Is this a problem in sandbox type campaigns? You've laid out the local area to your players, given them a few nuggets of information and then leave them to it. They have the freedom to do whatever they like.

As a DM, you've probably got the areas you've explained to them mapped out and populated (at least to some degree), just waiting for them to drop by and see what it's all about.

That freedom of action is the cool thing about sandbox games. One thing I've noticed about them that can crop up is what I call 'dip & run'. The characters investigate an area until things get a bit too challenging and then leg it, quite often never to return. Who cares right, we've got these pretty gems that we can use to live like kings for a few weeks, why risk our lives further? So what, as a DM, do you do about that? I don't mean techniques to lead them by the nose or forcing them into finishing the area you've put all that work into- this is sandbox play. I mean, how do you try to ensure that your work isn't wasted. Do you even bother? Do you only lightly populate areas and do the rest on the fly as it crops up, don't bother at all and improvise it all, or just forget about the stuff that was ignored and move on? Do you create stuff that can be transposed to another area, thus keeping your work useful? Any other tips and techniques in running this style of game?

The sandbox has walls.

I'm setting up an Aces & Eights game that will be sandbox style.  The sandbox is going to be the town of Lazarus.  I've discussed this with the players and got their buy-in on the idea that the campaign is going to take place entirely in the town.

I know this doesn't work for the sandbox game that has a wide open geography.  I was concerned about this problem ahead of time and set it up so that it won't be a problem.

Quote from: One Horse Town;257503So what, as a DM, do you do about that? I don't mean techniques to lead them by the nose or forcing them into finishing the area you've put all that work into- this is sandbox play. ... Do you only lightly populate areas and do the rest on the fly as it crops up, don't bother at all and improvise it all, or just forget about the stuff that was ignored and move on?

Yes, in this order of preference. I usually work from loose notes, my imagination, and the occasional adventure location/idea - but the latter are preferably small, modular and disposable if the PCs cut and run. Has happened... there were some short dungeons I only used years later than developed for this reason - the players didn't bite, or got distracted, or just had to flee righteous vengeance.

Quote from: One Horse Town;257503I mean, how do you try to ensure that your work isn't wasted. Do you even bother?

No, I just get frustrated, then remind myself that I'm the one who made the decision to run a kind of game where shit like this can happen. Although in my case, it's usually "dip & die," wherein I spend months planning a campaign, only to have the characters die in the second or third adventure...at which point I start all over again. In theory, I could recycle the elements they never saw - they certainly wouldn't know - but in practice, I just don't, for utterly selfish reasons.

Shit like this, of course, is why I only GM every few months. Fortunately, we have a real GM who can make a sandbox whose walls are mostly invisible, and who does what he can to keep us from dying from one stupid decision.

Quote from: Melan;257510Yes, in this order of preference. I usually work from loose notes, my imagination, and the occasional adventure location/idea - but the latter are preferably small, modular and disposable if the PCs cut and run. Has happened... there were some short dungeons I only used years later than developed for this reason - the players didn't bite, or got distracted, or just had to flee righteous vengeance.

The bonus is that you can drop pre-written adventures wherever you want - the downside is if the players decide to 'dip & run' you've wasted your money. This is where more modular adventure designs are useful. Drop it into the campaign in bite-sized chunks and place them wherever you fancy.

Technically, Sandbox gaming means you have  everything statted up before the characters walk in. I never do that, so I don't run Sandbox games. I'm a Situational GM, which gives them the same freedom, and leaves me with free time enough to do game design and writing rather than prepping. I have no idea how to get you out of a dip and run in Sandbox play - it's one reason I'll never try it again. My players are much too smart for me to persuade them that the sun will rise tomorrow.

-clash

Quote from: One Horse Town;257503The characters investigate an area until things get a bit too challenging and then leg it, quite often never to return. Who cares right, we’ve got these pretty gems that we can use to live like kings for a few weeks, why risk our lives further?

I'm pretty lucky in that if I were to run games in this mode, my players are the Magnificent Seven types - "Nobody throws me my guns and tells me to run. Nobody".

Regards,
David R

Quote from: flyingmice;257525Technically, Sandbox gaming means you have  everything statted up before the characters walk in.

I don't think it has to, although we may have differing ideas of sandbox play. For me, it's also possible to do the equivalent of procedural generation, wherein the players are free to run around in the sandbox, which is always created just ahead of them. However, this requires a level of extemporizing I'm not comfortable with, except in PBP games, where I have time to think. But I think that's what you're doing, and are just calling it something different, so ultimately it's probably a semantic difference more than anything else.

Don't sandboxes develop over time?

I'm talking specifically about campaigns or long runs. It seems the farther down the road the characters travel the more developed the road and its surroundings get. At least, that is how it works for me.The sandbox develops over time and soon the PCs are returning to old haunts (created in previous games) or dealing with old NPCs. Before you know it, there is a sandbox, and the PCs are playing in it.

Dip and run isn't really a problem to me.  It's sort of like running a dungeon with a killer hidden sub-level full of all sorts of DM goodness and phat loot for the PCs; the first, second, third and maybe even fourth group goes through without finding it, but eventually, someone will discover it.  And when they do, it'll be that much cooler because your players will realise that the awesomeness was always there, waiting for them.

(As an aside, I played for a while last year with a local AD&D group; whenever we were wrapping up a session and totalling xp and such, the DM would always mention the cool stuff he'd built into his dungeons and lairs that we missed...drove me crazy!)

If you expect your sandbox to run for a while and possibly with multiple groups over time, you'll always have a chance to see those cool developed pieces in action.  And it's so much better when you get a look from someone in your group and they say, "Holy shit, that was there the whole time and we missed it?!"

