Sandbox campaigns: yes/no, why?

>>49969386
No, because generally the GMs who advertise their game as sandbox have no idea of WTF they're doing.

>>49969386
Yes. But they need direction to prevent choice paralysis.

>There are ruins to the swamps in the south
>There are goblins raiding from the hills
>There might be a vampire or werewolf at large in the town
>Or you can set out in a direction of your choosing and explore

Players who ask for it 90% of the time can't handle making their own goals. I tell people "you as a party need to come up with a clear goal and motivation to work towards" and they'll come to me with nothing then complain that they don't know what to do. They literally ask for no direction and can't direct themselves. What is even worse is that these players are often the ones screaming "muh agency" it an outside force in setting ever stops them from doing anything. I've had players throw a fit when guards break up a bar room brawl and try and arrest them. The last time that happened they killed a guard, the guards blew signal whistles for reinforcements and the party died an hour into the campaign because they kept refusing to put their weapons down.

Then they have the gall to complain "I gave them no choice". What the fuck did they expect the guard to do? Say "yes thank you for stabbing Henry".

>>49969386

Yes, because it gives players a huge amount of freedom.
Yes, because once my initial prep is done, it practically runs itself from there on out.

No, because players freed from a railroad for the first time can be aimless, like an old caged bird finally let out who stares blinking at the vast horizon and just sits there paralyzed.
No, because that initial prep is so much larger than for a more railroady campaign and my free time isn't what it used to be.


So it depends.

>>49969386
Sandbox campaigns stopped working in 1980. What you can do is a semi-sandobox though, with a bunch of fixed points the players can face in the order they prefer + room for some improv.

>>49969386

They're generally more trouble than they're worth.

To have a true sandbox, you need to have a PC driven narrative, as opposed to an NPC driven narrative (usually the BBEG). That means, right off the bat, the simplest and probably still most played drive for conflict out of the picture right from the beginning.

Most players do not have deeply formed goals, and it is of course difficult for them to do so, since everything their PC knows ultimately comes from the GM, and can be disqualified or invalidated depending on how the GM built the world.

Furthermore, RPGs are usually a group activity. While you do have 1 player to 1 GM games, they're VERY rare. More common are groups from 4-6. If the primary drive comes from the GM through an NPC, stop the threat of whatever, it's easy to keep those players pointed in more or less the same direction. In a sandbox though, there is no such binding, and unless those guys are thinking very closely together, you'll usually wind up with them pursuing different or contradictory goals.

At which point, one of two things usually happens.

A) The most dominant OOC personality in the player group winds up getting the other PCs to do his bidding the majority of the time.

B) You wind up splitting into several mini-sessions each time, as players are constantly splitting up to do their own things, with all the headaches that implies.

I don't like to do them myself. I'll usually offer many different solutions to the problems I present to the players (Remember, the opposite of a sandbox isn't a railroad, the opposite of a sandbox is an NPC driven narrative structure), but sandboxes are trouble and a metric fuckton of work.

>>49969386
I ran one that was a huge success, because the party had a primary goal, and I let them do whatever they wanted to achieve it. Once they started exploring the city, they found what they needed through investigation.

>>49969386
Freedom is wasted on most people.
It should only be grated to those who can find their own purpose.

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As with everything, depends on setting, GM, system and group.

Atomic Highway works well for post-apoc sandbox campaigns. I'd go so far as to say any post-apoc campaign that ISN'T sandbox is missing out. Build the setting, fill it with hazards and challenge, give the PCs some reason to not split up (distance-activated bomb collars are perfect) and set them loose on the world. Fuel, food and water are all the plot catalyst you need.

If you want a wider plot, develop it slowly using stuff the PCs have already done.

>>49969620

Sometimes the only way to teach someone to swim is to toss them in and let them figure it out.
You can't practice being free until after you're free.

>>49969548
Why did they stop working exactly in 1980? I was a baby then so I wouldn't know.

Generally it usually feels more like night at the improv for the gm. Things feel scattered and misdirected with players trying to do their own thing and the gm having to accommodate them. I would like it for a truly unpredictable story but more often than not it ends up as a less refined railroaded story where the gm had to ad lib the plot together. I mean, you don't want them following your movie script as the alternative but I think most players don't pick up on each other's ideas as well as the gm does. I would stand to argue that it gets railroaded one way or another and the only difference is the gm has much more potent tools at their disposal.

Sure, if you're able to run one. I had a dm that made several books worth of adventure spread over a large map. I still can't believe he didn't want to save a copy for posterity.

>>49969386
Sandbox campaigns work only if you give the players an initial goal.

Give the players an original goal, like "the empire are bitches, wreck it. You'll need to get money for that, though."

Then you can let them do whatever they want, pretty much.

>>49969386
I prefer to have sporadic sandbox sessions or scenes in a non-sandbox campaign. It's good to give the players time "for themselves", even if they're on an epic quest to save the princess or remove a curse this can't be the only thing they do.

Unless that's the only thing they want to do, of course. But the good thing about sandbox scenes is that they can last from 5 minutes to a whole session. If they're not interested on exploring this town they can leave and the main plot continues.

>>49969386
sometimes

>>49969642
>give the PCs some reason to not split up (distance-activated bomb collars are perfect)
>Listen here players, I'll give you absolute freedom in this campaign. A good old sandox. If you split you're gonna fucking DIE though.

Good way to blow up the freedom vibe from the start, anon.

>>49969686
thinking the other anon's remarks is more than a shitty troll

>>49969685
That's a fair point. On the other hand - to use your analogy - you should not throw people into the water if they never asked about swimming in the first place.

