Quote from: S'mon on February 21, 2023, 05:25:09 AM
Re timelines, I tend to be wary of these for sandboxing. I'd much rather roll randomly for events. I find this is much better at keeping things fresh.

The problem with random tables is that past events (including PCs actions) do not affect them, usually. So, instead of a country that is already divided by a succession problem (maybe because the PCs killed the king) falling into civil war, the war happens in a random, unpredictable place.

Of course, floods, tornados, etc., can be random without this issue.

Quote from: RPGPundit on February 20, 2023, 07:56:20 AM

Quote from: Venka on February 20, 2023, 12:00:33 AM
I've seen actual active players slowly begin to expect that their characters were following a plotline, and to generally not engage in sandboxxy things.  It took me awhile to realize that a change had happened to the zeitgeist about gaming expectations, and I wonder if critical roll and similar podcasts are actually driving the change or reflecting it.

The mere fact that we have to use terms like "sandbox" now, whereas before it was just a roleplaying game, is a big sign that things have definitely changed.

I wonder if in a few years this will change, as the kids who's favorite computer game was minecraft start playing D&D?

I'm pretty sure it's going to be the opposite.  I've played a quite a bit of minecraft myself, and have run a heavily customized server for my son and his friends, so I feel I have a solid grasp of the issues here.  Minecraft is a very open sandbox, but is utterly lacking in story/plot/goals which is great for a while, but then gets really, really boring.  The folks who play longer time tend to do so for a couple of reasons:  creative building, PvP, and add-ons that provide story/plot/goals.  I feel that kids coming in with a lot of minecraft play time are going to be craving story/plot/goals.

Another method I'm using in my current sandbox is writing questions about the future after we finish a session. These are my current ones:

- What will happen in the village of Marval after the death of the priest?
- Are you going to accept the dinner offered by Wylda Figwort, adventurer from Peranegra?
- Who sent a letter to the priest saying that "the Lord suspects nothing"?
- Will Aravis be able to lift Shadow's curse?
- Are the kobold ruins empty? Are there goblins and kobolds left to seek revenge on Fort Belarte?

I think this is all TSRs fault. When they started creating modules they did so for tournaments which are not great for sandboxes. Then they placed those modules all over Greyhawk instead around what might be a home base so that sandbox play could grow normally.

- What will happen in the village of Marval after the death of the priest?

Sounds ripe for starting a sex cult...err, alternative religion.


- Are you going to accept the dinner offered by Wylda Figwort, adventurer from Peranegra?

Can she cook?


- Who sent a letter to the priest saying that "the Lord suspects nothing"?

Satan?


- Will Aravis be able to lift Shadow's curse?

Only if he uses The Belt Of Lifting, and remembers to use his legs.


- Are the kobold ruins empty?

Well, I mean they're full of ruin at the very least. And even empty space is chocka-block with atoms.


-Are there goblins and kobolds left to seek revenge on Fort Belarte?

Hasn't this damn war cost the Goblin and Kobold communities enough? It's time to bring our boys home.

Quote from: Grognard GM on February 22, 2023, 12:35:37 AM
Hasn't this damn war cost the Goblin and Kobold communities enough? It's time to bring our boys home.

Indeed it has!!! 

Quote from: Venka on February 20, 2023, 12:00:33 AM
The mere fact that we have to use terms like "sandbox" now, whereas before it was just a roleplaying game, is a big sign that things have definitely changed.

No it hasn't changed. The divide existed in the late 70s and early 80s when I started playing. It boils down to how the referee manages the campaign.

I liked players trashing my setting as their characters. If you are going to let players do that then you need to be flexible to make trashing the setting fun, interesting, and a challenge. Other referees back in my neck of the woods were not so flexible. Other like the by-the-numbers tournament dungeons that TSR released. While other would put a lot of prep into their campaign and expect the players not to go off on tangents.

My approach started with wargaming first. When I started playing D&D one of the two things that made go oh wow was the practical use that worldbuilding now had, and that unlike the hex and counter wargames I played you can have more expansive scenarios and victory conditions. And it was far easier to be expansive with a RPG than a SPI or Avalon Hill wargame. At least for me.

But there still was a learning on how to make specific thing work in a campaign like city versus wilderness versus dungeon adventure. And so on. Luckily Judges Guild had a bunch of rough and ready aides that made learning that quicker.

For those who are interested I released for free a basic overview of running sandbox campaigns.

