Promoting sandbox and proactive play

[Altair_the_Vexed]

How do you promote proactive play and a sandbox style of gaming?

This thread isn't supposed to be about my specific issues - I run a three hour bi-weekly game for a club. Not the ideal place for a sandboxy game, as there's a set amount of time to cram in complex plans, cool action and fun. So I tend to run a fairly straight forward adventure style: I give the players a goal and let them go chase it. Players may come and go. Not everyone I play with is a mate, either, so the social contract is very much focused on me providing entertainment.
Each session tends to be a recap of past events and a set up of an encounter, and then a wind-down and plot points to move on to the next bit. I suspect this style is why I'm not seeing an awful lot of player-driven gaming.

In the past, I've had enormously free-form campaigns, where players have dragged the story all over the setting and forced awesome adventures unexpectedly out of relatively linear-seeming set ups. Those games were played more often, and with open ended play - not with a club closing time to watch out for.

Anyway, I'm curious about how other GMs get a good level of player-driven plot and action out of their groups. Do you just leave them to it? Do you cajole them?
Any hints and discussion would be greatly appreciated.

[Techsmart]

We have three types of dms in our group as that goes.
the railroader - They don't stop you if you wanna do something off the wall, but if it detracts from the main story, someone reels you back in.
The semi-sandbox- this is my style. I give players free roaming, but the BBEG is doing more and more things that, eventually, make it difficult on the players until they decide to smack him down.
The full sandbox- One person tries this, and doesn't do a good job of it. He drops hooks to quests, then either makes it impossible to follow up on them, or says the hints in such a way that they are clearly hooks to him, but not so to us (leaves something out).
I think the biggest thing is making sure your group has the mentality to go full sandbox (I.E. do their characters end up getting side-tracked by non-story things alot). My group does not, for example. They like semi-sandbox and railroading, since they like to know where they are going. Put our group in a sandbox environment, and half of them will get bored or frustrated.

[Yora]

Even in a sandbox game, before planning anything else, you need to get together and decide what the campaign is supposed to be about. When the players all want to do different things, it won't work out.
"You want to become the most powerful thieves guild in the city", "you want to create a new duchy at the frontier", or "you sail the seas exploring ancient ruins on tropical islands" can all work well, if everyone agrees on the same concept. If you have three players and each one wants to do one of the above, you won't get anywhere.

[Altair_the_Vexed]

I guess you can pursue each player goal in turn with different adventures, if all the players agree that they're cool with helping each other out...

[Totally Guy]

The players have got to make their goals explicit and care about them.

If he players are holding out on each other with complicated secrets they won't know how to help each other out.

There's this big tendency for players to keep goals secret so that the the GM can't mess with them... but in my experience it doesn't work so well in practice. I've found it much more interesting when players risk what they care about and everyone at the table knows why the risk is significant to the character.

[druid91]

Even in a sandbox game, before planning anything else, you need to get together and decide what the campaign is supposed to be about. When the players all want to do different things, it won't work out.
"You want to become the most powerful thieves guild in the city", "you want to create a new duchy at the frontier", or "you sail the seas exploring ancient ruins on tropical islands" can all work well, if everyone agrees on the same concept. If you have three players and each one wants to do one of the above, you won't get anywhere.

.... Actually that could work out.

They sail the seas in the gigantic city ship Adventurehome, and attempt to become the most powerful thieves guild in the city to finance the attempt to create a duchy/port for the city ship on a tropical island with treasure filled ruins.

[JonestheSpy]

It seems to me that to do a sandbox campaign right is a huge amount of work. There has to be interesting things going on in every direction the PC's may end up taking, and it should be as detailed and fleshed out as a plot-driven campaign. There needs to be a whole world moving along and doing its business that the players interact with.

More power to you if it's your thing, but I certainly wouldn't have the time needed to embark on such mission...

[Raum]

Anyway, I'm curious about how other GMs get a good level of player-driven plot and action out of their groups. Do you just leave them to it? Do you cajole them?
Any hints and discussion would be greatly appreciated.
1) Get in a habit of saying "yes". Quite simply, people are far more likely to advance ideas when they think they'll be positively received. Say "that won't work" too often and many people will simply decide to let you tell them what will work. After all, they aren't inside your head and can't read your mind.
2) Keep an open mind. This is a corollary with #1. Don't have preconceived ideas of either method or result. Allow for the possibility - no, probability - things will change.
3) When things slow, stir the pot. Whether you keep a few ideas on the back burner or simply follow the "Ninjas Attack" philosophy, be ready to add something when players seem at a loss.
4) Have fun! Seems obvious, but when you treat GMing as a chore, it shows. Fun is contagious...sadly, so is boredom. Choose which you bring to the table.
5) Communicate. Another seemingly obvious item but TG has already pointed out one pitfall of poor communication. For others we just have to read some of the 'angstier' threads...