>>49969888
>only absolute freedom is worth having in a game
not really

>>49969642
Post apocalyptic sandboxed are good mainly because they already lay out some basic goals. Surviving is actually a challenge to some degree, and the players can't just dick around at an inn forever.

The drive to simply find enough food and supplies might spur them to try and build their own settlement or society, which in turn will bring them into conflict with raiders.

It works much better than a fantasy setting where the players can just do mundane work for pay with nothing really going amiss.

>>49969386

Depends.

Mostly on DM skill.

Best combo in my experience was skilled DM and new Setting that most players at least knew remotely or even played before.

Our DM was kick-ass good even if a bit autist. He threw 4 of us into Warhammer Fantasy world. He, other dude and me, we knew the system and lore but two other only starched the surface. As a band of rugged mercenaries looking for loot and booty we were free to explore in ANY direction. We let the two newcomers decide what we did. It was complicated set of goals but started very simply.

'Seen nice vampire film yesterday, lets go fuck with Sylvania.'

DM adapted and it went fast from on the go session into one of best pretty well structured campaignings i played.

>>49969530
Henry was a Nancy anyway

>>49969386
I'd say No, but hear me out; most sandboxes pretty much run slowly to begin with and then gain speed as the players get into the plot lines that they have selected.

I think it's better to just speak to your players at the start, discuss options about how they want the campaign to go and what they want from a campaig, with the GM building the campaign to suit what they want.

>>49969956
You don't understand, the amount of freedom is irrelevant. Your lack of subtlety is the problem. If your idea to prevent the group from spliting is unceremoniously telling your players "you're gonna stay together or I'll kill you all", you might as well not give a single on-rol explanation and just ask them to not split.

The appeal of a sandbox campaign is the feeling of free will, breaking it in a such rough manner is not a good way to play it. Deus ex machina like that are rarely attractive, but even less in this case. Specially since there's more subtle ways to keep the group united (normally backstory).

The secret is to make like it's a sandbox campaign, but no matter where the players decide to go, they always encounter events just in the order you planned them.

>>49970091
how about
>you're mostly gonna stay together or you're a bunch of retards
instead?

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>>49970133

As a GM this post makes me angry.

I always consider "sandbox" an illusion.

Let us say the players are at a crossroads. If they go down path A, bandits will attack them (because I prepared an encounter with bandits), if they go down path B, bandits will attack them (the same bandits), if they turn around and head back to town, bandits will again attack them. They do not know that all three paths lead to the same encounter, and thus the illusion is maintained. Sure, path A, B, and turning around lead to different destinations. The scenery may change (Path A goes by a lake, path B heads into the swamp), but on a whole I have only a set amount of time to prepare encounters, loot tables, and NPCs. Thus I have a set list of ones I use.

In the sandbox you still draw from the same list.

As well, it is easy to make players hate someone. Have a mayor publicly humiliate them. Have a bandit pretend to be a traveler and steal from them at night. Have a wizard sodomize one of them with his staff with a knob on the end. You can easily direct PCs towards certain ends with the most abundant emotion players normally have, contempt.

>>49970179
Way better to be honest, unless all the characters are dumb as fuck. There's nothing wrong with threatening your characters with death as long as you can disguise it as "this is how the setting is".

Of course, if you're just telling them it's dangerous to go alone out there, it's more possible that one of them will ignore you than if you put a bomb on their necks. But I think it's worth it. Just kill the retard who went alone knowing it was dangerous (but give him the opportunity to survive) and make him an example.

>>49970213
There is an element of truth in it though; players generally prefer a tight narrative experience with carefully balanced encounters and meaningful decisions, these are much harder to produce in a sandbox campaign as the density of events is much lower and true freedom means having random, too easy or unfair opponents.

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>>49970133
As a GM this post is literally how I make half of my campaigns and they're always a blast.

Don't do it if you're uncapable of hiding what you're doing though.

>>49970288
If it's post apocalypse, it's easy to justify. Have each group attacked by a couple of wolves at night. The group will be fine thanks to having numbers and posting a watch. The loners will get surprised in their sleep and be outnumbered.

And they won't be able to claim it's unfair because the main group got attacked as well.

>>49970318

That's why you set up regions of harder and easier opponents, so that players can decide how far they want to push, and how much risk they want to take. Do you even sandbox?

Players can gamble by going into a higher risk area and maybe they get a huge score and get out without being caught, or maybe they get wrecked. Alternately, they can stay in safer regions where they know they can handle things, but they won't be getting such huge payoffs, either.

>>49970252
>>49970330
>railroading intensifies

>>49969591

.t railroading retard GM.

>>49969530

>my dm has actually killed me 1hour into the campaign because I said that the food tasted horrible in a tavern and called the whole place a pile of shit after getting into an argument with the elven owner. I got out of there and killed in the same night while sleeping because some of the adventurers that frequented the place didn't took my dwarvish rage kindly (people don't like dwarves in our setting) and I didn't do so much as whine.
>see this

jesus dude, find another party, fucking crybabies

>>49970367
Now that's a perfect example, and basically why the bomb collar thing disgusted me. There's no need to use fucking bombs.

>>49970392
>>railroading intensifies
You have no idea what railroading means. Do you expect me to have encounters and scenery planned with literally every possibility the players present to me? I only have so much time, and so many NPCs to draw from. I never go "no you can not do that", I simply don't plan more than 5 fucking encounters because the effort barely even causes a ripple in campaign quality.

The players have no idea path A and B both have the same bandits, they never will know.

