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How have you kickstarted a campaign? I would like to have a conversation with real accounts, not hypotheticals, and focused on so-called "sandbox" or "hexcrawl" campaigns. I think it's common to say that these campaigns "take on a life of their own" once the PCs start interacting with the gameworld, generating consequences from their actions and forming relationships. But how did your campaign start--what set things in motion?

I'm especially hoping to hear from Black Vulmea because of this excellent series of articles:

http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/02/swashbucklers-sandbox-part-i.html
http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/02/swashbucklers-sandbox-part-2.html
http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/02/swashbucklers-sandbox-part-3.html
http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/02/swashbucklers-sandbox-part-4.html

Just as described in the original D&D booklets, except that I had only a couple of dungeon levels prepared (not the larger number recommended). Characters appeared at the town gate, and we went from there.

The way it worked with the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea campaign we are playing right now is that we created a few characters first, namely, in particular, an Hyperborean warlock going by the name of Mercurio Drakonos who was a sailor onboard a Viking ship sailing towards the Savage Boreal Coast. It all came from rolling for a particular skill, brainstorming a bit of background, not much really, but it was sufficient to set up the starting point of the game:

The game started at sea, en route for the Coast. PCs that joined the first game would be assumed to be travelers on board. There was a storm, and while passing through the islands of the Skarag Coast northward, the captain lost control of the ship. The PCs jumped in and took the decision of where they wanted to go from there: sailing through the storm and islands, either crashing the ship on the Coast (with its own set of explorations and potential adventures) or by sheer luck avoiding disaster and making it farther to the actual valley where my primary mega-dungeon could be found (unbeknownst to them), OR sailing for Kusu's Cove, a large cavern with a village of smugglers and bandits where they knew they could find shelter for the time being (therefore: choice).

They chose the Cove (where, as in the case of the two other possibilities besides death that could unfold from their original choice at sea, other PCs could be met, of course), which was itself set up as a mini-hex sandbox. From there, they arrived in the Cove, found that the village of bandits had been taken by a young lord without respect for the old ways, that there was some sort of curse spreading amongst the villagers, and several ancient forts spread around the Coast, and role playing, action-reaction etc did the rest.

The full account of the first few games (we've played our 15th session yesterday): http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=24537

The RuneQuest Griffin Mountain campaign book was excellent. I started the players with a "coming of age ritual" scenario to get them comfortable with their Balazaring (stone-age tribesmen) characters. Along the way, I dropped in bits of information about what's where, who's who, and such.

The selection and organization of resources in GM is probably a good model if you want to put in a lot of prep work to make running a campaign easier.

Quote from: Phillip;626954Just as described in the original D&D booklets, except that I had only a couple of dungeon levels prepared (not the larger number recommended). Characters appeared at the town gate, and we went from there.

I.e., the characters just started exploring the dungeon because that was what you do, yes? This is exactly what I did, except there wasn't a town until later. Actually I inherited the dungeon from another player, and then when it was (basically) empty, instead of me expanding it or creating another, the players adventured in town and eventually overland. Not sure whose idea that was.

Currently running a new campaign with my gaming group of the last few years.

Usually we play older D&D types (2e, C&C, OD&D) but this campaign is a post apocalyptic/sci-fi gonzo homebrewed mash up of S&W Whitebox and Other Dust. We are one session in.

This was the blurb I gave to kickstart PC creation/the campaign jump off point.
You hated The Village but knew little else. There you were raised a slave & trained to be sent out into the Bleak Beyond to fetch treasures for the Tyrant. Occasionally people would whisper of legendary Xanadu or find some relic from Olden Times to puzzle over. Now The Village- your one refuge in an already ruined world- is gone.
"You crouch behind a broken wall, clutching the few possessions salvaged from the burning ruin of your home. Hideous winged beasts swoop in the distance, hunting & killing your fellow colonists- but it was men who destroyed your village. The attack was brutal & unexpected, the survivors have scattered. What do you do?"

RANDOM THINGS LEARNED IN THE VILLAGE
It was wondered what the Tyrant did with the Tek collected on his behalf, or what he was looking for.
Sometimes wild sandstorms blow in from the west.                                                    
The Village had no well, but the Tyrant had a source of water, it was one of the keys to his control over the people.  

So it's began as a hex crawl, searching for food & water, fighting off raiders and chasing the rumour of a surviving city to the South learned by a pc during the session. But if they ever discover a thriving city it could turn into an entirely different kind of campaign.

Or they could join with slavers, raiders, try to start their own settlement, join a small community somewhere, just explore the hexes, find out the secrets of the apocalypse or things I can't even think of.

The idea of the start was that the PC's know very little about the world, it's georgraphy or history or what the hell is out there so I imagine exploration and discovery will be big themes.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;626948...how did your campaign start--what set things in motion?

Our new Ars Magica campaign is a quasi-historical sandbox.

We started with a wizard's council. I gave each of the three players of wizards three news items which they could introduce at the council (or veto if they didn't want to introduce them). They were also free to introduce their own topics from their character/covenant backgrounds. Some of my 'news items' also drew upon their character backgrounds.

During the council, they elected to deal with two of those news items right away. The rest are being treated with a wait-and-see-what-develops attitude. We'll run those two 'missions' that they elected to do, and then we'll have another council to decide what comes new. The more familiar they get with the game world, the more likely they are to introduce their own missions and ignore the news items, I suspect. Regardless, I've got some 30 or 40 plot hooks to toss into the pot when needed. I'm sure we'll never use all of them.

If you want to see hour our initial wizard's council turned out, see the link in my sig.

Quote from: Benoist;626956The way it worked with the Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea campaign we are playing right now is that we created a few characters first, namely, in particular, an Hyperborean warlock going by the name of Mercurio Drakonos who was a sailor onboard a Viking ship sailing towards the Savage Boreal Coast. It all came from rolling for a particular skill, brainstorming a bit of background, not much really, but it was sufficient to set up the starting point of the game:

So the group collaborated on setting the initial situation? Or did you pick the tidbit and create the situation by yourself?

The Traveller game I'm running now was billed as a "one off," but could become a campaign if the players like.

I'm using the scenario Research Station Gamma, which is presented as a sort of "dungeon crawl" rescue mission. The characters start in a bar, drinking and thinking about their need for money so they can get off the planet (up to the players as to why, but it's rather a backwater).

However, the players spent the first session mainly pursuing their own agenda -- playing rather more lawless characters than they usually do in D&D -- and we ended with them just docking their submarine at the station.

I've got the Spinward Marches sector book, in which most of the early Traveller scenarios are set. I'm sowing leads to Twilight's Peak. The sector data is pretty rudimentary, a starting point for one's own brainstorming as to how to flesh out the worlds.

In an open-ended campaign, they'll probably want to find some way to acquire a starship. A pretty common Traveller set-up has the players operating a trader, taking side jobs to help make ends meet.

If it goes that way, I'll be mindful of some lessons from a "D&D in space" game another GM ran. In that, we did not feel we had enough information available on which to base strategic decisions. There was also a problem with getting too much wealth and goodies off the bat, which made it harder to come up with objectives.

A good lesson (learned long ago, but worth being reminded of) was the importance of engaging NPCs. Friends, foes, flunkies, etc., can create interesting situations.

Quote from: Phillip;626957The selection and organization of resources in GM is probably a good model if you want to put in a lot of prep work to make running a campaign easier.

That's exactly what I started with for the micro-sandbox I'm working on at the moment.

In this particular case, who decided the PCs would be Balazarings? And once that was set, you chose the initial getting-to-know-you adventure, right?

Quote from: Phillip;626966The Traveller game I'm running now was billed as a "one off," but could become a campaign if the players like.

I started with the scenario Research Station Gamma, which is presented as a sort of "dungeon crawl" rescue mission.

However, the players spent the first session mainly pursuing their own agenda -- playing rather more lawless characters than they usually do in D&D -- and we ended with them just docking their submarine at the station.

[...]

In an open-ended campaign, they'll probably want to find some way to acquire a starship. A pretty common Traveller set-up has the players operating a trader, taking side jobs to help make ends meet.

This seems to be a common theme in classic Traveller: the PCs are partners/friends, they don't have much, and they want to get their own ship. In this case they've been set down in an environment and they're actively doing stuff to achieve that goal. Sound right?

BTW, thumbs up to all responses so far. My questions are aimed at clarifying who made various decisions in the real world; the idea is to see what strategies GMs have available to get things started, so it's important to identify what the GM did specifically.

I decided the initial PCs would be Balazarings (except for one who wanted to play a Baboon). I chose the initial state of the world, which involved among other things it being time for the coming-of-age ceremony.

What works well for introducing a new player-character may depend on the scope of your game.

Anything I run for the group I'm regularly playing with these days will be a single-party setup, so wherever and whenever "the party" is, somehow the new character needs to be introduced there -- and also ought to have some motivation to join up, rather than going off on some separate adventure.

With a bigger campaign, with more frequent time slots for running games, I often liked to start with a single-player session to establish a new character and get it synced on the map and timeline with people who would be looking for (or at least be open to) adding another member to an expedition.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;626971BTW, thumbs up to all responses so far. My questions are aimed at clarifying who made various decisions in the real world; the idea is to see what strategies GMs have available to get things started, so it's important to identify what the GM did specifically.

Ok, I can give a more specific answer to that.

A) a bestiary & run-down of the various enclaves/potential adventure locales eg the ruined village at the start; Bone-Man (Carcosa style) country etc.

What changes as you come into each territory, what minor encounters specific to that enclave/locale are you likely to have when within a hex of the main base etc.

B) a hex map (6 mile hexes). To begin with I only filled out the hexes within a few days of the PC's but had ideas about vaguely where other regions/features would be placed.

C) Random encounter tables. IMO in an exloration hex crawl RE's are a great way to show the PC's (rather than tell them) what your world is like, what is out there and what is happening.

I spent more time on this than almost anything else- encounters, each one is with intelligent beings MUST be doing something to do with the gameworld, have motivations, links, possibilities, info to gather, alliances to form etc etc.

D) Half-prepped several likely modules/adventure locations I could drop in- so that if the PC's homed in on one I could run it in a pinch in any session, or easily with a sessions notice.


E) A set of tables for filling hexes on the fly- in case the PC's manage to somehow blast right of the map, I have some tools for winging a session and still keep the flavour of the setting coherent and not pull it completely out of my ass. This is just a personal preference, some guys are great at Dming on the fly, I need to give myself something to bounce off.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;626965So the group collaborated on setting the initial situation? Or did you pick the tidbit and create the situation by yourself?

A bit of both. We discussed the player's background and established he would be seeking some of his relatives while sailing with the Vikings. I introduced the rumour he heard in taverns and ports that one such relative might still be alive and well, leading a band of mercenaries along the Savage Boreal Coast of Hyperborea. From there, it wasn't hard to convince the Vikings to sail for that area, since the valley where the relative seems to have been primarily sighted has a few Viking settlements of its own.

So it was based on a mutual background brainstorm, aided by what I had already come up with as far as the Coast was concerned.

I tie campaigns together at the beginning to get the ball rolling by emphasizing where you came from (background).  When launching my Cambarra campaign, the first session was a solo player/solo DM.  He presented his background, and he and I worked out a 'way in the past' scenario to give him a reason for being where he would be now (a lone orphan, just ready to graduate from his basic apprenticeship at level 1).  The intro was nothing more than how his parents died, but it left a small idiosyncracy that he would continue to display for the remainder of the campaign involving rocks and puzzles.

Then I launched directly into waking up one morning, he had a visit from a friendly NPC, graduated, and was left with a simple task -- go to the nearest village.  The village was beset by a werewolf (or so the villagers believed) and the solo character dared face the 'beast' (which, at the time, certainly seemed like a werewolf).  He was badly wounded but forced the retreat.  

In the next session, the other PC's joined the game.  One was a cleric, one was a warrior, and one was a ranger.  Since the foundation had been laid, I described the village situation for the cleric and did a short 'rerun' of the battle, as the first character needed medical attention after the battle and, naturally, ended up at the small temple.  The warrior was arriving the day after the battle on a routine stop to pick up supplies after having ridden from his hometown (he had asked to have little background, so I ran with it and his intro story was much less focused on).  The ranger received a small aside wherein he found evidence of the passing of some kind of huge wolf, and he tracked it into town.  This brought everyone together, and they decided (at the first character's insistence in-character) to pursue the wolf.

I never had to prompt anyone after that; there were several sidestops, explorations, and long nights of RP.  Eventually they began to tie some of the incidents together and focused their pursuit on a powerful, evil sorceror who had been responsible for causing the nation's 10-year civil war and been presumed dead, but not once did I have to 'direct' them to do it.  It was entirely in the nature of their characters.

It should be noted though...I flat-out disallow evil characters.  That makes it much easier to deal with.

Quote from: zarathustra;626976Ok, I can give a more specific answer to that.

Thanks. All that is very useful in general, but here I'm looking specifically for the method used to get the PCs started in the campaign. Point is, something or someone needs to set things in motion: I'd like to know who or what that is, and how it works. After things are in motion, I think it gets easier. Or at least, that's a different topic.

I'll violate my initial request by doing a bit of theorizing: the system or setting itself could set things in motion. E.g., event tables could generate something to which the PCs must react, or rules for personal upkeep could mean that PCs will have a net negative cash flow if they don't do anything, which of course would goad them into action.

This is a little like what happened in the game I described earlier--the PCs were in town and there was no dungeon. I don't remember if I was charging them room & board but someone got the idea of hanging out on an intersection and looking to mug people, which generated several memorable battles with ruffians. (I.e., the players wanted to be chaotic but they accidentally ran into real criminals before they could ambush a fat merchant.) Then someone got the idea of working as caravan guards. Did I, as GM, make the job offer, or did they go looking for it? I don't remember, but it illustrates the principle.

Quote from: CerilianSeeming;626995It should be noted though...I flat-out disallow evil characters.  That makes it much easier to deal with.

Interesting observation.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;626948But how did your campaign start--what set things in motion?

Paris. March 1625. The weather is cold, and the only sign of spring is that snow flurries have turned to cold wet showers. The streets are deep with muck, and on the north sides of buildings, patches of snow and ice remain in the shadows. Along the Seine laborers break up ice collecting along the piers of the bridges while rows of barges are docked along the quays, waiting for spring to begin in earnest.

Despite the weather, the markets are bustling, as Paris is the seat of government and never truly rests. Merchants and crafts people, bundled against the chill, sell their wares to the families of the laborers and the servants of the bourgeoisie and nobility who throng the city's churches, courts, and ministries. At night they huddle in taverns, drinking mulled wine, slurping ragout, singing songs and tossing dice. In the townhouses in neighborhoods like the Marais and the Faubourg Saint-Germain, aristocrats take their ease under candle-lit chandeliers, around tables laden with game and fowl, pastries and other dishes, and gossip about the negotiations for the marriage of His Most Christian Majesty's youngest sister to the Prince of Wales or the progress of the Constable of France's fighting in Savoy against the Genoese, and what the Spanish are likely to do in response.

They also talk about the crowds thronging the opening of a new play at the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and the commedia performers on the stage of the Foire Saint-Germain. The fair is in its closing weeks, but merchants and craftsmen from across the north of Europe are still selling luxuries to the aristocrats of Paris within its sunken walls. While the fair continues, it is the place to see and be seen, supplanting strolls along Pont-Neuf and carriage rides around the Cour de la Reine.


So that was pretty much my introduction, conducted over a poster-sized map of Paris laid out on the table. Only one of the two original players was present that night, and his character, a King's Musketeer with the Don Juan Secret, decided to cherchez les femmes at the fair. On the way he had a random encounter: a pair of apprentice painters, looking for a swordsman to protect them from the guards - thugs - hired by the Parisian painters' guild to stifle the competition. The musketeer chose not to help them. Once in the fair, he had another random encounter: three young nobles harassing a young acrobat on a highwire. After he convinced the trio to leave, he was thanked by the leader of the acting troupe performing at the fair and invited to the hôtel de Bourgogne by a playwright, Racan, who was visiting with the head of the troupe. He attended the play, which proved uneventful, but on the way back to his lodgings near the Place Maubert, he had another random encounter, the aftermath of a duel in an alley. (This encounter would lead to two assassination attempts on him months later.)

The next time we played, both players were present, and the pair decided to join another musketeer who was gambling at a seedy tavern. A random encounter involving two disguised nobles - the duchesse de Chevreuse and her lover, Lord Holland - resulted in a fight with a gang of bravos in an alley, sneaking the duchess and the earl back into the Louvre, a murder on quay Saint-Bernard, and a hunt for the leader of the bravos, who escaped the earlier melee.

And by that time, we were off and rolling.

A subsequent development was a rumor of a family seeking to fill a number of household positions: fencing master, tutor, banker, and so on. This lead them into the circumstances which resulted in their exile from Paris after a duel gone wrong.

So that's how I do that. Is that what you were looking for, Elliot?

Thanks much. It'll take some digesting...oh, yeah, what's the Don Juan Secret? How specifically does that play into making things happen or motivating the PC? My copy of Flashing Blades is in the other room but it's cluttered and cold in there...

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627082. . . [W]hat's the Don Juan Secret? How specifically does that play into making things happen or motivating the PC?

Quote from: Flashing Blades, "Advantages and Secrets," p. 11Don Juan
Any character may choose to have this secret. A character who is a Don Juan will have great difficulty resisting beautiful women. Such a character may fight duels over women he doesn't even know, rescue ladies in distress, no matter the odds, and flirt shamelessly. This secret may become dangerous if the character falls for the wrong woman - such as the King's mistress.

Riordan's player does an excellent job of roleplaying this Secret.

Are secrets anything more than roleplaying suggestions? Do you get some specific benefit by RPing a secret (mechanical benny, GM is supposed to supply situations that match it, etc.)?

We completed three sessions of the campaign with the fourth session set for tonight.

The characters are

• Delvin, an impoverished dwarf from Thunderhold.
  
• Aeron, an ordinary common man with special skills.
  
• Cei Kerac, a hedge knight who lost everything but his horse and makes his living as a sell sword to regain his fortune.
  
• Durgo, a warrior banished from his forest home for doing the right thing accompanied only by his faithful dog Red.
  
• Kermit, a puppeteer that uses magic to enhance his performance but his half-Viridian (half-demon) heritage has left him physically scarred
  
• Henry Kiefer, a hedge knight who arrived from the north after after some unpleasant business with his deceased father's liege.
  

The game is based around the town and keep of Abberset (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Y68hIXF0D_E/UA4TX671fUI/AAAAAAAABms/e_sk2eK1b-Y/s1600/Abberset.jpg) on the southern frontier of the Principality of Nomar (http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/Nomar_Region.pdf).  Abberset is part of the domain of the Count Salian Crompton of Shodan. Count Salian is concerned over the rising power of Duke Divolic of City-State who conquered the Halkemenan city-states to the south of Nomar.

At first the Ghinorians of Nomar, devout followers of Mitra, the Goddess of Honor and Jusice, felt the Halkemenans had it coming to them as they were notorious for being death cultists of Hamakhis, God of the Death. But Divolic being a Myrmidon of Set is no friend of the Ghinorians and Mitra. And now many nobles are worried he beginning to view Nomar as his next conquest. Count Salian more than most.

He has hired a number of mercenary companies including the Red Hawks under Captain Jonas Hawkwood. The campaign started with the characters' first day with the Red Hawks.

Most of the first sessions was spent exploring Abberset and learning about the Red Hawks. I am trying to play it like a medieval mercenary company which means discipline is pretty loose in some area and very harsh in others. Captain Hawkwood informed the players that there are only a few simple rules they need to follow.

Be easily available for duty or let your commander know where you are going to be.
Don't brawl with your companions in the company.
Don't do anything to get the locals angry at the company.
Stand with your companions in battle.
Share all loot with the company.

They also met their sergeant and his corporal;   Sergeant Raedric and Corporal Octa. They also met Corporal Tunfa, a very rotund man who promised the two hedge knights that he was "A man who can get anything they desired".

The party spent a game day exploring Abberset, they met Elder Drogon and his acolyte Ned. The party cleaned him out of bless amulets. In GURPS amulets cast with a level 1 bless are very inexpensive (25d or $100) and confer a +1 bonus on all rolls. If something "bad" happened, like a crippled limb", the amulet will nullify the results (convert it to normal damage) and the magic will dissipate. Interestedly Durgo bought a bless amulet for his dog Red and attached it to his dog's collar.

The next game day the party got their first assignment, to check out a quarry to the west and see why a supply wagon hasn't returned yet.  A half day's journey away they crossed Vikram Stream on the ferry and headed up the trail. About an hour out from the quarry they spotted a naked man wandering around.  It turned out he was a miner and half-crazed from something that happened at the quarry.  Delvin the Dwarf took him out in one shot with the flat of his axe blade and tied him onto the mule.

When the party arrived at the quarry they found all the miners dead, half torn apart by wild animals. At first they thought the creature was in the Miner's Lodge but it turned out to be just a wild bear. Cei took out with a shot from his Knight Killer crossbow.

Drogo tried following the track but they disappeared into the stream. However when searching the banks he found some other tracks of a man on horseback along with several men on foot. Careful examination of the horseshoe prints found that they were probably made in City-State.

