Quote from: estar;572181Here a good question for you to answer, can a campaign where everybody is a members of the Starship Enterprise be a sandbox? The NCC-1701F with all new crew. Or a fantasy campaign where everybody is a member of the City-Guard?

in my opinion?  no for both.  the characters' actions and mobility are extremely limited by their careers and responsibilities.  freedom of movement is fairly essential for sandboxing.

Quote from: beeber;572185in my opinion?  no for both.  the characters' actions and mobility are extremely limited by their careers and responsibilities.  freedom of movement is fairly essential for sandboxing.

So sandbox campaign is dependent on the content of the campaign?

That something I disagree with as it akin to saying X campaign can't be a the character is a elf, fighter, blacksmith, lives in the village of Downton, or any number of superfical attribute. Ultimately that type of definition fails to get at the heart of what makes the sandbox desirable and the railroad bad for RPGs.

The strength of tabletop RPGs is in enabling player agency. A game where anything can be attempted is its central and most appealing feature.

What makes the railroad bad isn't the fact it is a linear series of events in hindsight but that the referee in his mind predetermined the outcome.  In the sandbox campaign the referee doesn't have preconceived idea of how the campaigns will play out. Only a general sense of the likely outcomes based on his personal knowledge of the players and how they reacted to similar events in the past. This dichotomy of attitudes exists if the campaign is about City-Guard or it is about freebooters meandering across the landscape.

A typical RPG campaign has a variety of situations during the course of its existance some of which involve a linear series of events.

Quote from: Premier;572070But the DM won't have Luke's sandboxy idea of business/mobster shenanigans. He has prepared a grand action adventure, and by Jove, a grand action adventure Luke will have!

The DM tells the player it's a sandbox when really it's a scripted quest?  The DM sucks so far.

Quote from: Premier;572076As a DM, would you tell me when I was about to do something "no fucking way it works", based on the fact that my character would know better?

As a DM, I'll tell the players (not their player characters) to roll.  That's it.  If a player character knows the pin-point location on a map where he or she is to have their forged document and fake ID at hand, I'm pretty sure they would know if showing such items to a guard would even work or not.

I guess sandbox means different things to us.  To me, sandbox means players are not limited in what their player characters can do.  Maybe to you, sandbox means a pre-determined or pre-designed location with various scripts that have to be triggered which the players need to be familiar with in order to proceed through the game?

Quote from: estar;572094If you look at the Star Wars as a record of how a campaign WENT. Rather than what the referee conceived his campaign to be. It is possible it was the result of a sandbox campaign.

I remember sitting in the theater, watching Empire Strikes Back, and everyone is getting the hell off of Hoth.  There's some sort of arrangement made that everybody will meet up at some blah blah planet/system.  I'm not a Star Wars fan, so I don't remember such details.

Ok.  So then out of the blue, Luke tells R2 that they won't be going to the blah blah system with everyone else.  R2 is shocked (even the audience went, WTH?).  Luke had chosen to look for Yoda instead.  Too me, that had some sandboxing to it because, even though Luke made a free choice in "the game", he was given a hook earlier about seeking out Yoda afterall.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;572204As a DM, I'll tell the players (not their player characters) to roll.  That's it.  If a player character knows the pin-point location on a map where he or she is to have their forged document and fake ID at hand, I'm pretty sure they would know if showing such items to a guard would even work or not.

Exactly, the PC would know that. But the player would not, because he's not familiar with how things work in the setting. Because, and this is the point I've been trying to get across for way too long now, different settings have different assumptions. Something might be workable in one sci-fi setting but pants-on-head retarded in another due the the different technological/societal background. The inhabitants of the setting (PCs included) would know which one is the case, but the player does not have access to that information unless you tell them.

It's like, imagine a bunch of space aliens playing Earth 2012: the RPG. One player, a Zrbloxonian who's never been to Earth, rolls up a driver, and at one point the adventure has them driving a car somewhere and they get stopped by the police for speeding. No big deal... however, the Zrbloxonian player did not know (and had no way of knowing) that on 2012 Earth most countries require you to have a highly specific piece of documentation called a "driver's license" (no such things exist on Zrbloxon), so he didn't put one on his equipment list, and now they're in a great deal of trouble despite the fact that his character would have known better.

And no, we can't just conveniently assume that the need for a driver's license
would have come up during play had they been planning the road trip carefully. After all, when was the last time you've planned a car trip checking maps and motels and the question "Will I need a special license to legally operate this vehicle" actually cropped up? It never did, because it's something the inhabitants of our setting take for granted. And things taken for granted in a setting will NOT crop up during play until the moment you run into a wall because you didn't know it was taken for granted. In such circumstances, it's the DM's responsibility to point out such things in time.

QuoteI guess sandbox means different things to us.  To me, sandbox means players are not limited in what their player characters can do.  Maybe to you, sandbox means a pre-determined or pre-designed location with various scripts that have to be triggered which the players need to be familiar with in order to proceed through the game?

Now, that's just insulting. For the record, a sandbox for me is a game where the players/PCs are free to make meaningful and potentially far-reaching decisions about what they want to do. However, the point of my contention - and please do read back and check what exactly I was first replying to - is that meaningful choices can only be made if the players have the necessary context; and that dumping players into a setting whose nature and assumptions they know nothing about and saying "you can do whatever you want" lacks that necessary context. Are you contesting that?