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>>49970392
>Players can gamble by going into a higher risk area and maybe they get a huge score and get out without being caught, or maybe they get wrecked. Alternately, they can stay in safer regions where they know they can handle things, but they won't be getting such huge payoffs, either.

>tell them this is how it is
>put some token differences
>but both ways are actually exactly the same
>players enjoy the joys of free will without free will being needed at all

That's how you railroad.

>>49970413
Yeah, the bomb collar honestly causes more problems, since the players will be using all their tech skills to try and get them off, and your only option is to say no if you want to keep it there.

Otherwise, all you've done is provide the party with some free explosives to start with.

Even if they keep them on, who would let them into a town? Nobody wants to be around the group of heavily armed wanderers that explode when they drunkenly stumble outside for a piss.

Plus, it puts a massive weakness on the party. Ordinarily you might be able,to have a kidnapping plot where the players have to mount a rescue, but now anyone who wants them dead can just drive by them really fast, impale one on a sharp stick, and floor it away from them so they all die.

>>49970440
>Planning encounters

Don't do that, then. You set up encounter tables, and you're done. The rest you improvise on the spot.

>I never go "no you can not do that"

Of course, you're not supposed to do that! You don't get credit for not being awful, dude..


>>49970461

By doing that you're invalidating their choices and rendering their tactical decisions meaningless. You railroading fuck.

>>49970490
>you're invalidating their choices and rendering their tactical decisions meaningless

How is that wrong?

>>49969386
Yes, because the players should be able to do what they want, within reason.
Of course, it's important to give them a goal they can strive towards, if they want to.

>>49970490
>Don't do that, then. You set up encounter tables, and you're done. The rest you improvise on the spot.
Wait wait, so you're saying fucking random encounters is better than planned encounters? That somehow rolling on a redetermined table for randomized features is better than choosing from a short list for the situation.

Actually kill yourself. God damn you're awful.

Of course you improvise a portion of the game, but planning improves the quality. If you think otherwise then you're not only wrong, you're actually retarded. Improvisation does not work for encounters of any sort of complexity due to the numerous abilities an enemy can have (unless you're one of those fucking types that say 'stats don't matter, they fall over when I think they got hit enough').

I'm actually fucking mad. Fucking hell.

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>>49970393
Good counterargument fag

>>49970578
You're getting baited!

>>49970527

Because if players want to make a decision based on risk/reward they deserve to have a chance at doing that, not just have the DM hand them the same encounter they would get otherwise. Because they're playing a game, not watching a TV show.

>>49970578

Planning can improve quality, so plan a few locations, but leave them where they are. Don't shuffle them around because the players need to see your awesome encounter regardless of what they do, that's putting your own pride above the integrity of the game space.

>>49970664
>Planning can improve quality, so plan a few locations, but leave them where they are. Don't shuffle them around because the players need to see your awesome encounter regardless of what they do, that's putting your own pride above the integrity of the game space.
So you're fucking saying, you're fucking saying, that it's better to have a list of 10 encounters and roll to get one at random rather than a list of 5 where you choose the thematically appropriate one?

I am being baited, I should stop replying.

>>49970133
If you're not Al Pacino, good luck.

>>49969386
> Normally
Sorta-sandboxes are the way to go. Freedom to fuck about, but you have a mission to do.

> Current game
The players are all fairly beta, and they're just defaulting to working for the local nobility.
I've given up on not railroading them, and shunted them onto a Plot Highway. They can stop at all the tourist trap they want, but they have somewhere to be and have to make a road trip to get there.

>>49969591
>At which point, one of two things usually happens.
This is why I give PCs something to do. Directionless sandboxes are boring, especially in a non-visual medium.

>>49970760
This works assuming you roll some dice behind the screen every time something is about to happen. Giving people illusion of choice instead of a real choice is real easy.

>>49970687

>10 encounters

Your sandbox must be tiny. Try 100 or more, grouped according to region and difficulty level. You should mix in set pieces where appropriate, but otherwise just see what the table spits out and figure out what those 4 ogres are doing at this time of night.
.

>>49969477
>>49969593
>>49969710

This, this and this.

Open ended sandbox games are my 100% favorite kind of campaign, provided two condition are met.
1) The players have something binding them together
2) The players have some kind of far-off goal with many possible solutions.

For example, we have had "A great city has stopped sending envoys, and no expeditions return. You are a band of mercenaries who might capitalise on those desperate for the return of information/items/family." A small amount of such pre-character creation 'railroading' can result in some really nice player-driven moments.

Anyone else use this/got some cool adventure seeds?

>>49969386
Run a regular campaign and don't force the players into a particular storyline. The sandbox happens on its own.

>>49969686
Random date. What I meant is that it's a style of gaming that is dated, in part for the different rulesets but most importantly because today's gamers have different assumptions about games.

>>49969899
I actually gave an honest suggestion about how I run games, so you can go die in a fire.

>>49970461
If your players fall for it, they don't deserve any better.

>>49970786
>making detailed plans for 100 encounters
How much fucking time do you have to stat 100 interesting encounters? Or are you one of those fuckers who things "three bears" is an interesting and detailed enough encount-
>and figure out what those 4 ogres are doing at this time of night.
I see you are. I mean you should preface your posts with "I'm a garbage GM".

Last time I made a large chart for a single forrest region I had a d100 roll chart with 35 encounters on it, all theme'd for just that forrest.

Seriously. Randomized encounters are not interesting. Really they aren't. If you think they are you have brain problems.

>>49970769

>This is why I give PCs something to do. Directionless sandboxes are boring, especially in a non-visual medium.

