Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 10:27:21 AM"So, what do you guys want to do?".

In a good sandbox the players just tell the DM. It is a different mindset, the players have to know they are able to do what they want. It can be hard to get players to accept this idea because in Monopoly you can't leave the board, or go counter-clockwise but in Role Playing you can do anything. I think that sort of thinking has mostly died out in non-OSR players.

Also it is best if they tell the DM at the end of a session so the DM can prep for that new direction.

Also old school had a lot more DM improvisation. Random Encounters are seen as a bit of a nuisance to most these days but they were idea generators as well as time fillers (players want to do something so the DM needs to burn out the last hour of this session first... roll for random).

Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 10:27:21 AMEven Keep on the Borderlands makes it very clear in the text that the main goal is to get the PCs to visit the Caves of Chaos, with everything else just filler and side quests in between forays to the cave, and then the Caves of the Unknown being for the DM to flesh out themselves (or, I guess, drop B1 there). That I understand perfectly, it's the "the players don't have a 'main' objective at all" that is confusing or, rather,

It might be clear in the text the GM reads that most adventures are over in the Caves, but the players don't read the text. They are just given clues on the rumor table about the hermet, the caves, etc. And no part of the module depends upon the players going to the caves.

Also the filler and sidequests seem that way because it is a basic module for new DMs and they should learn to fill out these bits, also because it has a page limit. So Gygax detailed the caves and left everything else sketchy.

Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 10:27:21 AMthe notion the players might say, "Nah, we don't care, we're going to leave and go westward" out of the blue since that sounds kinda douchy on the part of the players.

Yes, if you are talking about a purchased module that sucks, but another bit of Old School gaming is you can re-use anything the players haven't used (and even some stuff they have seen). So if they decide screw the keep we're going West you could rip the Caves of Chaos apart and plop individual caves all over your map in the partys path (screw the quantum ogre nonsense) have the party ambushed as way to draw get them to want to go into one of the caves for revenge. The Caves actually come off as more realistic if divided up this way anyway.

Also in the original days where everything was in a dungeon there wasn't much difference between stocking the 1st level of a dungeon or the 5th level except the table you would use. You were told to prepare 3 (or 5?) levels of a dungeon to start with in case things progressed quicker than expected.

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 19, 2024, 10:20:48 AMWhat angle are we discussing on hexcrawls? From an OSR standpoint, I can understand how it is a term generated with that movement. However, with science fiction games like Traveller it is a default setting for campaigns. This goes all the way back to Classic Traveller where being the crew of a Free Trader moving from world to world trying to buy low and sell high as a vehicle (pardon the pun) to move the characters from adventure to adventure was the staple of campaigns.

I believe we're staying in the context of D&D/AD&D.

Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 09:36:40 AMNow I completely understand the idea of traveling from Point A to Point B and having something like, "Oh look, a ruined tower; maybe we should investigate" as a side trek to the main adventure or an interim. But I don't "get" how a whole campaign can be done like this because it seems like a random bunch of stuff with no rhyme or reason.

Another thing that was frequent in the old days was the DM would create linkage after the fact, eventually building a tale of a big bad. So captured papers or an interrogation would lead the players to knowing those bandits weren't just bandits but working for the baddie, the orcs were put on a war footing to block the trade route by the baddie. That way you add depth, and generate a desire to go after the big bad who you didn't know about when the campaign started. Things just develop somewhat naturally as you try to fill in the blanks. I found the Dragon Magazine article "5 Keys to DMing success" (Dragon 80) pretty useful (especially the first point).
https://annarchive.com/files/Drmg080.pdf

Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 09:36:40 AMBut I don't "get" how a whole campaign can be done like this because it seems like a random bunch of stuff with no rhyme or reason. You need to include other elements, not just "Move to hex, roll for encounter, resolve, move to next hex," which seems to be how most of the "actual plays" showing hex crawls appear.

Like OSR, Hexcrawl is a term that grew organically. It is an umbrella that covers what several different authors published. Most of them centered on a campaign focused on exploration with the information organized by using a campaign map keyed using a labeled hex grid.

If you want specifics, then you need to pick specific examples to ask questions about, like Ben Robbins's West Marches campaign. Or my own Sandbox stuff from Bat in the Attic.

Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 09:36:40 AMNow, I get the idea of having the PCs decide things or drive things if they express interest in following up on some rumor, but I feel letting them choose everything also runs counter to the fact you're playing a cooperative game. That is, if the players are constantly ignoring or finding ways to ignore the adventure hook, they're just being assholes.

