success of sandbox?

[STsinderman]

Just wondering what people think of the implementation of the sandbox model for an rpg campaigni am currently working on. Despite having never been in one, i have been thinking of implementing this in a post-apocalyptic [nWod Vampire] campaign and would be interested in hearing any experience had by those who have given the it a try or been in a game that did. Thanks in advance.

[Morghen]

The two most important things a sandbox campaign requires:

• Self-motivated players
• A GM who is either excellent at improvising and has a healthy dose of preparation already done or a GM who is psychotically devoted to preparing material

[Kaun]

• Self-motivated players

Boom this!

Make sure your players want a sandbox, because players who don't want a sandbox in a sandbox game = bad.

I have played with many people over the years who just don't like sandbox style games.

It also pays to make sure they understand what a sandbox style game is.

[obryn]

One note of warning... While I think the concept of wandering into an over-leveled area is pretty awesome (great risk! great reward!), hardly anyone talks about the boring waste of time that occurs when wandering into an under-leveled area. :)

-O

[Grail]

The best way to run it is to make it a sandbox game but don't give them the impression that it is, and at the same time give them the impression that it is a sandbox game, whilst subtly leading the party where you want.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but it's not really.

A Sandbox game should be able to run as both styles when required, but the players should never know that the setting style has changed. The best way to accomplish this is to really know your players well. It's easy to dangle a juicy carrot for players to lead them from one to the other if you know what will motivate them or intrigue them enough to follow.

As others have said, you need to be able to improvise well. But you also need prepped material. If you try to wing an entire campaign, canny players will start to notice glaring plot holes and inconsistencies and then the game can unravel.

Have an over-arching metaplot that will run in the background whether or not the characters get involved. This way, you are tying everything together above, behind and infront of the scenes for the players and their characters. It gives you a good stepping stone from sandbox to railroad as well, allowing the characters to step back and forth into the metaplot as they desire. It will also give the world a real feeling, where things are moving around the characters.

[Totally Guy]

A Sandbox game should be able to run as both styles when required, but the players should never know that the setting style has changed.

The other style being what? I'm pretty sure there are more than two.

[Grail]

No need to be glib.

Sandbox and Railroad being two polar opposites, everything else in the middle is just variations of the two being blended. Generally though, they are the two game styles that people think about the most.

[supermonkeyjoe]

No need to be glib.

Sandbox and Railroad being two polar opposites, everything else in the middle is just variations of the two being blended. Generally though, they are the two game styles that people think about the most.

Agreed, I'd say it's more of a scale than two distinct styles, absolute Railroading being absolute slavish devotion to the singular plot no matter what, absolute Sandbox being "here's a world, do whatever"

Personally I think both types are as bad as each other, that's not to say some games don't work well as absolute Sandbox or absolute Railroad but there needs to be some semblance of an overarching plot or at least some interesting events in a sandboxy game or else it's likely to be doomed to mediocrity.

[hamlet]

Boom this!

Make sure your players want a sandbox, because players who don't want a sandbox in a sandbox game = bad.

I have played with many people over the years who just don't like sandbox style games.

It also pays to make sure they understand what a sandbox style game is.

Indeed, this.

I recently tried to run a sandbox type campaign (with some overarching themes and stories - as opposed to "plot" - going on) and the players were, for the most part, unmotivated. They were happy to develop their characters and personalities, but when it came to actually picking up on motivations and things to do, even though I dropped quite a number of things into their hands, they were very hesitant to do anything unless led about by the nose.

Sometimes, I think it's adviseable to hold a preliminary talk where you explain your intent to the players, tell them that they're in a sandbox and that you're setting the stage and letting them act/interact rather than setting them onto the rails of a plot train. Let them know that they're expected to contribute as much as you do to what happens and that they're not just characters in a predetermined story.

[hamlet]

This is not a double post, citizen.

Move along.

[STsinderman]

Of course there will be world events going on in that will continue to progress and be altered by the players actions, and there will likely be some semi structured aspects placed around carrots that will not necessarily be picked up by the players and that unto itself will alter some of the later events.

[Oracle_Hunter]

The two most important things a sandbox campaign requires:

• Self-motivated players
• A GM who is either excellent at improvising and has a healthy dose of preparation already done or a GM who is psychotically devoted to preparing material

#1 cannot be overemphasized. If your Players are not willing to tell their own stories -- that is, be proactive rather than merely reactive to the world -- then your Sandbox will fail.

#2 can be elaborated upon. While Sandboxing requires a ST that is especially capable at improvising, it is almost more important to be a ST willing to "roll with the punches." It is important in a Sandbox for the Players to feel that they have a lot of ability to affect the story and that means the ST has to say "yes" more than he may feel comfortable. If the Players decide they are going to dethrone the Prince the ST has to make a story out of that rather than summarily slapping them down with a visit from the Sheriff. When the Players decide they want to pursue a goal, the ST needs to facilitate it no matter how stupid he may think it is -- that is the heart of a Sandbox: the Players get to decide what story they want to tell.

Preparedness by the ST, on the other hand, is no more important than in normal games -- it merely needs to be approached differently. Rather than preparing materials independently, the ST should get more direct input from the Players as to what the next session should obtain. IMHO, it is good for a Sandbox ST to give the Players some sort of "Player Survey" before the game to figure out what the Players want to get out of the game and what motivates the Characters. This information will help the ST prepare some basic storylines that can snag the Players' interests and then can prepare normally along those lines. Additionally, if the Players go radically "off the rails" in regards to how the ST understood their motivations and desires it can be helpful for the ST to sit down with the Players and figure out where they'd like the story to go -- and design along those lines.