The World Outside of the Dungeon
https://www.batintheattic.com/downloads/The%20World%20Outside%20of%20the%20Dungeon.pdf

I recently ran Keep on the Borderlands in Savage Pathfinder for a group of young kids. They range from 10 to 16. I'd been sort of training them for sandbox play through OSR B/X. I think that's key. Even if you're dealing with adults. Don't just dump an open world on them. Guide them along and slowly start getting them to make decisions. I ended up giving them a whole city to find quests in with plot direction, then a surrounding region with a little less. Then a province, and so on. And now I got them on KotBL and they are delighted by it. They are absolutely Minecraft zoomers and most of them don't even like Critical Role to begin with. If anything they keep demanding I make things more lethal for them. I love these kids. Best group I've had and they put adult groups I've run to shame with how well behaved and respectful they are.

Quote from: King Tyranno on February 22, 2023, 09:36:03 PM
I recently ran Keep on the Borderlands in Savage Pathfinder for a group of young kids. They range from 10 to 16. I'd been sort of training them for sandbox play through OSR B/X. I think that's key. Even if you're dealing with adults. Don't just dump an open world on them. Guide them along and slowly start getting them to make decisions.

Good job!

I wrote about the three broad things I do to make my sandbox campaigns work. The most crucial is what I call the initial context.

From here
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2017/08/my-axioms-of-sandbox-campaigns.html

Initial Context
Most sandbox campaigns fail. Why? Because of the lack of a good initial context. Many mock character histories and backgrounds but if you are going to get a sandbox campaign you are going to need a least a half page of specifics for each player and a half page of general information for the group as a whole.

Players who enjoy being plunked down in the middle of a blank map and told "Go forth and explore" are few and far between. About as common as players who enjoy playing GURPS with all the options in play at once. Most players want to feel their choices have meaning. Picking one of the six surrounding blank hexes is not a choice with meaning. So work on the initial situation so that it is interesting and gives the players enough information to make informed choices on what to do for their initial adventures.

From here
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-rise-and-fall-of-roleplaying.html

The initial context/situation proves to be uninteresting
This is the most common reason if a sandbox campaign ends before a half-dozen sessions. You can see this in actual play posts from the mid 2000s when the idea of sandbox campaigns was being popularized by the team behind the Wilderlands Boxed Set, including myself. We left the impression that a typical sandbox campaign started with the players on a blank map expected to explore their surroundings. Well many people tried this and found it confusing and ultimately boring. Their choices had as little meaning as in a classic plot railroad as they might as well been throwing darts at a map.

How to Manage a Sandbox Campaign: The Pre-game
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-manage-sandbox-campaign-pre-game.html

The Sandbox and Player Character Backgrounds
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2010/03/sandbox-and-player-character.html

Quote from: estar on February 23, 2023, 08:32:01 AM

Quote from: King Tyranno on February 22, 2023, 09:36:03 PM
I recently ran Keep on the Borderlands in Savage Pathfinder for a group of young kids. They range from 10 to 16. I'd been sort of training them for sandbox play through OSR B/X. I think that's key. Even if you're dealing with adults. Don't just dump an open world on them. Guide them along and slowly start getting them to make decisions.

Good job!

I wrote about the three broad things I do to make my sandbox campaigns work. The most crucial is what I call the initial context.

From here
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2017/08/my-axioms-of-sandbox-campaigns.html

Initial Context
Most sandbox campaigns fail. Why? Because of the lack of a good initial context. Many mock character histories and backgrounds but if you are going to get a sandbox campaign you are going to need a least a half page of specifics for each player and a half page of general information for the group as a whole.

Players who enjoy being plunked down in the middle of a blank map and told "Go forth and explore" are few and far between. About as common as players who enjoy playing GURPS with all the options in play at once. Most players want to feel their choices have meaning. Picking one of the six surrounding blank hexes is not a choice with meaning. So work on the initial situation so that it is interesting and gives the players enough information to make informed choices on what to do for their initial adventures.

From here
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-rise-and-fall-of-roleplaying.html

The initial context/situation proves to be uninteresting
This is the most common reason if a sandbox campaign ends before a half-dozen sessions. You can see this in actual play posts from the mid 2000s when the idea of sandbox campaigns was being popularized by the team behind the Wilderlands Boxed Set, including myself. We left the impression that a typical sandbox campaign started with the players on a blank map expected to explore their surroundings. Well many people tried this and found it confusing and ultimately boring. Their choices had as little meaning as in a classic plot railroad as they might as well been throwing darts at a map.

How to Manage a Sandbox Campaign: The Pre-game
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2011/04/how-to-manage-sandbox-campaign-pre-game.html

The Sandbox and Player Character Backgrounds
https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2010/03/sandbox-and-player-character.html

Lots of useful information there. Thank you for writing the blog. I wish I knew about it 5 or so years ago when I first stared trying to inflict sandbox campaigns badly on various groups.

