John Scott Tynes has a neat article (http://www.johntynes.com/2018/07/21/narrative-sandboxes-delta-green-the-labyrinth-coc-and-gumshoe/)(he talks about it on his podcast) about creating adventures as Narrative Sandboxes (along with a good-natured jab at the Gumeshoe RPG.) There are several examples of this kind of thing in print (ironically for Gumeshoe) like Arkham City and Dracula Dossier. The key ingredients seem to be factions/NPC's with resources and agendas, locations, and information (facts), that the players then interact with however they want (with the facitons/NPC's responding to players and coming up with their own goals.
Most Sandbox books and advice that get recommended are either PbtA Fronts (never been useful to me yet, but maybe someday) and West Marches style roll up a whole bunch of random stuff that players then wander into and encounter as they explore an uncharted fantasy or scifi world.
Are there any how-to-sandbox for idiots that help you do what John Scott Tynes does that isn't either of the 2 above mentioned things (PbtA fronts have never helped me plan/run a game and I'm usually not running the latter kind of "explore uncharted fantasy world"? I'd normally guess that there would be some kind of World of Darkness thing that would show you how to do this but in reality most of their stuff was pretty railroady.
Character-driven role-play is best practice for running a sandbox.
I think this should best be called a Social Sandbox, since "Narrative" indicates "Story", and thanks to The Forge now has some unfortunate implications.
One of the best examples I can recall of this was the pre-WoD "NightLife" RPG book, which had New York as a social sandbox setup for splatterpunk play. Another example is the D&D 4e-era Neverwinter Campaign setting. But they tend to be better at presenting NPCs and factions than explaining what you do with them. Which is basically what you do in a regular sandbox - begin with either a newbie mission or 2-3 rumours/hooks of jobs/activity, then expand from there. The difference is that the hooks lead not to simple dungeon delves, but to something more like A Fistfull of Dollars, multi-faction conflicts where the PCs have great latitude who to side with and what to do.
These links might be helpful as West Marches gaming uses a lot of the same ideas.
West Marches Resources (https://roll1d100.blogspot.com/2016/08/west-marches-resources.html)
Quote from: S'mon;1125061I think this should best be called a Social Sandbox, since "Narrative" indicates "Story", and thanks to The Forge now has some unfortunate implications.
....
Unfortunately the Forges only real legacy was getting it's nomenclature seeping into parts of the hobby it has no business being in.
A Front in AW is just a cluster of related elements of interest.
So, instead of "there's a castle behind those moutains", you would have "there's a castle behind those mountains whose warlord terrorises the local hamlet for food. NPCs X, Y and Z are the movers & shakers in the situation and this countdown clock tracks the escalation until the hamlet be completely starved and dies, if no external factor interferes".
In other words a self-contained, volatile situation, that could go various ways depending on how (or if) the PCs approach it. Not really different from locations in ye olde sandbox modules, like say, RQ's Griffin Mountain or Wilderlands of High Fantasy. The difference being AW gives you a simple method to create them yourself, related to players characters interests.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;1125048Are there any how-to-sandbox for idiots that help you do what John Scott Tynes does that isn't either of the 2 above mentioned things (PbtA fronts have never helped me plan/run a game and I'm usually not running the latter kind of "explore uncharted fantasy world"? I'd normally guess that there would be some kind of World of Darkness thing that would show you how to do this but in reality most of their stuff was pretty railroady.
Not strictly an how-to, but the stuff in Sine Nomine games (SWN, Red Tide, Godbound) which is related to factions is pretty much a collection of GM's tools to easily come up with something like this.
I've run some very successful social sandboxes in the Old World of Darkness using a very simple approach. When a given campaign ends, all the current still-living PCs get added to my stable of NPCs.
Just because they're no longer under the control of the PCs doesn't mean their agendas and influence goes away. I typically don't even have to tweak anything since the setting encourages shades of grey morality.
Since much of the conflict in the OWoD is the struggle for some type of resource (ex. control of nodes, secrets and the paradigm for Mage) with the powerful (i.e. many former PCs) having it and the weak (i.e. new starting PCs) needing it; there's almost always a connection made (be it as allies or enemies) sooner rather than later.
Thus, except for one-note NPCs like shop owners and minor spirits, all the NPCs have rather complex motives and backstories because they were actually built up over the course of 50-100 sessions by players whose main focus was pursuing that character's goals.
Repeat that pretty much continuously for 25 years and I've got a sandbox I don't even need to do much prep for. I just need to figure out which the hundreds of past PCs the current PC's actions would cross with and go from there.