That seems to be a contradiction in terms. If you "give them something to do", you are taking them out of the sandbox as soon as you impose another narrative on top of theirs and joining PC actions to this other narrative.

I like to give player's a certain amount of freedom while still providing a guiding purpose in the background. They still need to get from Point A to Point B, but how they get there or what they do in the meantime is up to them, and if they wish to take a detour than cool.

I typically start them off with a linear, straightforward quest though just to get the ball rolling, then let things open up afterwards.

>>49970869
Giving players things to follow/things to participate in isn't ruining the sandbox. You can have a sandbox in the backdrop of a war that's destroying an empire and causing an empire to fall. This doesn't mean that because the PCs can easily participate in the war and that the war provides context that the game is no longer a sandbox. The sandbox doesn't end the second you have more than a featureless white plane.

>>49969386
Yes, but has to be very well run.

>>49970807
I spent quite a lot of time planning a sandbox campaign (or at least season inside a campaign) where the characters were in charge of the defense of a city that was about to be besieged. One of the characters who pretended to be a general was theoretically to be in charge.

But the rest of party members disliked the faux-general, who I'll accept was kind of a cunt, and killed him in the previous adventure when he felt unconscious (ie stoped being useful) after a fight with a monster. This, convined with the entrance of a new player who would've not fit the plot, made me change everything and in the end it lost all it's sandbox elements.

>>49970921

In the example given, I would argue against the notion that setting a war in the background is "giving the PCs something to do". There's always stuff going on, or at least there should be. Where you cross the line from sandbox into not-sandbox is when player participation in said war (or whatever other conflicts are going on) is dependent and driven by an NPC, not PC choice.

Really, I don't see how your example even addresses, let alone contradicts mine. Say we've got a sandbox game going. And you're in some country, and there's a war going on, causing the old political structures to decay away. Enter the players. Absent prodding from NPCs/GM directly, assuming you've made more than one sympathetic faction (otherwise, you're guiding, not too subtly, the player "choice"), you're probably going to get a split as to who, if anyone, to support among the players. And then you're right back where you've started, with either them splitting up, or the dominant personality pushing his or her will through.

At least the way I understood "Give them something to do", was much more direct and controlling. You work for the NPC who gives you instructions but a loose rein, which does end the sandbox. If you just define it as having extant quest hooks, the term is so broad as to be meaningless.

>>49970861

>one of those fuckers who things "three bears" is an interesting and detailed enough encount

Depends on what you do with the three bears. If it's "look there's three bears, roll for initiative" you're fucking up. Off the top of my head right now, I'd have them be three talking fairytale bears who want the players to help them with an intruder who's taken their house. Random chart -> interesting encounter is a big part of my job description.

>Last time I made a large chart for a single forrest region I had a d100 roll chart with 35 encounters on it, all theme'd for just that forrest.

Then you ARE doing it right. Did you miss the part about "grouped by region and difficulty?"

>>49970133
Illusionism is the secret of mediocre DMs. Either plan a true sandbox or be honest about your rails.

>>49970982
And NPC asking the players to participate in the war does not remove it from a sandbox. The players can still refuse, even if refusal had stakes it doesn't make it a non sandbox.

>>49971007
>plan a true sandbox
No such thing.

No I mean seriously I actually do not believe you if you say you planned out a world with that much detail. That requires a decade of planning and effort to make a work robust enough to be called a "true sandbox", like Malazan. Otherwise you're picking from lists. And no improvising everything doesn't count because the players did not choose they instead had an option created after the fact. There is no sand box there.

>>49970990
Except I abandoned random rolling the moment I realized it did not make for a good campaign and instead picked the thematic encounter for the moment. Randomization makes for a shit game and still does not constitute a sandbox because player choices did not effect anything except what chart they rolled on.

>>49971017

Not at that moment, no, but you're treading on very thin ice. If the game's dominant narrative comes to be about the war itself, between NPC factions in which the players are merely a lesser subordinate part, I would argue you have indeed left the sandbox.

It furthermore doesn't resolve the fundamental group dynamic problems of yielding total narrative freedom to the players while leaving them in an anarchic internal structure; if you have different players with different attitudes and thigns they want to do about the war, the mere fact that the war exists won't turn them into a unified grouping.

>>49971066
>no improvising everything doesn't count because the players did not choose they instead had an option created after the fact.

That is some weird self-justifying sophistry right there.
The players chose the thing, the DM has to flesh it out. That's categorically different from the DM fleshing something out beforehand and then giving it to the players whether it's what they chose or not.
This is not railroading, any more than it would be railroading for the players to tell you ahead of time what they wanted to see in the next session, and then you planned specifically that for them.

>>49971092
>Randomization makes for a shit game

If you're a shit DM, yeah. A good DM should be able to tie all sorts of weird stuff together and make something out of it.

>does not constitute a sandbox

For bizarro definitions of sandbox, maybe.

Twilight 2000 did sandbox fairly well

>>49970133

So the now shit "Quantum Ogre" strategy?

>>49971105
>That is some weird self-justifying sophistry right there.
See, I disagree entirely. What is a "sandbox" game? A sandbox game is a world that exists that the players interact with where their choices matter. If the world is improved then there is no existing world to interact with and instead a world that reacts to them.

One can not be a sandbox and still not railroad. In this case with improvisation it constitutes a non-sandbox non-railroad, instead a reactive world.

One can have a railroad sandbox, a non-sandbox railroad, a sandbox non-railroad, and a non-sandbox non-railroad.

