How do GMs allocate time/creativity in sandbox games?

[Renen]

I am playing in a sandbox game with 3 other people and a single GM running us. A slight issue we have is how much time it takes for the GM to "math out" all the effects/results of player actions.
Since each of the players is in a separate area of the world, and can do w/e they want, the GM has to consider the effects their actions have (The GM wants it to be realistic to atleast some degree).

Are there any ways in which GM can be made to worry abit less about some things? One possibility I thought of so far is having each player have a set number of "quests" or active story lines they can have, so that the GM can focus on how actions that affect those things would unfold, and ignore some other areas (to prevent the GM's brain from melting due to absorbing so much info).

Here's an explanation of my thoughts that I shared with another player, and I hope someone can suggest some more stuff we can use to help the GM know what stuff he can worry about less when running the game:


. Perhaps it would be good to simplify the game a bit in the following manner (to make it easier on the GM): Each player is allowed to have X amount of "big" ongoing plot events, and Y amount of small ones. So say we get 1 big and 2 small. For my character, a big Ongoing event would be rebuilding my City. This will actively generate small sub-plots that the GM can throw at me, and will require the GM to actively "keep track" of my City thing. My small plots would be training my protégé, and sending some dudes to reinforce the war. Both are also tracked by GM to see if something new might come from them, but are much smaller in scope. All the other stuff I do is made abit less important in the long run. So he doesn't have to keep track of consequences for a dozen things I do. So it would be like us picking what quest chains to do, and thus what parts of the world to interact with. So if none of our current chains has anything to do with country X for example, the GM can forget country X exists. Sure, it might be abit weird to just have all of country X to ignore stuff we do, but we gotta simplify somewhere...

The GM can also have a few "secret" quests going for us. Like if I kill some random guy who was actually some warlord, the GM can make it cause problems for me because it's a secret quest chain. It won't take up a slot of my normal quests, and I won't know about it. He should prolly have a limit for the secret ones too. So if I then go and accidentally eat the last dragon egg, he can just totally drop the warlord thing (and never have it come up again, or be on indefinite pause in case I free up some quest slots), and instead focus on how much of a monster I am for eating the last dragon egg
You have your industrial revolution as your big quest, for example, so unless you want it to magically stop progressing (it's still around, but won't spread further, and people won't learn how to use it better), you can't do any other "big" things, that would have to demand the GM's attention
I'm sure it can work and not even look weird to have some events temporarily not progress. Might even be realistic, as sometimes big events even in real life just lead nowhere, because people forgot, people got busy, people died, etc.

[Crake]

I did a similar thing, except it was all the players in a single megacity rather than spread across the world. In terms of keeping things in sync, make each real-time week have an in game period. The period should depending on the pace of your game, in mine it was a week for a week, so each in game day corresponded to an out of game day, but if your game is more macro level then perhaps a week for a month? This will limit the amount the player can do not by setting a hard cap, but by giving the players a limited amount of time to work with. They could do many smaller quests within that time, or focus their attention on something bigger, possibly even spanning several periods. This will give the GM the ability to, at the end of each month, take some time and figure out how things have progressed over that particular period.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My first thought is "why are all the PCs in different places doing different things?" Sandbox play is no excuse for wandering off alone for extended periods of time.

[Renen]

My first thought is "why are all the PCs in different places doing different things?" Sandbox play is no excuse for wandering off alone for extended periods of time.

Because it's not a traditional dnd party game. The setting is Westeros (with start date being the start date for the 1st book). The players are all dropped into the world in various areas (and have knowledge of the books, so you sorta know some stuff and abit about the "future" but really, due to player meddling stuff like war of the 5 kings is probably not gonna happen and it's only been 2 months in game).
So as mentioned above, the GM does make sure that no player gets too far ahead in the timeline. But we currently have a player in each of the following (if you know GoT as a setting): Astapor, Kings Landing, Old Town, and Pentos. So players are all over and 2 of the 4 are making big waves. So I am just trying to think how the GM (who voiced some concerns about amount of work he might have to start putting in) can cut down on the number of details he has to constantly be aware of.