My point of view as a referee of sandbox campaigns is that I set the "board," and the players are free to deal with the setup as their character in whatever manner they see fit.

There is no ADVENTURE HOOK; instead, the NPCs have multiple things going on along with multiple different types of locales (lairs, ruins, towns, etc.). I won't know which one will grab the PC's attention until they decide. However, based on what the players talk about before the game and the types of characters they make, I can make a pretty good guess and focus my prep accordingly.

I touch on how my approach works in Blackmarsh (free to download).
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/89944/blackmarsh

I also have a series of posts (and a book) on some of the things I do to prep so I can run my campaign.
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html

Quote from: blackstone on December 19, 2024, 11:18:21 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on December 19, 2024, 10:20:48 AMWhat angle are we discussing on hexcrawls? From an OSR standpoint, I can understand how it is a term generated with that movement. However, with science fiction games like Traveller it is a default setting for campaigns. This goes all the way back to Classic Traveller where being the crew of a Free Trader moving from world to world trying to buy low and sell high as a vehicle (pardon the pun) to move the characters from adventure to adventure was the staple of campaigns.

I believe we're staying in the context of D&D/AD&D.

Cool.

I think that there may be a lot of overlap between them in technique, though.

Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 10:20:18 AMIt's just the "wing it and prep nothing" approach that seems suspect.

It is not a case of prep nothing. The referee knows the setting, genre, and system well enough to make it up on the fly and remain consistent.

Your complaint is understandable because this is often not explained. The person making this style of statement is making a big assumption about the audience. While I will do this myself from time to time, I have also written a lot about what a hobbyist can do to climb the learning curve on this stuff.

And I try to make it crystal clear that the ultimate approach is highly idiocentric. You are literally spinning up and keeping track of a small world in your head. To do that isn't going to work quite the same for me as it will for you or anybody reading this. Instead as part of the learning curve you will experiment to see what array of techniques work best to minimize your prep while remaining consistent.

I will say that the more experience you have under your belt the less prep you will eventually need and the less you will have to do to remain consistent. Again, how that is accomplished depends on what you find works for you.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on December 19, 2024, 10:52:36 AMAs far as finding references to it at the time, keep in mind that people were doing what we now call sand boxes and hex crawls, before the term became widely accepted.

Yup, I started off playing hex and counter wargames in the mid 70s. While I ran my share of TSR and JG modules I found I had the most fun setting up the campaign has a grand wargame style campaign except the players were playing individual characters instead of armies. It eventually led to them commanding armies as they leveled but as their character instead as a piece on the bard.

The stuff I did to make those campaigns fun and interesting is what laid the foundation for what I write about sandbox campaigns today.

The term sandbox campaign started out in the mid 2000s as a way of marketing Necromancer Games's   $70 Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set. And those of us on that team adopted it because sandbox was being used to describe a type of free form computer wargame. And that style of computer game mirrors what our respective campaigns were like.

It caught on and by 2010 it was a term widely used in the OSR and the hobby.

Quote from: estar on December 19, 2024, 12:05:01 PMThe term sandbox campaign started out in the mid 2000s as a way of marketing Necromancer Games's   $70 Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set. And those of us on that team adopted it because sandbox was being used to describe a type of free form computer wargame. And that style of computer game mirrors what our respective campaigns were like.

It caught on and by 2010 it was a term widely used in the OSR and the hobby.

See, this makes sense as to why it's a term for this. I was familiar with the term for freeform games, but for RPGs, it sounded just weird, like the people trying to take D&D back to being a war game.

I think my general confusion is about the people who espouse zero prep and no adventure hooks at all. (This is not the same as "story-driven" or "adventure path"; I mean like "You are summoned to the Mayor of Townsville's residence, and he offers you 100 gp each to deal with a band of ogres raiding the town from their hideout in the hills to the North." which is almost exclusively how my groups played in the 90s, these weren't necessarily linked adventures, although they could be loosely related e.g. maybe those ogres aren't just raiding the village, they're in the pay of Baron von Badguy who wants to take over the town, etc) I get, even, the idea of having various side trek rumors that the PCs may or may not pursue. I also like the PCs driving something by saying at the end of a session that they're interested in finding out more about X. (I don't exactly know how this would play out, but I can sort of get ideas.)

Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 01:00:30 PM

Quote from: estar on December 19, 2024, 12:05:01 PMThe term sandbox campaign started out in the mid 2000s as a way of marketing Necromancer Games's   $70 Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set. And those of us on that team adopted it because sandbox was being used to describe a type of free form computer wargame. And that style of computer game mirrors what our respective campaigns were like.

It caught on and by 2010 it was a term widely used in the OSR and the hobby.

See, this makes sense as to why it's a term for this. I was familiar with the term for freeform games, but for RPGs, it sounded just weird, like the people trying to take D&D back to being a war game.

I think my general confusion is about the people who espouse zero prep and no adventure hooks at all. (This is not the same as "story-driven" or "adventure path"; I mean like "You are summoned to the Mayor of Townsville's residence, and he offers you 100 gp each to deal with a band of ogres raiding the town from their hideout in the hills to the North." which is almost exclusively how my groups played in the 90s, these weren't necessarily linked adventures, although they could be loosely related e.g. maybe those ogres aren't just raiding the village, they're in the pay of Baron von Badguy who wants to take over the town, etc) I get, even, the idea of having various side trek rumors that the PCs may or may not pursue. I also like the PCs driving something by saying at the end of a session that they're interested in finding out more about X. (I don't exactly know how this would play out, but I can sort of get ideas.)

The no prep thing varies in conception from one person to the next, but in my experience it really more about organic, emergent play, where the GM is trying to give the players as much freedom as possible. It can be about going to different locations on the map and exploring, but it is often about the conflicts that arise among NPCs, groups, etc that the players interact with and develop connections to. It also isn't always 100 percent one way. You might have an adventure in a campaign like this from time to time where the PCs are summoned by an NPC who has a quest. But with groups who take a lot of initiative, you don't need to do that sort of thing so often. I run a lot of wuxia sandboxes and tried as best I could to capture exactly how I plan them in advance in this blog entry on the topic: https://thebedrockblog.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-wuxia-sandbox.html

Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 10:20:18 AMPart of the problem also seems to be that so many actual plays or topics don't discuss how to get started. It's more or less "Create a few rumors, present them at the start of the campaign, and see what the players want," but A) HOW do you present those unless you prod the players (e.g. "You should ask at the inn about any rumors"), and B) that would mean the DM has to develop those few rumors since the PCs can select any of them, as well as being able to wing something on the fly if they randomly decide to ignore all the rumors (which it should be obvious to them are meant to be adventure hooks, so they SHOULD take the bait) and leave town.

A) "Here's a list of the rumours you've heard"
B) If I give them a list of rumours to 12 different adventure sites, then yes obviously I have 12 adventure sites ready to run. I mostly use free/near-free BFRPG material so I always have a bunch of adventures detailed.
If they go do something else, ok I run with that. Sometimes I do Quantum Ogre and have an advemture in my back pocket I can use if the players absolutely insist on ignoring all rumours and go somewhere random.

Here's my current, right-now, rumour table. Not all lead to a dungeon.

Rumours M12 4454 (Imp Brucke region)
1.  On 6/1/4454, the abandoned Mage Hold of Highfell tore itself loose from atop Mt Dwimmerhorn, and now drifts across the Great Salt Flats! Amulets of Ord still allow access via the Henge Gates.

2. On the road east from Pineford and north into the Vale towards Cillamar lie the ruins of ancient Castle Whiterock within a volcanic caldera, said to be once inhabited by a reclusive order of warrior-monks. But brigands and slavers are said to be active in the area. Vast dungeons are said to lie beneath the ruined Keep.

3. In the hills northwest of Imp Brucke lie the Halls of Enlandin the Philosopher, the ruined fortress of a wizard, cast down by the warriors of Nerath more than three centuries ago. It's said that the tunnels beneath the fortress are almost endless. Scavengers have long since looted the upper works, but treasure - and danger - may still be found below.

4. Bristleback Goblins have been raiding the trail north from Imp Brucke into the Vale. They are rumoured to be based in a ruined hilltop temple west of the trail. Recently (10/11/54) a band of adventurers raided their lair and stole their treasure.

5. Avoid the Lost Citadel of the Crimson Minotaur! Few who enter there return.

6. In the western hills towards the Castellans is Lah's Refuge, where an order of former warrior priests dwell in isolation, having laid down the arms they once wielded in service to the Princes of Neo-Nerath. They provide succour to weary travellers, asking little in return. They cleared Stull of undead infestation, but the village remains abandoned, the woods haunted by vile Ghasts.