I think Blades in the Dark does something very similar, where every faction in the (pre-written) city has a very short timeline of goals. How far along that gets is impacted by both the PC's actions and other factions. Even though the players might not seem most of them the GM is still tracking the 'clock' for every group.
Quote from: Itachi;1125074A Front in AW is just a cluster of related elements of interest.
So, instead of "there's a castle behind those moutains", you would have "there's a castle behind those mountains whose warlord terrorises the local hamlet for food. NPCs X, Y and Z are the movers & shakers in the situation and this countdown clock tracks the escalation until the hamlet be completely starved and dies, if no external factor interferes".
In other words a self-contained, volatile situation, that could go various ways depending on how (or if) the PCs approach it. Not really different from locations in ye olde sandbox modules, like say, RQ's Griffin Mountain or Wilderlands of High Fantasy. The difference being AW gives you a simple method to create them yourself, related to players characters interests.
I get what Fronts and Dangers are and have attempted to use them as prep. It's never worked for me - they're always too "thin" to be useful and I'm never clear on how to turn the few sentences into scenes and such at the table. I'm glad it works for other people, just never (yet) for me.
Well, we had a lot of campaigns with PbtA and never found the "thinness" you speak of. The method provides npcs/factions with agendas and potential conflicts like any other sandbox. So I must contest your "thin" label here.
And turning that into scenes is just a matter of picking one of those NPCs from your notes to show the group their drives and some part of the local problem, and going from there. Just go with what sounds logical. "When you enter the hamlet you can see warlord guards collecting food from a poor family/a skinny kid in the street begging for food/a group of villagers inciting a revolt on the square/etc". Then go with the conversation, reacting as coherence and verossimilitiude demands.
Quote from: Snark Knight;1125108I think Blades in the Dark does something very similar, where every faction in the (pre-written) city has a very short timeline of goals. How far along that gets is impacted by both the PC's actions and other factions. Even though the players might not seem most of them the GM is still tracking the 'clock' for every group.
Yep, Blades has one of the best ready-made political sandbox I've seen. Not only it maps all factions and their interests, the game mechanics guarantees each move of your crew affects them in some way. Besides being easy to use - the "factions map" fits a single sheet in (we printed it in glossy A3, with the city map on the other side, and put it at center or the table).
I'll look into how Blades handles factions.
In terms of thin, I'm just trying to explain why, to date, prepping for a session by creating a Front has never been helpful. If you buy a published scenario, it will have tons of detail, possible scenes, NPC goals, etc. When I use something like that, read over the materials a bunch of times, and make notes and changes to it over a week on a daily basis, I can run a very effective session. When I've tried to wing it using a Front (which in most iterations of PbtA are just a few sentences including clock steps) I (not you) struggle into turning it into anything useful at the table.
Oh I got it now, thanks PencilBoy. I misunderstood you before.
Blades doesn't offer a method for creating a sandbox from scratch, but I think it would be easy to replicate it's structure. So yeah maybe it's worth taking a look at it.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;1125121I'll look into how Blades handles factions.
In terms of thin, I'm just trying to explain why, to date, prepping for a session by creating a Front has never been helpful. If you buy a published scenario, it will have tons of detail, possible scenes, NPC goals, etc. When I use something like that, read over the materials a bunch of times, and make notes and changes to it over a week on a daily basis, I can run a very effective session. When I've tried to wing it using a Front (which in most iterations of PbtA are just a few sentences including clock steps) I (not you) struggle into turning it into anything useful at the table.
Of all things, the 5e D&D DMG has a few sections with various random tables to springboard ideas off of. Things like natural disasters, political action, villains and more. Even some bare bones town gen and quick theemeing of dungeons. Combine that with say AD&D's DMG tables for wilderness populating and you have a fair spread of options. Moreso if you adapted Oriental Adventures yearly and monthly events table into all that.
Are there any specifics you are looking for? Town gen? General area gen? etc?
No just how people prep stuff that then turns into several hour long, exciting sessions at the table. I run all sorts of games but rarely traditional D&D fantasy.
I agree that well done random tables are super useful for generating ideas you can springboard off of. I've never looked at the 5E DMG.
That has come up in a few older threads in years past here.
For me it varies a-lot.
Usually I just have a basic map and some place names and a general idea of each. Usually some manner of start town and some common knowlege stuff for the areas local, and some rumours if the PCs ask around. Very low prep as with those I tend to let the players hie off wherever. I only prep more as I get a more solid idea what the players and their characters goals and current heading are. Initially I tend to not flesh out the common knowledges and rumours until someone starts poking one or more and then flesh it out if they start taking more active interest in one. And in the background keep mental tabs on anything that might advance on its own if the PCs do nothing. eg: Theres rumours of gnoll bandits in the swamps, and its common knowledge that lizard men trade stuff with the local druids. I have a base idea that over time if not dealt with the bandits will raid a specific merchant passing through, and, the lizard men will if not helped with a problem of their own, miss their next trade meeting.