A world that does not already exist is not a sandbox as there is no sandbox, merely something that is made on the spot to please the players.

>>49971066
>no one can possibly have that kind of imagination
>it's railroading to follow the player suggesstions
>picking from lists is not sandbox it's railroading
>reeerreereeerreeereeee you're wrong I'm right I think your dumb

>>49971123
>If you're a shit DM, yeah. A good DM should be able to tie all sorts of weird stuff together and make something out of it.
And it will pale in comparison to someone of the same skill level actually planning things. Really, tell me, how does randomization improve the experience over planning in anything other than you fellating yourself over how "player choice matters".

>>49969386
IMO Sandbox campaigns are not inherently bad. BUT they require three things a normal campaign does not (necessarily) need.

1. A GM who can improvise. Like a pro. In my experience, sandbox games usually have shitty quickly drawn maps- because most of it has to be done on the fly. If you don't care about hyper-realistic pretty maps, this shouldn't be a problem.

2. Players with some god damn gumption. I've seen groups who both take very easily to sandboxing and others who don't, and the big difference is that the groups who do usually consist of players who are willing and capable to push the story forward on their own, without being led about by the nose.

3. A FINITE, DEFINITE GOAL. This is the most important- Most people assume "Oh sandbox, you're free to do whatever!" But if you're doing whatever, usually you can't do anything because you leave you players without a compass in the middle of the forest. The group either needs to decide on an objective or you need to present them a scenario with one.


If these three qualities are present, then sandbox campaigns work just fine. I've seen "sandbox" campaigns both with and without them- and consistently only the ones with them either lasted or weren't terrible.

>>49971169
>If the world is improved then there is no existing world to interact with and instead a world that reacts to them.

That's a point with no point, though. The world exists in potentio, as it spring from the GM's brain. It doesn't matter whether it comes out of his brain before the session or during, the results are mostly the same -- with the exception that if he does it during the session, he can react to the player's actions with more fidelity than if he had to guess what those actions were going to be. The world thus feels richer and more real, because it responds to them in accordance with their actions.

>>49971184
You can have that kind of imagination. There are numerous books with that detailed worlds. However worlds of that caliber takes decades to craft.

I mean, if you can honestly say you spent a decade crafting a campaign then great. Why aren't your applying this imagination and dedication elsewhere.

>it's railroading to follow the player suggesstions
No, but it is not a sandbox either.

>picking from lists is not sandbox it's railroading
No, it is neither railroading or a sandbox. Railroading is if your choices do not matter. Sandbox is an existing world one may interact with directionlessly.

If you follow suggestions you gain direction and thus lose the sandbox, but player choices matter and thus it is not a railroad.

>>49969888
It's not a sandbox without the BOX part. Total freedom is useless. No freedom is boring.

>>49971196
>how does randomization improve the experience over planning

It makes the world more surprising, for one, which is a big help in making it feel alive, rather than like a theme park that was set up around them.

>fellating yourself over how "player choice matters".

Yeah, I think we're done here. Fuck you.

>>49970807
You are paid to remove the strange monsters that terrorize a town. The guards and villagers says that they come from an old miner shaft. When you get deep something occurs and you get trapped, so your only option is to get deeper and deeper.

Then you go to a bigger area that its like city forum in an big cavern. In this city forum you read some rotting books and hieroglyphs they describe that the city was masive and was the capital of an ancient magical kingodm. So you learn that you are trapped in a masive underground complex.

To escape you must learn the history of the city so you can navigate and know your own location. While moving to get food ,weapons , and mcguffings that advance the campaign.

>>49971223
>It doesn't matter whether it comes out of his brain before the session or during, the results are mostly the same
And the result is mostly the same if both Path A and Path B have the same bandits on them. You can't use that as an arguing point when you have already argued against it.

>with the exception that if he does it during the session, he can react to the player's actions with more fidelity than if he had to guess what those actions were going to be.
Railroading is if the Bandits will always occur, no matter what character do. If they had never left town the bandits would have found them. If they were in a bunker, the bandits would have found them. This is an extreme example, but if the GM forces them out of town no matter what they want, and thus encounters the bandits, that is a railroad.

>The world thus feels richer and more real, because it responds to them in accordance with their actions.
A responsive world and a world created on the spot are not the same. A setting can be robust and alive without being created on the spot. I again point to Genabackis as a robust and complex world one can interact with in this manner.

>>49971245
>It makes the world more surprising, for one, which is a big help in making it feel alive, rather than like a theme park that was set up around them.
More surprising to who? The answer is to you the GM. Whether it was random or not your player did not know what was coming either way.

>which is a big help in making it feel alive
if you require randomization for this it is the hallmark of a terrible GM.

>Yeah, I think we're done here. Fuck you.
I mean if you simply don't have any actual points, sure.

>>49971283
>And the result is mostly the same if both Path A and Path B have the same bandits on them.

No, that's the most important thing. If the players chose to go down the road that doesn't have bandit problems, then having bandits on that road too breaks versimilitude and denies player agency, whether you decided to do that before the session or during.

>>49971331
>If the players chose to go down the road that doesn't have bandit problems, then having bandits on that road too breaks versimilitude and denies player agency
Both roads have bandit problems. The roads head in different directions so from an outside perspective the bandits can't be the same people. However as the players never see both bandits on Path A and Path B them being the same bandits does not chance their experience.

Of course contradicting yourself is bad. No one is arguing otherwise. One does not require randomization to not contradict yourself, or improvisation. Thinking otherwise makes you a retard.

>>49971369
>Both roads have bandit problems.