It seems to me that to do a sandbox campaign right is a huge amount of work. There has to be interesting things going on in every direction the PC's may end up taking, and it should be as detailed and fleshed out as a plot-driven campaign. There needs to be a whole world moving along and doing its business that the players interact with.It doesn't have to be that much work. In fact it can be less work than planning & running a "traditional" campaign. After all, your players are doing some of the work for you...just need to take advantage of that! :)

[Sillycomic]

After all, your players are doing some of the work for you...just need to take advantage of that!

Yes, yes and yes.

That's the best part of a sandbox campaign. You don't need to create something everywhere in the sandbox in order for people to enjoy themselves.

You just sit down with the players, ask them what they want to do in the game, their specific goals they want to accomplish, then just cater the game after those goals. Putting clues here and roadblocks there.
.

The only way good sandbox works is with communication. Make sure the players have fun and make specific characters with goals in the game so you can come up with clever ideas to help and hinder them. Tell them that the more focused and distinct their character is, the better game you can run for them.

[NMBLNG]

Have a setting. Doesn't really matter what the setting is, as long as the players can get involved with it, without requiring a lot of DM time.

Also, make it clear that the players need to have a backstory and personal goals. Personal goals can be shared.

[zorba1994]

Actually, I think I'll relate what works with my group, and could work with yours:

Basically, we can only meet for a full game once every two weeks at best. However, what we do instead is that on the weeks we can't meet, we get together over skype and basically have an RP session, where stuff like going around the town, picking up quest hooks, just chatting, get taken care of. As soon as we hit something particularly rules driven (like a combat encounter), we break the session off and pick up there at our next face-to-face session. That way, for the actual adventures, I have a lot more material to work with to develop the story, and the party can do more of what they want. For example, if they decide they want to go hunt down the really annoying BBEG from the last two sessions and they tell me this, next session I'll have an adventure prepared. If they want to keep helping root out the thieves guild, I'll have an adventure ready. If they want to join the thieves guild, I'll have an adventure ready, and so on.

Additionally, it helps get a lot more RP in without necessarily feeling like I'm taking time away from other things, so when emotional story-driven bits happen, the players are more attached (and remember more) than they otherwise would be.

[Mastikator]

One way to promote the sandbox style is to discard the "plothook and BBEG" line of thought, instead think in terms of factions and their motives. There is no plot, only a cornucopia of factions each with their own motive and goals, relationship to each other and attitude to the players. It's fully up to the players what they want to do.

If the players are bored and don't have any goals of their own then you can have one of the factions go after them.

Nobody knows how things are going to turn out, not even the DM.

This is how I DM and I consider it sandbox.

[Sillycomic]

Email is your friend.

Personal goals, side quests, random information gathering, even buying supply stuff can all be done through emails or some other communication. This leaves the actual session for just the important stuff, like sharing plot hooks and fighting.

Then you aren't meeting once a week or bi-weekly, but you are as a group role playing continuously. You can constantly think of what your player will do next and how he might react. And as a GM, you have all your notes in front of you, plus you get tons of time to think about things and make an appropriate response.

[kyoryu]

I've found two main barriers to sandbox play on the player side(presuming you have a DM trying to encourage it):

1) Lazy players. I'm not being as mean as I sound in this, really! But it's easier in many ways to let the DM lead you around by the nose. It's an easy default state to return to, especially if the DM rebuffs your attempts at being proactive.
2) Players not having an idea of what their goals are, or how to achieve them. This falls on the DM, especially the latter part. The player may know that their characters wants to become a famous lord, ferinstance, but may have no idea of how to achieve that. The DM should tell the player what, in the context of the world, would be reasonable ways of achieving that based on the character's knowledge. There should be multiple paths to achieve this, to make sure it doesn't feel like just another railroad.

There are DM issues that can prevent sandbox play, as well, but I'll post on those later :smallbiggrin:

[Sitzkrieg]

1) Not every character needs clearly defined goals ahead of time (in fact, it might even be better if a few don't), but it is pretty essential that at least some do. The party should agree on what they're going to do as a group before the game starts.

2) The DM needs to do his/her part in making the players care. Plenty of sandbox games are richly detailed, with dozens of unique factions or locations, and a twelve page history that nobody in the group read. If you designed the world all by yourself, the players don't really have any reason to care about it. Get them involved in the creation process, and then they will enjoy 'owning' part of the world.

3) It's okay to railroad for the first adventure. Let the players take over gradually. If you dump them in a tavern with no clear reason to go anywhere, they're probably going to light something on fire in frustration. Don't expect roleplaying to happen in a vacuum.

4) Learn to generate creative responses/descriptions on the fly. Six weeks of planning the politics of the Royal Court means nothing if your players are bored whenever they try to find a new tavern. Whatever part of the world you haven't planned will innately attract your players. You need to reward them for this behavior by making your on-the-fly descriptions dynamic and fun. Something should always be happening if the PCs look. Just remember that it's impossible to plan for everything, and you should reward, not punish, your players for seeking out something you didn't plan.