Other times I like to use random gen to see what get and work with that on the fly.
Or I might have a module and use that as a loose frame for the area.
I heard that the best thing to do is require players at end of session to tell you what they want to do next.
That only works if you end a session on a major decision point.
From experience most of the major player decisions are near the start. This is nearly allways where they hit on a course and set out to follow it. From there it is mostly a matter of working with that choice.
Did they head off to beat up bandits? Or did they wander out to investigate a request from the lizard men to deal with a problem? etc.
You can go two ways with this (potentially blending them):
1) Create a system that generates events procedurally, using things like weather, natural disasters, factions acting along predetermined (if not interfered with) goals, and then spinning out the consequences of such events throughout the game world, and then representing that to players so they can act, and then inject their actions back into the system so it can ripple and cycle through again to repeat the process, or
2) Create the agendas in play and just decide when something would happen based on what feels right, and what they "should" do. Then let the players interact with that and repeat.
It's not that different than a megadungeon or west marches.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;1125204I heard that the best thing to do is require players at end of session to tell you what they want to do next.
Quote from: Omega;1125215That only works if you end a session on a major decision point.
From experience most of the major player decisions are near the start. This is nearly allways where they hit on a course and set out to follow it. From there it is mostly a matter of working with that choice.
Did they head off to beat up bandits? Or did they wander out to investigate a request from the lizard men to deal with a problem? etc.
Maybe we just have different concepts of what constitutes a "major decision point", but my version of asking players at the end of a session what they want to do next (which I strongly endorse for any kind of sandboxy play) is to wrap up a session with "So, next time, do you guys want to head off to beat up bandits, wander out to investigate the request from the lizardmen to deal with their problem, or is there something else you'd rather do?"
This is also effectively a part of those Sine Nomine games where the players control a faction (such as
Darkness Visible or
Starvation Cheap), which suggest ending each session with a faction turn, then asking the players to take a look at all the faction-level events affecting their faction that turn and decide on which one they want their PCs to be directly involved in.
Didn't see anyone else post this absolute gem of fantasy sandbox advice (https://www.runagame.net/2014/03/the-hex-crawl.html). So, there it is!
I see your Hex Crawl and ante Path Crawl (http://detectmagic.blogspot.com/2014/04/pathcrawl.html).
Quote from: Greentongue;1125284I see your Hex Crawl and ante Path Crawl (http://detectmagic.blogspot.com/2014/04/pathcrawl.html).
Sir, I am in your debt. Yoink!
Quote from: PencilBoy99;1125121In terms of thin, I'm just trying to explain why, to date, prepping for a session by creating a Front has never been helpful. If you buy a published scenario, it will have tons of detail, possible scenes, NPC goals, etc. When I use something like that, read over the materials a bunch of times, and make notes and changes to it over a week on a daily basis, I can run a very effective session. When I've tried to wing it using a Front (which in most iterations of PbtA are just a few sentences including clock steps) I (not you) struggle into turning it into anything useful at the table.
Are there parts that you can improvise better than others? If you have a couple of NPCs, can you extrapolate their minions? If you have a location and NPC, does that prod an event? Or any combination like that?
The key to effective improvisation is to analyze which things you improvise well, which things poorly or not at all, and which things somewhere in the middle. Then spend your prep where it counts.
I'm not very good at doing certain parts of NPC improvisation (names, description, title, etc.) but I can do goals and plans off the cuff. So I'll partially prep NPCs to have a list of shells to which I can attach more details as needed. Doubly critical for my style, because I need to set the goals and plans as soon as the players encounter anything related to it, instead of waiting until they meet the NPC. (Players find some minions raiding a caravan. I know that they were hired. I need some details right now for organization that hired them, because the players are likely to take a prisoner and extract hints.)
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1125315The key to effective improvisation is to analyze which things you improvise well, which things poorly or not at all, and which things somewhere in the middle. Then spend your prep where it counts.
Excellent point.
Well this inspired me to start work on a new sandbox - a hexcrawl sandbox. :D
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Neat!
I def need to prep NPCs since I'm not great at improving them from nothing.
Quote from: PencilBoy99;1125342Neat!
I love Arr-Kelaan hexmapper! :cool: 25 years old & still the best!
http://breeyark.org/aar-kelaan-hexmapper-and-more/