Why do so many first-time GMs attempt open-world sandboxes or

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>>55100109
Retards tend to have big egos and over-estimate their own abilities. They also tend to blame their PLAYERS when the game fails, rather than looking at themselves.

>>55100109
Probably just down to them not knowing the amount of effort it actually takes to make and sustain a world like that.
They'll imagine it's about as easy as playing skyrim or something, but they'll be controlling the NPCs instead.
And a bit of what >>55100151 said, but I think thats more of a minority and them talking from personal experiece, I feel there's a "That GM" story in there.

>>55100109

Because that is what media is filled with.

Nobody makes simple stories of things that need to get done.

They'd rather watch a clusterfuck and then say "OMG IT SO COMPLEX"

My GM tried to do this. He wanted to make a "low-fantasy Westeros type sandbox" that ultimately went nowhere. What basically happened is that we played a linear game dotted with the occasional branching path, except shitty because in the "low fantasy" mold we started with 10 attributes which made the characters weak and unsatisfying to play for like half the campaign.

Fuck I hate low-fantasy.

I tried having a political element to my first campaign, with several factions vying for control over a city.

My players burned one of the factions' headquarters to the ground by the end of the first session.

It was a good lesson.

>>55100219
This. so many people these days want gritty realistic games, but don't realise it's lame as shit most of the time. I fucking hate Game of Thrones for this.

>>55100109
A player who wants to become a GM (as opposed to someone who starts as a GM because no one else will) probably has a lot of big dreams based on reading a lot of systems and playing in a lot of games/not playing nearly enough games. They've spent too much time fantasizing and theorizing, and not actually considering what players will do to their carefully crafted world, or how much work it will be to juggle a bunch of shit at once.

>>55100261

Game of Thrones is 100% pure garbage.

It fucks around with a bunch of lame and boring shit that is completely inconsequential to the big shit going on.

>>55100190
I agree with this guy. On the other hand, you have the people that make it too simplistic. We've all seen the amount of roll-players that just want to play Diablo.

>>55100109
>First game was a simple quest that involved hunting Dragons and fighting a Lich

It went great

It was my second game where I got cocky and tried to do an overly complicated political plot that my players could care less about

I did not know how out of hand it would get. I just couldn't keep the improv flowing. They loved it tho.

I promptly learned DnD.

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>>55100261
I think gritty and realistic can work but only with the players maintaining power though their characters are more gritty. They need some way to be special, as the GM can throw a whole world at them on a whim.

Would a gritty campaign with low-power characters work if the players had narrative resolution mechanics?
>ambushed by cannibals
I say a rival tribe shows up, and the chiefs daughter happens to be in the mix.
>cannibals rudely ungrateful when fight dies down, despite saving the chiefs daughter
I say my character vaguely remembers some tribal gibberish, attempts it as a greeting, when it is the formal challenge for marriage rights.

This would require a codified set of ways players could change situations that their low-power characters would not have been able to resolve into situations they can resolve. Also a GM who could improvise a bit.

Thoughts? Has anyone played/run something like this with success or failure? Does this sound doable in a system? Most importantly, it is a sound fix for the "game of groans" pitfall?

>>55100381
>if the players had narrative resolution mechanics?
This is actually an amazing idea. It would make the game more fun for the GM as well, because they don't know the outcome of everything as well.

I tried a sandbox game that would transition into a over arching plot. Didnt work out unfortunately. Players were fine, i just wasnt sure how to go about it.

Now i am running a simple treasure seeking game.

>>55100381

Just don't do it in D&D

That or just use the fucked up slow healing, long rest is a week, crit scars

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>>55100346
This is now a "what was your first time GMing" thread.

First time I sat in the GM chair I ran a published scenario for Rogue Trader. Except I hadn't read it all the way through more than once, had no notes, and as a result ad-libbed most of the session and ruined it.

Second outing was another published scenario this time for Eclipse Phahse. This time I took notes, and listened to an LP recording of someone else running the same scenario. Huge success, even managed to pad out what should have been two sessions into five or six full of content.