4A) As a side point, lots of people say that something should always be going on in a sandbox world when the PCs aren't looking, but I think that's the wrong approach. If you spend the whole session thinking about what the NPCs are doing, instead of what the PCs are doing, then the game is only taking place in your imagination, not theirs. DON'T make the players wander empty streets and taverns because none of them wanted to talk to the one NPC who has the hook. Instead, let the PCs breathe life into the world wherever they go.

5) Listen to the player's signals, and have modules (not necessarily pre-made/store-bought adventures) ready to go on the fly. Keep a mysterious (and self-contained) dungeon ready at all times. If they wander through the woods, they discover its entrance and describe everything as elven. If they instead burst through the door of the Ogre's home, maybe they discover its entrance in his basement, and everything inside is wet and moldy. It doesn't really matter, as long as the PCs can always find something to explore if that's what they're looking for.

6) Finally, there's one major difference between linear adventures and sandbox adventures concerning the balance of combat and roleplaying. In a traditional linear adventure it is up to the DM to pick the 'right' amount of roleplay to combat ratio. If a (potentially disruptive) player prefers combat, they can be confident that if they keep the adventure moving, the DM will get them to the fight eventually. A sandbox DM doesn't have the luxury of this trust. Instead, it is up to the players to decide how much roleplaying vs combat they want. That means they should never have to look very hard to find a fight, if they want one. If they don't, then the roleplay options are available. But never put the players in a situation where they can't find a decent fight, and they don't know where to go to advance a storyline to get to the fights. They will either get bored and stop trying, or they will get desperate and set something on fire.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Well, here's what I generally do:

First, I build the sandbox. Can't play in one if you don't have one. However, you don't need to count every grain of sand before you let them play in it. After all, who knows how much of it is going to get kicked around and spilled all over the place before everyone is done.

So, this means your basic campaign setting. You know, the two-minute sound byte version. "This is the local polity, here's how it interacts at your level, this is a general idea of how it gets along with the neighbors, these are the important people in the region" kind of thing.

Think about it like one of my favorite sandbox games: Minecraft. It only loads chunks you're actually in at the time. If you haven't gone there yet, then the game hasn't mapped it yet, and it effectively doesn't exist yet. Basically, if it's outside your player's ken, then it's still in Schrodinger's Indeterminate State, and you can pull any damn thing you want out of your arse, and it'll be continuity compliant.

Second, a sandbox game is more about the players and what they want to do. With a module, you have clearly defined everything. Because that's what it is there for. And you run the module with those rules in mind. But in a sandbox game, there are no setting limitations.

With that in mind, it would be a good idea to know what the players want to do with their characters. Does your players want to run a game full of intrigue, mystery, and winning the day through cunning wit and attention to detail? Then, my good Watson, the game is afoot. Do they want a simple hack n slash gorefest and bathe in the entrails of their fallen foes? Cue the invading horde of <insert flavor of the week>. Are they looking for a dungeon crawl? Great! They get a message from <NPC> saying that <McGuffin> has been stolen by <flavor of the week> and taken it to <noun-verb descriptive nominative of adverb>. Pull up a random dungeon generator (personally, I like using Diablo. Every time you bring it up, it generates a new dungeon. Just start a new game, map out the first five levels) and you're good to go.

Also, if your players are used to sandbox games, they may already have character goals in mind. Keep these in mind when you throw new and interesting things their way.

Third, keep records! No, really, this is the difference between a series of one-off games, and a sandbox game. If your party runs through a dungeon, keep a copy of the map for your records, with notations on where in your sandbox it was found. That way, if they ever want to go back, you've got it in your notes. You never know when your players want to back-track for something... or when your players realize that they overlooked something awesome and have to go back for it.

Fourth, throw out several plot hooks, and see what they bite on. The ones they go for, you develop. The others fall by the wayside. You'll soon get a feel for where your players want to go, so you can keep developing your world in that direction.

In short, you don't have to make a world down to the last detail. Throw a blanket over the world and let the players interact with it and learn about it as you develop it. Save yourself hours upon hours of blood, sweat, and tears... and remember the Voltaire song... "Bounce a graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish..."

[Xyk]

I've been building a sandbox for my players to play in while they're out of town. i've never effectively run a sandbox game in the past, but I think 'm doing it right this time.

I currently have a city, the area surrounding the city, and an outline of the city's history all mapped out. Additionally, I have 17 (I counted, it's actually that many) plot hooks that are available for the players to follow. Included in those 17 are some that are posted in the tavern bulletin boards, some that are scattered around town (unlikely to be found, but would be cool if they were), and some that will jump out at the players so that it doesn't get stale or frustrating. I have only basic notes on each plot hooks, that describe how the players might encounter the adventure and what obstacles they'll find. If I need a dungeon, I'll draw one on the spot. Improvisation will be key here.

[Ravens_cry]

If they are new to it, start slowly, like a river leading to the ocean, subdividing into a hundred different rivulets at the delta before moving into the broad wide ocean. While doing so, reward initiative when it happens. Sooner or later, they will (hopefully) realize this is a game where everything is possible.