Quote from: King Tyranno on February 23, 2023, 08:55:31 AM
Lots of useful information there. Thank you for writing the blog.

Appreciate the compliment

Quote from: King Tyranno on February 23, 2023, 08:55:31 AM
I wish I knew about it 5 or so years ago when I first stared trying to inflict sandbox campaigns badly on various groups.

Don't feel bad, while a big cheerleader for running sandbox, I have to acknowledge that it is still not widely known. Despite it being around since the beginning of the hobby.  It is not as easy to publish for or learn compared to tournament style dungeons and adventure paths.

I really need to figure out how to pick up the writing speed on my stuff. For sandbox campaigns, the main change in the past decade is I have developed more material to help a novice going with sandbox campaigns. So I have a better starting point for writing a book about this than I did when I wrote the early blog posts.

Plus now that youtube for RPG commentary is a thing I am, slowly, working on making a video companion to accompany my How to make Fantasy Sandbox series.

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html

I started RPG with D&D at the end of the 70's. Back then, it was more or less a sandbox hobby, but that was the point, people encouraged to use imagination, create worlds, adventures, etc etc.

Compare that to WH40k. Fantastic environment, I love it, though it's getting a bit strained with silly extensions and redundant detail, but even with the RPG I found that imagination really wasn't desirable because Games Workshop had so much creative control. Okay, they didn't say "Thou must use our ideas pleb" but anything outside of their own detail was never supported or encouraged - even though the original concept did tell readers of the rulebook to do so - and everything was pushed along the route of staging games within the environment that Games Workshop had created for that express purpose. I never liked that.

In recent years I found players and referees alike have tended toward demanding rules that create their environment for them. That's a bit dispiriting to me, I remember fondly the explosion of creativity when White Dwarf magazine started and before it was a sales brochure for GW.

Sadly that's how the hobby is. The existence of computer games that have rules built in by virtue of their very nature has bred generations of RPG fans that expect the same approach from pen and paper.

Quote from: estar on February 23, 2023, 09:24:20 AM

Quote from: King Tyranno on February 23, 2023, 08:55:31 AM
Lots of useful information there. Thank you for writing the blog.

Appreciate the compliment

Quote from: King Tyranno on February 23, 2023, 08:55:31 AM
I wish I knew about it 5 or so years ago when I first stared trying to inflict sandbox campaigns badly on various groups.

Don't feel bad, while a big cheerleader for running sandbox, I have to acknowledge that it is still not widely known. Despite it being around since the beginning of the hobby.  It is not as easy to publish for or learn compared to tournament style dungeons and adventure paths.

I really need to figure out how to pick up the writing speed on my stuff. For sandbox campaigns, the main change in the past decade is I have developed more material to help a novice going with sandbox campaigns. So I have a better starting point for writing a book about this than I did when I wrote the early blog posts.

Plus now that youtube for RPG commentary is a thing I am, slowly, working on making a video companion to accompany my How to make Fantasy Sandbox series.

https://batintheattic.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-make-fantasy-sandbox.html

I'll just echo King Tyranno's comment, what a great blog! I learned some of this the hard way and by piecing other sources together. When's the book coming out? 

Quote from: rytrasmi on February 23, 2023, 09:58:10 AM
I'll just echo King Tyranno's comment, what a great blog! I learned some of this the hard way and by piecing other sources together. When's the book coming out? 

Thanks, as for when it coming out my current schedule is

Into the Majestic Fantasy Realms
Basically an expanded version of Blackmarsh with four 12" by 18" poster maps. Include some of my prior work like Southland and the Wild North.

Scourge of the Demon Wolf, 2nd Edition
The adventure is the same but the back half which was a setting supplement for the Majestic Wilderlands will now be a setting supplement for the Majestic Fantasy Realm. This is going to be quickly finished as I am just rewriting one chapter and some editing.

The Majestic Fantasy RPG
This is where the sandbox stuff will go. There will be five books. A PHB, a Monster Manual, a NPC Codex (like the MM but with various generic NPCs) and a DM/Campaign Book that will have Treasure, Magic Item, stuff like my Merchant Adventures, along with essays and advice for Sandbox Campaigns.

Deceits of the Russet Lord
Finally taking me into 2024 will be my next adventure. It will be formatted like Scourge of the Demon Wolf, with an adventure in the first half, and a setting supplement in the back half. The setting supplement is not required for the adventure but builds on some of the details to give the work long-term utility.

All of these have the bulk of the writing done. Good enough for the table but need extra polishing in order for folks to get the most out of them when I release. Likely they will all be under Creative Commons -BY with a note on how to use them with the OGL.