[Anxe]

Because it's not a traditional dnd party game. The setting is Westeros (with start date being the start date for the 1st book). The players are all dropped into the world in various areas (and have knowledge of the books, so you sorta know some stuff and abit about the "future" but really, due to player meddling stuff like war of the 5 kings is probably not gonna happen and it's only been 2 months in game).
So as mentioned above, the GM does make sure that no player gets too far ahead in the timeline. But we currently have a player in each of the following (if you know GoT as a setting): Astapor, Kings Landing, Old Town, and Pentos. So players are all over and 2 of the 4 are making big waves. So I am just trying to think how the GM (who voiced some concerns about amount of work he might have to start putting in) can cut down on the number of details he has to constantly be aware of.

If you really want it to be that much like GoT with the split narrative and deep character development... There might not be a way for the GM to cut back on what he has to do.

However, since it is a non-traditional campaign, you could collectively work out how stuff occurs. Player A takes over a bit of the DMing for Player B so the DM can focus more on what's happening in Player C's story.

[RoboEmperor]

Don't split the party. This is a universal rule in d&d. You split the party, the game is ruined. Period. End of story.

Your problem has nothing to do with sandbox play.

Solution: Get back together, and never split up.

[Crake]

Don't split the party. This is a universal rule in d&d. You split the party, the game is ruined. Period. End of story.

Your problem has nothing to do with sandbox play.

Solution: Get back together, and never split up.

I'm fairly sure the point of the game was to split up. The players never even began near each other, and I assume there's going to end up being an aspect of pvp in the game as well, when different players' motivations and goals conflict.

[RoboEmperor]

I'm fairly sure the point of the game was to split up. The players never even began near each other, and I assume there's going to end up being an aspect of pvp in the game as well, when different players' motivations and goals conflict.

If that's the case then you don't do 1 group session. You do 3 individual sessions. Otherwise not only do you need to "math out", but you also twiddle your thumbs and do nothing for 2/3s of the session.

[Crake]

If that's the case then you don't do 1 group session. You do 3 individual sessions. Otherwise not only do you need to "math out", but you also twiddle your thumbs and do nothing for 2/3s of the session.

I imagine that's exactly what the GM is doing? Running each individual player separately. What the OP is asking is if there's a way to help reduce the load on the GM by suggesting some kind of system to keep things flowing without overloading him.

[RoboEmperor]

I imagine that's exactly what the GM is doing? Running each individual player separately. What the OP is asking is if there's a way to help reduce the load on the GM by suggesting some kind of system to keep things flowing without overloading him.

If that's what they are doing, then what is the problem? Is the DM "mathing out" so much that he postpones/cancels sessions?

In anycase though, this sounds like a book keeping problem, nothing more. He's gotta act like a computer, make lists of things that can be affected, and go through them 1 by 1 methodically.

I need to know his exact process, what he's doing, before I can make a suggestion.

1. PC1 takes item A at location A. Item A is no longer at location A. When PC2 goes to location A, there will be no Item A. What kind of "mathing out" is required here?
2. PC1, in his side quest, kills NPC A. NPC A was supposed to give PC2 a quest, but being dead, can no longer do that. What kind of "mathing out" is required here?
3. NPC A was harassing PC1, but PC2 assassinated him. Now the harassment stops briefly until a replacement NPC takes over NPC A's former title, and may do things differntly. What kind of "mathing out" is required here?

I mean like, I don't understand how "mathing out" could possibly take more than 1 hour at most. You just log the current PC's actions and change the world based on that. Computer Science term here is differencing library. What exactly is making him spend so much time here? We need more details.

How exactly are "big ongoing plot events" eating up the DM's time? How exactly are the "secret quests" increasing his workload? What do you do in a session that creates a huge wave of work/calcutions for the DM?