A Sandbox ST only needs to prepare for anything if he doesn't know what his Players are going to do next. You can cut down on prep time dramatically by asking beforehand

EDIT:

Of course there will be world events going on in that will continue to progress and be altered by the players actions, and there will likely be some semi structured aspects placed around carrots that will not necessarily be picked up by the players and that unto itself will alter some of the later events.

A warning here -- if your Players don't care about the World Events then your Sandbox will either fail or cease being a Sandbox. The heart of a Sandbox is that the Players decide which story to tell; any game which has an overarching storyline independent of Player desires should not be called a Sandbox. Ideally, if you want to run the game you describe above, tell your Players beforehand "I'm giving you a lot of leeway in how you want to resolve the central conflict, but there will be a central conflict that needs to be resolved." That way you won't face a Player Revolt halfway through the campaign when the Players decide they'd rather road-trip to Miami rather than face the Apocalypse.

[STsinderman]

In truth much of what you are describing in #2 there seems more like a multi-narrator system than a sandbox storyteller. That being said it is always a good to get an idea of what the players would be interesting in exploring. It is also important to note that as being vampires they will have the beast at their backs so to speak, they will need to continue to find blood.

[Honest Tiefling]

My advice is to prepare not just the story, but what your PCs tend to do. You can probably ignore dethroning the prince for instance, if your PCs are in love with paladins.

If your PCs are like my gaming group (About as easily herded as angry cats) then make world events not centered around danger, but change. New ruler in town looking for some muscle to make sure things work out? They can ignore it if they want. New mine opening needing a cleanout of former residents, but also changing where the money is and what is available? They can ignore it if they want. Religion picking a new high priest? Again, can ignore it.

[Oracle_Hunter]

In truth much of what you are describing in #2 there seems more like a multi-narrator system than a sandbox storyteller. That being said it is always a good to get an idea of what the players would be interesting in exploring. It is also important to note that as being vampires they will have the beast at their backs so to speak, they will need to continue to find blood.

Multiple narrators are what happens when you run a Sandbox with more than one Player

Like I said, if you intend to run the sort of game it sounds like you do (i.e. ST storyline with room for Player modification) you probably shouldn't sell it to your Players as a Sandbox. Violating Player expectations about a game tend to end poorly either from headbutting ("I thought this was a Sandbox! Why do we need to do this story?") to Player Revolt ("Screw the apocalypse! We're going on a road-trip!"). Better to align Player Expectations with the sort of story you plan to tell than to surprise them later on.

Also: "finding blood" is not a very good whip to crack on Vampires. Blood is actually fairly easy to find (unless nWoD did something funky) and Players will rebel if they feel like the ST is restricting their blood intake in order to spur them in a particular direction.

[STsinderman]

Multiple narrators are what happens when you run a Sandbox with more than one Player

This is not the case at all, it is possible to have the characters making their own decisions without the players actually having any forewarning or other additional input than me knowing what they are thinking of doing.

Also: "finding blood" is not a very good whip to crack on Vampires. Blood is actually fairly easy to find (unless nWoD did something funky) and Players will rebel if they feel like the ST is restricting their blood intake in order to spur them in a particular direction.

Blood which in every system may not be the easiest to get your hands on depending on your status and the current situation. This is amplified when in a post-apocalypse (meaning not an excessive number of humans around) when many more of the people around will not be quite so easy to snack on.

[Oracle_Hunter]

This is not the case at all, it is possible to have the characters making their own decisions without the players actually having any forewarning or other additional input than me knowing what they are thinking of doing.

Uh, games in which characters make their own decisions are not "sandboxes" by most definitions of the terms. Nor, for that matter, are ones in which characters can make decisions that matter to the overall storyline.

At any rate, most Players won't associate "sandbox" with those definitions and it'll definitely go better all around if you make sure your Players know exactly how much volition you're permitting to them in your campaign.

Also: my point about blood-as-stick remains. Players will react in varying ways to being beaten with Plot Sticks but Players in a "sandbox" campaign typically react the most poorly of all.

[kyoryu]

Burning Wheel has an interesting mechanic for dealing with sandbox games (since BW games allow players to introduce facts or characters with skills, it's kind of hard to be *too* railroady in the system).

Each character has three "Beliefs". Beliefs can change over time, and acting within your Beliefs gains you Artha, which is kind of like Fate points, except probably more pivotal.

This acts as a kind of two-way conversation with the GM - by setting Beliefs, a player tells the GM what kind of game they want to play/story they want to tell. This gives the GM info on what to prepare, as well as giving soft incentive for players to actually stick with what the GM sets up instead of going totally random.

A pretty common tactic is to have players have one of their Beliefs be in pursuit of a common goal. This is usually discussed before the game, as sitting the players down and deciding what type of game you're going to play is a pretty common occurrence.

[Raum]

Just wondering what people think of the implementation of the sandbox model for...

Success (or failure) of sandbox* campaigns depends far more on GM and players than on setting. With the right people you can run just about anything unscripted, it simply requires players willing to be proactive and a GM willing to relinquish some amount of narrative control.

*Campaigns tend to land somewhere on a continuum from tightly scripted to completely unscripted. "Sandbox" may cover a large portion of said continuum. As GM, it may be more useful to consider what you think should be scripted and what you think should be left to the players rather than whether or not it's a 'sandbox'.