Session Two
This began with the party following the tracks. Meanwhile Henry Kiefer arrived in Abberset and signed up with the Red Hawks. He was told to head to the quarry and join up with the group. Meanwhile the rest of the party stumbled across several men in the middle of the forest who were hanged. Looking over their gear the group found that they were poorly equipped warriors from Halkemenan. Aeron points out they were likely outlaws rebelling against Duke Divolic. Shortly before leaving, Henry Kiefer manages to catch up to the party.

Durgo looks at the tracks again and determines that they camped here for a while before continuing, likely the party will be able to catch up to them before dark. After riding for a few more hours the party found the group camping near a ruined barn. It appeared to a Knight of Set and men from City-State.  Cei tried to parley but Henry Keifer was having none of and plugged the knight with a bolt from a knight-killer crossbow. The knight fell and the fight was on.  The party won and the surviving City-State warriors were their prisoners. They also found two Halkmenan Outlaws tied up apparently prisoners of the Knight of Set. So they set camp for the night.

Then in the middle of the night the party was attacked by four wild dogs. However these dogs were able to phase in an out and had a deadly breath of code. (see Barghest from GURPS Natural Encyclopedia). The players got lucky were able to take out two at once, the third one was dispatched within a few rounds, and the fourth one killed several of the prisoners before being killed. From the Halkmenan Rebels they found out that these were Hounds of Hamakhis sent by the death god to wreck vengeance for some great wrong.
 
You can download the Roster of Session 2 (http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/Nomar_Session_2_Roster.pdf). It has combat stat blocks for the Barghest as well as the stats for the Black Bear, and the Knight of Set warband. One reason the party won the fight with the warband so easily despite being 75 point characters was the fact Henry Keifer was on horseback. Without an opposing knight on horseback he dominated the fight.

Durgo and Aeron being hidden and launching surprise attacks helped a lot. Cei took a bad hit from a spear but was able to recover and take out the remaining men-at-arms, cutting one of their arms off. Unfortunately Kermit started too far out and by the time he was able to close in with his spells the fight was mostly over.

Session Three
This session didn't have a lot of fighting and was a bit confusing for the players as they had to sort out the deal with the  House of Hamakhis, the Halkemenan Rebels, and the Knight of Set's warband. After a debate the party decided to head back to Abberset.

Durgo, Cei, and Henry practiced their lance skills by tilting at rings. They really sucked due to the size modifier of the ring and the speed of the mount until they figured there is no reason why they can do a all-attack get a +4 to hit bonus. Then they only kind of sucked. Afterwards they went to the Laughing Fox and had dinner and drink. During the dinner Cei's chair broke underneath him.

I rolled, Step and trip over a pothole, for a random encounter. So since they were in the tavern I rolled to see which character had a chair break underneath them.

Captain Hawkwood summoned Aeron to a meeting with Elder Drogon and the Bailiff of Abberset, Sir William. Then Aeron went and talked to his contacts about the situation with the Halkmenan Rebels and anything about Hamakhis he could find.

Kermit when to the temple to see Elder Drogon, Bumped into a really drunk villager along the way. The villager saw Kermit check himself to see if anything was stolen and started following him shouting "I didn't steal anything of yours. Please don't turn me in. I didn't steal anything. Kermit handled the situation pretty well except for an unfortunate choices of words with Acolyte Ned that left the boy with the impression that he was going to enchant the drunk villager to leave him alone.

The session ended with the party interrogating both the City-State prisoners and the rebel prisoners. Cei was adamant that they should kill the rebels as trespassers on the baron's lands. While Aeron was pointing out that they were fighting against Divolic who is no friend of Nomar.  The party wasn't sure what to make of the Hounds of Hamakhis. Half believe that the rebel summoned them and let them loose to attack anybody and anything. Half believed that Divolic men did something to cause them to be set loose.

The session ended with the party being ordered back out to the quarry to deal with the Hounds so the site can be reoccupied.

The group asked for a map and a write up of what the prisoners said so they can keep track of what going on. So I drew up the map (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-mbTo7CbR8WM/UChYnFvjyjI/AAAAAAAABnk/n3VaGn9KF0g/s1600/Western+Estoil+Hills+Handdrawn.jpg). I chose a hand drawn style to make it more of in-game map.

And I made this handout (http://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/Summary%20of%20the%20Halkmenan%20Rebels.pdf) for the group.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627088Are secrets anything more than roleplaying suggestions?

Pretty much.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627088Do you get some specific benefit by RPing a secret (mechanical benny, GM is supposed to supply situations that match it, etc.)?

With respect to benefits, some of the Advantages involve things like lands, titles, memberships, or additional wealth, but withe the exception of Secret Loyalty, which gives you a hidden contact, most of the Secrets - Don Juan, Secret Loyalty, Sworn Vengeance, Religious Fanatic, Duelist, Blackmailed, Code of Honor, Compulsive Gambler, and Secret Identity - provide no benefit rules-wise.

The referee is encouraged to work Secrets into the game.

Quote from: Flashing Blades, p. 11The Gamemaster should allow character's advantages and secrets to affect nearly every adventure. He or she should keep in mind, however, that they are designed to make the game more fun, not more difficult. Thus, a character's secret may get in the way occasionally, but it should not cause constant misfortune.

The Gamemaster and players are encouraged to create their own advantages and secrets. The Gamemaster should be sure that these are balanced for play - neither too powerful nor too dangerous.

Given that the Advantages and Secrets are common cape-and-sword tropes, following the advice in "A Swashbuckling Sandbox, Part 3" means that situations which involve the characters' Secrets tend to be baked into the campaign.

In subsequent the following major turnings points happened.

Sir Cei broke away from the party and rode north and met with Sir Mordran of the Brotherhood of the Wyrm about their plans to campaign against the Skandian Viking. He successfully negotiated a contract with the Brotherhood and went back south to the group. He convinced the party to pay off their current contract and join the Brotherhood's army.

When the party joined the Brotherhood they were assigned to run Chevauchée (raids) against the Skandian Vikings to distract them from the main campaign. With hirelings the party was up to a half-company (10 men) in size. During the next month of raids they learned of the whereabouts of the Skandian King and successfully were able to setup an ambush that resulted in his capture. The party then sold his ransom to the Brotherhood and now plans to use the proceeds to open a crossroads tavern. Shifting the campaign yet again to a new focus.

Rob, so basically the PCs started with a patron/membership in an organization/sense of duty, which let you assign them a mission. Now they've basically internalized the goals of their patron and are proactively pursuing them.

You also have a couple of random encounters there (I especially like the one with the drunk) but they don't seem to develop into major threads.

That sound about right?

Thanks again to all for the responses. They've been interesting and helpful. Anyone else?

Some background on how it was put together.

The campaign started when the players told me they wanted to do something like Game of Thrones. In the current date of the Majestic Wilderlands there are some areas that had that feel. One of which was Nomar, my pseudo King Arthur region. Because of my personal style, my notes focused more on the politics rather than the mythic side of the Arthur side.

So I explain the choices and the players choose Nomar. So then I asked them in broad terms what they wanted to play. Now Sir Cei and Durgo players are already very familiar with my campaign so told me right off the bat in detail what they wanted the play.

Sir Henry's player is an experienced roleplayer but not as into as the two mention before. After thinking about he decided to be a knight as well and came up with the general background. I then gave about four choices where that would fit and he picked the one he liked best.

Aeron's player is also an experienced roleplayer who has played my campaign a handful of time. Like Sir Henry's player he mulled around a couple of choices until he settled on being a spymaster who masquerades as a servant.  I then worked with him on fleshing out the details of his spy network.

The players of Kermit and Delvin are both second time players of the Majestic Wilderlands and this was also their first time playing GURPS. They played in the MW when I ran a Swords & Wizardry campaign.

Kermit's player used my Swords & Wizardry MW Supplement to come up with his character background and for the details of his GURPS Character I pulled out the original templates and GURPS Notes.  He chose to be a half-Viridian mage from the Karian (Japanese) Island wandering around making a living by putting on puppet shows. He uses his puppets as part of his magic.  

Like most players coming over from D&D, he had a hard time wrapping his head around the 1 second rounds of GURPS, the limited range of GURPS Magic  and the high fatigue costs of GURPS Magic. The roleplaying side was a piece of cake compared to that.

Delvin's player decided to play a dwarf. And like Kermit's play he developed his background out of my MW Supplement. As a dwarven fighter type his character was simple to build. The main issue he is running into is that he didn't take many skills. So a lot of times he relying on defaults.

The group agreed that they would start the campaign by arriving in Abberset to sign up with the Red Hawks. Captain Jonas Hawkwood assigned them to same company and by the end of the first session the group was together. When sent out as a group Sir Henry was placed in charge followed by Sir Cei.


The way I prepared for this campaign is I have a master timeline of events that I plan to happen in absence of the player doing anything.  I had two timelines, one for the Nomar region and one for the area around Abberset.

I then prepared a regional map of the area around Abberset where 1 hex equals 1 league. With a league being 2.5 miles or 1 hour of walking/riding on level ground. I made notes on the locals groups and sites which including plenty of fantasy elements as well as religious, political and social conflicts. It very sketchy with most of it in my head.

When the group abandoned Abberset and went north to join the Brotherhood, I ab-libbed the journey using my general notes and knowledge of Nomar along with random tables for encounters.  The session was consumed by the players helping a knight to bring some bandits to heel. By the next session I had another map with notes around Vestin, keep where the headquarters of the Brotherhood was located. This also included some fantasy elements but not as much as Abberset due to the area being more settled. Like Abberset I created a more detailed local timeline for the Vestin Area

Now that the party is planning to retire from the mercenary life. I will generate another regional map centered on where they locate the tavern. Currently the tentative plan to place the tavern has easy access to orc infested mountains to the west, and the Plain of Cairns to the east which has a lot of ancient burial mounds left from a millenia ago from a previous culture.

I think the plan is to get the tavern going and using it as a base of exploration.

As for the original timeline, the events in Abberset didn't change much. The players discovered that a Duke of City-State (a rival kingdom to Nomar) was also preparing to attack the Skandians but left north without reporting it to the Lord of Abberset.

However the capture of the Skandian King has caused some major changes in the original timeline and brought the characters to the attention of the powers that be.

Like my previous campaigns, all of my timelines, plots, and notes are plans that I fully expect to change in light of what the player do or not do.  What the players typically see is the ground's eye view implemented through how I roleplay the NPCs. I rarely if ever do any exposition. I roleplay the parts and the players usually gets the general idea of what happened.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627098Rob, so basically the PCs started with a patron/membership in an organization/sense of duty, which let you assign them a mission. Now they've basically internalized the goals of their patron and are proactively pursuing them.

Yup and as you will read in what I just posted. They will also change their mind and radically alter the course of the campaign. It pretty much plays out how people normally live their lives working at a job. Folks will pursue the goals of their employers because that what they are paid to do but however they have their own dreams as well.

I felt that there was a unspoken assumption that if they struck it rich.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627098You also have a couple of random encounters there (I especially like the one with the drunk) but they don't seem to develop into major threads.

That sound about right?

I use random encounter tables that allow me reflect a slice of life of the area the players are in.  The drunk and subsequent events were the result of me extrapolating from rolling who the drunk was and how the encounter played out. As it turned out Kermit's player roleplayed it well and turned a negative encounter with the Acolyte Ned into a good relationship with the Temple's Elder.

So the drunk gave Kermit an in with the local Elder (priest) of the Church of Mitra. I didn't go into the details in my posts but Kermit's player cultivated that relationship for several sessions. The only reason it didn't work out because the party abandoned Abberset when they were able to pay off their contract with the Red Hawks.  Prior to leaving Kermit was able to get a deal on some bless amulets (+1 to rolls) and access to their library which allowed him to spend some points on new spells he otherwise couldn't have.

If the party would have stayed, it relationship would have continued to develop. If they went back, Kermit has a person of influence in Abberset that views him in a favorable light.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627007Thanks. All that is very useful in general, but here I'm looking specifically for the method used to get the PCs started in the campaign. Point is, something or someone needs to set things in motion: I'd like to know who or what that is, and how it works. After things are in motion, I think it gets easier. Or at least, that's a different topic.

To add to my earlier answers, what I generally do this.

• I will ask the group what kind of campaign want they to play.*
• I will then ask each player individually what kind of character they want to play in general terms.
• I will then work with each player to craft the details of their background to fit it in the background. I will also manipulate this process to give natural reasons for the party to be together.
• After all that is done. I will then prepare the campaign notes and the initial adventure using the character backgrounds as the template so that the party comes together naturally without the whole "you meet in a tavern" stereotype.

Because the players signed on to the type of campaign from the get go generally they slant their roleplaying to that the party winds up together. Generally the way the backgrounds wind up it often winds up making more sense for the party to be together than not.

By natural reason I meant that if you were standing in the setting looking on what the players were doing it would make perfect sense. This fits into main rule of playing my campaign. "Play your character as if he or she were actually there."

Also note the background are not all that involved and amount to little more than a paragraph or two of notes. In fact it is likely you are already doing what I am doing in the course of normal banter prior to the start of the campaign. The only difference is that I created a formal list of steps I try to remember to go through.

I do have an exception for this for the game store campaigns I run where player hop in and out from week to week. In that case I am more heavy handed about the details. I still ask the player what he want his background to be but then I will manipulate it so that the player has a semi-good reason for showing up at that point in the campaign. I usually come up with a couple of alternatives for the player to choose from.  Most folks seem to be happy with this and go with it.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627007I'll violate my initial request by doing a bit of theorizing: the system or setting itself could set things in motion. E.g., event tables could generate something to which the PCs must react, or rules for personal upkeep could mean that PCs will have a net negative cash flow if they don't do anything, which of course would goad them into action.

Since we are talking about human referees running a session in real-time. good random table are very helpful in making the setting more alive and life is not totally at the whim of a single individual. The random encounter with the drunk gave Kermit's final encounter with the Elder a level of nuance it otherwise wouldn't have.

Now what going to be interesting for the next phase of the campaign that a lot of it will be driven by random encounters with patrons of their crossroads tavern.

Posting before I read.

Here's a couple blog posts about what we're doing, these days:

On my DM map, and getting the 'crawl off and running:
http://mightythews.blogspot.com/2012/03/update-on-not-having-any-updates.html

On the player map:
http://mightythews.blogspot.com/2012/09/hex-crawling-in-style.html

The premise for this campaign is what I'd describe as the oft-excluded middle of the railroad/sandbox dialogue - a focused sandbox.  In other words, we started with a premise (and a module, in my case), which gives the whole thing a push in the right direction (i.e., any direction), and from there the players are left to their own devices.

In this case, I used N5 Under Illefarn, which provides you with local wilderness detail, a premise (that the PCs are militiamen, and are being given routine missions at first), and a base town (a rather well-done one, I'd say).  Worth noting that the module (and by extension the campaign) dispenses with the Basic/Expert paradigm of "dungeon first, wilderness later", but provides the players with the possibility of reinforcements (fellow militiamen) and - most importantly - horses (i.e., the ability to RUN AWAY reliably if things get too hairy).  (I drove this lesson home the first time out - the party encountered a hunting manticore which killed an NPC militiaman and his mount in the first round, and the group got the message right away, to their credit.  They left the beast munching on the redshirt.)   The PCs go on a few jaunts into the wilderness before events conspire to require a dungeon crawl.

Now, let's be clear:  There is a strong motivation to crawl that dungeon.  (Failing to do so pretty much spells doom for the town, and a wild elf community besides.)  Prior to that, the party's membership in the militia is non-optional (if they want to keep living in Daggerford).  That said, at any point they can throw up their hands and take off.  (They nearly did, a few times.)  And there's the thing:  The choice is always there, and (ideally) should always have consequences - the difference is a DM who's willing to DEAL with those consequences, rather than herding wayward players back on the plotwagon.  In my case at least one of the PCs had family in Daggerford, which would've made abandoning the town to its fate a complicated decision.  (Always decisions, always consequences.)

Presuming the PCs "solve" the dungeon (which doesn't require clearing it out, but does have a certain "you must be this tall to ride" requirement for PC power), they'll end up around 3rd-4th level - just about ready to explore the larger setting on their own.  Which is where they've been for a while, now (they spent a few weeks in-game travelling back and forth between Daggerford and Waterdeep, and now they've just returned to finally clear out that first dungeon for keeps).  All this time, I've been dropping hooks for one thing or another (some for locations - dungeons, wilderness areas, etc. - some for events - cult performing dark rituals, war between barbarian tribes, and such).  More than the players can possibly investigate at once, so they've got to (again) make choices.  And all the while, getting there is half the fun (since they're traveling a moderately-detailed wilderness, they can poke around and chew the scenery as much as they like - of course, sometime the scenery chews back).

And that's how I do the sandbox thing.  Not the only way by a long shot, but it works for me.

Addendum:  I should note that the city portion of this campaign has represented probably half our table time, and this was more or less all player-driven.  The players had bought a few barrels of beer on the cheap in Daggerford, with intentions to sell it at a profit in Waterdeep (using trade tables adapted from GAZ11 Republic of Darokin, which are themselves adapted from Traveller) - only somehow they decided once they got there to open up a pub, themselves.  So that was the main focus for some time (dealing with city officials, buying a property, cleaning it up for use).  

During all this play, I made heavy use of Midkemia Cities' encounter tables, which are both comprehensive and awesome.  In particular, there is a nifty little mission generator in the back (with a bare-bones "noun verb noun" structure - "person" wants you to "verb" the "thing or person" kind of stuff) that provided lots of meat when the players were looking for a job.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;626948How have you kickstarted a campaign? I would like to have a conversation with real accounts, not hypotheticals, and focused on so-called "sandbox" or "hexcrawl" campaigns. I think it's common to say that these campaigns "take on a life of their own" once the PCs start interacting with the gameworld, generating consequences from their actions and forming relationships. But how did your campaign start--what set things in motion?

What I never do is to start the game off with "You are in [Place] - now, what do you want to do?".

Normally, I give some of the background, not a lot to start off with, then have an introductory scenario that uses one small place from the sandbox. As part of that scenario, I might have the PCs go somewhere else, or hint at another place. After a couple of scenarios, they tend to find their feet and start doing what they want.

In our current campaign, the PCs were members of a street gang in Pavis and the first scenario involved setting them against a rival gang. The second involved helping a merchant while the dust settled from their gang encounter and they went around Prax for a while. Now, six years later in real time, they are about to resurrect Tada, a long dead deity, and will probably play a leading role in the Hero Wars in Prax.

Another example, another blog post:

http://mightythews.blogspot.com/2013/02/in-search-of-adventure-young-lord.html

This is an RC Basic campaign, and we ARE (in theory) following the "dungeon then wilderness" formula, for the time being.  Basically, with B1-9 providing a loose structure (and alterations to taste), I set the guys up in the base town (Threshold), and explicitly (out of character) told them that they could fish for rumors at the tavern.  (This is starting to become standard practice for some of the players - we've got several that have been playing for less than a year - while others don't need to be told.)  They dropped some coin on drinks, got an idea of what was going on, and then talked over which lead they wanted to follow.

Notably in this game, I used GAZ1's background tables, which gave the players something outside race/class/alignment to base their decisions on.  It only amounts to "social status, national background, and hometown", but it definitely weighed into their choices.

For the time being, we'll be glossing over any travel that takes place (all the adventure locations are either close by, or can be reached by caravan), but I'm laying groundwork for full-fledged Expert Set hexcrawl already.

D&D Sandbox (Proto-ACKS): I announced that we'd be playing sandbox old-school D&D. I asked everyone to roll up a 1st level adventurer and started them at Keep in the Borderlands, essentially as written - you've come to the frontiers in search of gold and glory, go!

Oriental Adventurers Sandbox: I decided we'd play in a sandbox Miyama province (from Swords of the Daimyo) using ACKS rules. I had each player roll up their character prior to the session. I then worked with each player to establish starting relationships between them, and a reason for why they'd begin in the starting town. For the ronin-type characters, this was a matter of making them knight errants. For example, the Kensai was on a "warrior's pilgrimage" and had heard there was need for swordsmen in the area. For the servant-style characters, this was a matter of giving them an extended assignment. For example, the Shukenja was sent by his shrine to investigate reports of malefic spirits, and the Sohei was there to guard him. The first "hook" was a peasant whose village was under attack by an oni. Given the good alignment of the party members and their various motivations, it led to adventurer from there.

Arabian Nights Sandbox: I decided we'd play ACKS in a desert setting. I began the campaign using the old TSR adventure "The Lost City". The players all rolled up their characters prior to the session. I then worked with each player to establish a reason why they'd be in a desert caravan. The opening of the adventure was the desert caravan getting hit by a sand storm; the PCs were ("by Fate") cut off from the caravan together and stumbled upon the Lost City. They didn't know each other until the sandstorm struck, except superficially as people they'd seen in the caravan. However, Arabian nights style characters tend to believe strongly in fate and predestination, so the players role-played it in this manner; they called their adventuring party "The Fated" and decided they'd been brought together for a reason.

Thus, in each of the three, the campaign has begun with a railroad to get them into the sandbox. Groups who favor more Judge-player responsibility sharing might prefer to handle this more interactively at some meta-game level rather than with an opening railroad. But in my group I generally write the campaigns and inform everyone what we're going to play, so simply tossing everybody into the sandbox as quickly as possible works well for us.

(I suppose a player who began Session 1 by saying "my character leaves the sandbox" would be asked to roll up a new character who'd like to stay in the sandbox and/or would be told "see you next campaign".)

I ran a Cyberpunk 2020 sandbox game last year.