>>55100381
>>55100474
I would think D&D, a system about people with magic superpowers who fight demons and win, bend dragons to their will, and have numerous IN CHARACTER ways of solving a situation forcefully would not need as much situational control, as they can fight out of most situations.

D&D is probably not suited for this, though Fantasycraft might be.

>>55100704
My first was a published 4e module. It started with the player's arriving in a small town and contained lots of information about what the player's would encounter depending on where they went in the town.

Unfortunately, it didn't say what to do if the PCs decide to climb up into an unoccupied guard tower and set up camp, so I rapidly had to improvise.

I made a few blunders and the entire thing felt like a bit of slow, controlled train wreck from my POV, but the player's really enjoyed it, so I must have done something right...

>>55100109
>open-world sandboxes
Because traditional gaming is so often sold on the idea that the players "can do anything", unlike videogames, where every choice the player could ever make has to be carefully considered and constructed by the designers. Add in the boogeyman of "railroading", and you end up in a situation where the only logical thing to do is run a campaign where the GM doesn't direct the players at all, and behaves more like a videogame engine - a universal arbitrator, ensuring that all of the players' actions result in consistent and logical reactions from the world around them.

Of course, this so often falls apart because:

>A. The players are too daunted by the possibilities/unfamiliar with the setting to self-motivate, or too disconnected from the world to get in-character. Either way, they usually end up pottering around and doing nothing, or just goofing off and messing around.
>B. The GM can't improvise worth a damn, and so doesn't know how to handle players doing things they hadn't prepared for. If the players wander down a road to a village the GM hadn't yet designed, and the GM doesn't have the sense to just invent a random village off the cuff, then the campaign will quickly founder.
>C. The GM needs to build an entire world, and keep every single detail consistent, for a true "sandbox" game to maintain a serious tone. If at any moment, the players can just drop what they are doing and start poking random elements of the world to see what happens, the GM needs to be ready with an answer. This is an incredibly inefficient use of time and energy, which usually kills sandbox games before they even start.

>>55100109
because beginner GMs gm the game they want to play not what they should gm

>>55100704
Haven't run a session yet, so far I'm planning to run a Dark Heresy oneshot, but I have a friend who wants to try DnD and I might end up DMing

>>55101056
>Because traditional gaming is so often sold on the idea that the players "can do anything",
>Add in the boogeyman of "railroading",
This combined with ambition and ignorance.

Just tonight I posted advice to a fledgling GM that, yes, you can give your players direction.

New GMs worry they'll railroad and be THAT GM, so they do nothing to guide the game.

New players worry their character will be too boring or too "special" and swing to the other extreme.

Try first, then fuck up, then fix your approach.
Fussing over your approach before you fuck up can only lead to failure.

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>>55101056
So I've been running a bit of a sandbox-lite that's been working pretty well so far
Basically I plan general things, plot lines and world actions and such, then improv minor details

At the end of the sessions I make notes of anything I improved so I can have it for later in a fairly detailed journal. If it held any interest to my players build a plot hook or two and move off that thing, see if they become interested in that part of the story.

I'm a first time gm
I don't know what mine would be considered honestly. I let the players do what they want mostly, but they have a unified goal. Everything that is political intrigue-like is mostly happening in the background.

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>>55100704
>what was your first time GMing

I had only played Dragonstrike, read through the Black Box, and thumbed through the Expert Set. My brother and his buddy were bored and asked me how to play D&D, so I grabbed the Expert set, read one of the "example plot hooks", and told them to start rolling dice.

The PC's ended up stuck on a small barge after a heist gone wrong. Basically the game (lasted four sessions) became a fight to survive the elements while stuck on an open-air raft being carried down a winding river.
Think D&D + Apocalypse Now.

I had no idea what I was doing, but everyone had a blast. The most frustrating aspect is those four sessions are the only thing my brother and his friend bring up when talking about D&D, despite being a part of several campaigns I've ran in the 14 years since...

