We been talking about "sandbox" play in another thread. I thought I'd spin it off into its own thread.

Personally, I don't get it. From what I heard, sandbox style play seems to be, well, just like regular ol' play. It seems to me that the differentiation between sandbox style play and any other type of play is largely semantics.

So...what makes sandbox so different than everything else?

Seanchai

I've never found another setting that is quite like the Wilderlands.

Slow day in Trollhaven?

Quote from: Pierce InveraritySlow day in Trollhaven?

I'm starting to think that denying things exist is going to become a pattern for Seanchai.

There isn't an overarching plot.

It depends much more heavily on the GM knowing the setting really well, or at least being able to wing it in a satisfyingly consistent manner.

The scale is more often WAY zoomed out by default, barring any otherwise artificial obstacles or walls. In other words, there is less than zero urge to even slightly nudge the players along a path.

I think that most campaigns are sandbox by default.

I prefer them If I can get them.

Edit: yes, I'm a sucker.

To me, sandbox play is play largely unfettered by seriously linear plot.  You give your players a nice big place to roam around in, they roam around and do stuff.  It's usually a little less exact on timing of events, direct plot points (note I said direct, I'm not saying you can't have plot in the sandbox), that sort of thing.   It is the anti-railroad, with barriers to characters normally coming only by natural means.  Most of my fantasy games have at least a bit of the sandbox to them--my vanilla homebrew world, Irrin, in my sig, is our roam-around-and-do-stuff sandbox, though it also hosts our more focused games.

I also tend to think of sandbox as "fewer GM controls and limitations on character direction".  That's my definition, as I use it--you're welcome to consider otherwise.  If it helps, for an example of a setting encouraging sandbox play, Wilderlands could be that.  Possibly also Pundit's setting coming up from FtA!?

Sandbox, balance, niche protection, abstraction, etc... are all just tools in a GM's toolbox.  Whether we fail to use or recognize them are our own faults or preferences.  I'm still learning to define the tricks of the trade and redefine them for the enjoyment of a player's perspective.

I've noticed a similar issue with Santa and the Easter Bunny.

AFAICT, sandbox play is pretty much where you get some characters and walk around the world doing stuff. It was the goal to which I aspired to when I started DMing, but have largely held off recently in favor of clearly defined PC goals that the players understood and were on board with.

It's kind of the opposite of a game where you can award points for scenerio objectives, which I brought up in the past.

I imagine it's hard to set up a pure sandbox, since a DM'd need to be able to simulate just about any part of the environment at a moment. It's the kind of play that the D&D environment books really shine in, since at that point, even terrain becomes an adventure. ("It's how far to Castle-on-the-Mountain?! That's going to take us through St. Rodrick's Desert unless we want to add three weeks to our overland travel time!")

The more goals you give to the PCs that they don't give themselves, the less of a sandbox it is. Immersionism and sandbox play go with each other pretty well, but they're not the same thing by a long streach.

Quote from: SeanchaiSo...what makes sandbox so different than everything else?

Sandbox is more detailed. You don't just say I travel 500 miles via caravan to the next adventure. Players have to make their way through that 500 miles. Products supporting sandbox will give you the detail needed to referee that 500 miles.

Rob Conley

Perhaps it's easier to examine what's not sandbox.

Any adventure with a scripted plotline is not sandbox. If the adventure has comments like "by the now, the PCs should have rescued the Wizard's apprentive and learned about the Crimson Brotherhood. At a dinner held in their honour, the grateful Wizard shows the party a map which bears the same symbol as the tatoos found on the Crimson Slayers," then it is not a sandbox adventure.

Any setting or campaign book that deals largely with politics and cultural background is not sandbox. For example, last night I was reading an Earthdawn setting supplement called Nations of Barsaive. The thing is chock full of NPCs, political factions, history, cultural notes, economic policy, storylines involving schemes and personal rivalries. However, were I to start a campaign somewhere on the map of that setting, I would have to make up 90 per cent of the actual stuff the PCs encountered during their wanderings - the detailed area maps, monsters, lairs, ruins, treasure, and other encounters on the road. Not sandbox.

Quite simply, then, sandbox is an open-ended play style with no presumption of a particular plot, and which uses a setting constructed at the scale of boots-on-the-ground PCs that is not tailored to any specific challenge level. Examples include the Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set, The Lost City of Barakus, and Keep on the Borderlands.

To answer the question in the title of the thread, to me sandbox play is the most real and least illusory style of fantasy gaming I have ever encountered.

In sandbox play any plots that appear are created from what happens after the setting is created, not the GM's goals during adventure prep. If that feels like normal play to you, congratulations, you're a sandboxer!

Quote from: HaffrungQuite simply, then, sandbox is an open-ended play style with no presumption of a particular plot, and which uses a setting constructed at the scale of boots-on-the-ground PCs that is not tailored to any specific challenge level.

Total agreement.

The real issue is whether or not you inject the 90's style "here's the plot" structure. If you do at all, it's not a sandbox.

Most current and recent "game theory" does not address sandbox at all. Game theorists usually struggle with the issue of "how" to inject the "here's the plot" (do we railroad? Do we just constrain the rules so that nobody can possibly talk about anything else but the plot? Do we set up a story-game style 'premise' that has to be addressed?, etc.

Sandbox gaming can be broken down into two types, which I think of as Matrixed and Unmatrixed.

Unmatrixed is the style where you use random tables and procedural generation a lot.  

Matrixed is where a large area (of a map, say) has been "keyed", but the players have free rein to wander. So a low level party could walk into a dangerous area, and the DM would just run the encounter. Or they could wander into an area that is far beneath their level, or where nothing really is.
Rob Kuntz style dungeons are a good example of this.

I think the sandbox is a may of describing adventuring on a map. Whether the map is keyed or not has a subtle difference.

Quote from: jrientsTo answer the question in the title of the thread, to me sandbox play is the most real and least illusory style of fantasy gaming I have ever encountered.

One of the things I do as a sandbox DM is run the world as a simulation. I keep asking what-ifs and extrapolating future possibilities from the "present" of the campaign.

The result is that players can interact with the campaign world in a very natural way. A trap that DMs need to watch out for is not to get too bogged down in details. It will probably take a novice a few sessions to find the right level of detail.