Then the players don't have a meaningful choice to make in the first place, which I guess suits your argument just fine, huh?

>>49971066
The point is not about how big your sandbox is.
The point is that no matter how smug you are because you've hidden your rails, you are not clever. The players are there to work with you, not to fellate your ego. So if you want a linear story, do it, but be honest about it. It's probably going to turn out good.

ITT: Illusionist GMs pretend they are not railroading and get called on it

>>49971408
Path A goes through a swamp and ends in a port city. Path B heads to a lake with a village dealing with monsters from below. They have different end points, but both have problems with bandits near your town.

The fact that bandits plague both does not make the choice meaningless as the paths are different.

Every option need not bee completely distinct in every aspect for choice to be meaningful. Situations must make sense within the context, but choices from different paths being the same as others does not take away agency.

Unless you're saying along path A and B in your improvisation that they would be entirely different in every aspect, and thus not rob players of any choice.

>>49971427
So let us get down to the example at its base. The example has been expanded upon slightly.

There are two paths. Path A and Path B. These lead to different locations (one through a swamp and the other to a take), one leads to a port town rife with crime, the other to a fishing village dealings with lake monsters. If both paths have a planned bandit encounter than it robs players of meaningful choice? If both paths have bandit problems as explained to the players it robs them of choice? Where are the rails? Must every choice be different in every aspect to not be rails? Or must the GM create everything on the spot for there to not be rails, as any form of planning is rails? Or perhaps every aspect must be randomized to a point because a GM having any choice robs a player of theirs.

I am really not sure what you people are saying at this point. Because these seem asinine.

>>49969888
My man, the best kind of freedom is freedom not limited by OOC meta restraints. You either have the players free to split up (and in a wasteland, a group sticking together through thick and thin is unlikely), you have the players only sticking together because it's a game regardless of their character motivations, or you give a nice concrete ingame motivation for them to stick together, at least until they build some rapport.

It's freedom within bounds, which is the best possible form of freedom in a tabletop.

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>>49971431
>Unless you're saying along path A and B in your improvisation that they would be entirely different in every aspect,

Why wouldn't I? I don't have to throw out anything I've planned to do that.

Captcha seems to be taking your side though.

>>49971210
>3. A FINITE, DEFINITE GOAL.
This, definitely this. Before the game can start the players must agree on a goal i.e. "make characters that all have a beef with the Empire, we're playing a rebellion from start to finish. What's your first move?"

>>49971462
>These lead to different locations

By doing this you're shifting the problem space of the argument to cover up the initial one with a broader one, thus muddying the issue.

>>49971478
So, Path A and Path B share no similarities what so ever, as if they did it would rob players of choice. However Path A, because it is improvised exists in potentia and thus is not created until taken. Path B was taken and thus exists. You are saying you would not create anything along both paths that is the same as the other, despite not having created one path? The other path only exists conceptually and not statted.

As well, if you are improvising everything, let us say you are in a more complicated system. Eclipse Phase, Burning Wheel, WHF, D&D or a derivative. Are you able to improvise a mid level enemy on the spot? I highly doubt it. Did you have one to draw from? Then you need to when you created Path B to cross off a Path A contingency as being existed and unused, as you're saying something was there. Unless it doesn't actually matter in that them being different.

Why did you choose the encounter you did and would not have chosen it on Path B, if both the encounter was appropriate for both (both lead through the countryside in a region less than a 100 miles apart).

>>49971514
The fact that Path A and Path B lead to different things was in the original argument. The thing was that both Path A and Path B have the same bandit encounter on it.

You added a contradiction point that one path did not have bandit problems, which is outside the scope of the original problem.

In the scope of the original problem, that Path A and Path B exist, and that Path A goes by a Lake and Path B head into a swamp (read it >>49970252) how are bandits not appropriate for both. Do bandits hate swamps in your mind? How does this change the experience from the perspective of a player. I am willing to listen to the argument within its original scope.

>>49969956
>>49969642
what you are doing is the opposite of what we in game design try to do with games. We try to give the illusion of freedom and choice. If you can do very well at that, you can make the most linear story seem like an amazing journey of hard earned progress for the player

You are giving the player an open world with all sorts of choices they can freely make, but that ONE thing you did suddenly gives them the illusion of being a complete slave to your railroad. They can still do whatever they want, but now they feel FORCED to. And that can be a very important distinction.

Want to be more subtle about it? instead of explosive collars each person has a mcguffin that grants a short range buff to the other. They can't benefit from their own buffs, but they can radiate it to others with a macguffin. Like one person may have a small toughness buff, the other an offensive buff and so on. something very very mild, but you will find them coming up with ways to best utilize it to their benefit.

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>>49971615
>what you are doing is the opposite of what we in game design try to do with games
oh, it's "you" versus "we in game design". topkek. the spokesanon for game designers has spoken.

>>49971615
Illusionary GMing is what you do for railroaded games. We're talking about sandbox games. It's a different thrust and philosophy.

>>49971615
>>49971811
in addition, your video games mentality is showing, giving people combat buffs in exchange for breaking character is a shit idea on many many levels especially since it won't necessarily even work.

>>49971811
This thread is proof that illusionism is rampant in """""sandbox"""""" games too.

>>49971811
Explain the qualities that makes a sandbox game a sandbox in your eyes and what makes a railroad a railroad.

Because in my mind they mean thus:
>Railroad
Where player choices do not matter, in that there is equality of outcome. No matter the choices the same outcomes will occur. This is different than partial equality of process, where within different choices some portions of the journey may be the same.