7. Merilla the Mage is a goodly sort. A former adventuress, now she dwells quietly in her tower west of Imp Brucke, engaging in magical researches. She has an animosity with her rival, Cyrus of Capricia, ever since Cyrus' clumsy halfling apprentice stepped on her dress at the Lord's Ball and ripped it quite off!

8. Caer Ferros is an old Nerathi border fortress in the Northwatch Hills, said to be cursed and long abandoned.

9. A band of river pirates, the Vermin Wake, have been attacking both boats and farmsteads along the wide River of Visions/River Northwatch. Their hidden lair is downstream of Capricia. Recently adventurers rescued Charlotte Tournais from their vile clutches.

10. Raiders from the Crimson Serpent Jungle have been disrupting trade with the South, attacking both traders and Altani villages along the Scalos River. The Dwarven High Lord of Capricia would be glad to see them dealt with. The raiders are numerous and dangerous, though - and not human.

11. The Cult of the Green Skull dwell in a dungeon not far south of Imp Brucke. They once painted green skulls all over the village, and are known to kidnap travellers on the road, including a couple adventurers, Ikam & Andrea, who were rescued from their dungeon. Luckily, the Pact stops the Cult harming the village itself.

12. Far to the west beyond the Castellan Mountains, on the edge of the Marshes of Sorrow, lies the fallen Dwarf-Hold of Gunderholfen.

13. At Ham Manor, Bastian & Emmett were working on the drainage in the lower graveyard when they uncovered the entrance to what looks like a hidden crypt. However the graveyard rats were gathering and looking increasingly hostille, so they hurrriedly withdrew and reported to Lord Ham. Emmett says he sensed an evil presence in the Crypt, as if something was controlling the rats.

14. A Manticore preys upon travellers on the trail north from Imp Brucke through the Northwatch Hills, south of Bristleback territory.

I think the hex crawl as a complete play loop (as opposed to travelling hex map to get to a destination) is a rare play style. Traveller does it. The computer game Elite did it, copying Traveller. When I run Isle of Dread, the players always go straight to the plateau & the Kopru temple. There was a paper board game in White Dwarf called The Barbarian that did it. I think it's actually more common in board games than TTRPGs. You can do it in Skyrim & Oblivion if you like.

I'm familiar with the old idea of having each player know a rumor or two (or more, whatever) at the start of the campaign (I remember being told some rumors I knew when I played B1). I guess I think that the "ideal" thing would be for the players to say, "We're going to the tavern to see if anyone's heard of any rumors," or just mention they pass by a "task board," but you can't force them to say that and they may ignore the board.

I kind of see how it works out because my LGS started an open table D&D campaign in 2024 (sadly, but what can you do), and that's how it started. We woke up outside of an inn in a town, slightly confused, and basically the inn is a "home base," with a mission board. We can pick missions from the board (of varying difficulties/rewards), and based on who selects which mission is how the groups are split up. For example, in our first session, we had 11 people show up; 7 opted to all do a specific mission, leaving 4 of us to pick up another one. We go off to do them and then return to the tavern to pick another. It does feel very video game-y, though (although not necessarily in a bad way).

Quote from: S'mon on December 19, 2024, 02:06:53 PMI think the hex crawl as a complete play loop (as opposed to travelling hex map to get to a destination) is a rare play style. Traveller does it. The computer game Elite did it, copying Traveller. When I run Isle of Dread, the players always go straight to the plateau & the Kopru temple. There was a paper board game in White Dwarf called The Barbarian that did it. I think it's actually more common in board games than TTRPGs. You can do it in Skyrim & Oblivion if you like.

See I would consider Skyrim a sandbox but not a hexcrawl. You do have a "main quest," but you have side quests, and you aren't really pressured to do the main quest at all. You can explore, I guess, but I never found myself just wandering randomly and seeing if there was a cave or something (I don't even remember if Skyrim had those; I know Morrowind had random dungeons when you started a game).

Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 02:15:27 PMYou can explore, I guess, but I never found myself just wandering randomly and seeing if there was a cave or something

You can indeed do this in Skyrim.

Quote from: Nobleshield on December 19, 2024, 02:13:46 PMI'm familiar with the old idea of having each player know a rumor or two (or more, whatever) at the start of the campaign (I remember being told some rumors I knew when I played B1).

Yes a common approach is to have each player roll for a rumour. I just give all the players the rumour list. Most players won't read it anyway and the active/engaged players might as well have all the info.