Quote from: Melan;528633Sounds like you had a blast - and sounds like the textbook definition of a low-prep sandbox. I don't know, not pointing at One Horse Town, but people tend to have this misconception that a sandbox game has to have everything defined before being put into motion. I would say that's not a necessary condition for having a sandbox game - it is perfectly okay to extrapolate from existing macro-detail:

It's ok. I was pulling a #14.

Quote from: Melan;528633Sounds like you had a blast - and sounds like the textbook definition of a low-prep sandbox. I don't know, not pointing at One Horse Town, but people tend to have this misconception that a sandbox game has to have everything defined before being put into motion. I would say that's not a necessary condition for having a sandbox game - it is perfectly okay to extrapolate from existing macro-detail:

...or use some kind of "oracular" random method to fit extra content into an outline:

Aside from using someone else's product, a "full" sandbox where everything is set down at the start of play is usually not practical.

Exactly. The idea of creating a sandbox in which everything is predetermined is an oddly...deterministic way of approaching it. No DM can possibly know what his players are going to do when they have the freedom to pursue their own goals, so by necessity any sandbox DM is going to end up doing a lot of improvising. That can either be pure off-the-wall making stuff up, or it can be relying on random generators to create the content you need on the fly, or a mixture of both.

To the OP: I wrote some blog posts about running city-based sandboxes here and here, and a little bit more here. Could be useful food for thought for a Shadowrun game.

Quote from: Spinachcat;528625Tomayto, Tomahto.



...they should find a better GM.

the real answer is that the 2 terms are not mutually exclusive.  More like 2 circles on a venn Diagram.  Your intersectiona dn mileage may vary.

Quote from: LordVreeg;528704the real answer is that the 2 terms are not mutually exclusive.  More like 2 circles on a venn Diagram.  Your intersectiona dn mileage may vary.

QFT. Improvisational DMing and sandboxing are not exactly the same thing. You can run an adventure/mission that is not a sandbox and just make shit up as you go. You can run a sandbox from your notes with the PCs visiting an area you fully fleshed out and not have to improvise at all during the session. That said, a sandbox campaign makes use of improvisational skills, and improvisation pushed to its natural conclusion might lead to a sandbox/open universe play style.

Quote from: Benoist;528716QFT. Improvisational DMing and sandboxing are not exactly the same thing. You can run an adventure/mission that is not a sandbox and just make shit up as you go. You can run a sandbox from your notes with the PCs visiting an area you fully fleshed out and not have to improvise at all during the session. That said, a sandbox campaign makes use of improvisational skills, and improvisation pushed to its natural conclusion might lead to a sandbox/open universe play style.

Right
"They are not mutually exclusive", is what I said.  Meaning they are not opposites or even necessarily in opposition.

We agree, hence Quotation For Truth.

Quote from: LordVreeg;528704More like 2 circles on a venn Diagram.

When you are done with that Venn Diagram, please start the calculations on how many geeks can dance on the head of a Star Trek collectible pin.

Oddly, I feel like a learned a good bit about running a sandbox game after playing World of Warcraft for a while. At least in the Disneyland approach it sets up. It really helped me see what I liked/didn't like in how a setting is built.
Wherever I went there were things to do... some bigger, some smaller. People to talk to who had problems that might eventually lead me to other people with bigger problems.
I could pretty much go wherever I wanted and there were few artificial barriers keeping me from the stuff that was way over my head. "See that big dragon way over there? Leave it alone!"
Meanwhile there were other folks going about their business, shopping in the shops, sitting in the inns... flying overhead on weird beasts. Trying to gather up groups of adventurers for tough missions.
Even though my starting abilities were small it felt like there was a great big world out there to explore... which was the main thing that kept me playing, until I'd pretty much seen it all.
Prior to playing WOW I think much of my gaming was a kind of improv-railroad.

The biggest non-sandbox thing about WOW was that not much ever changed (or changed very slowly). If you killed the big bear in the cave he would be back 15 minutes later. That's a big area where RPGs scoop on MMOs... you get to go back to the village you saved and they are still safe, and sing songs about you.

Quote from: Spinachcat;528625Tomayto, Tomahto.

Ehhh, not so much, really.  Improv is certainly a useful skill to have in a sandbox, but the defining aspect of sandbox play is that you HAVE prepared - in a broad and shallow sense, especially as contrasted to the "narrow and deep" prep of a heavily-"plotted" (choooo-choooo!!!) game.  Freeform play is what you get when you actually HAVEN'T prepared anything (or, conceivably, when the players sprint to the edge of sandbox map - and you decline to simply have them fall off the edge ).

I think its imporant to note that I did a little bit of prep in those 10 min I mentioned in the first post. Besides it, playing/GMing shadowrun for aprox 15 years now makes you memorize one thing or another.

So, even if I used a considerable dose of improvisation, the inspiring source for it was the very agendas and needs of the setting´s already existing entities (plus the players´) tempered by my own struggle to preserve plausibility and cause-effect. If this isnt sandbox, I dont know what is.

Quote from: taknight;528579I was always under the impression that "improvisational" gaming *was* sandboxing. But maybe I'm wrong.

Yes, you are wrong.

QuoteIf so, do tell the difference. I'm curious.

A sandbox is where the DM places encounters in his or her world and lets the PCs go about meeting them in their own way in their own time.

For example, the DM places brigands in the woods near a village they're planning to raid, an ogre in a cave a few miles away, a ghost at the crossroads, a dragon in the mountains, a troll under a bridge, pirates in a ship a few miles offshore and so on and so forth. It is up to the PCs to decide which of these encounters they want to try to meet and when. The DM does NOT try to steer them to one over another, and he most certainly doesn't try to guide them through a particular scenario.

This requires more work upfront for the DM because he'll need to flesh out all of the above encounters and more because he won't know which ones the PCs are going for until they decide. The PCs also have the option of changing their mind.

Now any game that isn't a railroad job will have some measure of improvisation. However, a game that revolves around improvisation is basically the DM pulling most of the encounters randomly out of his ass as he goes along.

Quote from: ElfdartA sandbox is where the DM places encounters in his or her world and lets the PCs go about meeting them in their own way in their own time.

Not necessarily.

It really doesnt matter if the GM creates the encounters beforehand or simply improvise them. What matters is that the encounters respect the setting internal logic and the cause-effect relation between the characters actions and the settings´entities.

Its irrelevant how this "end" is achieved.

Quote from: silva;528878Not necessarily.

The way I see it, it doesnt matter if the GM creates the encounters beforehand or simply improvise them. What matters is that the encounters respect the setting internal logic and the cause-effect relation between the characters and the settings´entities.

Its irrelevant how this "end" is achieved, really.

Sure, if he's the Jonathan Winters of DMing. For everyone else a certain amount of planning is necessary -even if it's just working out the parameters of what can and can't be encountered in their campaigns.

Ok Elf, now I agree.

Thats why I think its important for the GM and the players to know the setting well in this mode of play - the more the GM knows it, the more in the right direction his improvisation will be; and the more the players know it, the more they can let the GM "take a rest" and conduct the play by themselves.

I should note that a) most sandbox stuff I'm familiar with consists mainly of one-line notes, expanded upon as necessary (so certainly improv helps), and b) what you're describing sounds like a super fun game, silva.