>Sandbox
A world exists that the players interact with. This world acts as a world would, responding to players in a logical fashion. This however is not a world that is created on the spot, but already existing that can be drawn upon in a set manner. Players are able to interact with this world directionlessly, but may choose a direction. This is separate from equality of process and equality of outcome.

So this isn't a binary "You're either a sandbox or a railroad". There are separate descriptors.

If I was to make it more details I would have these be the factors discussed:
Equality of Outcome
Equality of Process
Improvised
Randomized
Sandbox

These are five binary points, though some are mutually exclusive. One can not both have a sandbox and a improvised campaign. Equality of Outcome and Equality of Process are both parts of railroading. If one has both quality if outcome and process in all things (and thus no choice made by players changes an aspect of the game) it constitutes a railroad. Randomization can be used, but within a predetermined set, and thus still may be a sandbox, however one does not need to be randomized to be a sandbox (and often shouldn't, as the world should react logically to a situation).

>>49971569
>have the bandits on the two paths be DIFFERENT BANDITS
You dense idiots.

>>49971862
I think what we suffer from here is many people saying you are either on a railroad or in a sandbox, where really the span of difference is much wider and more complicated.

>>49969386
You need players in the right mindset and know what they're doing. I find that letting players sandbox leads to faffing about.

>>49971862
t. increasingly nervous illusionist GM

>>49971911
The thing is however, do I stat two different sets of NPC bandits? Or do I have one set and the players will never realize the difference?

This constitutes partial equality of process, as while player choice effects some things (where they are passing through) it did not effect others (that a bandit encounter would occur). It also has no Equality of Outcome, as the paths lead to two different places (if not why are there two paths?).

So:
No Equality of Outcome
Partial Equality of Process
Partial Improvisation (as they likely do not have prewritten lines, just stats)
No Randomization
Partial Sandbox

>>49971739
so you agree with the bomb approach? I am simply making a comparison to illuminate why people would not like the game and feel rail roaded even if they are not being railroaded.

>>49971811
Yes but it is still neccessary to understan the power of illusions as in the posts I replied to you can see despite having so much freedom in the sandbox that anon designed, that simple bomb collar is enough to give the illusion that the players are being railroaded. An unintended illusion that works against what the GM is trying.

>>49971838
I will admit that the idea is hastily thrown out there with the assumption that anon would appreciate that more then other options. I would personally try a different approach entirely. Perhaps just make sure they are well aware of the fact there are tons of bandit gangs out there to make seperating the group a very foolhardy thing. especially when it comes to 'ok how do we watch and protect ourselves at night if there are only two of us to split up watch hours?'

You keep saying that like illusionism is bad or anything. I'll take a well-written campaign, illusionism or not, any day of the fucking week over a series of hastily put-together "you meet XdY [monster] in [terrain]"s.

>>49971994
most of the people in this thread sound like bratty kids hearing someone talk about an amazing magician 'oh its all not REAL magic.' 'ANYONE can o what he did once you know how!'

Yes poor illusionism sucks when u got birthday party magicians, but a top tier magician is a work of art in his mastery of tricking people and playing on their preconceptions. Hell many times I find the process of how they came to figure out to make the trick work amazing too.

if you are suitably entertained, who cares?

>>49971964
Really I must say the only things I actually do my like out of these if equality of outcome (partial or full), full equality of process, and full randomization (or anything more than minimal randomization). I do not think these make for a good campaign. I would also caution against full improvisation because even in simple systems designing an encounter on the spot will likely make them flat and one dimensional. In a complicated system like D&D fully designing 3 enemies with PC levels on the spot is something I would say is impossible to do in any reasonable amount of time.

Interesting that these tend to be the same guys who believe that if you don't create all characters with 3d6 six times in order, your party's a bunch of special snowflake optimizied powergaming munchkin caricatures.

>>49972088
Or just be me, and spend 10 years trying to make more and more sandboxy games until you can finally pull entire sandbox campaigns that are 99% improve out of your ass with good quality.

It takes some getting used to, and if you keep working on adding more and more improve into your campaigns you'll get better at it.

One of the best campaigns I ran was literally a Star Wars campaign that me and my friends decided to run once when we were bored. No planning, hadn't even planned to run a campaign. It became Saints Row Star Wars.

That being said I suck at making detailed descriptions easy, and my players demand really fast paced campaigns. So maybe my method wouldn't work very well for more detail rich campaigns.

>>49972422
Still, you don't have every single NPC in the galaxy statted out, but a bunch of generic statlines instead that you use as you see fit.

>>49972422
>It became Saints Row Star Wars.
And see, this is the path most games of your type take. Your method does not lend itself to more down to earth and detail rich campaigns.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with pure improvisation, but it does not lend itself to complex narratives.

You need not lay down tracks, but have detailed ideas before hand of the major NPCs players can encounter, major NPCs that have an effect on the world immediately around the players, and what sorts of things they may encounter until the end of the next session.

Your way is not the only way, but it is not a bad way either, merely different. It is not to my taste personally, but that is fine.

>>49972528
Yeah, its not that hard coming up with stats. I used generic stats and modified anything pertinent. I didn't use prearranged encounters or go with anything like that. They run into a dozen guards. Lets look up the guards stat template I made and make one modified by guard captain, and one modified by this. Simple easy, takes 30 seconds. With some system I do do things completely on the fly, but those are rules light. Encounter balance by the numbers tends to be a joke, unless your playing with min maxers. I get a feel for what they can handle with a few easier encounters, and then wing it. I generally have a semi-fleshed out world with only the most important NPCs stated out. Also keep notes on who is who. Although me forgetting the name of an NPC made him forever be known as "Jesus Christ" to my players. They'd be like "We gotta go check back in with jesus, and see how well he is doing with interrogating the prisoners.