At the beginning, the 3 players generated two characters each (a main character and a backup in case the main character died; this was a suggestion by one of the players - my reputation as a harsh GM goes before me).

I then put the names of the 3 main characters in a hex each, in the middle of a hex map, and had them make up 3 NPCs each who their characters knew well. They then had to write the names of those NPCs in the hexes neighbouring their character. This created a web of relationships between PCs and NPCs, because each character in each hex was connected to those next to it.

I also had a list of about 20-30 additional NPCs in the area with specific roles, so that if they asked me "Do I know somebody who can jury rig a boat?" (or whatever) I could have them roll a streetwise or streetdeal check to see if they did, and supply them with a name.

Then, I told them to get on with making money. They immediately began contacting their sources looking for work. I randomly generated jobs using what I call a Random Mr Jones Mission Generator (http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/random-mr-jones-mission-generator.html). It all snowballed from there.

Quote from: amacris;627186D&D Sandbox (Proto-ACKS): I announced that we'd be playing sandbox old-school D&D. I asked everyone to roll up a 1st level adventurer and started them at Keep in the Borderlands, essentially as written - you've come to the frontiers in search of gold and glory, go!

Oriental Adventurers Sandbox: I decided we'd play in a sandbox Miyama province (from Swords of the Daimyo) using ACKS rules. I had each player roll up their character prior to the session. I then worked with each player to establish starting relationships between them, and a reason for why they'd begin in the starting town. For the ronin-type characters, this was a matter of making them knight errants. For example, the Kensai was on a "warrior's pilgrimage" and had heard there was need for swordsmen in the area. For the servant-style characters, this was a matter of giving them an extended assignment. For example, the Shukenja was sent by his shrine to investigate reports of malefic spirits, and the Sohei was there to guard him. The first "hook" was a peasant whose village was under attack by an oni. Given the good alignment of the party members and their various motivations, it led to adventurer from there.

Arabian Nights Sandbox: I decided we'd play ACKS in a desert setting. I began the campaign using the old TSR adventure "The Lost City". The players all rolled up their characters prior to the session. I then worked with each player to establish a reason why they'd be in a desert caravan. The opening of the adventure was the desert caravan getting hit by a sand storm; the PCs were ("by Fate") cut off from the caravan together and stumbled upon the Lost City. They didn't know each other until the sandstorm struck, except superficially as people they'd seen in the caravan. However, Arabian nights style characters tend to believe strongly in fate and predestination, so the players role-played it in this manner; they called their adventuring party "The Fated" and decided they'd been brought together for a reason.

Thus, in each of the three, the campaign has begun with a railroad to get them into the sandbox. Groups who favor more Judge-player responsibility sharing might prefer to handle this more interactively at some meta-game level rather than with an opening railroad. But in my group I generally write the campaigns and inform everyone what we're going to play, so simply tossing everybody into the sandbox as quickly as possible works well for us.

(I suppose a player who began Session 1 by saying "my character leaves the sandbox" would be asked to roll up a new character who'd like to stay in the sandbox and/or would be told "see you next campaign".)

I don't know if, from my perspective, I'd call any of these a "sandbox" save the OA game, from what you're describing - B4 Lost City, in particular, has a premise that precludes this sort of play explicitly (since they can't leave, by default).  It's altogether possible there's just something going on I don't see, though.  (And not to say that they're bad campaign premises, as such - just that they seem a bit too focused to call a "sandbox", with the player choice implicit in that style.)  Is there a wilderness outside the Keep, or a means to explore the desert around the Lost City?

Quote from: noisms;627187I ran a Cyberpunk 2020 sandbox game last year.

I attempted this, and immediately hit the wall with prep - I started to detail a neighborhood, but school and other games pulled the rug right out from under me.  One of these days, I'll get back to it.

QuoteI randomly generated jobs using what I call a Random Mr Jones Mission Generator (http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/random-mr-jones-mission-generator.html). It all snowballed from there.

Stealing this.  (Thanks!)

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;627194I attempted this, and immediately hit the wall with prep - I started to detail a neighborhood, but school and other games pulled the rug right out from under me.  One of these days, I'll get back to it.



Stealing this.  (Thanks!)

No Cyberpunk 2020 game is complete without a random Mr Jones mission generator.

Cyberpunk 2020 is perfect for sandbox play provided you make sure the players understand, at the outset, that they are supposed to be career criminals. If you do that, they'll immediately begin planning heists, kidnappings, assassination attempts and smuggling operations, and all you have to do is sit back and watch it all unfold.

Quote from: amacris;627186Thus, in each of the three, the campaign has begun with a railroad to get them into the sandbox.

I disagree that it was a railroad. You established an initial context which is important for the players in order to make informed decisions. This is vital for igniting a sandbox campaign.

The forums (enworld, rpg.net) are filled with accounts of failed sandbox campaigns and from subsequent inquires the common elements most of these campaign shared was the referee placing the players somewhere and giving them little information other to say "go forth and be free!".

The type of gamer that can thrive with that kind of starting point is smaller. Most players don't like feeling like they are throwing darts in the dark, an initial context gives them a foundation from which they can make informed decisions at the start of the campaign.

It doesn't have to be elaborate, a paragraph of material will suffice for many. But it needs to be there or the chances of the campaign failing will be great.

What makes a sandbox campaign a sandbox is the referee's lack of preconceived notion on how the campaign will go. That the players are free to choose any course of action for their character and willing to abide by the consequences good or bad.

For example in the initial phases of the mercenary campaign I am currently running, Captain Jonas Hawkwood gave the groups mission to execute. These missions were part generated from the interested expressed by the character when they were interviewed by Hawkwood, partly by Hawkwood goals, party by the Count of Shodan's goal (Hawkwood's employer), and finally a liberal dose of rolling on a random table to account for the crazy shit life sometimes throws at you.

By their own choice the players used the proceeds of a successful exploration of some ruins they found to buy out their contract and head north to join the Brotherhood of Wyrm.

Now that they have their portion of a King's Ransom they are leaving the mercernary business and going to open a tavern.

None of which I planned or conceived prior to the campaign's start. However I do have background events to give the setting a life of its own. This is effective in giving the players a sense they are part of a larger world and makes their achievements the sweeter as they see the ripples of their actions spread.

I started three different sandbox games as pbp games.

The first one was set in the Wilderlands. I randomized a starting location and we ended up in the Southern Reaches. I had the party start as young teens running away from their village after finding out that their elders had slight 'Wickerman' tendencies.

Second game used the outdoor survival hexmap. The map was a new world with a single colony city. The players had come from the old world where the young Prince had just been poisoned and usurped by a Grand Vizier. So the single city on the east coast was the base of operations for exploration of the new world. I seeded the map with various modules, and had exploration missions available from the city, plus political seeds/conflcit with the empire back in the homeworld

Third game used Rob's Blackmarsh setting. Blackmarsh had been cut off from the rest off the world and the party were exploring it for an (off map) empire. Various factions within the empire had different agendas they wanted the party (or individual party members) to pursue.

Quote from: noisms;627210No Cyberpunk 2020 game is complete without a random Mr Jones mission generator.

Cyberpunk 2020 is perfect for sandbox play provided you make sure the players understand, at the outset, that they are supposed to be career criminals. If you do that, they'll immediately begin planning heists, kidnappings, assassination attempts and smuggling operations, and all you have to do is sit back and watch it all unfold.

Not necessarily career criminals, but yes, Cyberpunk 2020 is tailor made for sandbox experiences. One of my friends from back-in-the-day in France created an alternate near-future double of the town we used to live in, complete with Blade Runner references, shanty towns and the like, upper districts which were corporation controlled etc etc and it was an absolute blast. Total sandbox before "sandbox" was a thing (we're talking like 1991-2 or some such).

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;626948How have you kickstarted a campaign? I would like to have a conversation with real accounts, not hypotheticals, and focused on so-called "sandbox" or "hexcrawl" campaigns. I think it's common to say that these campaigns "take on a life of their own" once the PCs start interacting with the gameworld, generating consequences from their actions and forming relationships. But how did your campaign start--what set things in motion?

I'm especially hoping to hear from Black Vulmea because of this excellent series of articles:

http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/02/swashbucklers-sandbox-part-i.html
http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/02/swashbucklers-sandbox-part-2.html
http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/02/swashbucklers-sandbox-part-3.html
http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/02/swashbucklers-sandbox-part-4.html

I bought the Holmes boxed set when it came out and my friends and I started playing it.

We didn't use a sandbox, but we did use a kitchen table. I stocked up module B1, a lot of characters died, a lot of monsters were killed and a lot of loot was taken (and so much fun was had by all we kept going deeper into the dungeon till we'd gone down 13 levels).

We had to make up most of the game, new spells, a town, a wilderness around the dungeon. The Holmes rulebook only went so far and we didn't have access to any other modules.

One of my friends liked drawing maps and we came up with our own setting. All this was easy to do because we didn't have any other choices. A couple of us wanted to write our own books so we became the DM's and ran adventures in our fantasy world (which stole heavily from every fantasy book we'd ever read).

Looking back I wish I'd never seen anything but that Holmes boxed set. It was all that was needed and I had a great time coming up with rules and spells and adventures, much more fun than adventuring in someone else's campaign no matter how well crafted.

That's how I came to 'kickstart' a campaign. I was lucky.

Our campaign's a sandbox--this episode is probably the clearest example of a part of the campaign that isn't sort of a "forced move" created by consequences of earlier adventures so while it's not the beginning of the sandbox, it is a lot like what the first sessions of the campaign were like...

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/i-hit-it-with-my-axe/2137-Episode-30-What-We-Did-On-Our-Winter-Vacation
...they pick a direction, start to travel, randomly encounter gnolls...run into some trouble and the next few episodes are the consequences of that

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;627193I don't know if, from my perspective, I'd call any of these a "sandbox" save the OA game, from what you're describing - B4 Lost City, in particular, has a premise that precludes this sort of play explicitly (since they can't leave, by default).  It's altogether possible there's just something going on I don't see, though.  (And not to say that they're bad campaign premises, as such - just that they seem a bit too focused to call a "sandbox", with the player choice implicit in that style.)  Is there a wilderness outside the Keep, or a means to explore the desert around the Lost City?

Let me clarify. The Keep and the Lost City were the starter dungeons, not the sandboxes. In both cases, there was a huge wilderness (40 x 30 6-mile hexes) with multiple towns, strongholds, dungeons, and lairs available.

In the case of the Keep, the party left the Caves in search of other adventure mid-way through, then returned later at a higher level. In the case of "The Lost City," the group left the city as soon as they had enough water to do so, and went on adventurers elsewhere.

Quote from: amacris;627280Let me clarify. The Keep and the Lost City were the starter dungeons, not the sandboxes. In both cases, there was a huge wilderness (40 x 30 6-mile hexes) with multiple towns, strongholds, dungeons, and lairs available.

In the case of the Keep, the party left the Caves in search of other adventure mid-way through, then returned later at a higher level. In the case of "The Lost City," the group left the city as soon as they had enough water to do so, and went on adventurers elsewhere.

Gotcha.  I figured there was something I wasn't seeing, haha.

Hmm.
Been crazy at the office, not around that much.

I use the same setting for most of my games since 1983.  This helps the sandbox element, since there is a depth of information and consistent backdrop.

My latest one I am setting up is a game for mages at the Collegium Arcana (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/51990358/Collegium%20Arcana-Guild%20History) still in school.  Normal starting characters have 5000 unadjusted EXP to spend in our game, in this case they only have 3000.

The small scale sandbox is the school and the curriculum, and the different dorms and groups in the school.  The Mid level sandbox is the Winterloo (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/56568781/The%20Winterloo%20District%20of%20Stenron) Neighborhood and the School district of Great Stenron (http://http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956354/Stenron%2C%20Capital%20of%20the%20Grey%20March).  
Obviously, the large-scale Sandbox is Celtricia.

Similarly, the small-scale World In Motion hooks deal with the rivalries between dorms and the fraternities for the upperclassmen, the different professors and TA's, as well as some mysterious behaviors with some alchemists of that branch, a small smuggling ring from a fraternity, a number of ghostly issues with a few spirits with anyone who takes necromantic skills (I make no bones about it, while artificers and mentalists have the most useful spells, necromancers get fed the most spooky-fun info, since they often pick up on all the spirits and spirit influenced information (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/22871895/Migration%20of%20the%20Spirit)), such as a pair of angry magical duelists from almost 300 years past that still haunt one dorm (but who also know where a Staff Ordinaire (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955749/Magic%20items) was left or lost) which would be a huge find since all mages want to be 'Tamp Doen' (staff wielders).
The Mid-Level WIM hooks involve the relationship between the Church of the Lawful Triumverate and the school's recent weaknesses in teaching Order magic, the many references to the sub basements and laboratories below the Campus, 2 traitors in the school, and 3 different historical items/quests that have clues lying all over the place.

Sandbox campaigns are so... boring.

We played in that concept back in the mid-70s after wandering around pointlessly in a dungeon crawl exploring and looting- all to no real end except imaginary fame and imaginary fortune.

A bit before Judge's Guild started producing their products, we wandered out of the dungeon into a huge map, and basically treated it like another dungeon bounded by hex lines instead of the interior D&D grid. We wandered and explored, and looted. I suppose the imaginary fame and fortune was greater.

I liken the experience to most of Arthur C. Clark's books. We went interesting places, met interesting people, and (unlike Clark's books) may or may not have killed them and took their stuff- but really nothing special happened. With ultimate freedom comes ultimate meaninglessness.

And certainly nothing happened that matched the epic fantasy works that had captured our imagination and caused us to play these silly games in the first place. The hopes of recreating them died with every roll of a d20.

We wanted Lord of the Rings, and what we got was Conan (in Platemail because you needed the AC in those days)- who's age of 'adventure' is in the source materials rightly forgotten, for in the end he didn't matter.

Sandboxes are without exception amoral, for to enforce morality is to raidroad the sandbox. They are without exception small minded, for to add an epic overarching story to is to destroy the sandbox. They are without exception meaningless, for no man can define true meaning on his own.

As the decade closed, we burned all the old material, never to return. The past was wasted and it was time to move on to better things.

We traded large random hexmaps for for larger worlds with many stories on different but yet interrelated levels. Like an extensive web, they will ensnare those who pass by and they will deal or not according to their talents. We traded useless freedoms for purpose searched for and found. We put pointed questions to the adventurers, and didn't meekly respond to their base passions.


You couldn't pay me to play in a sandbox. The mere talk of it, and the old school play example threads that ran here a bit ago confirm our decisions to toss it all into the fire. If that was the whole of gaming, I'd stay home to watch NCIS repeats.

These days I don't think people can outgrow D&D and sandboxes on their own. The hobby doesn't have the experimental air that resulted in other options back in the 70s and 80s, and the internet wars have hardened people to cling thoughtlessly to what they used to do as if that's was all there is. The OSR buried themselves in the trenches they dug defending against change, be it from the Forge or WotC, or well- anything.

Look at the hobby, its corpse is fossilizing.

I have a ten foot pole if someone wants to touch that.

Really, Gleichman?

30+ years in and I'm still having a ball. I think your sandbox experience was pretty substandard.  Glad you found something else that worked for you.  Some of us found our epics, though some found fulfillment in other ways.  A good GM, a good setting, and good players can go an awfully long way.

Quote from: Zak S;627392I have a ten foot pole if someone wants to touch that.

I was the idiot.

I told the players where in the game world we'd be starting, and gave them a description of the region and the town or village they're starting in. They devise the reason their characters are in that town. Once in game, I allow the players free reign, and let them find out rumors and the situation in the town and they get involved or not as they see fit.

There's no pre-planned or pre-plotted situation that they will get involved with. They may hear about the mysterious impenetrable gates that recently and mysteriously opened on their own, leading to a path under the mountains that no one has returned from, but there's no guarantee nor necessarily any desire on my part that they go there (in fact, very very few of my games involved any sort of subterranean adventures at all). They may well decide to chase the rumors about a local bandit king and the high price on his head, or go chasing fortune and glory in an entirely different region than they one they started in, decide to fight against a tyrant or foment a rebellion, or join in an ongoing war to the south. It's up to them.

I just supply a bunch of rumors and things happening in the Living World, the PCs decide what they want to do about any of it, up to and including ignoring all of it and instead pointing to a distant part of the map and saying "lets see what's there" if that's what they like.

Quote from: LordVreeg;627393Really, Gleichman?

30+ years in and I'm still having a ball. I think your sandbox experience was pretty substandard.  Glad you found something else that worked for you.  Some of us found our epics, though some found fulfillment in other ways.  A good GM, a good setting, and good players can go an awfully long way.

Remember, it is Starve Troll, Feed Fever.

Quote from: gleichman;627389We played in that concept back in the mid-70s after wandering around pointlessly in a dungeon crawl exploring and looting- all to no real end except imaginary fame and imaginary fortune.

If you have characters with no real or meaningful goals, then any goals you achieve will probably not feel real or meaningful.

QuoteSandboxes are without exception amoral, for to enforce morality is to raidroad the sandbox.

Not true. It's up to the players what kind of PCs they want to be. The Wandering Hero is just as valid as the so-called "Murderhobo".

QuoteThey are without exception meaningless, for no man can define true meaning on his own.

The historical record of the real world begs otherwise.

Quote from: JasonZavoda;627397Remember, it is Starve Troll, Feed Fever.

Indeed.  I claim exhaustion, and the fact I really haven't been around here in a month due to work stress.

Quote from: gleichman;627389Sandboxes are without exception amoral, for to enforce morality is to raidroad the sandbox.

I'll bite the troll.

Whom is it that you think should be enforcing morality? The Judge can enforce morality through the deeds of the gods, on those PCs who are susceptible to the strictures of the gods (paladins, clerics). The Judge can enforce morality through the deeds of governments, on those PCs who have chosen to operate within civilized realms.

What the Judge cannot do is say "your character wouldn't do X". He can only say "If your character does X, then consequence Y might occur."

Other than the gods and the government, who would enforce morality? The GM? The Alignment system?

The existence of agency within the setting does not require amorality. Indeed, I would argue that only WITH agency can there be morality. Morality without free will is merely slavery and submission.

QuoteThey are without exception small minded, for to add an epic overarching story to is to destroy the sandbox.

One can have an epic overarching threat without dictating an overarching story. A sandbox merely allows the characters to decide how they interact with the threat. A railroad does not.

QuoteThey are without exception meaningless, for no man can define true meaning on his own.

Says you; entire schools of philosophy beg to differ and argue that only a man can define the meaning of his own deeds. Just because you believe that no one you know can define true meaning on his own doesn't mean that's true of others.

Quote from: LordVreeg;627393Really, Gleichman?

30+ years in and I'm still having a ball. I think your sandbox experience was pretty substandard.  Glad you found something else that worked for you.  Some of us found our epics, though some found fulfillment in other ways.  A good GM, a good setting, and good players can go an awfully long way.

Those of us working on the Wilderlands Boxed Set certainly were guilty of spreading the impression that a sandbox campaign was about wandering the landscape. But within a year or two, we started pointing out that it is more about the player's choices driving the campaign. That wandering and exploring the landscape was only one of many possible things one could do with sandbox campaign. And for not even the most common thing that many of us did back in the day.

For example my early campaigns were about the players amassing wealth and power so they can "establish" themselves amid the powers of the Wilderlands.

Sometime they wandered, sometimes they explored but in general they did what they had to do to achieve their goals. My job was to describe and detail the locales and people they ran across.

Quote from: amacris;627463I'll bite the troll.

If expressing a opinion different than others is a troll, I suppose I'll just have to live with it.

What I don't have to do is talk to someone who believes such a silly thing.

Quote from: estar;627556For example my early campaigns were about the players amassing wealth and power so they can "establish" themselves amid the powers of the Wilderlands.

Wealth and Power. These are common sandbox goals as they are the only ones really supported by the concept. Hence why I described Sandboxes as amoral.

Quote from: gleichman;627587Wealth and Power. These are common sandbox goals as they are the only ones really supported by the concept. Hence why I described Sandboxes as amoral.

The wealth to build a hospital for travellers and the power of an order of knights to protect them.

Wrong again, Brian.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;627589The wealth to build a hospital for travellers and the power of an order of knights to protect them.

He didn't say anything about what they'd use the wealth and power for, the very thought seemingly didn't even occur to him it was so unimportant.

That's what a pure sandbox breeds.

The best case is that somewhere along the way the group outgrows the sandbox, and trades such things for real goals and a real campaign focused on them- and the sandbox is no more.

But campaigns commonly don't last long enough for that, ending in most cases according to WotC data after 6 months if memory doesn't fail me.

ADDED: and if one worships the Sandbox seeing it not as a stepping stone to something better but as an end of itself (like many here do)- it will never happen no matter how long the campaign goes.

Quote from: gleichman;627591He didn't say anything about what they'd use the wealth and power for, the very thought seemingly didn't even occur to him it was so unimportant.

That's what a pure sandbox breeds.

The best case is that somewhere along the way the group outgrows the sandbox, and trades such things for real goals and a real campaign focused on them- and the sandbox is no more.

But campaigns commonly don't last long enough for that, ending in most cases according to WotC data after 6 months if memory doesn't fail me.

ADDED: and if one worships the Sandbox seeing it not as a stepping stone to something better but as an end of itself (like many here do)- it will never happen no matter how long the campaign goes.