Quote from: Premier;572332so he didn't put one on his equipment list, and now they're in a great deal of trouble despite the fact that his character would have known better.

While I try to make the Majestic Wilderlands approachable by using well-known fantasy tropes where I can there are some elements that are specific to the setting that a newcomer could run afoul of. So what I do is apply a variant of the "Hey Mr. Referee don't be a dick about it." rule. If I see the newcomers doing something not optimal, doesn't have to be life threatening because they are not familiar with the setting I will explain the situation and let them make a new decisions. Sometimes they are fine with what they just did and sometimes they go "Oh you know what? If that the case I will..."

Also newcomers will be a loss with presented with a situation as it obvious by my roleplaying that a lot is going on but they feel out of place because again they are not familiar with the campaign. When I see that I will explain an analogous situation from film, tv, or books and tell them whatever they assume about that they can assume about what they are dealing with now.

It boils down to not being a dick about your setting. If the referee, creates this lovingly detailed setting then the burden is on the referee to TEACH effectively his players the details about his setting.

This applies to genre as well.

For the record since Firefly it been a LOT easier to explain what a Traveller Merchant campaign is about.

Quote from: estar;572353For the record since Firefly it been a LOT easier to explain what a Traveller Merchant campaign is about.

This is soooo true, especially to new players.

Quote from: Premier;572332Exactly, the PC would know that. But the player would not.

You totally didn't get what I said.  It went right over your head.  And we have totally different ideas of what sandbox means.

Quote from: estar;572350While I try to make the Majestic Wilderlands approachable by using well-known fantasy tropes where I can there are some elements that are specific to the setting that a newcomer could run afoul of. So what I do is apply a variant of the "Hey Mr. Referee don't be a dick about it." rule. If I see the newcomers doing something not optimal, doesn't have to be life threatening because they are not familiar with the setting I will explain the situation and let them make a new decisions. Sometimes they are fine with what they just did and sometimes they go "Oh you know what? If that the case I will..."

Also newcomers will be a loss with presented with a situation as it obvious by my roleplaying that a lot is going on but they feel out of place because again they are not familiar with the campaign. When I see that I will explain an analogous situation from film, tv, or books and tell them whatever they assume about that they can assume about what they are dealing with now.

It boils down to not being a dick about your setting. If the referee, creates this lovingly detailed setting then the burden is on the referee to TEACH effectively his players the details about his setting.

This applies to genre as well.

This is exactly what I'm saying, estar. With the added notion that the same principle of don't be a dick applies to macro-level choices in a sandbox with unfamiliar assumptions. "The starship you have is the rough equivalent of a modern-day Mini Morris, not a tramp freighter. You might want to reconsider your plan of starting up a transport company."

Which was said in reaction to camazotz's post of "You're on this planet, you don't know anything about this setting, here's a sector map, GO!" post.

QuoteYou totally didn't get what I said. It went right over your head.

Well, then you have expressed yourself obtusely, and I for one would be grateful if you could restate your opinion in a clearer, easier-to-understand manner.

Quote from: Premier;572453Which was said in reaction to camazotz's post of "You're on this planet, you don't know anything about this setting, here's a sector map, GO!" post.

Based on various posts and commentary I read since the mid 2000s the main reason most sandbox campaign fail is due to the lack of context for the players to base their initial decisions on. Setting them on a world or in the middle of a wilderness, on leave them standing on a city street without any other information is not the way to start up a Sandbox campaign. Many players feel as they are throwing darts in the dark and wind up frustrated.

Look at the records of my own past campaigns and other successful campaigns the common thread is that players have a background for their characters or campaign (even if only a paragraph) that provides the initial context. That what truly sets the sandbox campaign from the railroad counterpart is the referee's willingness to abide by the players decisions as to the direction of the campaign.

In short the referee is comfortable with the players "trashing" his setting at any point of the campaign.

Quote from: estar;572465the main reason most sandbox campaign fail is due to the lack of context for the players to base their initial decisions on. Setting them on a world or in the middle of a wilderness, on leave them standing on a city street without any other information is not the way to start up a Sandbox campaign. Many players feel as they are throwing darts in the dark and wind up frustrated.

For me, I let the players tell me before a game session even starts what they'd like to do that night and what kind of setting they'd like to visit.  I don't plan out any kind of campaign or quest, all written down and organized and everything, because a sandbox I run is never going to follow such plans.

But what I do though is keep a journal of what happens in a session so that when players decide to return somewhere weeks later, I have maps and NPCs I can refer back to.  Over time, I have less to make up off the top of my head for players to discover/reveal because the party will often revisit a known space.

I would never put players in a situation where they have no clue what their role is or what kind of world they are in.  That game is called Charades.

Quote from: Shawn Driscoll;571723Step 1 has been an optional rule since 1980.

Sure, if you're a pussy!

RPGPundit

Thanks much for all the posts. Ive been reading them but rarely get a chance to post up as I read on my iphone and hate typing replies from it.

I read a forum post on another site of a review of WD, and was reminded that it had a lot of Traveller articles, including articles on how to run a campaign. Ill have to dig through my CD and print out some articles now for reading...

again, thanks all!