo-Norksan temple and this time they wipe out all the bandits, permanently ending their threat to the region. Except now the Necromancer sees a big, open dungeon complex filled with the discarded corpses the PCs have left in their wake, and so he moves in and animates the corpses as a skeletal army.
Which all sounds like a lot of work, but because you prepped the whole thing as a situation to begin with you haven't needed to spend more than about 5 minutes "refreshing" this content between sessions: You're reusing the same maps and stat blocks over and over again. You spent a little time putting together new stat blocks for the bounty hunters when they showed up. And there was probably some light re-keying necessary for the changes the Necromancer made when he took over the complex.
You didn't have to buy a whole new set of tools every single time. You just occasionally added a new tool when necessary. (And occasionally removed a hammer that the PCs had broken.)
This can be easier to visualize with a location (which is why I use it as an example), but the same basic process holds true for, say, factions in an urban campaign. Create a gang that's, say, manufacturing and marketing a drug derived from blood that's been harvested from vampires and you should be able to use that toolkit to generate dozens of sessions of play.
The other thing that happens in a sandbox campaign is synergy between the different elements of the sandbox: By holding onto the artifact that was stolen from them, the PCs make enemies of House Nobuzo. This unexpectedly earns them a patron in the form of House Erskine, unleashing a flurry of scenario hooks from the "feuding noble houses" toolkit you designed. As the PCs get drawn into that world, they're approached by a minor house named Tannar: They're currently allied to House Nobuzo, but their daughter has been murdered by the Necromancer who has now stolen her body in order to transform her into his Corpse Bride. If the PCs can rescue their daughter from a fate literally worse than death, they'll break their alliance with House Nobuzo and pledge for House Erskine.
After that scenario has resolved itself, you might find that the players are now actively looking for minor houses that they can endear to their political causes by doing favors for them. (Which would organically create a new default action for delivering scenario hooks.)
In any case, once your sandbox toolkits start interacting with each other like this, you'll quickly find that the sandbox is basically running itself.
Quote from: The Butcher;838928Alex's essays are great, even if I find his style way more hardcore than mine (which incidentally is why I love his ruleset -- it's like having a smarter kid do your homework for you while you and your friends slack off :D).
Hah, my years of high school at last pay off.