Ah, so can a Sandbox have goals?
I have often described my games as 80% sandboxes, since, like most reality, most things are continuums and not absolutes.
I have a lot of overarching storlyines, and games that have lasted for over a decade, where the characters find goals and motivations, get married, have children, establish themselves in guilds and in politics, where some PCs have more experience in their social skills than in their HP.
But where I still consider it my main job to play how the rest of the world reacts to my players.

I see a sandbox as a game that allows the players to find and create their own goals, and whereas this does not change the setting from a sandbox, to allows the game to grow and continue for years and years.

Nice strawman, Gleichtroll.

Clarifying this guy's misconceptions about sandbox gaming is as utterly pointless as correcting Pundit's on White Wolf. The real mystery to me is why Gleichbitch keeps posting here instead of, in his own words, watching NCIS reruns.

Quote from: LordVreeg;627597Ah, so can a Sandbox have goals?

It can easily have amoral ones. It can with some loss of purity and some pushing manage trivial ones. It falls apart beyond that.

So one can do Conan, but not Lord of the Rings in the Sandbox concept.

Does anyone anywhere have a recorded instance of Gleichman:

Saying something.

Being informed of a fact that proves that "something" categorically wrong.

And then he acknowledges it and gives up on saying it?

Quote from: gleichman;627389Sandbox campaigns are so... boring.

...With ultimate freedom comes ultimate meaninglessness.

...Sandboxes are without exception amoral, for to enforce morality is to raidroad the sandbox. They are without exception small minded, for to add an epic overarching story to is to destroy the sandbox. They are without exception meaningless, for no man can define true meaning on his own.

Does real life plunge you into depths of existential despair, then?

QuoteAnd certainly nothing happened that matched the epic fantasy works that had captured our imagination and caused us to play these silly games in the first place. The hopes of recreating them died with every roll of a d20.... We wanted Lord of the Rings, and what we got was Conan...

D&D was inspired more by the latter than by the former. Even in the case of Conan, the hero in D&D can fall prey to probability, whereas in the pages of Weird Tales his fate was in the hands of an Author keen on keeping him alive for another adventure (and even able to dip backward in time for fresh ones, had Conan's death been told).

The War of the Ring is the culmination of a long history of intervention in Middle-Earth by Powers greater than mere mortals. Nonetheless, Men and Hobbits have the freedom to choose their responses. By contrast, in the Hyborian Age humans are the chief agents.

For some players -- or characters! -- a Story may be inherent in their worldview, as much as physical characteristics similar enough to the human experience is essential to role-playing for others.

Quote from: gleichman;627602It can easily have amoral ones. It can with some loss of purity and some pushing manage trivial ones. It falls apart beyond that.

So one can do Conan, but not Lord of the Rings in the Sandbox concept.

I can actually glimpse what might be your thought process.
(so maybe I should check myself in)

I can see that LotR is a railroad start to finish.  "So, this here ring belonged to the dark Lord and unless I run to Rivendell, the Nazgul are going to take me to Mordor.  Which will end our game pretty fast.  Guess we are going to Rivendell, eh?"

But this example does not mean that all sandbox goals are trivial.  I have a many long-term, overarching plotlines that are purely Sandboxy, but are major if the PCs delve in and connect up the dots.  The rescue of the Lost God Amerer, the rediscovery of the Magic of the Shade, and the ultra-convoluted Dreadwing and the heir of Von Arbor storyline have been touched and worked with by PCs for decades.  Literally.  And they are plotlines put into motion and existing in the campaign with out without the PCs intervention.

And BTW, I consider player-determined and created goals to be very, very important and fulfilling.  And consistent with Sandbox play.

Quote from: Zak S;627603Does anyone anywhere have a recorded instance of Gleichman:

Saying something.

Being informed of a fact that proves that "something" categorically wrong.

And then he acknowledges it and gives up on saying it?

http://www.therpgsite.com/showpost.php?p=297676&postcount=13

Quote from: Zak S;627603Does anyone anywhere have a recorded instance of Gleichman:

Saying something.

Being informed of a fact that proves that "something" categorically wrong.

And then he acknowledges it and gives up on saying it?

I dunno. I like Brian--I think he has interesting things to say--but I don't bother arguing with him usually.

I am annoyed at the fact that I started this thread specifically to gather examples of actual campaign starts, and I got a theorizing screed.

For that matter, Brian, your description of what you actually do, which you've decided isn't a sandbox, i.e.

Quotelarger worlds with many stories on different but yet interrelated levels. Like an extensive web, they will ensnare those who pass by and they will deal or not according to their talents. We traded useless freedoms for purpose searched for and found. We put pointed questions to the adventurers, and didn't meekly respond to their base passions.

is close enough for my purposes that I'm still interested in seeing a real account of how a new independent group (preferably not a character who is added to an existing group) got started in a campaign.

Quote from: Phillip;627607Does real life plunge you into depths of existential despair, then?

"If Christ has not risen, then everything is in vain.", William F. Buckley, JR

And I'd add, since he did- nothing is in vain.

Quote from: gleichman;627619"If Christ has not risen, then everything is in vain.", William F. Buckley, JR

And I'd add, since he did- nothing is in vain.

Then you could try considering 'sandbox' to mean nothing more than the same free will as in this life -- which I think is closer to what most people really mean than whatever "straw man" you have in mind.

Quote from: meFor some players -- or characters! -- a Story may be inherent in their worldview, as much as physical characteristics similar enough to the human experience is essential to role-playing for others.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627615is close enough for my purposes that I'm still interested in seeing a real account of how a new independent group (preferably not a character who is added to an existing group) got started in a campaign.

OK.

In very general terms (so as to not bore anyone, cause is there anything more boring than reading about other people's games?)...


The most recent example would be our current one we're playing, set at the being of the millennium of the Second Age. The characters began on Númenor. This is actually our first Second Age campaign, always focused on other eras before but we've long wished to visit it.

This being Middle Earth (and thus nothing like a Sandbox), there was a overarching destiny if one may use that world that applied to at least one of the characters. This would become revealed over the course of the adventures as part of his family history, and then encounters related to matter and finally as full on conflict.

All was determined by myself, using only my experience of the players in question (which after a few years of play, I know rather well). I have a good chance of picking something they'd like.

Actual play begin with the millennium celebration, the contest of champions, and accompanying the princess  on her tour of the Island. Encounters and stuff follows.

The future conflicts appeared after the tour in an encounter with a ghost ship, where the first hints that a greater problem existed.

Currently the players are exploring a cave complex on a small Island in the Bay of Belfalas, there they will find clues that will send them all over the wider areas of Middle Earth (as those of Númenor were famous for doing).

Along the way they will pass by many things, get involved in some, skip others, always dogged by their destiny and the coming conflict.


In purest form, this is a modified railroad- for Middle Earth is a railroad ("This task was appointed to you, and if you do not find a way, no one will."). But the method is up to the players, as is their success (although the dice will have their say).

Along the way they will encounter all sorts of unrelated things and react to them as they well. This part actually resembles a sandbox and has the virtual of being as result unable to detract from the main quest line for more than limited time.

Quote from: Phillip;627627Then you could try considering 'sandbox' to mean nothing more than the same free will as in this life -- which I think is closer to what most people really mean than whatever "straw man" you have in mind.

If the games were a real world simulation, perhaps I would- although I wouldn't be interested in them enough to comment.

However in my mind, a fantasy campaign (in any era or setting) should be more, what's hidden in our world should be manifest in them.

Been kind of busy with stuff, so not as much time to devote to this thread as I'd have liked...

Quote from: Doctor Jest;627395I told the players where in the game world we'd be starting, and gave them a description of the region and the town or village they're starting in. They devise the reason their characters are in that town. Once in game, I allow the players free reign, and let them find out rumors and the situation in the town and they get involved or not as they see fit.

Thanks.

Okay, you've got a setting, and the players came up with a reason to be in town (and, I'd guess, why they'd be together).

So then you just threw rumors and situations at them. Were there consequences to ignoring a rumor or situation? If so can you give an example?

What exactly was the first rumor or situation with which they got involved?

Quote from: LordVreeg;627610But this example does not mean that all sandbox goals are trivial.  I have a many long-term, overarching plotlines that are purely Sandboxy, but are major if the PCs delve in and connect up the dots.

I beg to differ.

If those plot were meaningful, i.e. if the players ignore them the campaign would end (to pick the most extreme but clearest example, i.e. the one from Lord of the Rings)- you're not running a sandbox. The world hasn't granted them the interdependence a Sandbox requires.

Lesser bad results still have this characteristic, until the bad result become insignificant- and when they do, so does your 'sandbox goal'. This is what I mean by trivial- it's required that the players are able to ignore them without significant harm and if they can't, the Sandbox has ended.

Quote from: LordVreeg;627610And BTW, I consider player-determined and created goals to be very, very important and fulfilling.  And consistent with Sandbox play.

I'm of a very different opinion.

Sam getting the girl and becoming major is all nice and fine. But boring and trivial- I wouldn't read that book. Now Sam getting the girl after escorting the Ring to Mount Doom, that's interesting and worthwhile.

Quote from: gleichman;627634I beg to differ.

If those plot were meaningful, i.e. if the players ignore them the campaign would end (to pick the most extreme but clearest example, i.e. the one from Lord of the Rings)- you're not running a sandbox. The world hasn't granted them the interdependence a Sandbox requires.

Lesser bad results still have this characteristic, until the bad result become insignificant- and when they do, so does your 'sandbox goal'. This is what I mean by trivial- it's required that the players are able to ignore them without significant harm and if they can't, the Sandbox has ended.



I'm of a very different opinion.

Sam getting the girl and becoming major is all nice and fine. But boring and trivial- I wouldn't read that book. Now Sam getting the girl after escorting the Ring to Mount Doom, that's interesting and worthwhile.

You DO know you can't seem to have a disagreement without going into fallacy, right?  
Reductio ad absurdum, here, not to mention the propositional idiocy of "You can't have meaninful choices in a sandbox, because if it were meaningful it wouldn't be in a sandbox".

To do something crazy that I like to do, let's go with an example, one that might be useful to other GMS.
I set up a number of long term situations, plotines, going on in my setting, from the beginning.  At all sorts of levels, and many intersect.

One of them is the search for the lost god, Amerer.  It's a pretty good example of a sandbox plotline, that if the PCs don't pick it up, things don't change dramatically, but since the PCs have started to discover pieces and bits of how he was actually placed in Durance and can be set free.  At this point, they have not said a word to an NPC about it, so there are zero outide forces pushing or influencing.
Yet if they decide to make this a long-term goal, one of the original planars, an architect of the Waking Dream (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14956127/Song%20Of%20Creation) will be returned to the void and able to influence events, churches and whole religions will probably need to change, be shaken to the core, or crumble absolutely.
Or if it is discovered whet they have found, then I must play the rest of the world logically, and forces will array for and against this outcome.

Now, if you say that in playing the response of the rest of the setting I am creating non-sandbox conditions, then you truly prove to me that you don't belong posting in a thread about sandboxes.  The players are free to go where they will and do as they will, and the world reacts accordingly.  But the longer a big sandbox goes the more the players have to deal with the consequences of their own actions.

And similarly, if you tell me that the sacrifice of other goals and needs to bring back an original god back into the Waking Dream is insignificant, i'd ...be surprised.

Quote from: LordVreeg;627647You DO know you can't seem to have a disagreement without going into fallacy, right?  
Reductio ad absurdum, here, not to mention the propositional idiocy of "You can't have meaninful choices in a sandbox, because if it were meaningful it wouldn't be in a sandbox".

Sigh, you say such things... and then say:

Quote from: LordVreeg;627647It's a pretty good example of a sandbox plotline, that if the PCs don't pick it up, things don't change dramatically, but since the PCs have started to discover pieces and bits of how he was actually placed in Durance and can be set free.

I put in bold that part which is exactly what I said was a requirement for a Sandbox (as commonly defined here), and is exactly why I said it was meaningless.

How that whips around instead your head and comes out as a 'fallacy' is beyond me. Tunnel Vision perhaps. You're so focused on the what happens if the players act that you ignore everything else.

Quote from: gleichman;627651Sigh, you say such things... and then say:




I put in bold that part which is exactly what I said was a requirement for a Sandbox (as commonly defined here), and is exactly why I said it was meaningless.

How that whips around instead your head and comes out as a 'fallacy' is beyond me. Tunnel Vision perhaps. You're so focused on the what happens if the players act that you ignore everything else.

Nyet.
A) any requirement you have for a Sandbox I'd want to see.  I am still looking for evidence that you understand what you hate.

B) My comment about things not changing dramatically means that things will continue on the path they are going.  The world is actualy somewhat unaware that the Lost God is actually imprisoned; they think he is gone.  Are you trying to postulate that without a narrative railroad (take the ring or the world ends), there is no meaningful goals by the players?  And because a narrative railroad is opposite of a sandbox, therefor a sandbox cannot have a meaningful goal?
 That seems to be the meat of your circuitous argument, which is one reason why I call it fallacious and why it meets ther criterion of fallacy.

c) nota bene, you don't even try to talk about the real argument, the effects of the players actions in the setting as meaningful or not.  I provided an example of a very meaningful (even taking into account your personal requirment of large-scale, world shaking games, which is, BTW a preference or vaule judgement, not part of the definition for everyone, sad to say) plotline the players have entered into of their own accord which they may or may not continue, but if they sacrifice other goals and decide to follow will profoundly change the makeup and cosmic balance of the entire setting.

d) I apologize, Elliott.

Quote from: LordVreeg;627654Are you trying to postulate that without a narrative railroad (take the ring or the world ends), there is no meaningful goals by the players?

You are so invested that you refuse to understand a simple point, simply stated. I really don't think there's any way for us to communicate.

I will try once more.

A Sandbox requires that the players are able to avoid any plot hook by its definition. As you stated "if the PCs don't pick it up, things don't change dramatically". That is the freedom a Sandbox requires, the ability to ignore what they don't want to interact with, and pick other things to do instead.

The problem with that is that it reduces any and all possible events in the Sandbox to something trivial. "Here Frodo is the Ring of Power, now you must... hey you just dropped on the ground and walked away... Frodo? Frodo? Oh well, it wasn't important anyway".

To me, that is not an acceptable way of playing. I'm not interested in what mess Conan is dealing with this week because he was looking for money, power or whatever tickled his fancy, nor what old dead gods he woke up while doing so. It means nothing to me.

I'm interested in things like this: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide"

Quote from: gleichman;627661You are so invested that you refuse to understand a simple point, simply stated. I really don't think there's any way for us to communicate.

I will try once more.

A Sandbox requires that the players are able to avoid any plot hook by its definition. As you stated "if the PCs don't pick it up, things don't change dramatically". That is the freedom a Sandbox requires, the ability to ignore what they don't want to interact with, and pick other things to do instead.

The problem with that is that it reduces any and all possible events in the Sandbox to something trivial. "Here Frodo is the Ring of Power, now you must... hey you just dropped on the ground and walked away... Frodo? Frodo? Oh well, it wasn't important anyway".

To me, that is not an acceptable way of playing. I'm not interested in what mess Conan is dealing with this week because he was looking for money, power or whatever tickled his fancy, nor what old dead gods he woke up while doing so. It means nothing to me.

I'm interested in things like this: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide"

There you have it, folks: Sandboxes require players determined to suck (and a GM who'll double down on that suck) in order for them to match up with the strawman version presented here.  (Should we start calling this hypothetical beast the strawbox?)

Well there's consequences for avoiding hooks in every game I call a sandbox.

But it isn't all Christian so it may still suck.

Quote from: gleichman;627661You are so invested that you refuse to understand a simple point, simply stated. I really don't think there's any way for us to communicate.

I will try once more.

A Sandbox requires that the players are able to avoid any plot hook by its definition. As you stated "if the PCs don't pick it up, things don't change dramatically". That is the freedom a Sandbox requires, the ability to ignore what they don't want to interact with, and pick other things to do instead.

The problem with that is that it reduces any and all possible events in the Sandbox to something trivial. "Here Frodo is the Ring of Power, now you must... hey you just dropped on the ground and walked away... Frodo? Frodo? Oh well, it wasn't important anyway".

To me, that is not an acceptable way of playing. I'm not interested in what mess Conan is dealing with this week because he was looking for money, power or whatever tickled his fancy, nor what old dead gods he woke up while doing so. It means nothing to me.

I'm interested in things like this: "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide"

right.
So I got it both times.  For you, it has to be a railroad to be significant, no matter the affect the setting or the campaign. It's not that I did not get it, it is just as as I said.  Circuitous logic.  

"that without a narrative railroad (take the ring or the world ends), there is no meaningful goals by the players? And because a narrative railroad is opposite of a sandbox, therefor a sandbox cannot have a meaningful goal"

And wrong.  A Sandbox still has cause and effect, it just can contain many important plotlines, not just one railroad.  Just because the players have real  choice does not make it trivial, in fact, the player who chooses to act and possibly sacrifice can be seen as more meaningful than those who are railroaded.  See 'C' above.  

(and Strawbox seems about right)

No, problem,  Vreeg.

I think once all the shouting is over, there's just a plain difference in taste. If someone (likely Gleichman) wants to assert beyond that, that the other taste is morally inferior, it's just static as far as I'm concerned.

For example, if personal interests are trivial, oh well. The myth of the Trojan War (and the Iliad) is about personal interests, not people trying to prevent the end of the world. Depending on the telling, there are some characters whose personal interests are wealth & power (Agamemnon), but others who are motivated by love, hate, pure ego, devotion... To me it makes a good story; so does the Odyssey; so does actual history at scales running from small communities to entire nations.

Admittedly, few of these offered moral absolutes (these days, I still think few people would shy from talking about WWII as a fight against evil--on some level--but YMMV) and so, perhaps in the long run, they're all "trivial". Yes, everything from Henry IV part I  to The Godfather--all trivial, and rather vain. That is, I can understand the logic, in terms of how things get sorted in that outlook, but it doesn't affect my own preferences.

Quote from: gleichman;627584If expressing a opinion different than others is a troll, I suppose I'll just have to live with it.

What I don't have to do is talk to someone who believes such a silly thing.

I have no issue with someone expressing a difference of opinion about a subject matter being discussed. That's not trolling. But coming into a thread entitled "Actual examples of starting a sandbox campaign" to tell us that sandboxes are boring IS trolling, because *that's not the topic being discussed.*

It's no different than if you started a thread called "Building characters in Champions" and I came in and said Champions sucks. I'd be trolling you.

And, since I read your blog regularly, I know you are a very smart man, so your reply above is merely meta-trolling at this point.

Quote from: Zak S;627668Well there's consequences for avoiding hooks in every game I call a sandbox.

If you punish your PCs for turning down your plot hooks, I don't see how you can in any meaningful call your campaign a sandbox.

A field of tar babies perhaps. Sandbox, no.

Quote from: LordVreeg;627669right.
So I got it both times.  For you, it has to be a railroad to be significant, no matter the affect the setting or the campaign. It's not that I did not get it, it is just as as I said.  Circuitous logic.  

No, you don't get it.

I think that you're so interested in self-justification that you've reached the point where you don't even try to get it. Anything you disagree with must in your view be wrong, and you'll pick whatever term that's handy to call it wrong no matter how poorly it fits.

You're extremely consistent in this, and have never been worth the time I spent talking to you as a result. I will spend waste no more time on you.

Quote from: amacris;627681But coming into a thread entitled "Actual examples of starting a sandbox campaign" to tell us that sandboxes are boring IS trolling, because *that's not the topic being discussed.*

It's no different than if you started a thread called "Building characters in Champions" and I came in and said Champions sucks. I'd be trolling you.

And, since I read your blog regularly, I know you are a very smart man, so your reply above is merely meta-trolling at this point.

Thread-crapping actually.

We get a lot of that.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627678That is, I can understand the logic, in terms of how things get sorted in that outlook, but it doesn't affect my own preferences.

I liked your examples, they do indeed fit what I'm talking about.

Quote from: One Horse Town;627686Thread-crapping actually.

We get a lot of that.

So much so (and by Pundit himself I may add) that I thought it accepted practice here.

Please feel free to move my post to it's own thread if that would help (if such is possible).

Quote from: gleichman;627683If you punish your PCs for turning down your plot hooks, I don't see how you can in any meaningful call your campaign a sandbox.

A field of tar babies perhaps. Sandbox, no.

I think this entire argument may boil down to a definitional difference then, as I concur with Zak, Estar, etc. that you can and should have consequences in a sandbox. If you explicitly define out any consequences, then of course a sandbox becomes meaningless, because consequences are what give meaning to action.

I've written extensively about this on The Escapist: "... the great enjoyment elicited by tabletop RPGs is a result of creating a sense of agency among their players. In an RPG, by making choice X, the player can impose result Y, which is the essence of agency. And because tabletop RPGs are an experience shared within a meaningful social circle of friends and colleagues, result Y feels meaningful. In a real sense, in the context of our circle of friends, Nick really did save Erik's life last week. Moreover, because tabletop RPGs are enjoyed sequentially, in a campaign format, the number of choices made and the impact of those choices compounds over time. The game becomes more meaningful the longer it is experienced. This is why long-term campaigns are more fun than one-off sessions, and why playing with a bunch of close friends is more fun than playing solitaire or with a group of strangers. Sustained campaigns with close friends create a stronger sense of agency.
However, in order for a campaign to effectively create a sense of agency, the players must be able to make real (not faux) choices that have meaningful consequences on the players and their world. And that's a requirement which is, for instance, in direct opposition to storytelling, or making sure everyone has fun."

quote context: http://qote.me/tiFBue

Quote from: amacris;627693I think this entire argument may boil down to a definitional difference then, as I concur with Zak, Estar, etc. that you can and should have consequences in a sandbox.