>>49971994
Illusionism IS a bad thing. RPGs are a collaborative effort. If you want to lead the game in a certain direction, you don't have to hide it behind the illusion of choice because "muh ruhlroad". Just tell your players what you are going to do.

>>49972675
Then I'd be like.. his name is Percival (Or whatever retarded name I chose, since that character was supposed to be an ironic not pushover).

>>49972687
Or get better players that understand that they need group cohesion and direction in sandbox to make it runnable. Having my players try out GMing sandboxed campaigns (or any campaigns) did do wonders for their perception them though. (they quit after the first session without exception).

>>49972675
Yet some people in this thread would argue that you are giving your players illusionary freedom since your bandit groups A and B have the same stats.

>>49972814
I don't have bandit groups A and B though, since their encounters aren't fixed. That is what they are getting at. Where they go and what they do decides what they encounter. If they miss a major plot point then they better work hard to find it. (usually something bad will happen but clues will be left).

>>49972859
I just honestly don't see the distinction between the GM thinking of an encounter before the game (bad) and the GM coming up with the same encounter on the spot during the play (good). Why the first is illusionism but the second is sandbox, when the end result is the same?

>>49972859
But you will have an encounter, and they will have those stat lines? Then you are no different. No one is arguing that encounters should be exactly the same no matter what.

>>49972987
The concept is one of determinism (it was predetermined to happen no matter what), and 'free will' the players choices got them into the situation.

The first, no matter what the players do, the encounter will always be the same. The illusion of free will may be preserved, but there is no actual choice.

The second the players actions determine what, if anything, they encounter, and the GM tries to come up with something suitable. This is harder to do, and is 'free will'.

I guess the reason people are having problem with your advocating of the former is because they may see it is duplicitous. Your hiding the rails, but not actually making a sandbox.

What I usually do is something in-between. I usually provide the general premise of the campaign or general motivation, or a general limitation on area. I've done true sandbox that are completely improved, but my players like to have more direction. I hate running on the rails campaigns, and I could do that in my sleep. So I compromise by having some control over their objectives or movements to provide the players with more initial direction. I think its approach has the best of both worlds, but its all down to preference.

I personally don't see anything truly wrong with what your doing as long as everyone is having fun, but I wouldn't personally use your method (even though I've heard of it before). This is because I find it somewhat boring and a little disingenuous, but not outright duplicitous.

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>>49973338
>>49972990
>>49972987
>>49972859
>>49972814
>>49972710
>>49972695
>>49972687
>>49972675
>>49972568
>>49972528
>>49972528
>>49972422
>>49972420
>>49972088
>>49972064
>>49971984
>>49971964
CURVED. SWORDS.

The problem is that the only way to create a true sandbox is if the players are afforded direct narrative control. Otherwise, the distinction between an illusionary game and a sandbox game is meaningless. In an improv game, for example, each player knows they have agency and that their choices matter because everything that each players says is equally true. Because every player's words are equally true, players know that every action is a direct result of their own actions. Similarly, players know that their agency is being invalidated whenever another player is trying to impose their own words or actions as being more true than those of anyone else. In pretty much every RPG, however, this is not the case, as these RPGs will have a single player whose word is the most true. Because a single player's words will be true regardless of what other players do, said other players have no way of knowing whether things happen as a response to their actions or if the GM is imposing his will regardless of these actions. Therefore, illusionary games can be praised as being sandbox just as sandbox games can be condemned for being illusionary. Players only have agency so long as they believe they have agency; an ogre becomes quantum once a player declares it so regardless of whether the ogre was quantum or not, and there is nothing a GM can do to convince a player otherwise.

Whether or not a GM gives his players agency is immaterial. The only thing that matters is that the players think they have agency.

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>>49969386
I've played in a few sandbox campaigns. It's been interesting at some points, but mostly just frustrating. This is due, primarily, to the fact that the guys I play with aren't very good at making goals, so my character always had to be the guy pointing the way forward. It eventually felt like they were just follower NPCs after a while, because none of them pursued character interests or goals, and would instead just follow mine blindly into oblivion.
My character's aren't infallible. They make terrible decisions sometimes, because that's what they'd do. No one would object, despite it being an obviously bad idea, and we'd almost get killed sometimes.

>>49973714
My group calls that the Command Shepard syndrome.

>>49970133
That's just shitty. Either give them a sandbox, or give them a regular campaign. Don't fuck around and try to railroad-via-sandbox. Not only can players spot it, but it's just complicating an otherwise regular campaign and bogging it down with needless weight.

>>49973815
That's pretty much how it feels. Rarely do I get an objection to what we're doing. Admittedly, OOC, I'm the "smart guy" of the group. So they have this natural, sorta meta-based deference towards what I say, even when I come up with intentionally shitty plans.

>>49973872
Sounds like your group needs to have an ooc discussion about more participation at least. That being said this is a problem with my group (with me being forever gm). I've fixed it a few times, but unless I appoint a leader Commander Shepard always takes over. Even he is tired of it, and has tried to avoid it. In a recent premade adventure that I ran that is sandboxed in a limited area, I have a lot of success with people roleplaying a lot and everyone collaborating. So it might also be somewhat down to adventure design, character design, and setting. (it was a modern horror campaign).

>>49973952
Thanks for the advice, Anon. I'll try to talk with them about it OOC and see if I can make them aware of it.