Quote from: LordVreeg;628084No gm can prepare everything.  Especially in a large and vibrant world.
Whether it be the contents of a cupboard, the room the cupboard is in, the Inn the room is in, or the neighborhood the Inn is within (yes, I am enjoying myself), at the heart of the GM's job is to make shit up that fits into the gameworld and setting seamlessly enough so that the PCs don't know what is made up and what is preset and what is the extrapolated middle (another important ability).

" Vreeg's Fifth Rule of Setting Design
 
"The 'Illusion of Preparedness' is critical for immersion; allowing the players to see where things are improvised or changed reminds them to think outside the setting, removing them forcibly from immersion. Whenever the players can see the hand of the GM, even when the GM needs to change things in their favor; it removes them from the immersed position. The ability to keep the information flow even and consistent to the players, and to keep the divide between prepared information and newly created information invisible is a critical GM ability."


One of the reasons I mention the extrapolated middle is that I believe it is ignored or not talked about as much.  I will also say this is one of the reasons myself and others (Estar comes to mind) tend to spend the bulk of our time working in a single major setting, because that extrapolation becomes much more 'setting specific' that way.  The interweaving of hundreds and hundreds of sessions and creating this data makes it much more accessible for the unconsious.
I don't need to make up the beers and wines or liquors of Igbar, or the neighborhoods, or the personalities or the tensions between guilds or where the parks are or the level of crime and who is paying off who, that's done.
So when I do have to use that GM skill Jibba mentions about creating stuff on the fly, there is a lot of concrete data I have to draw and crossreference from internally, and i think the level of 'built upon extrapolation' when I have to get creative both enhances the consistencey and the 'Illusion of Preparedness' as well as making the setting more concrete to the players.

I can see the logic in that. If not the love of dedication and hard work

It's one reason I do things like use well known settings for elements in games. So fantasy game I say we will use the gods from Game of thrones. Or I say the setting will be like Gor. Most players are familiar with these major fictional worlds so their characters are imbedded straight away. I am familar with them (or i wouldn't pick them). With the proviso that I can change any element and its only based on xxx at a macro scale we are good to go.

Now there are so many settings in so many books that I can create one whole cloth in the time it takes the PCs to roll characters that will feel unique but familiar. So I use the city state model from Gor and mix names from there and some new ones. I add in the Seven from GoT as the gods, add Free companies like the Black Company as a background setting and put the whole thing in the middle of a bloody civil war between the 5 machiavelian sons of the emperor that died a dozen years ago. I decide the tech level will be renaissance the terrain will be semi-dessert mezzo-giorno. But I really like Gorean Tarns so i will include them.

I am done background is sorted and consistent. The players will get a feel that they know the world and I can riff off any of that as I play. I can limit the PCs I will allow to the setting. Pull some classes or kits play up others, can certain races. etc etc

So I am following the same process as a guy that draws maps and stuff and plans it all out i am just using shorthand chunks of stuff. stuff like an old school, or the castle I got married in or the layout of the streets round why I used to live etc etc ....

Quote from: jibbajibba;628035I tend to agree.

Like I have said many times I just make shit up. all the time. But I would never claim that my sandbox was a perfect world in motion that the PCs slot into etc .
Some peopel here would say they run a perfect sand box
They would say that because my goblin barracks only exists in my head and it's layout is taken whole cloth from a school I used to teach at becuase that is what I thought of 3 minuts ago when the PCs said that they would go there. That I am guilty of illusionism. Whereas they have everything detailed and all events proceed regardless of player involvement in them, except they don't.

[Brooklyn Accent] Capisce? [/Brooklyn Accent]

It was just this part that set off my bullshit detector:

QuoteNow 3 is the 'real' sandbox way to do it but in the real world....

I have no problem with scripted events as long as there's a potential for revision in light of new facts established either by PC action or other unforeseen events.

When it comes to improvised large-scale events I don't think a detailed model is necessary (e.g. playing a solitaire game of DBM or Great Battles of History), but my current feeling is that when there's doubt, it's a good idea to roll some dice.

At the moment I'm toying with systematizing the evolution of background events by identifying significant issues in a campaign and then using a sort of stateful random model to track their development and "fallout"--that is, effects which would directly impact player-characters. Aside from random event systems as found in wargames and board games, Mythic RPG is influencing my thinking here. I need to check RQ Empires to see if it has anything useful, but I'd need something that not only resolves conflicts at the macro scale but also models the motives and goals of the actors. E.g. it's not so much whether Freedonia can beat Grand Fenwick, but whether they come into conflict in the first place and how far events go from mild rivalry to all-out war.

Not sure if anything will come of this.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;629745I have no problem with scripted events as long as there's a potential for revision in light of new facts established either by PC action or other unforeseen events.

When it comes to improvised large-scale events I don't think a detailed model is necessary (e.g. playing a solitaire game of DBM or Great Battles of History), but my current feeling is that when there's doubt, it's a good idea to roll some dice.