I don't deny that consequences should apply once a 'hook' has been picked up in a Sandbox (even unintended consequences).

But if the players can be punished for refusing to pick up the hook, the term sandbox (as in the players determine what they wish to do) becomes meaningless. They no longer have such freedom, but are punished when they fail to jump through the hoops held before them.

Moreover, such players would always be punished for it's implied that there are many possible choices to make in a Sandbox- and the players must turn down some in order to pick the one to do now. Are they to be punished for all the options they decided against? Are they expected to complete the entire sandbox (like finishing a zone in a RPG) to escape punishment, doing each in their turn. Or does doing one out of third remove the punishment requirement. How far do I need to carry this to show how silly the idea is?

Zak S answer indicates to me that the term Sandbox is applied not because it actually applies, but because it's an acceptable and praised term to apply.

Quote from: amacris;627693I think this entire argument may boil down to a definitional difference then, as I concur with Zak, Estar, etc. that you can and should have consequences in a sandbox. If you explicitly define out any consequences, then of course a sandbox becomes meaningless, because consequences are what give meaning to action.

I've written extensively about this on The Escapist: "... the great enjoyment elicited by tabletop RPGs is a result of creating a sense of agency among their players. In an RPG, by making choice X, the player can impose result Y, which is the essence of agency. And because tabletop RPGs are an experience shared within a meaningful social circle of friends and colleagues, result Y feels meaningful. In a real sense, in the context of our circle of friends, Nick really did save Erik's life last week. Moreover, because tabletop RPGs are enjoyed sequentially, in a campaign format, the number of choices made and the impact of those choices compounds over time. The game becomes more meaningful the longer it is experienced. This is why long-term campaigns are more fun than one-off sessions, and why playing with a bunch of close friends is more fun than playing solitaire or with a group of strangers. Sustained campaigns with close friends create a stronger sense of agency.
However, in order for a campaign to effectively create a sense of agency, the players must be able to make real (not faux) choices that have meaningful consequences on the players and their world. And that's a requirement which is, for instance, in direct opposition to storytelling, or making sure everyone has fun."

quote context: http://qote.me/tiFBue

What's going on here is that gleichman dislikes the concept of a sandbox, so he attempts to reduce the definition of one to such a narrowly restricted imaginary beast that no one could possibly have fun with one, thereby proving him right all along.  (As somebody that had a bad time in a sandbox game one time in the 70s, clearly he's the authority on the subject.)

The strawbox strikes again!

You're putting words in Zak's mouth, Brian.

Consequences for not taking up a certain hook need not equal punishment.

Just as consequences for a certain action in any type of game need not equal punishment.

Quote from: One Horse Town;627703You're putting words in Zak's mouth, Brian.

Consequences for not taking up a certain hook need not equal punishment.

Just as consequences for a certain action in any type of game need not equal punishment.

I've stated elsewhere, always decisions, always consequences - that's what makes a sandbox campaign work.  Otherwise you've got hold of something else, there.

Quote from: gleichman;627685No, you don't get it.

I think that you're so interested in self-justification that you've reached the point where you don't even try to get it. Anything you disagree with must in your view be wrong, and you'll pick whatever term that's handy to call it wrong no matter how poorly it fits.

You're extremely consistent in this, and have never been worth the time I spent talking to you as a result. I will spend waste no more time on you.

Yes, I am consistent.  In many things.  
In this case, consistent with identifying your dislike of sandbox games, and using a ridiculous circular argument to try to explain it, and consistent in noting your lack of addressing other questions raised as to why only a railroad plot goal is meaningful.

Sorry to call it like it is.

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;627705I've stated elsewhere, always decisions, always consequences - that's what makes a sandbox campaign work.  Otherwise you've got hold of something else, there.

Yep.  A good GM just plays the reaction of the setting to the pcs.  And often that means the pcs dealing with the consequences of their actions.

Quote from: Zak S;627392I have a ten foot pole if someone wants to touch that.

Maybe if no one ever talks to him he'll finally go away?

Quote from: One Horse Town;627703You're putting words in Zak's mouth, Brian.

Consequences for not taking up a certain hook need not equal punishment.

Do you really come from somewhere where the term 'Consequences' means warm bunnies and snuggles? In that context, it sure sounds like 'bad things' (tm).

But if he's actually rewarding them, that would be special.

And if those consequences are completely neutral to them, then why mention them at all. It wasted his time and mine.

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;627702What's going on here is that gleichman dislikes the concept of a sandbox, so he attempts to reduce the definition of one to such a narrowly restricted imaginary beast that no one could possibly have fun with one, thereby proving him right all along.

No one would have fun being Conan?

I think somewhere along the way you lost what I was intending to mean, or never really picked it up to begin with.

Quote from: Piestrio;627709Maybe if no one ever talks to him he'll finally go away?

With rare exception, few here ever talk to me. Like you they snipe and call names.

I'm amazed at how complete the lack of curiosity is here. Even Elliot Wilen had nothing to say after I answered a direct question of his. Conversation isn't on anyone's mind it seems unless they happen to completely agree with what is being said.

Quote from: gleichman;627713With rare exception, few here ever talk to me. Like you they snipe and call names.

I'm amazed at how complete the lack of curiosity is here. Even Elliot Wilen had nothing to say after I answered a direct question of his. Conversation isn't on anyone's mind it seems unless they happen to completely agree with what is being said.

Bummer... I thought you had ignored me :(

I'll have to try harder.

Quote from: Piestrio;627714Bummer... I thought you had ignored me :(

I'll have to try harder.

I use my ignore list in a rather special way. I know you're worthless for example and stupid besides, and it reminds me.

But that doesn't mean I can't use some comment of yours to make a larger point.

Quote from: gleichman;627715I use my ignore list in a rather special way. I know you're worthless for example and stupid besides, and it reminds me.

But that doesn't mean I can't use some comment of yours to make a larger point.

Yay!

I'm worthless and stupid!

Weeee!

Am kinda busy, Brian, but thank you for your write up. I agree, it's not very sandbox-y. I do think you could have a "moral" sandbox where the overall goals and outlook of the PCs is a given, but broad strategic choices still give a lot of freedom, but your example doesn't seem to fall into that category.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627717Am kinda busy, Brian, but thank you for your write up. I agree, it's not very sandbox-y.

In general terms, I think Sword and Sorcery, Power Trips, and Dark Fantasy are best served by the Sandbox approach. While High Fantasy is basically impossible.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627717I do think you could have a "moral" sandbox where the overall goals and outlook of the PCs is a given, but broad strategic choices still give a lot of freedom, but your example doesn't seem to fall into that category.

If you have players willing to, you could have a 'moral' sandbox. But I've seen very few examples of that (our original one back in the 70s would count at certain points in it's lifecycle) as the format doesn't really support it.

What's missing no matter what however is the classic high fantasy overarching theme that puts things into prespective IMO. This is because the players are serving their own interests first, even if their own interest is running around being heroes.

It's a subtle but important difference.

Also to address the latest bit of brain shit to leak from Gleichman's skull* of course you can have epic quests and heavy morality in sandbox play.

It's just something the player's have to pursue.

The player's in a sandbox are fully capable of saying, "You know that big brooding evil to the east? We're taking that shit down." and off they go.

They can say, "You know how the city state keeps slaves? yeah, we're ending that."

Likewise they can also decide to profit from the Big bad Evil or become slave traders themselves, putting down revolts left and right.

Or they can die in a ditch.

*I don't expect Gliechman to understand this however as he seems to have the mental acuity of a rather dim teenager.

Now, if he had simply said that Sandboxes have a tendency towards producing amoral adventures grubbing around at the margins of the world he wouldn't get an argument from me. But Gliechman doesn't see tendencies, everything is an absolute and anyone that falls outside is stupid and immoral. Worthless to boot.

Quote from: gleichman;627587Wealth and Power. These are common sandbox goals as they are the only ones really supported by the concept. Hence why I described Sandboxes as amoral.

Except that was when my friends and I were 15, 16 year old. Now with a mature group of players the goals are as diverse as in real life and well as the reasons for pursuing them. Wealth and power are sometimes important and sometime now.

I present the circumstances the players choose how their character deal with it. Some go gung ho and get involved right away. Some ignore the events around them and pursue other goals.  And other go explore the slice of life of an element of my setting which could be a locale, a group, a culture, a religion, a neighborhood, etc.

This mainly stems from one of my few requirements for playing in my campaigns which is "Roleplay your character as if you are really there." combined with my willingness to let the players set the direction of the campaign.

And another consequence of this approach that by and large the players do the right thing. Because for the most the players don't want to live under, live with, or be responsible for folks who are demented assholes. I had players do evil and were evil assholes themselves. But it gets old quickly due to the way I run my campaigns.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;627589The wealth to build a hospital for travellers and the power of an order of knights to protect them.

Wrong again, Brian.

Just last week, the players in my present campaign decided to retire from being mercenaries and used their king's ransom to buy an inn.

Quote from: gleichman;627591He didn't say anything about what they'd use the wealth and power for, the very thought seemingly didn't even occur to him it was so unimportant.

In my very first Wilderlands campaign, one player used his wealth and power to reunited a fractured Kingdom. And another player built a wizard's tower setup as a school to train other mages.

Folks can see the scans of those notes and the map I used at this post (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/search?q=valeric)

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/Sy12sWDHjeI/AAAAAAAAAsg/ZIwJclsv4gY/s320/Nome.jpg) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/Sy12sWDHjeI/AAAAAAAAAsg/ZIwJclsv4gY/s1600/Nome.jpg)

The movie Excalibur was the inspiration as this was before Game of the Thrones. The part about one land, one king along with the king and land are one.

So anything else you would like to tell me about the games I ran back then?

Quote from: estar;627730So anything else you would like to tell me about the games I ran back then?

You told me enough when you left out that information in your original post.

And if you've been following my conversation with LordVreeg you'd know that I really don't care all that much about what they do after they've started playing (each individual plot hook). I'm concerned with their ability to walk away from things without consequence.

Quote from: gleichman;627591He didn't say anything about what they'd use the wealth and power for, the very thought seemingly didn't even occur to him it was so unimportant.

In my very first Wilderlands campaign, one player used his wealth and power to reunited a fractured Kingdom. And another player built a wizard's tower setup as a school to train other mages.

Folks can see the scans of those notes and the map I used at this post (http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/search?q=valeric)

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/Sy12sWDHjeI/AAAAAAAAAsg/ZIwJclsv4gY/s320/Nome.jpg) (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_mFjy4EWzmtg/Sy12sWDHjeI/AAAAAAAAAsg/ZIwJclsv4gY/s1600/Nome.jpg)
The movie Excalibur was the inspiration as this was before Game of the Thrones.

So anything else you would like to tell me about the games I ran back then?

What is with this fixation on consequences in the sandbox?

If the players walk away from a plot hook, there *should* be consequences. The players learned about an evil awakening in Barovia earlier in the campaign, when a distant patron begged for help; they took their sweet ass time getting there, and the situation was much worse when they finally arrived 6 months later.  A sandbox area doesn't go into stasis if a plot hook is ignored; there is no guarantee the road not taken is even there.  Why shouldn't ignoring a wealthy patron or the edict of a local ruler cause social problems and complications?  It does in the real world.

Reasonable (and foreseeable) problems that arise by ignoring game events does not equal a railroad.

Quote from: Beedo;627743Reasonable (and foreseeable) problems that arise by ignoring game events does not equal a railroad.

Exactly.

Quote from: Beedo;627743If the players walk away from a plot hook, there *should* be consequences. The players learned about an evil awakening in Barovia earlier in the campaign, when a distant patron begged for help; they took their sweet ass time getting there, and the situation was much worse when they finally arrived 6 months later.  

Two questions.

First, what would have happened if they didn't go at all?

Second, were they still able to win when they did go?

Quote from: gleichman;627745Two questions.

First, what would have happened if they didn't go at all?

Second, were they still able to win when they did go?

*win*?

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;627663Should we start calling this hypothetical beast the strawbox?

Litterbox.

Aka a crappy sandbox.

Quote from: Beedo;627743Reasonable (and foreseeable) problems that arise by ignoring game events does not equal a railroad.

Yep.

Good to see you joining the conversation, Beedo.

Quote from: LordVreeg;627597I have a lot of overarching storlyines, and games that have lasted for over a decade, where the characters find goals and motivations, get married, have children, establish themselves in guilds and in politics, where some PCs have more experience in their social skills than in their HP.

I envy you, something about the way I referee my campaigns makes the player want to play each and every damn day. In my current campaign, I just now got them to consent, after 16 sessions, to fast forward six days while they waited for somebody armor to get finished.

And it is not the first campaign that this happened. Although the present campaign is notable that at several point that between five characters there was stuff happening throughout all 24 hours of the game day. I could not say no because none of it unreasonable. Their collective actions meant we were lucky to get one or two game day out of a single session.

Right now I am in day 45 of the campaign after 20 sessions.

Quote from: gleichman;627732You told me enough when you left out that information in your original post.

And if you've been following my conversation with LordVreeg you'd know that I really don't care all that much about what they do after they've started playing (each individual plot hook). I'm concerned with their ability to walk away from things without consequence.

yep You'd see...

Quote from: gleichmanA Sandbox requires that the players are able to avoid any plot hook by its definition. As you stated "if the PCs don't pick it up, things don't change dramatically". That is the freedom a Sandbox requires, the ability to ignore what they don't want to interact with, and pick other things to do instead.

The problem with that is that it reduces any and all possible events in the Sandbox to something trivial. "

he has set it up in his own little head that free choice of the PCs equates to an automatic reduction of all possible goals and events in that game to the trivial.

Of course there are effects and ramificatrions for every player decision.
"The players are free to go where they will and do as they will, and the world reacts accordingly. But the longer a big sandbox goes the more the players have to deal with the consequences of their own actions."  Every single decision the PCs make can have ramifications down the road, event chains that they can intercede with again or not, and deal with the results of that decision.

Centrally, that is part of the art of being a GM.  Creating a natural cause and effect within the setting that the players resopnd to from as immersed a position as you can create through the within-setting logic.

Quote from: gleichman;627628In purest form, this is a modified railroad- for Middle Earth is a railroad ("This task was appointed to you, and if you do not find a way, no one will."). But the method is up to the players, as is their success (although the dice will have their say).

Sounds like the character are acting as they truly existed in the setting. Being who they are and the player being honest about roleplaying their character's background of course they are going to pursue those clues. It not a railroad because nobody forced them to pick those characters. They are not pre-gens. Everybody decided what they wanted to do play and designed their character accordingly in full knowledge of they are middle-earth characters in middle-earth with all it long history and culture standing behind them.

Quote from: gleichman;627628Along the way they will encounter all sorts of unrelated things and react to them as they well. This part actually resembles a sandbox and has the virtual of being as result unable to detract from the main quest line for more than limited time.

Whether it is railroad or sandbox depends solely on whether the referee directs the course of the campaign or lets the players direct the course for him. For example would the referee get bent out of shape if the party decided to start on the path of the black numenoreans, become kings of lesser men, and so far and so on?

Quote from: estar;627750I envy you, something about the way I referee my campaigns makes the player want to play each and every damn day. In my current campaign, I just now got them to consent, after 16 sessions, to fast forward six days while they waited for somebody armor to get finished.

And it is not the first campaign that this happened. Although the present campaign is notable that at several point that between five characters there was stuff happening throughout all 24 hours of the game day. I could not say no because none of it unreasonable. Their collective actions meant we were lucky to get one or two game day out of a single session.

Right now I am in day 45 of the campaign after 20 sessions.

Oh, no.  If I give the idea that we move through time quickly, please...I could laugh.

My igbarians, based on the particular time sensitive nature of the second  chapter, played 4 years of game time (66 sessions) when they finished it and had gone through less than 3 hawaak (8 day weeks, so about 22 days).  So, yeahh, I feel your pain.  
I just play uber long campaigns.  Those Igbarians are now in chapter 4 of their camapign.  They are my newer live campaign in Celtricia, started in 2002.
I dig that sentiment.

Quote from: estar;627753Sounds like the character are acting as they truly existed in the setting. Being who they are and the player being honest about roleplaying their character's background of course they are going to pursue those clues.

Really? You believe that?

Good thing my players don't. It would result in a bunch of clones marching in step.

Quote from: estar;627753For example would the referee get bent out of shape if the party decided to start on the path of the black numenoreans, become kings of lesser men, and so far and so on?

Players desiring to run evil characters are shown the door and not allowed to return.

Quote from: gleichman;627634If those plot were meaningful, i.e. if the players ignore them the campaign would end (to pick the most extreme but clearest example, i.e. the one from Lord of the Rings)- you're not running a sandbox. The world hasn't granted them the interdependence a Sandbox requires.

The campaign wouldn't end, the life of the setting would continue on and the life of the characters would reflect the consequences of their choices.

Even in a situation as clearly defined as Middle Earth at the end of the Third Age. Would have Sauron's dominion truly been without end if he regained the ring? Or that was just the point of view of those participating in the War of the Ring?

The life of Middle Earth would have continue and its story unfold even in the new Black years of Sauron's dominion. And it is Eru Iluvatar not Sauron that is the true Lord of Middle Earth.

Quote from: estar;627759Even in a situation as clearly defined as Middle Earth at the end of the Third Age. Would have Sauron's dominion truly been without end if he regained the ring?

It was what all the character's said. That's sort of the meaning of the choices put before them. Not all worlds give you the option of a do over later.

Quote from: gleichman;627683If you punish your PCs for turning down your plot hooks, I don't see how you can in any meaningful call your campaign a sandbox.

A field of tar babies perhaps. Sandbox, no.

I  never said I punish the PCs if they ignore hooks--but the setting changes. Whether or not they want that change depends on who's there that day and what mood they're in.

Quote from: estar;627759The campaign wouldn't end, the life of the setting would continue on and the life of the characters would reflect the consequences of their choices.

Even in a situation as clearly defined as Middle Earth at the end of the Third Age. Would have Sauron's dominion truly been without end if he regained the ring? Or that was just the point of view of those participating in the War of the Ring?

The life of Middle Earth would have continue and its story unfold even in the new Black years of Sauron's dominion. And it is Eru Iluvatar not Sauron that is the true Lord of Middle Earth.

Midnight was pretty much built on this premise.

Quote from: gleichman;627756Really? You believe that? Good thing my players don't. It would result in a bunch of clones marching in step.

Now why would that be? You read my posts here on this forum. Since when I ever said that all character sharing the same cultural background act the same?

However I will clarify, that if a referee wants to contrive a grand destiny as part of the campaign, that he can take advantage of the fact the players are Numenorians with full knowledge of their past. Of course he will realizethat  the characters will have their own personalities and/or motivations and each will respond differently to the unfolding events.

Quote from: gleichman;627756Players desiring to run evil characters are shown the door and not allowed to return.

There your railroad. You are taking out of game actions in response to what they do in-game. And understand this, what I am NOT talking about is the creepy and explicit stuff like the unexpurgated rituals of Carcosa.

What I am talking about is being greedy in-game, taking little heed of the consequences of one's actions, killing characters (NPC or PC) for gain. You show those players out the door? Never had a thief or an assassin type in your campaigns? Never practiced genocide on another sentient races like say orcs?

How about a group of players who launch a Chevauchée on the orders of their king against the vikings invading their homeland? To the viking survivors they are evil spawn from hell. But from the players point of view they are talking all measures to bring the war to a victory.

Now there is nothing wrong with a group who don't like that kind of situation. Nothing wrong not asking players who play greedy,etc character not to come back despite not having  any other out-of-game issue.  But when you do that you are railroading your game.

What I learned is that I play the situation out naturally with consequences I find that players who are not otherwise obnoxious twits start being cooperative with in the game world. Mainly because they find it easier to get ahead if they play nice with the inhabitants of the setting.

Quote from: gleichman;627761It was what all the character's said. That's sort of the meaning of the choices put before them. Not all worlds give you the option of a do over later.

They are right in a sense. Given the background Tolkien written Iluvatar would have redeemed Middle Earth. But it would be what the War of Wrath did to Beleriand with all the world completely changed. Note I am not saying Iluvatar would do anything as dramatic for the overthrow of Sauron. But even  if Iluvatar manipulations result in that after an age a rebellion occurs that overthrow Sauron and finally destroys the ring. The world that would have emerge would have been a far poorer place both physically and spiritually than the world where the Ringbearer successfully achieved his quest.

So it was truly a situation where their world would end if the Ring wasn't destroyed and Sauron defeated.  So Gandalf and the rest were not lying about the consequences of Sauron getting the ring.

Middle Earth was never the same after Spring of Arda and the overthrow of the Two Lamp, Middle Earth was never the same after the War of the Wrath and the downing of Beleriand. But the life of the world continued perhaps poorer for it but it continued and so it would after Sauron's victory.

There can be true evil, true good, and epic battles between two with huge consequences for the fate of the world in a sandbox. And if the players choose side with evil, well then the campaign become the same as life in Middle Earth after Sauron's victory.