If you're running short-term, however, or don't expect your players to run multiple PCs independently, I'd stick with what Engine aptly described upthread as procedural generation.  It works very well, and it's hella fun writing up random tables for wacky shit to spring on your players.

Quote from: Engine;257529I don't think it has to, although we may have differing ideas of sandbox play. For me, it's also possible to do the equivalent of procedural generation, wherein the players are free to run around in the sandbox, which is always created just ahead of them. However, this requires a level of extemporizing I'm not comfortable with, except in PBP games, where I have time to think. But I think that's what you're doing, and are just calling it something different, so ultimately it's probably a semantic difference more than anything else.

I was informed that Sandbox gaming was that here on these very boards. By Sett, if I remember correctly.

In Situational GMing, the GM creates important NPCs with their motives, goals, and resources beforehand, then kicks off play with a Situation involving the PCs - what the Forge guys call a "kicker", though the concept has existed long before the Forge was thought of. The GM may have other situations further down the road planned, but usually only a couple, and those near in time to the original. The group may never encounter these situations, so they're throw-aways. Everything depends on the PCs' response to the first situation, which is the only one guaranteed to happen. From that point, the NPCs/Factions do their things, trying to accomplish their goals with their resources. The PCs are free to do whatever they want. The GM must extemporize with the resources his NPCs have in play, respondig as the NPCs would to the PCs' interferences. Most situations from this point on are ad hoc.

This style of play demands tools to generate things on the fly, from opponents to loot, and the NPCs and Factions must react using their resources and staying in-character. If Roderick the Heedless is described as having 20 men, he can't suddenly show up with 50, unless something has happened in game which allows him to increase his resources. If Roderick is described as a Gambler and Headstrong, he shouldn't suddenly become Cautious and Wise. This is not for reasons of fairness, it's for reasons of suspension of disbelief. Once you understand an opponent, you should be able to broadly predict his actions.

The setting is not created just ahead of the PCs, but things are not detailed until and unless you need them. It's painted in broad strokes. What is generated on the fly should not supplant what is already there. Instead it should bring things into greater detail as the setting becomes developed.

Is this process called Procedural Generation, or is that something different?

-clash

Quote from: One Horse Town;257503That freedom of action is the cool thing about sandbox games. One thing I've noticed about them that can crop up is what I call 'dip & run'. The characters investigate an area until things get a bit too challenging and then leg it, quite often never to return. Who cares right, we've got these pretty gems that we can use to live like kings for a few weeks, why risk our lives further? So what, as a DM, do you do about that?

If this were a game I was running it would be dependent on two things...
 
1) Are they running completely out of the entire sandbox or are they just now avoiding that one area of the sandbox?
2) Do I want to take what they've left behind and behind the scenes play out the impact of their actions on that area to become the consequences that haunt them later?
 
If your sandbox has "no walls" as has already been mentioned earlier and they leave the sandbox... That's a toughie that you need to sit and talk to the players about and see what you can come up with to make not just them, but you happy to (after all this is as much for your entertainment as for them). You are right that forcing them or leading by the nose usually upsets someone if you do it after you've already given them the right to walk away. Be honest, tell them you didn't quite expect them to go that far.
 
If your sandbox has walls, or if they are just merely avoiding the area, decide what to do with the area they left behind? Is it the domain of some master thief who is annoyed at their intrusion? Will he begin to watch the characters as they grow in power in a different area until he feels they are finally a threat to him? What will he do? Can you make him responsible for a module you drop into another area; now the characters begin to see that their successful investments in time, money, power, etc. are now being threatened. Do they leave it all yet again or figure out how to stop it?
 
In short, I would use what they have done as a way to develop the story happening around them, when they leave that area it doesn't stop and cease to exist. There are consequences to all actions, even walking away. I've had times when players simply chose not to deal with a facet of the adventure/module/story; so I let it go for a while and fester and watched what the characters did and decided how I could rework it in later rather than discard it and feel like I wasted my work. I made it into a drop-in plot/story/adventure later down the road after I finished altering/tweaking to fit what the characters were up to later in the game...

Quote from: flyingmice;257525Technically, Sandbox gaming means you have  everything statted up before the characters walk in.

In bizarro world.  That's a terrible way to run a sandbox.  a lightly sketched setting & map, a bunch pre-placed mini scenarios so there's stuff happening wherever the PCs go, and lots and lots of improvisation.  That's the way to do it.

My trick is immersion.

I talk about it here http://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2008/10/city-guards.html

QuoteI promote immersion. I find that when players have characters that are woven into the setting they are less apt to do things just because they can. They view the contacts, connections, and resources they have built up just as valuable as magic items and treasure.

By using immersion, the contacts, connections, and resources tend to keep the range in which the character's wander limited. Not because of artificial walls but the simple fact that the players lack the desire to go far afield.

Immersion is one of the fundamental tricks I learned to keep my Majestic Wilderlands sandbox manageable over the long haul.

Quote from: flyingmice;257561I was informed that Sandbox gaming was that here on these very boards. By Sett, if I remember correctly.

I would caution against considering Sett an authority on...well, you know, anything. Seriously, though, that definition could be entirely correct; I have no real way of knowing what the standard definition for the term is, as it applies to roleplaying.

Quote from: flyingmice;257561Is this process called Procedural Generation, or is that something different?

I don't know. I wouldn't get hung up on what it's called; you've done an excellent job of describing it, and trying to boil that complex and accurate description down into a couple of words won't do it any favors.