At the moment I'm toying with systematizing the evolution of background events by identifying significant issues in a campaign and then using a sort of stateful random model to track their development and "fallout"--that is, effects which would directly impact player-characters. Aside from random event systems as found in wargames and board games, Mythic RPG is influencing my thinking here. I need to check RQ Empires to see if it has anything useful, but I'd need something that not only resolves conflicts at the macro scale but also models the motives and goals of the actors. E.g. it's not so much whether Freedonia can beat Grand Fenwick, but whether they come into conflict in the first place and how far events go from mild rivalry to all-out war.

Not sure if anything will come of this.

Bolding mine.

This is part of the idea of the World in Motion, that event chains can be put down on paper, but PC actions in the world, even from a secondary nature. can always effect them.   Indeed, it is the job of the GM to make the Game World look and feel like it is ging to go on whether the PCs get involved or not, when in reality the game and game world is based around PC volition.

Quote from: jibbajibba;627051One of the limits to any sandbox is the degree to which this is possible without a large mainframe to run the sandbox emulation software on.

Yeah, I spent a few months trying to build a systemless set of rules to aid and emulate this process for pen and paper RPGs. Didn't quite end up running down the street painted in blue woad shrieking about the voices, but eh, no it wasn't happening. Making the setting dynamic is very much something only a human GM can do.

There seems to be a lot of agreement on the sandbox playstyle, just for the sake of argument, are there any situations where modular or plotted play offers benefits, like at conventions or in one-shots?

Quote from: The Traveller;629950There seems to be a lot of agreement on the sandbox playstyle, just for the sake of argument, are there any situations where modular or plotted play offers benefits, like at conventions or in one-shots?

Sure, conventions and other types of games where random stranger pop in expecting to play with little or not preparation need a different setup than an ongoing campaign.

Even in a sandbox campaign some situation will result in a similar prep to a modular or plotted scenario, typically those where the players have an ongoing relationship with a patron who gives them mission. In this case the plot is stemming from the NPC's goals and motivations. This is contrast to say the Adventure Path which is plotted by the designer's goals and motivations. But the work involved is virtually the same.

Also note that many would not consider this as part of a sandbox campaign. Which I feel is a mistaken view.

Sometimes, players can directly intervene to change the outcome of events.

Sometimes, players aren't involved in background events that play out.

Sometimes, players inadvertently influenced how an event played out.

Sometimes, the players are involved in minor and major events.

Sometimes, players are entirely detached from the machinations of others and events play out according to how I set them.

This is the world in motion. At least, that's how I do things.

One thing I'm noticing with Traveller (just ran my 3rd session last night) is that, due to the insanely wide-open nature of the setting (i.e., FUCKING SPACE, with 4 entire sector maps and the ability to generate more beyond that, even if it weren't for the Traveller map site), and my being new to the system itself, is that my players are much more accepting of "hey guys I'm just barely keeping ahead of you here so be prepared for me to stop and roll dice and swear to myself for a few minutes every once in a while".  It's part of the tradeoff for just ridiculous amounts of freedom (the understanding that I can't reasonably detail any appreciable slice of the playspace unless I know they're going there first, and the flexibility of suspension of disbelief under this kind of setup).  

Luckily my guys will happily entertain themselves with hilariously ill-advised plans and dick jokes while I'm crunching numbers and flipping pages (they're not staring at me with their mouths open like a pack of seals, like some groups I've seen).

Quote from: The Traveller;629950Yeah, I spent a few months trying to build a systemless set of rules to aid and emulate this process for pen and paper RPGs. Didn't quite end up running down the street painted in blue woad shrieking about the voices, but eh, no it wasn't happening. Making the setting dynamic is very much something only a human GM can do.

There seems to be a lot of agreement on the sandbox playstyle, just for the sake of argument, are there any situations where modular or plotted play offers benefits, like at conventions or in one-shots?

Cons and one shots are totlaly different.
In Cons
Premade characters with specific adventure hooks. Major fail to create a premade PC round a hook that doesn't appear in this game even if it appears in the other sequenced games as the players will not be at each of your con games. Make the stuff on the character sheet directly relevant to the game.

Set adventure 'path' - the adventure should start in the action. Don't have the characters meet in an Inn have a background sheet that explains how the characters met in an Inn and start the game with them under fire from an orc raiding party or halfway up a tower on a rope.
 
You have 4 hours. You should plan for 2 major combats. The set up and the denoument. The PCs will arrive at the cultist temple just as the victim is being dragged out onto the dias, they will not arrive two days later because they got stuck in the newspaper office in Cairo.

Make the NPCs memorable and the action dramatic. Everyone the PCs meet can be a special snowflake with direct relevance to the plot.

Nothing like a sandbox at all.