And what I find rather than bring out the worst in gamers it tends to bring out the best. So while gamers may play petty, greedy little asshole characters from time. Deep down they don't want to live in a shitty world at the mercy of a lord dark and terrible.

Especially when we are talking about Sauron level or Morgoth level of bad guy they know they will never be on top and always at the mercy of the boss. So in my campaigns even the densest gamers get a clue that helping the bad guys, like demons, isn't a smart move.

I don't have to impose any arbitrary rule about what is good or evil because it takes care of itself during the course of play. You are in the Keep on the Borderlands and you just cheated the General Store manager well guess what! He remembers you and you just realized that he is only general store within a 100 miles.

Quote from: Zak S;627763I  never said I punish the PCs if they ignore hooks--but the setting changes. Whether or not they want that change depends on who's there that day and what mood they're in.

Exactly, in my current campaign the players decided to stop being mercenaries and going to build an inn. And yet the war they were a part of continues except now without them. I need to wait a session or two before I am sure that the Inn business truly becomes their focus and they don't plan on going back to fight.

But once that happens I will break out GURPS Mass Combat, the rules I use for large scale conflicts, and figure out the new timeline of the war without the players involvement.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627764Midnight was pretty much built on this premise.

It is a pretty cool setting. I will never run it but I got some of the PDFs as part of one of those charity bundles and it was a good read.

Quote from: estar;627765Now why would that be?

Because that's how you defined it for me your post. All characters would... etc. etc.

Quote from: estar;627765There your railroad. You are taking out of game actions in response to what they do in-game.

I'm taking an out of game action in response to someone breaking the group's social contract. It has nothing to do with the game itself for they didn't belong in it in the first place.

Quote from: estar;627767They are right in a sense. Given the background Tolkien written Iluvatar would have redeemed Middle Earth.

When Iluvatar redeems Middle Earth, he destroys it. It's covered in some broken detail in "Morgoth's Ring".

Even then, there is nothing to say he would have acted if the people didn't earn his action, there is a bunch of stuff that has to happen first including the slaying of Morgoth.

Quote from: Zak S;627763I  never said I punish the PCs if they ignore hooks--but the setting changes. Whether or not they want that change depends on who's there that day and what mood they're in.

If they don't want the change, it's a punishment.

If they want the change, it's a reward.

If they don't care, it's insignificant.

Quote from: gleichman;627776If they don't want the change, it's a punishment.

If they want the change, it's a reward.

If they don't care, it's insignificant.

Because the universe is daddy, and when bad things happen it's because he's punishing us?

All makes sense, now.

Quote from: gleichman;627745First, what would have happened if they didn't go at all?

Then those events would play out as if the character never existed. Although to be fair, something would get changed as the players would still be doing things as their character.

But if a player make a character with a background and motivations, the referee has a good rough guess as where they are going to be headed. He can then use that to come up with some rough idea as how the players actions will impact the larger events.

And if you read my NUMEROUS previous posts on the topic of running a sandbox campaign, you will know that I do a pre-game where I ask the players as a group and individual what kind of character they want to play and what they are like. I am not in the dark as to what I need to prepare for in the first few sessions.

I suppose the players is an asshole, he could be lying to me and show up at the first session and roleplay his character completely different than he how he wrote up with me. At which point after the session, I would talk to him and ask him did he decide to change his character concept? And if he says something completely dickish. Then I will probably ask him to sit out the campaign.

However I rarely run into this problem. The problem I run into more often is either the player playing his character like a maddog. Or the player goes overboard in making huge elaborate plans for their characters.

Both are a result of player realizing the freedom that they have in setting the direction of the campaign. The first think because he can do anything, he can do whatever he dame well pleases not understanding that the inhabitants of the settings have lives their own and are quite capable in taking care of themselves.

The second is just giddy with the possibilities and have to learn that they are starting at the beginning. That the key to achieving what they want is to pursue their goals in the game so that in the end they achieve their goal. Which at times is surprisingly mundane.

As Lord Vreeg points out earlier, consequences spins off consequences and for good or ill the characters have to live in the situation of their own creation. I will also point out if you read my previous posts on the topic, that it is important that referee fairly decides what the consequences are that in all likelihood that the result of any action will be a mix of both the good and the bad. That novice sandbox referee tend to focus too much on the bad ones and not enough on the good ones.

Quote from: estar;627781Then those events would play out as if the character never existed.

That question wasn't directed at you.

I do however have one that is. Your players have decided to forget about the war, and build an inn. You claim this completely took you off guard (which puts the lie to your claims of talking to the players before to make and thus being sure of what they want to do).

Will the result of that war have any chance of preventing them from building that inn? Not merely make it difficult, prevent it (or destroy it)?

If the answer is yes, your Sandbox is as railroaded as any typical game.

If the answer is no, and I expect to be so, than your plot hooks are trivial as I've previously claimed.

Quote from: gleichman;627776If they don't want the change, it's a punishment.

If they want the change, it's a reward.

If they don't care, it's insignificant.

What if you set up a situation where two different hooks both have qualitatively different rewards associated with them?

Like, say "Here are 15 places on the map you could level up by looting, pick one"?

Or equal punishment: "Here are 15 wrongs to right, any one you do not address will be addressed by someone else and we'll flip a coin to see whether it comes out well or poorly"? Pick one

Quote from: gleichman;627787That question wasn't directed at you.

I do however have one that is. Your players have decided to forget about the war, and build an inn. You claim this completely took you off guard (which puts the lie to your claims of talking to the players before to make and thus being sure of what they want to do).

Will the result of that war have any chance of preventing them from building that inn? Not merely make it difficult, prevent it (or destroy it)?

If the answer is yes, your Sandbox is as railroaded as any typical game.

If the answer is no, and I expect to be so, than your plot hooks are trivial as I've previously claimed.

Alternatively, neither, since all of your conclusions are the result of you getting high on your own farts, and have no bearing on the real world (or any imaginary world besides the one you inhabit).

Quote from: gleichman;627787That question wasn't directed at you.

I do however have one that is. Your players have decided to forget about the war, and build an inn. You claim this completely took you off guard (which puts the lie to your claims of talking to the players before to make and thus being sure of what they want to do).

The pre-game takes play prior to the start of the campaign. I said this in in previous post on sandbox campaign. However I guess  I didn't explicitly state this in my reply. However I did mention it as part of character creation. Which obviously occurs prior to the start of a campaign.

We are now twenty sessions into the campaign when the players decided to build an inn.

Quote from: gleichman;627787Will the result of that war have any chance of preventing them from building that inn? Not merely make it difficult, prevent it (or destroy it)?

So it clear there are three factions involved in the war. City-State of the Invincible Overlord(an empire), Nomar(a feudal kingdom), and the Skandians (vikings). The players are part of Nomar. In the absence of any player doing anything then the war will result in the conquest of both Nomar and the Skandians by City-State.

Quote from: gleichman;627787If the answer is yes, your Sandbox is as railroaded as any typical game.

I disagree, for several reasons. I can justify the entire course of the war as a reasonable extrapolation from the circumstances at the start of the campaign. The course of the war was played out by myself using GURPS Mass Combat and GURPS reaction rolls as a wargame.

Now one could argue "Rob you stack the deck by setting up the right initial circumstances." However whatever the merits of that arguments may be, that not applicable to the Majestic Wilderlands. Because I ran this setting for thirty years and the circumstances of Nomar, City-State, and the Skandian at the start are all the result of what various groups of players did sometimes in the last 30 years.

When I start up a new campaign in the Majestic Wilderlands, first question I put to the group is "What you guys want to do in general terms?" Everybody talks and then they tell me. This time they wanted to be in a situation like Game of Thrones.

OK there are couple of regions in the Majestic Wilderlands that fit that. I let them know what each of them are like and then they pick. They chose Nomar and decided that they will start off by all joining the same mercenary group. I said fine.

Took a couple of days and organized my Nomar notes, updated since the last campaign I ran there (about a decade ago, and 8 game years in the past). I rolled a couple of events for everybody and Nomar did well by winning a short war with Skandian that stalled out because of in-fighting among the nobles. I wrote this up in a two page player packet sent it out to everybody and asked them who would they like to work for in Nomar. They picked a southern count on the Border of City-State.

So now that was settled they each made up their individual character and I worked with them to fit into the Majestic Wilderlands. These are older gamers so they are smart enough to talk among themselves to figure out how to make a group that would hang out together.

I ran the first session, allow the novices to adjust their character as it was their first time playing GURPS. And we were off. About ten sessions in they decide they had enough of the south and one of the players was able to convince a northern lord to buy out their contract and hire them for the war against the Skandian vikings. So off to the north they go on session ten.

I wasn't totally unprepared because because during session eight it was obvious what the one player wanted to do when learned of the visit of the northern lord. I wasn't sure if he would convince the rest of the group to go along but that on him. But as a precaution I fleshed out the northern frontier with the skandians. And sure enough he was able to convince the group to go north.

And as it happened the group just found out about City-State building a road through a untracked forest that they were going to use to launch a surprise attack on the skandian vikings. But because of the player convincing them to move north, they never told their former employer abou tit. However when they met the northern lord when they arrived at the Skandian frontier they did report it to him. But by then it was too late and City-State attacked the Skandian.

And it seemed like a good thing because the players arrived just as the Northern lord was going to launch his own attack on the Skandians. The player were assigned to go on Chevauchée to mislead the skandian to where the main attack was going to fall and to burn Skandian supplies. By session 16, they learned of the whereabouts of the Skandian King. Session 17 was spent setting up a plan to lure the King into an ambush. Session 18 they executed, did a pretty good job of it, and bagged the king.

Session 19, the group decides to sell the king's ransom to the Northern Lord. One players jokes that they should use the money to buy an inn. Somehow everybody winds up liking the idea and decides to do it. They spend the rest of the evening talking about where to build it and what to build.

Session 20, they leave the keep of the northern lord and head to the capital of Nomar with a letter of recommendation. They have a few encounters along the way (randomly rolled0. Once there they successfully get the support of the ruling Prince of Nomar and get the paperwork done.

So now I am working on regional map detailing the area around where they are building the inn. Combining the general notes, some ideas of my own,and random table results to create the local details. I am pretty sure two of the player are going to go around an introduce themselves to the nearly lords and villages and I have a list of what they know which will feed back into the local details I created.

There are settlements to the north and south with local lords that have some general notes. There are orc infested mountains to the west, and there is the Plain of Cairns to the east which is a very lightly wooded region (10% to 20% tree cover) dotted with burial tombs of a past culture destroyed by the orcs to the west. The people of Nomar are a later wave of folks who pushed the orcs back to the mountains and settled the land once again.

The original timeline of events still chugs along. Until the capture of the Skandian King, the player had only a minor impact on the original events. But now the entire Skandian Kingdom is thrown into chaos. I gamed this out a couple of weeks ago and it looks like the Skandians are going to get crushed by Nomar and City-State. However events that are going to cause Nomar to split apart in civil war still haven't been changed.

And so folks know, Nomar is my pseudo-Arthur land. I established this long ago in the late 80s. It largely due to the actions of PCs that Nomar held together this long. However the way is shaking out Prince Artos wife, Gwenifer is childess and is love with Artos' best friend and ally Count Alagon. Artos heir is his nephew Mordran who is pretty much same evil bastard in the original Arthur myth.  Gwenifer and Alagon are probably going to get caught in each other arms (I roll each game month) and Nomar will be descending to factionalism. And when the Skandian war is over the different sides will likely make a go at each other if not sooner.

Once civil war ensues, City-State will step in fresh from their conquest of half of the Skandian realm.

In the middle of all this are bunch of ex-mercenaries building an inn.

Quote from: gleichman;627787If the answer is no, and I expect to be so, than your plot hooks are trivial as I've previously claimed.

Well you can other can judge what I do based on what I wrote above. Feel free to ask further questions about specific. There are a lot of details I omitted.

Again I will stress that most of the notes I have are taken from previous groups did or details I created for them. It being going so long that there are some areas that had a half dozen player groups leaving an impact.

Quote from: gleichman;627775When Iluvatar redeems Middle Earth, he destroys it. It's covered in some broken detail in "Morgoth's Ring".

I read Morgoth's Ring, however remember in the War of the Ring, Iluvatar's weapon of choice were hobbits. In the second age, only Numenor bore the brunt of his wrath, the mainland of Middle-Earth was relatively untouched.

So it seems to me that he will try a less destructive alternative when he can.

Quote from: estar;627750I envy you, something about the way I referee my campaigns makes the player want to play each and every damn day. In my current campaign, I just now got them to consent, after 16 sessions, to fast forward six days while they waited for somebody armor to get finished.

And it is not the first campaign that this happened. Although the present campaign is notable that at several point that between five characters there was stuff happening throughout all 24 hours of the game day. I could not say no because none of it unreasonable. Their collective actions meant we were lucky to get one or two game day out of a single session.

Right now I am in day 45 of the campaign after 20 sessions.

Yup i have this issue.
The Online Amber Game I ran on this site lasted 6 months and I think 2 days passed in real time.

Quote from: estar;627796I read Morgoth's Ring, however remember in the War of the Ring, Iluvatar's weapon of choice were hobbits. In the second age, only Numenor bore the brunt of his wrath, the mainland of Middle-Earth was relatively untouched.

So it seems to me that he will try a less destructive alternative when he can.

The point of Morgoth's Ring is that he can't (or won't). The world is corrupt, and must be destroyed (like the Ring of Power) and a new one rebuilt. The only question is if there would be any worthy of the rebuilt world.*



*Which actually isn't a question as Iluvatar would know how it all turns out, but I'd like to avoid a whole God and predestination debate. Better than I have written at length on the subject and their works can be consulted.

Quote from: estar;627769It is a pretty cool setting. I will never run it but I got some of the PDFs as part of one of those charity bundles and it was a good read.

I havent had an opportunity to run it but own the core book and it is one of those things I hope to get to one day. But the book itself is a good read like you say and shows how you can still have fun even if the players fail to stop an enormous, world changing threat.

Quote from: estar;627795Well you can other can judge what I do based on what I wrote above. Feel free to ask further questions about specific. There are a lot of details I omitted.

Didn't even read it, started to and it became plain that you refused to give me an answer to my question and simply dodged it. I suppose a wall of text justifying the war, indicates that the answer is yes, the war will destroy their inn.

So they'll pay for not following your plot hook. Beyond that, I don't care how you think you came to your result, in the end your Sandbox is no more Sandboxy than my own campaign.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627822I havent had an opportunity to run it but own the core book and it is one of those things I hope to get to one day. But the book itself is a good read like you say and shows how you can still have fun even if the players fail to stop an enormous, world changing threat.

That is if you don't really make it a world changing threat. Or not much of one.

The whole thing can off as a dodge to me, and the new one wasn't as bad as say what Jewish life would have been under a German victory in WWII. Darkness Lite as it were.

Quote from: gleichman;627825That is if you don't really make it a world changing threat. Or not much of one.

The whole thing can off as a dodge to me, and the new one wasn't as bad as say what Jewish life would have been under a German victory in WWII. Darkness Lite as it were.

That seems like a very narrow way of looking at it. World changing events can and do happen, and life continues when they do (unless your adventure focuses on a world ending event). If the conesquences of the pcs not stopping the bad guy, is he takes over and imposes his will on the world, that is still a playable setting. I think it is actually quite a bit of fun. You can make it as dark as you want. Depends on the nature of the threat.

Quote from: gleichman;627824So they'll pay for not following your plot hook. Beyond that, I don't care how you think you came to your result, in the end your Sandbox is no more Sandboxy than my own campaign.

So in essence anything the referee does that hinders the player's desire to build an inn becomes punishing the players and turns the campaign into a railroad because they are not following the "plot"?

By your logic, if I was playing Frodo and decided to build a inn in crickhollow instead of heading to Rivendell the referee is just railroading me when he has the Nazgul come after my character to take the ring?

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627827That seems like a very narrow way of looking at it. World changing events can and do happen, and life continues when they do (unless your adventure focuses on a world ending event).

I seem to recall that Sauron's victory was (for the Free People), a world ending event. Shadow forever, and nothing but a life of slavery if there was life. Hardly a 'life continues, let's have adventures' outcome.

To be fair to Midnight, their villian wasn't Sauron and they can do as they wish. But I find the statement that it was to be a world where Sauron won laughable.

I have the books around here somewhere, one of my sons were briefly interested in the game. But even they quickly dropped it due to the D20 mechanics.

Quote from: estar;627828So in essence anything the referee does that hinders the player's desire to build an inn becomes punishing the players and turns the campaign into a railroad because they are not following the "plot"?

It's makes a lie of the claim that a Sandbox allows complete freedom. In effect they were building their inn out of the Sand and you walked over and kicked it down and told them they should have built something else.

Now mind, I would have done the exact same thing. But I wouldn't have called my campaign a Sandbox and bragged about how free my players are in what they can do.

In the end, a Sandbox can't exist. It can be a beginning, but if the concept is not abandoned, the world is effectively dead and the players are doing nothing more than some version of power tripping.

Quote from: estar;627828By your logic, if I was playing Frodo and decided to build a inn in crickhollow instead of heading to Rivendell the referee is just railroading me when he has the Nazgul come after my character to take the ring?

Middle Earth is not a Sandbox.

I personally wouldn't call what happened to our inn building Frodo a railroad, but that's actually a bit of a different subject and I'm sure there are some here would indeed call it that if I proposed doing something similar in a campaign.

Quote from: gleichman;627830I seem to recall that Sauron's victory was (for the Free People), a world ending event. Shadow forever, and nothing but a life of slavery if there was life. Hardly a 'life continues, let's have adventures' outcome.

I am not a tolkein loremaster, but I believe you are right it would basically be world ending. But LOTR is just one model for epic world changing threat. If I did lord of the rings, and again have only read the tilogy havent read all the other material behind the story, i might shift to a post apocalyptic style campaign if Sauron actally won (but again the specifics of lord of the rings could make even that challenge. However Sauron is an extreme example. The issue here is its entirely possible to set up a major threat like that and have the game continue if should the players fail. And like I said before you can go as dark with it as you want (i was in a game where the halflings were hunted down and nealy wiped out after such a threat defeated the good guys).

QuoteTo be fair to Midnight, their villian wasn't Sauron and they can do as they wish. But I find the statement that it was to be a world where Sauron won laughable.

It was the basic idea but it wasnt a carbon copy of lotr. Really they are answering the question, what if that type of villain won.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627835It was the basic idea but it wasnt a carbon copy of lotr. Really they are answering the question, what if that type of villain won.

No, they are answering a different question.

What if there was adventure after *a type* of villian won. A very different question. Again, one I don't mind- but don't compare it to Sauron. It is at best hyperbole and at worst misleading marketing.

Quote from: gleichman;627833It's makes a lie of the claim that a Sandbox allows complete freedom. In effect they were building their inn out of the Sand and you walked over and kicked it down and told them they should have built something else.

Now mind, I would have done the exact same thing. But I wouldn't have called my campaign a Sandbox and bragged about how free my players are in what they can do.

In the end, a Sandbox can't exist. It can be a beginning, but if the concept is not abandoned, the world is effectively dead and the players are doing nothing more than some version of power tripping.

.

This seems like a very weak argument to me. Clearly a sandbox CAN exist. If he lets the pcs start up an inn and ignore the threat, and DOESN'T have severe direct consequences, that is allowing player freedom and not a railroad. You could argue it makes for boring play, that the structure is difficult to maintain and keep fun, but it is obvious it exists.

Either way most games are somewhere in the middle, and not at either end of the railroad and sandbox extremes.

In my own games i have lots of fun and interesting things going on, but i let the plyers do what they want and I dont punish the for deviating from stuff i may have planned. If they decide to open an inn and smuggle tea instead if investigate the dissapearance of the duke's daughter, i shift gears and think of what sorts of challenges their tea smuggling opertion might face. The consequences for not investigating the dukes daughter are that the duke either finds someone else to do the job or she is sadly murdered by her captives (depending on the specifics the duke might hold a grudge against the pcs, but the intensity of the consequences and how directly they impact the characters will be dependent on the circumstances----not my desire to shepherd them).

Quote from: gleichman;627837No, they are answering a different question.

What if there was adventure after *a type* of villian won. A very different question. Again, one I don't mind- but don't compare it to Sauron. It is at best hyperbole and at worst misleading marketing.

Which is why I said it was pretty much built on the premise they were answering the question what hpoens when that type of villain won. Clearly they get their start fom lotr but take it in their own direction. And it is visibly inspired by Sauron. Your insistance that it as to be an exact match to lotr to claim any connection to it at all is frankly a bit baffling.

Anyways, i am pretty sure the books themselves dont make such a comparison (would need to check to be sure). Ths s simply how fans of the book typically describe it----and i personally feel it retty mich captures the concept.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627838This seems like a very weak argument to me. Clearly a sandbox CAN exist.

That's actually what I wrote, if you notice the "but if the concept is not abandoned" phrase and the rather dire results that follow.

Those dire results are to me, a campaign that may as well not exist as it has no value. But to be clear, yes- things without value do exist.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627839Ths s simply how fans of the book typically describe it----and i personally feel it retty mich captures the concept.

I have found that few people online understand even the most basic concepts of Middle Earth, and I don't see why they shouldn't be corrected when they say stupid things like "Midnight is what would happen if Sauron won".

I'd be happier if they say "if Sauron-Lite" won, and then it would seem that they at least had an idea of what Lord of the Rings was about.

Quote from: gleichman;627841That's actually what I wrote, if you notice the "but if the concept is not abandoned" phrase and the rather dire results that follow.

Those dire results are to me, a campaign that may as well not exist as it has no value. But to be clear, yes- things without value do exist.

I think you are ignoring the spectum of consequences here. Some adventures it willnmake sense for the party to be directly affected by dire consequences, in others they ould have a direct but less significant impact, while in others the decision is inconsequential. It isnt a choice between a dead world and a railroad.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627845I think you are ignoring the spectum of consequences here. Some adventures it willnmake sense for the party to be directly affected by dire consequences, in others they ould have a direct but less significant impact, while in others the decision is inconsequential. It isnt a choice between a dead world and a railroad.

I'm not ignoring the spectum. I'd be happy to agree to one.

In fact go back and read the description I gave of my Middle Earth campaign, note that I said it included Sandbox elements. Note that in another post I've said that a Sandbox is perfectly acceptable beginning (or restart).

I have no issue with a spectum, what I have issue with is the way the term is used online- which admits no spectum and condemns campaigns such as my own as railroads. I think the term Sandbox is this site's version of the term Story-Game, a knee-jerk overused term that even the people claiming it don't fully understand the implications of.

Quote from: gleichman;627843I have found that few people online understand even the most basic concepts of Middle Earth, and I don't see why they shouldn't be corrected when they say stupid things like "Midnight is what would happen if Sauron won".

I'd be happier if they say "if Sauron-Lite" won, and then it would seem that they at least had an idea of what Lord of the Rings was about.

It isnt about demonstrating how well a person understands lotr, but about quickly communicating the concept of a game world. "Midnight is basically a serting where Sauron wins" is in wide use because it conveys what the hpgame s about. You are quite literally the only person I have met who had any triuble understanding what hat is supposed to indicate. People basically get you re nt trying to say it exactly what would happen had Sauron won.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627847"Midnight is basically a serting where Sauron wins" is in wide use because it conveys what the hpgame s about.

No it doesn't. And that's the problem. That everyone else you've encountered thinks it does only shows how widespread ignorance and/or laziness is, it doesn't make them correct.

Quote from: gleichman;627849No it doesn't. And that's the problem. That everyone else you've encountered thinks it does only shows how widespread ignorance and/or laziness is, it doesn't make them correct.

Yes it does, if you understand what "Midnight is BASICALLY a setting where Sauron wins" means. Even without the qualifier, I think it is obvious you are not creating the expectation of an exact match to lord of the rings.

Quote from: gleichman;627787That question wasn't directed at you.

I do however have one that is. Your players have decided to forget about the war, and build an inn. You claim this completely took you off guard (which puts the lie to your claims of talking to the players before to make and thus being sure of what they want to do).

Will the result of that war have any chance of preventing them from building that inn? Not merely make it difficult, prevent it (or destroy it)?

If the answer is yes, your Sandbox is as railroaded as any typical game.

If the answer is no, and I expect to be so, than your plot hooks are trivial as I've previously claimed.

Oh, Bullshit.  
This was addressed earlier.  Actions, even the lack of actions, have consequences.  If the GM has already decided or can easily deduce that the effects of the war spreading would destroy or hamper economic development or travel in the area the the players want to build their Inn, that's the GM playing the world's reaction to the actions of the players, not a railroad.  The Railroad is when the GM decides beforehand to punish the players for actions, or for avoiding the plot/storyline he has created,not when just playing the way the world reacts to the players.  
Sandbox 101.

Quote from: gleichman;627846I'm not ignoring the spectum. I'd be happy to agree to one.

In fact go back and read the description I gave of my Middle Earth campaign, note that I said it included Sandbox elements. Note that in another post I've said that a Sandbox is perfectly acceptable beginning (or restart).

I have no issue with a spectum, what I have issue with is the way the term is used online- which admits no spectum and condemns campaigns such as my own as railroads. I think the term Sandbox is this site's version of the term Story-Game, a knee-jerk overused term that even the people claiming it don't fully understand the implications of.

I will respond to this, as I said earlier that these concepts as absolutes don't really exist, they exist as ends of a continuum.  My own games are what I describe as 80-85% sandbox, since I readily admit to creating more plot and World in Motion storylines based on what the players like and seem to enjoy.  I will agree fully that the methods I and Rob and Ben and others use are guidelines towards creating what is an enjoyable game, and as we get older these games get better and more meaningful, but the term 'Sandbox' and the tolls used to create it are not absolutes.  Especially with personal-level plotlines, I am guilty for sometimes creating/allowing the dice to create a bit of a soap opera.  My players enjoy the web of relationships and intrigue in town, so be it.

Quote from: gleichman;627846I have no issue with a spectum, what I have issue with is the way the term is used online- which admits no spectum and condemns campaigns such as my own as railroads. I think the term Sandbox is this site's version of the term Story-Game, a knee-jerk overused term that even the people claiming it don't fully understand the implications of.

Not everyone agrees on this though. I certainly dont care what style game you run (be it story or railroad). But I do also enjoy maximizing player freeom and incorporating some sandbox elements in my game (i am definitely anti railroad in how I run games, but I dont personally care if you want to run something with more structure to it). Your reaction is just as extreme as the one you are accusing therpgsite of.

Quote from: gleichman;627833It's makes a lie of the claim that a Sandbox allows complete freedom. In effect they were building their inn out of the Sand and you walked over and kicked it down and told them they should have built
something else.

What you are missing is the fact they are fully aware that a war is going on. Also the fact there a lot of things that has to happen before gets bad enough before it will sweep over their inn. The fall of Nomar is not like getting a few days warning before a Hurricane Katrina. In this type of situation the players will have ample time to take proactive measures of whatever they want to do.

The setting has a life of its own. One determine partly by my own calls but if you took the time to read my post you would have read that I also use random tables and wargames to make sure what generating is fair not a result of my bias.

Quote from: gleichman;627833Now mind, I would have done the exact same thing. But I wouldn't have called my campaign a Sandbox and bragged about how free my players are in what they can do.

Our definitions of freedom are different. In my campaigns players are as free as we are in real life to make their fate.

Quote from: gleichman;627833Middle Earth is not a Sandbox.

I personally wouldn't call what happened to our inn building Frodo a railroad, but that's actually a bit of a different subject and I'm sure there are some here would indeed call it that if I proposed doing something similar in a campaign.

What happen to the inn building Frodo is the exact same situation as my inn-building merchants. Both are building inns in the midst of a world experiencing larger events that will ultimately effect the fate of their respective inns.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627853Yes it does, if you understand what "Midnight is BASICALLY a setting where Sauron wins" means. Even without the qualifier, I think it is obvious you are not creating the expectation of an exact match to lord of the rings.

We're not going to agree. No matter how many times the two of us restate our opinions.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627857Your reaction is just as extreme as the one you are accusing therpgsite of.

Really, saying that a mix of Sandbox and Railroading is cool is more extreme than Sandbox NOW!

What an odd world you live in. Are you certain that it isn't just a case of you thinking anything that disagrees with you must be extreme? Or is this part of the illusion of even-handedness that you try so hard to project?

Quote from: estar;627859What you are missing is the fact they are fully aware that a war is going on.

I didn't miss that, indeed it makes up the entire question.

Quote from: estar;627859Our definitions of freedom are different. In my campaigns players are as free as we are in real life to make their fate.

So not at all then basically. This makes me ask why do you make unfounded claims as to their freedoms?

Basically the only difference between your Sandbox and a Railroad at this point is that the Railroad GM is at least being honest- "no you can't build an inn, it's stupid and not the point of the campaign", while you'll let them do it- and then burn it to ground wasting all their effort and play time.

So Railroads say no. Sandboxes grinds your face in your failure to live up to the GM's adventure.

Quote from: estar;627859What happen to the inn building Frodo is the exact same situation as my inn-building merchants.

What I find interesting is that earlier in this thread before I entered it (I believe it was this thread) you bragged about how much freedom players had in your sandbox, why after all they just decided to build an inn and that was not only unexpected by you- you were overjoyed by it! You held it up as an example of a Sandbox, and showed it to the world and did a little dance.

After forcing me to ask twice, you finally admit that it's going to be burned to the ground because that's what happens when you ignore a war.

Yes, your inn-building merchants are in the same situation as my inn building Frodo. The difference is that I didn't say Frodo was in a Sandbox, I didn't imply that he could get away with building that inn in a public post, and I didn't hold it up as a model of something special when in fact it was nothing of the sort.

Quote from: gleichman;627875What an odd world you live in. Are you certain that it isn't just a case of you thinking anything that disagrees with you must be extreme? Or is this part of the illusion of even-handedness that you try so hard to project?

I had a whole response to this, but it is honestly not even worth the effort of typing it.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;627894I had a whole response to this, but it is honestly not even worth the effort of typing it.

+ 1 Wisdom.

Quote from: gleichman;627881Yes, your inn-building merchants are in the same situation as my inn building Frodo. The difference is that I didn't say Frodo was in a Sandbox, I didn't imply that he could get away with building that inn in a public post, and I didn't hold it up as a model of something special when in fact it was nothing of the sort.

The mistake you are making is that it will progress like this

Step 1) The Players build the Inn
Step 2) The big bad comes in and destroys it.

How it plays out is that the players are well aware that there is a war on. They are not going to build the inn in one session and the war resolved in the next. The techniques in World in Motion gives the players ample warning to do something about it. That something being whatever they think will resolve the situation. It could be a return to being mercenaries for a while. It could be some other creative solution. I don't know what they will do. Although given how my players reacted to similar circumstances in past campaigns they usually manage to figure it out.  

The same with the Frodo example. I used Crickhollow for a reason. Frodo's player deciding to build an inn in Crickhollow has already heard Gandalf's exposition, already talked to the Elves in Woody End, already aware of the Black riders. So if Frodo's player and the rest of the party (Sam, Merry, Pippin, and Freddy Bolgor) decided to build an inn and have half a brain they already have a plan to deal with the Black Riders, the immediate threat at that point in the book. The Nazgul are not invincible as shown as they when they fled Buckland when the alarm was raised.

Assuming that plan worked, now they will have to deal with Gandalf returning from Rivendell to urging them to take the Ring to Elrond's Council. If they continue to refuse to do that . Hopefully they become aware of Saurman's plots in the Shire. Certainly Sauron will send the Nazgul in again or some other agent. Likely at some point Frodo's player will seek a resolution to the ring as he continues to lose sanity point or whatever mechanic being used to represent the corrupting influence of the One Ring.

Calling this a railroad is the equivalent of bitching about why wandering monsters and other dungeon deizens from the lower levels are bothering them the players when they decided to setup an inn on the first levels after clearing it out.

It not a railroad if is a consequence of the premise of the setting. Rather is part of the challenges that the players have to overcome if they want a successful inn.

In my own particular case, they will have to come to a decision about how to deal with the war because that part of what happening.

Quote from: gleichman;627881Basically the only difference between your Sandbox and a Railroad at this point is that the Railroad GM is at least being honest- "no you can't build an inn, it's stupid and not the point of the campaign", while you'll let them do it- and then burn it to ground wasting all their effort and play time.

The railroad is using GM fait to deny the players any opportunity of success. Yes for now the way events will unfold Nomar will fall. But that like step 50 and we are only still at step 20. There are plenty of opportunities for the player to change the fate of Nomar, preserve their inn, and even prosper beyond what they thought possible.

Quote from: gleichman;627881So Railroads say no. Sandboxes grinds your face in your failure to live up to the GM's adventure.

In a good sandbox campaign for every possibility of failure there is a possibility of success. How it plays out it up to the players.

Quote from: gleichman;627881After forcing me to ask twice, you finally admit that it's going to be burned to the ground because that's what happens when you ignore a war.

And you ignore the my explanation of how it plays out. It not inevitable that the players will lose their inn. They may come up with something that causes to Nomar to be victorious without going back to be mercenaries or fighting in mass battles.

Right now with the events that already played out in about two game years, both Nomar and the Skandians will fall to City-State. At the pace the players are going that is like 300 sessions. Likely something the players will do will resolve it in their favor. But there are campaigns that resulted in the player failing to achieve their goals and even in their deaths. But by and large the players that I referee are a pretty smart bunch of folks and they nearly always figure something out.

And they enjoy my games because they know that I won't pull the punches. Failure is a real possibility which makes their victories all the sweeter.

It no different then what you describe for your tactical encounters. You don't script the outcome of combat. In my campaigns I do the same thing both for both combat and the roleplaying side of the game.

Quote from: gleichman;627881Yes, your inn-building merchants are in the same situation as my inn building Frodo. The difference is that I didn't say Frodo was in a Sandbox, I didn't imply that he could get away with building that inn in a public post, and I didn't hold it up as a model of something special when in fact it was nothing of the sort.

Paizo sells a lot of Adventure Paths and design them well so that the logical choice is the natural one to make. The railroad can be made to work and work well. You write it up and hope your players find it fun and interesting.

Running a sandbox campaign isn't special, but it is different. In short your game is like the old King's Quest computer game that were popular. You start at the beginning and move to the end. And the path you take are limited and failing a challenge is the same as death as that where the game ended and the only way to move on is to play that encounter until you succeed.

Sandbox campaigns are like the Ultima Series. You make a character, you are in a big world, there is stuff going on, but you have total freedom to go whereever and do whatever. If you don't day but you don't succeed it not the end of the game. You go try again or you do something else until you figure it out.

You play King's Quest, I play Ultima. Both games are fun and both work equally well.

Quote from: gleichman;627846I have no issue with a spectum, what I have issue with is the way the term is used online- which admits no spectum and condemns campaigns such as my own as railroads. I think the term Sandbox is this site's version of the term Story-Game, a knee-jerk overused term that even the people claiming it don't fully understand the implications of.

Myself, Lord Vreeg and other who write about sandbox campaign don't write what you describe. But if you don't read people's full posts I guess you can't help it.

Quote from: LordVreeg;627855I will respond to this, as I said earlier that these concepts as absolutes don't really exist, they exist as ends of a continuum.  

I view it as little more absolute than that. To me it about how much does a referee get bent out of shape when the players trash his setting or plot. Does he go with the flow or does he meta-game to force the game back onto the right track.

Understand that I don't consider it a railroad if the characters are taking orders from a NPC officer when they are members of the city guard. That is a consequence of their situation, no different than say moving into a square and activating a pit trap.

Of course resolving a pit trap is straightforward. When giving orders through a NPC, I have to be careful that I am following the motivations  I written for that NPC and not my own whims as to what I think the PCs ought to be doing.

Quote from: estar;627914Myself, Lord Vreeg and other who write about sandbox campaign don't write what you describe. But if you don't read people's full posts I guess you can't help it.

Just for fun I went back and read the last few walls of text you tossed out to confuse things. It didn't change my opinion of you, your campaign, or of the Sandbox concept. It made things worse actually.

I make the following suggestions, do with it as you will.

What you write might have meaning only to those have already drank the Kool-Aid. A very Forge like mindset I might add. For others, there is but cause and effect, player action and GM reaction- and you and Lord Vreeg have spent a lot of time hiding it and bragging about how clever it makes you.

Quote from: gleichman;627917What you write might have meaning only to those have already drank the Kool-Aid. A very Forge like mindset I might add. For others, there is but cause and effect, player action and GM reaction- and you and Lord Vreeg have spent a lot of time hiding it and bragging about how clever it makes you.

I will make it simple you run King's Quest, I run Ultima III.

Quote from: gleichman;627917What you write might have meaning only to those have already drank the Kool-Aid. A very Forge like mindset I might add. For others, there is but cause and effect, player action and GM reaction- and you and Lord Vreeg have spent a lot of time hiding it and bragging about how clever it makes you.

You are making up an issue that doesn't exist.

I have stated numerous times that sandbox campaign are just one of several ways of running a tabletop roleplaying campaign. I do not write a lot about the alternatives because I don't use them often. Since the bulk of my time refereeing is spending running sandbox campaigns, I have some things to contribute. People seem to find it fun and useful. I refereed over a hundred players since the early 80s. Not all of them had fun but a large majority seems to. At least they kept coming back to my games.

I ran some sessions for Beniost and thedungeondelver you can ask them if they had any fun. Granted I didn't run a campaign but I referee the roleplaying the same way regardless of the scope of the game.

I sold a couple of hundred copies of my books. Got good responses for the most part. People seem to like my hexcrawl setting Blackmarsh. I  have 3,000 downloads on RPGNow and 1,000 downloads from my website.

Lord Vreeg has a similar attitude which is why I like reading his stuff.

Accusing me and Lord Vreeg of making Forge mindset is so far off base that it looks like you are just trying to make something up.

Quote from: estar;627921I will make it simple you run King's Quest, I run Ultima III.

Never played Utima III.

I reject your description of mine as King's Quest I, but I know you don't care what it really is so I'll leave it at that.

Can we please stop feeding the fucking trolls?

I mean, how much more clear does Gleichbot have to make it that he has absolutely no intentions of holding an honest conversation with anyone here? He's decided that sandboxes are Teh Badwrong and like a retarded elf-pretending Terminator he will not stop at minor obstacles like entirely missing the point of the hobby and the workings of human nature and imagination.

He makes Frank Trollman sound like a human being for fuck's sake.

Quote from: gleichman;627917Just for fun I went back and read the last few walls of text you tossed out to confuse things. It didn't change my opinion of you, your campaign, or of the Sandbox concept. It made things worse actually.

I make the following suggestions, do with it as you will.

What you write might have meaning only to those have already drank the Kool-Aid. A very Forge like mindset I might add. For others, there is but cause and effect, player action and GM reaction- and you and Lord Vreeg have spent a lot of time hiding it and bragging about how clever it makes you.

You keep on pointing at everyone else for not understanding and drinking the cool-aid and seeing everything they don't agree with as extreme.

Hmm.

Quote from: estar;627925You are making up an issue that doesn't exist.

I think we've reached a stopping point, you're repeating yourself and it's either flat denials or examples that from where I set confirm my original opinions.

Do you have anything new?

Quote from: The Butcher;627932Can we please stop feeding the fucking trolls?

I mean, how much more clear does Gleichbot have to make it that he has absolutely no intentions of holding an honest conversation with anyone here? He's decided that sandboxes are Teh Badwrong and like a retarded elf-pretending Terminator he will not stop at minor obstacles like entirely missing the point of the hobby and the workings of human nature and imagination.

He makes Frank Trollman sound like a human being for fuck's sake.

No fucking shit.

I really wish people would stop talking to him. It feeds his idiotic idea that he has anything of value to say.

Whatever, this thread has stopped serving the purpose I'd intended. I'm as much at fault for that as anyone. Maybe I'll start another one when I have more time to pay attention to it. I did plan on eventually discussing some theoretical observations, but I didn't want them to get in the way of data gathering.

Brian might take this as a bit patronizing, but I think it's easy to tell which parts of what he says are opinion ("that sucks") or pure definition ("that is not a sandbox"), and which parts are theory ("if you do X, then Y will happen").

The opinions are Brian's and there's no point arguing them, the definitions may or may not be idiosyncratic but you only need to use them to understand what Brian's saying. I've usually found the theory to be solid, given Brian's preferences.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;627910+ 1 Wisdom.

QFT

Quote from: estar;627921I will make it simple you run King's Quest, I run Ultima III.

HA.  Well-played, sirrah.

------

I have yet another example (no blogpost this time, haha).  

So, our Monday group (my "main game", FR 1e sandbox) had two players out this week (work overflow from the Class 5 Killstorm that hit New England last week), and since we stopped RIGHT in the middle of a (relatively close) ongoing engagement the week before, it was agreed to put things on hold until next Monday. Which begged the question of "ok, what DO we play?"  The answer came back "Traveller", which suited me just fine.

To date, I have run exactly one session of Traveller, which... kind of fizzled.  (An observation I have made:  D&D players that mainly play D&D are used to being on the clock.  Waiting around means the DM starts rolling dice to try and kill you, and they tend to want to be doing SOMETHING every waking hour.  Space games, on the other hand, tend to have LOTS of "down time" in transit, and if the party owns their own ship, it's in an "unsupervised environment" (no cops), which makes it even more tempting to try and get away with something, ANYTHING while nobody's looking.)  It was a learning experience, but the upside was that I still had all the prepwork done.

I'm using the Judges Guild sectors, which (save the areas covered in the handful of modules set there) are gloriously undetailed.  Picked a starting area to detail - in this case, the cluster of stars around Tancred in the Outreaumer and Matarshan Federation subsectors of Ley Sector.  (A lovely feature about starting Trav campaigns, I'm noticing, is that if the PCs only have a Jump-1 ship to start, their movements are restricted to a pretty manageable area.)  Took a few notebook pages to spell out the particulars of each world in that cluster (just spelling out what the UPP codes told me, in plain language), and jotted down any notes that came to me in response.  (Example:  There are a few "captive governments" in this area, and I took a second to decide who, exactly, held the reins.)

One of the group (actually a new player, a frequent houseguest who'd played a bit of AD&D in high school and who always lookie-loos when he's over) was looking over the sector map beforehand, and decided that [x star] was his goal, so the group had a direction.  Since I was running chargen on the spot, I wouldn't know what kind of group we'd have, so I picked a couple of jobs from 76 Patrons just in case, but (as expected) nobody started with a ship, so the group's first task was "get off this shitty planet we started on".  I actually had an answer for that, a captain with a Type-R Far Trader looking to hire on crew.  (As it happened, all the PCs had saleable skills in this area.)  Aaaand that led right into the "crashed ship/pyramid" adventure from the Traveller Book, bulked out with a bunch of engineering craziness and getting everybody familiar with the system, which got them right on the cusp of actually entering the pyramids before we called the session, which now gives me at least another session to lay detail out ahead of the players.  From there, we're off and running.