The key thing I think is well prepared characters with good backstory/hooks. If you have that and a solid plot you are golden.
My rule of thumb is you should never really have to reference a rule book. So I write out all the details of the powers for the players on the character sheet. Spell descrptions, items, range of guns etc etc. I can adlib the floorplan of a castle or an encounter with gnolls but players like to know what their PCs can do and the effects and you won't have time to explain it to them.
In play just make rulings that work on the broadest scale and give each player as much face time as you can.

Quote from: estar;629955Sure, conventions and other types of games where random stranger pop in expecting to play with little or not preparation need a different setup than an ongoing campaign.

Even in a sandbox campaign some situation will result in a similar prep to a modular or plotted scenario, typically those where the players have an ongoing relationship with a patron who gives them mission. In this case the plot is stemming from the NPC's goals and motivations. This is contrast to say the Adventure Path which is plotted by the designer's goals and motivations. But the work involved is virtually the same.

Also note that many would not consider this as part of a sandbox campaign. Which I feel is a mistaken view.

Sandbox<---------------------------->Railroad/set Narrative

We all really play somewhere in between, and in a campaign, the position actually shifts.  It is why I say I play in 80-90% sandbox.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;629745I have no problem with scripted events as long as there's a potential for revision in light of new facts established characters.

My thoughts exactly.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;629745Aside from random event systems as found in wargames and board games, Mythic RPG is influencing my thinking here.

I haven't delved into the RPG itself yet, just the GM Emulator, and I'm really enjoying it thus far. Just recently, the PCs were being pursued by a guy whose slaves they'd liberated, and I didn't want to use DM fiat to say whether he caught them or not. If we ended up with a dramatic moment where he and his henchmen were galloping through the city streets toward the docks, only to see the PCs' ship sail away at the last minute, I wanted it to be because the dice rolls on the Fate Table turned out that way, not because I staged it as some dramatic setpiece.

There might be times when I have something that's almost a cutscene, but those will be very, very rare. Mostly, I want to keep the world running in a fairly seamless way and give the PCs a lot of opportunities to shine and feel like they're doing something meaningful and cool.

Quote from: Dana;630085I haven't delved into the RPG itself yet, just the GM Emulator, and I'm really enjoying it thus far. Just recently, the PCs were being pursued by a guy whose slaves they'd liberated, and I didn't want to use DM fiat to say whether he caught them or not. If we ended up with a dramatic moment where he and his henchmen were galloping through the city streets toward the docks, only to see the PCs' ship sail away at the last minute, I wanted it to be because the dice rolls on the Fate Table turned out that way, not because I staged it as some dramatic setpiece.

There might be times when I have something that's almost a cutscene, but those will be very, very rare. Mostly, I want to keep the world running in a fairly seamless way and give the PCs a lot of opportunities to shine and feel like they're doing something meaningful and cool.

There is something to be said in favor of the GM having a bad guy who the PCs have pissed off, waiting in the wings for a dramatically appropriate moment to reappear in game.

I run Sandbox - or at least while presenting the PCs with obvious job opportunities and fully written up episodes they don't have to take them and can go their own way or, events permitting, can come back to them later. That works for me, as in all sandboxes (IMHO), because there's enough of the immediate environment fleshed out. But in my case the major detail that's on paper is individual NPCs and their relationships, motivations and plots. If those plots are genuinely good adventure hooks, why waste them by having an NPC press the red button on a cunning plan on a Monday when if they did it on Friday the PCs might get involved? Once in while the game world will force my hand - e.g. some plot involves a voyage, and there are times of year nobody sets out to sea, so it must happen now or be postponed until the spring.

As has been mentioned above, a calendar is an important tool.

So the world does move on, but the gear teeth can be changed according to the needs of the PCs and the game. I love world building, and I love the NPCs and stories I populate it with. But they are all there for a purpose, and that's to enhance an adventure game involving player characters.

Quote from: Dana;630085I haven't delved into the RPG itself yet, just the GM Emulator, and I'm really enjoying it thus far.

I don't think you are missing much with just the emulator. The full game is sort of metasystem like FUDGE where you define abilities and skills with verbal ratings and use the Fate chart to resolve tasks and opposed actions. I think it can be played as such but the big revelation is the stuff that's reproduced in the GME.

Re: cons vs. regular play, the game I ran last weekend at a con was designed as a sandbox and the description in the program said it was "open-ended" with "multiple threads" and "could get messy". In fact not much of significance happened, but the players seemed to have fun with their colorful characters. Other factors may have been at play, but it makes me think I might be able to get away with it again next time.

The main thing I took away from the session was that a telescoped time scale helps players appreciate the sandbox. I had weekly event rolls (1/6 of something significant happening locally or major news arriving), but I wasn't tracking seasons or holidays, so unless there was healing or a player-initiated action, I could just assume an event would eventually occur and roll on my table.

If I do something similar again, though, I'll aim at a higher density of detail.