I am hoping to have time later to pass on the example of my second chapter of my igbarians.

Estar reminded me of it, and it was set up to add a lot of time sensitive stuff with a plague of undeath sent by an ancient Vampyre the PCs released form bondage.  It wasn't the start of the campaign, but it might as well have been since it threw everyt thing PCs knew into flux, and could easily have been a new start.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;627949I did plan on eventually discussing some theoretical observations

If you do and wish it, I'd be willing to talk about how things work in my campaigns.

Just shoot me a line and point me at the thread as I tend to assume that no one wants to hear about my games by default.

@Elliot:

I've started each sandbox campaign with an agreed on premise:

"Rumors of a strange, lonely tower, long abandoned by it's wizard inhabitant, have brought you out onto this distant moor..."

(or)

"The players start as bold vikings arriving on a frozen, northern island, to explore a ruined alien city..."

Once the first session is done, sure, now the player-driven aspect of the campaign moves front and center and it starts to feel like a sandbox.  We usually end each session with them recapitulating some ideas on where they might go next time, based on the events we just played.

Note:  having an out-of-game conversation with the players, while pitching the premise for the first game and starting point, is fine for kicking off a game.  It's pragmatic to share some notes about the premise, what kind of characters make sense, and so on.

There - trying to get this a bit back on-topic.

Quote from: Beedo;627975We usually end each session with them recapitulating some ideas on where they might go next time, based on the events we just played.

I try to do this as well. A lot of time I have players come to me after a game and go "Hey Rob so you know, We/I am going to do X. I wanted to let you know so you can be prepared."

Quote from: The Butcher;627932Can we please stop feeding the fucking trolls?

I mean, how much more clear does Gleichbot have to make it that he has absolutely no intentions of holding an honest conversation with anyone here? He's decided that sandboxes are Teh Badwrong and like a retarded elf-pretending Terminator he will not stop at minor obstacles like entirely missing the point of the hobby and the workings of human nature and imagination.

He makes Frank Trollman sound like a human being for fuck's sake.

Either Ignore List the fucker or have the decency to not waste our bandwidth with these pathetic quote arguments.

Another thread. Ruined by the gleckmung.

EDIT: I can understand if you're a gentleman that's trying to have a good faith discussion with him regarding his criticisms, but seriously, look at the fucking balloon juice he keeps pissing back in your faces.

Katbox the cocksucker.

I always love these types of debates.

If you have more of a story going on is it a railbox?  If there is a less story with more freedom is it a sandroad?

I think the whole issue between sandbox and railroad is just another way of limiting yourself.

For the OP.

If you didn't know it was the middle of the day, the dark skies would make you think it was midnight. Black clouds fill your vision from horizon to horizon. Even looking out the manor's windows, you can barely see the porch, let alone the walkway. The manor itself sits on a high hill, overlooking most of Yunt, on a clear day. Ancient statues, torn from crumbling temples, adorn the gardens in haphazard fashion. The manor itself is large for someone of the Collector's means. Eight bedrooms, a library, two kitchens, and a plethora of storage rooms take up the space. Snow hisses against glass windows as lightening forks across the skies. It should feel ominous, but all you can focus on is the scene before you.
    One of the collector's guards, a female Oread, sprawls across the threshold of the main hall, a lone island amongst a sea of red that is too large to be from one person. Limbs askew, back upon the floor, her eyes stare at the heavy front door as if waiting for someone to enter. Her throat has been slashed, sharp long strokes that appear to be from claws and yet are not jagged enough for an animal attack. Her uniform, clean and unwrinkled save for where the blood soaks into it, seems new. A knife and sword are belted to her waist. Both are made of the best metal, with gold etching in the hilts, and both are peace-tied.
    Further back, the Collector's chamberlain Desmun Ashe sits upon a large staircase, his head resting against the rails as if he is taking a nap. His throat too has been slashed. But above the highest cut is evidence of a puncture wound in his jugular. Unlike the guard, there is little blood surrounding Desmun. Most of it is dried and crusted upon his throat, but it is not nearly enough to account for what he would have carried within him. Dressed in the finest silk and linen clothing, Desmun wears expensive rings on every finger (some of them carrying minor enchantments), a heavy gold medallion, and several gemstones in his ears. Not a single item appears to have been removed from him. One might wonder why if it weren't for the third ... body.
    To call it a body is to be kind, for it is more like pieces of a body than an actual corpse. The hands are recognizably Vishkanya. Across the room, the boots are well-fitted to the feet that inhabit them, proof that the wearer can afford a decent cobbler. But the boots are worn along the toes and heels, with a side seam gaping open, and caked with mud. The clothing, what's left of it, is recognizably upper middle class. But again, dirt adorns the cuffs and hems, and the smell of mold seems embedded in the fabric. The torso, separate from both hands and feet, lies in a puddle of mud and blood with several stab wounds in the front, back, and sides. The head is nowhere to be seen.
    Someone really didn't like this man... assuming the vishkanya is male. It's rather hard to tell without removing the clothing.

That was how the campaign started.
I gave that out to the players when we made characters, asking them to get back to me before the next session on how this relates to their character and why their character is there.

Quote from: Sommerjon;628103That was how the campaign started.
I gave that out to the players when we made characters, asking them to get back to me before the next session on how this relates to their character and why their character is there.

And that's all? Nothing about what the campaign goals and coverage would be? Nothing about suggested character types? Nothing about player responsibilities?

Quote from: gleichman;628105And that's all?

Pretty much.

Quote from: gleichman;628105Nothing about what the campaign goals and coverage would be?

Not really.
Why give them the temptation to 'game' something like that?

Quote from: gleichman;628105Nothing about suggested character types?

Nope.  They are all mature enough to not be asshats.

Quote from: gleichman;628105Nothing about player responsibilities?

I have my gaming 'manifesto' already up on our local forums.

Quote from: Sommerjon;628103If you have more of a story going on is it a railbox?  If there is a less story with more freedom is it a sandroad?

Sandbox vs railroad is a meta-game issue. Not what the campaign is about.

For example The Lord of the Rings campaign could be run as a railroad.

Or it could be a sandbox with the same character and same initial situation as what Tolkien described in his books.

The difference is depends on whether the referee is willing to let the players set the course of the campaign (sandbox) or intends to use gm fiat to setup where the players go next (railroad) regardless of their actions. Hence it is a meta-game issue.

Quote from: Sommerjon;628120Pretty much.

Quite different from my experience. Thanks for the answers.

Quote from: estar;628132For example The Lord of the Rings campaign could be run as a railroad.

Or it could be a sandbox with the same character and same initial situation as what Tolkien described in his books.

Lord of the Rings could not be ran as a Sandbox*


*ADD: That is, not if one is actually interested in running a simulation of Middle Earth, you can always run a silly Middle Earth in name only, which like all most people could manage anyway.

Quote from: gleichman;627683If you punish your PCs for turning down your plot hooks, I don't see how you can in any meaningful call your campaign a sandbox.

A field of tar babies perhaps. Sandbox, no.

If you repeatedly turn down opportunities to go to the dentist, it is in no way a violation of causality that your tooth should rot.

In a sandbox, choosing to do nothing is still a free choice.  The only difference is that consequences are based on in-world cause-and-effect rather than some kind of notion of what is "literary genius".

Of course, I figure you don't do either. You just set up the pieces and have fights and move around mechanically because you're incapable of understanding human motivations.

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Quote from: gleichman;627713With rare exception, few here ever talk to me. Like you they snipe and call names.

I'm amazed at how complete the lack of curiosity is here. Even Elliot Wilen had nothing to say after I answered a direct question of his. Conversation isn't on anyone's mind it seems unless they happen to completely agree with what is being said.

And yet you keep coming here and posting (after repeated claims that you were "leaving forever").. why would that be?

If you think this place sucks, why are you here? Is it to try to intentionally disrupt the place you hate?

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Quote from: RPGPundit;628504If you think this place sucks, why are you here? Is it to try to intentionally disrupt the place you hate?

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Try reading your own board. I've answered this question many times, most recently today to One Horse Town.

Quote from: gleichman;628505Try reading your own board. I've answered this question many times, most recently today to One Horse Town.

I can summarize: it's because a few posters here insist on trying to carry on a conversation with him, despite the ample evidence that it's a complete fucking waste of time and effort.

And Rob, if you're reading this, you're the worst of the lot. I agree with you that some of what Brian has to say about gaming is interesting, but the mopey middle-schooler lashing out and self-pity makes it like a piece of paste jewelry buried in the muck of a pig sty: the searching gets you covered in shit, and in the end it's not worth the effort to find it in the first place.

Quote from: jibbajibba;627808Yup i have this issue.
The Online Amber Game I ran on this site lasted 6 months and I think 2 days passed in real time.

I've had the same problem. I recently started a PbP that *shouldn't* go that route. I'm trying to balance letting people explore and do whatever strikes their fancy with keeping things clicking right along. I hate railroad plots where pretty much every avenue you take leads to the same damn place, but at the same time, I do like the game to be *about* something. I've been in sandbox games where it was just one orc or goblin band after another, and there was no apparent reason for them to be where they were other than some random table die roll. It felt pretty same-y.

Our sandbox is a somewhat more modern Greyhawk with the beginnings of steam technology in some areas. I don't build out every last detail. Some of it's randomly determined; some is left to an individual player to flesh out. I do the main framework of the world and what's going on. I'm using the Mythic GM Emulator and a few bits borrowed from Burning Wheel, built on top of my streamlined AD&D2e.

So far, so good. We're averaging a shade under 6 posts a day per player across IC and OOC threads.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;626948How have you kickstarted a campaign? I would like to have a conversation with real accounts, not hypotheticals, and focused on so-called "sandbox" or "hexcrawl" campaigns. I think it's common to say that these campaigns "take on a life of their own" once the PCs start interacting with the gameworld, generating consequences from their actions and forming relationships. But how did your campaign start--what set things in motion?

You can read exactly how I started my Yggsburgh/Eastmark 1e AD&D sandbox chatroom campaign here:http://smonsyggsburgh.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/session-1-log.html

Basically started with the PCs, who did not know each other, about to get on a stagecoach to Yggsburgh to seek their fortune, along with a couple noblewoman, one of whom ended up marrying a PC. There was an attempted hold-up of the stage coach (the highwaymen being one of the pregen encounters in the Yggsburgh book, AIR), and we went from there.

The Eastmark map is hexed at 1 square = 1 mile, but there was not much random hexcrawling. The PCs would seek out missions from contacts, from the bounties posted at the city gaol, etc, and choose the most attractive ones.

Sandbox games (like my current Arrows of Indra campaign) always go much slower than non-sandbox.  In the last year, I think my ICONS campaign has advanced 3 game years, Albion has advanced about 10 years, and Arrows of Indra has advanced about 9 months (and that only because we skipped forward while the PCs spend time training).

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I've seen that comment a few times on this thread - folks point out they've played a sandbox for months, and only a few game days have passed - that seems really strange to me, and perhaps campaign specific.  There are so many things like gaining new spells, or training times (if you use them), that will cause the days and weeks to roll along.

Quote from: Beedo;628821I've seen that comment a few times on this thread - folks point out they've played a sandbox for months, and only a few game days have passed - that seems really strange to me, and perhaps campaign specific.  There are so many things like gaining new spells, or training times (if you use them), that will cause the days and weeks to roll along.

I wonder if those are in play.
 
For those who have had that problem occur (spending months or years of play for only a few days of in-game time), do you use the rules for training and leveling? How does magic item creation work in your games, if at all? I'd like to know how that works for you.

Quote from: Beedo;628821I've seen that comment a few times on this thread - folks point out they've played a sandbox for months, and only a few game days have passed - that seems really strange to me, and perhaps campaign specific.  There are so many things like gaining new spells, or training times (if you use them), that will cause the days and weeks to roll along.

Oh, my mechanics for giaing new skills is very much like that, but the pcs so often get into the groove of playing almost every minute, and I tend to be very overly cause and effect in my sandboxing, so the PCs play almost every moment.  The pcs always end up with all sorts of rivals and adversaries, that they are loathe to give even a night of a headstart.

Different games.  I just know why mine are the way they are.

Quote from: Benoist;628822For those who have had that problem occur (spending months or years of play for only a few days of in-game time), do you use the rules for training and leveling? How does magic item creation work in your games, if at all? I'd like to know how that works for you.

if they need or want to do either they have to take the time. It not like they are not advancing it is just in-game rather than thru rules mechanics. Similar to how Traveller can work without a detailed xp system. in Traveller players count MCr , patrons, or noble titles than xp.

I will also add it just happens stemming from my willingness to follow up on what they decide to do. Also my ability to handle split groups helps as player not spectators for very long. Finally what keep it going is what I call the soap opera effect. The interest people develop in characters as their lives are developed in continuing serial rather than episodes.

Quote from: Beedo;628821I've seen that comment a few times on this thread - folks point out they've played a sandbox for months, and only a few game days have passed - that seems really strange to me, and perhaps campaign specific.  There are so many things like gaining new spells, or training times (if you use them), that will cause the days and weeks to roll along.

Usually in my sandbox games this is where we speed things along; however, there are times when events in the setting interrupt the training or other such downtimes.  Its part of having a living setting.

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Quote from: RPGPundit;629167Usually in my sandbox games this is where we speed things along; however, there are times when events in the setting interrupt the training or other such downtimes.  Its part of having a living setting.

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well said.

My recent Traveller game was originally scheduled for just one session, which went well enough. The second, though, provided an example of a problem that seems fairly common.

In brief, there came a point at which the players had pretty much accomplished the objective for which they had in the first place come to Research Station Gamma. All that remained was a departure that would either (a) have been resolved quite quickly or (b) have entailed excitingly dangerous complications.

What ensued however was "mission creep." Various players came up with various further goals to pursue in the station, but the team did not settle on a clear plan.

Eventually, one player expressed -- not in character, to the other characters, but to me as GM -- his boredom with the undertaking to which the players had chosen to devote some time. He suggested that I ought to rectify this by producing "a monster."

With the liberty of a sandbox game comes the responsibility of players for choosing to spend their time in ways they find entertaining.

Many GMs have trained their players in habits that interfere with this. Their games somewhat resemble old-fashioned computer "Adventure games" (or "interactive fictions"), or "pick your path" books. The environment is basically a puzzle with a limited set of solutions, and it may be possible to get stuck with nowhere to go except already visited situations until one figures out how to unlock the "next part" of the world or "next scene" in a story.

In the human-moderated RPG equivalent, permitted deviation might risk "spoiling the game," but everything is set up to channel players along the "right" path. Following what I gather is common advice to writers of screenplays, the GM presents little or nothing not relevant to that purpose.

As a consequence, players are prone to regard anything interesting as a hook that will reel them in on a plot line -- if only they devote enough time to it.

Their (perhaps unconscious) algorithm is not working on the question of how to entertain themselves. It is trying to identify the "right thing" to do in order to consume the next package of content. They are metaphorically looking for a button to push to start a ride.

This is obviously a problem when no such device exists!

The corollary to running a sandbox is being able to improvise... all these threads are out there dangling for the players, the players pull on one and start reeling it in, hoping there's a rolled up juicy ball of adventure at the end; the referee either has to telegraph which threads will obviously lead to danger and some challenge, or be willing to improvise a bit if the hooks are bland and nondescript.

I've had players opt to engage in mind-numbing behaviors, and needed to compromise; for instance, they're in a gold-rush frontier town outside the megadungeon, and thought what the town really needed was a gambling ring.  Rather than roleplay week after week of running blackjack tables, instead of, you know, adventuring, it morphed into them developing henchmen and retainers to run the gambling ring while they continued adventuring.  I developed some abstract rules for determining their house "winnings and losings" and have thrown a few complications and opportunities their way to keep the gambling ring meaningful and relevant.

It helped to have an out-of-game conversation that the sandbox game, despite being wide open, isn't really about running a business; they don't get experience for gambling income, for instance.  So now it's just something that runs on the side, has given some of the characters depth, but doesn't interfere with the dungeoneering.

The RSG affair also raises the issue of how one goes about creating (or collecting) material for use in a sandbox game.

To many GMs today, it may seem obvious that the most efficient way to go about designing a campaign environment is to ensure that every room and its contents will get used in a way that they have planned. The apparent alternative is that the material -- and the investment in creating or acquiring it -- is "wasted" if events take another course.

On one hand, the players could have accomplished their chosen mission having seen but a small portion of the station. On the other hand, one idea they have is using it as their own base of operations.

In any event, I could certainly use it as a model for other instances of similar environments. For example, although RSG is currently a planetary installation, it began life as an orbital one. Not only might another Imperial Research Station employ a similar plan, but so might a site of a different nature.

Moreover, had the place been left in control either of its initial proprietor or of some NPCs who had their own agenda, it could have figured in subsequent interactions between the PCs and those entities.

I'm very much an improviser when it comes to DMing. I have to be careful not to paint myself into a corner, but usually it works well. I've been using Mythic GM Emulator recently, as well as some elements of Burning Wheel, and our hybrid sandbox is clicking along rather nicely.

One thing I'm bad about is forgetting that I already have an NPC with a similar name. In one campaign I ran a few years ago, I had a Merrick, a Maric, a Marcus, and maybe one other kinda like that. So now I keep a list on my wiki and *check* it before I introduce a new name.

When I've had campaigns with month-to-day RL-to-in-game ratios, we just leveled up when people had the XP. I didn't put them through training or any of that. The last time it happened, part of the blame was mine. I too often made the mistake of letting a scene hang on one person -- without making it clear that others should still be posting, even if they weren't in the direct spotlight. If you've got a player who suddenly goes AWOL or gets stumped for what to do when they're the main one interacting with an NPC, that can gum things up in a big way.

In my new, much more fast-paced game, we will probably still skip full-on training, or at least scale it way back.

Quote from: Dana;629646I have to be careful not to paint myself into a corner...

I've seen this phrase used many times by GMs (not just you, Dana), but I'm not sure I understand how one paints oneself into a corner in the context of a sandbox. Hopefully it's not derailing to ask how a GM paints one's self into a corner.

Quote from: Thalaba;629649I've seen this phrase used many times by GMs (not just you, Dana), but I'm not sure I understand how one paints oneself into a corner in the context of a sandbox. Hopefully it's not derailing to ask how a GM paints one's self into a corner.

My games are more of a hybrid sandbox, I guess, in that there's sort of an overarching plot (or several, in fact) that the PCs can pursue all, in part, or not at all. If they just want to wander from town to wilderness to dungeon and round and round again, that's fine. There'll be random encounters and rumors and whatnot. Parts of the plot may affect what they do -- if villains have overthrown the kingdom they're exploring, they might start to see burned-out villages or refugees -- but there's nothing requiring them to pick up on those leads.

I guess what I mean by paint myself in a corner is forgetting what stuff I've done before and contradicting myself or duplicating things. I want the world to make some kind of sense and to roll along on its own momentum, and if I don't keep track of different things I've introduced, dumb stuff happens. I can usually write my way out of it, but still, I'd rather not have to do that.

I dunno -- did that answer your question? Maybe I'm not really running sandbox. Heh. I've seen people use it to mean slightly different things.

Quote from: estar;627750I envy you, something about the way I referee my campaigns makes the player want to play each and every damn day. In my current campaign, I just now got them to consent, after 16 sessions, to fast forward six days while they waited for somebody armor to get finished.

The wargaming concept of the campaign turn comes in handy here.

In Flashing Blades, character career commitments are measured in months: a royal bureaucrat may be required 'to be at work' six months a year, frex. The month is my basic 'campaign turn,' for which I roll for events (http://black-vulmea.blogspot.com/2012/12/random-encounters-mythic-role-playing.html). I also ask the players what sorts of things their characters might be doing outside of pursuing their careers - relationships they're trying to build, places they want to visit, and so forth - and these get slotted into the campaign turns as well.

There's also the idea of an adventuring 'season,' like in Pendragon.

Quote from: Dana;629656I guess what I mean by paint myself in a corner is forgetting what stuff I've done before and contradicting myself or duplicating things. I want the world to make some kind of sense and to roll along on its own momentum, and if I don't keep track of different things I've introduced, dumb stuff happens. I can usually write my way out of it, but still, I'd rather not have to do that.

Hmm, yeah, I understand what you mean, but this rarely becomes a problem for me.  Part of it is keeping a written timeline, but a bigger part, I think, is that you work at visualizing the world as a real world, and visualize the NPCs as real people. If you let them come alive in your head; if you trick yourself into thinking you're talking about someone else, and not a fiction you created, then you end up just being able to visualize what they're doing or going to do next.

At least, I do... old magician's trick.

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Quote from: Dana;629656I guess what I mean by paint myself in a corner is forgetting what stuff I've done before and contradicting myself or duplicating things. I want the world to make some kind of sense and to roll along on its own momentum, and if I don't keep track of different things I've introduced, dumb stuff happens. I can usually write my way out of it, but still, I'd rather not have to do that.

Yeah, I think I see what you mean, too, though I suspect I haven't experienced this as you have. Anyway - sounds like a sandbox to me.