>>55100704
I ran a full custom setting my first time (Our whole groups first game actually), and it went pretty well. Improvised a lot of the side characters, some of which were done better than others. The important characters are still memorable to my players and they enjoyed the setting for the most part. Their main gripe was the few stale bread side characters and some difficulty scaling here and there.

>>55100109
It's because a lot of GMs make the mistake of of putting too much effort into worldbuilding. Your setting doesn't need 30 scheming houses, endemic warfare and a deep lore and history unless it's directly relevant to the players. Trying to give the players agency to do what they wish while also showing off the fruits of your labor is impossible so many first time GMs either burn out as they're unable to maintain their enthusiasm for the game while keeping track of so much information or they railroad the players hard so that they feel they can make use of all the worldbuilding assets they've made. The best course of action for any first time GM is to simply plan their games 3 sessions ahead at the most with any worldbuilding only introduced when it affects the players. Let the players influence what your world is like without them realizing it instead of building a world all on your own.

>>55100704
15 year old me ran an overly complicated undead politics and war with a shitty dmpc when the players wanted to kill monsters and loot stuff. aaaaaand it was in 3.5. And every new book meant I tried to jam more bullshit in there.

We were kids and had fun anyway, but damn. Could have done that different.

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>>55100109
Running a open world sandbox is easier to manage than you'd think. First game I ran was sort of fun, had a bunch of tasteful character portraits that we shuffled and the players drew, which they then had to make a character of. They met up outside of a tavern the day after agreeing to loot an old fort and the tunnels underneath, but when they arrived and got a floor down in the dungeon, they discovered a band of gnomes in the middle of looting the place, turns out they'd been looting it for months and selling the loot at a nearby city. What happened after could only be described as a gnome genocide, as it turns out the party had developed a seething hatred for gnomes.

Was fun as shit and everything was pretty much made up on the spot, the world map was a printout of a dwarf fortress world map that I'd colored in and labeled earlier. The gnomes all had names and were shouting out at their comrades for help as they were being
slaughtered. I found out that with a few little details you can make your world look much more fleshed out than it actually is.

My first ever session as a DM was "You come to a town. A necromancer is fucking around in the cemetery. Here's 100 gold please kill him." It was pretty successful.

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>>55100219
>GoT
>low fantasy

>>55100381
sounds like you want apocalypse world. it gives both players and the MC lots of room to make decisions and ways to affect a scene.
character sheets cover specific and relevant things, leaving tons of usually concrete stuff up to a player - two guys in my current game are both Good at Fights (+Hard), but one is a big strong dude and the other is a wacknut teenager, so *how* they're good at fights is up to them. They ask me things like "have I met this guy before?" and I get to respond with "I dunno, have you?"
Or "do I know what this weird device is?" and I get to say "I dunno, you don't strike me as the kind of person who knows how to read," and they get to say "maybe just basic necessary stuff but not technical language."

no skills, no language list, no feats, no physical stats (there is no stat that covers how smart or dumb your character is, or how fast, or how pretty, or how strong), abstractions everywhere (particularly in combat), and moves that let players affect scenes in real ways.

like the skinner, who can enthrall a room of people by removing an item of clothing.
or the maestro'd, who can put the word out she wants someone to show up at her establishment, and they do, with or without strings attached.
or the savvyhead, who can just... *be* somewhere, with whatever tools are required, no questions asked.

and despite all this player agency the MC still gets to make their lives as Interesting as possible, because when they Miss a roll you can be as much of a bastard as you want.

it is my favourite system in the whole world.

>>55108603
>I get to say "I dunno"
No that anon, but the fact that you believe that your post makes the system sound attractive confirms that you and I have widely differing tastes.
Party on.

>>55100109
It's probably something along the lines of
>Muh Skyrim and Game of Thrones

Even simple concepts can grow out of hand if you don't handwave.
>Start off with a relatively simple concept: Earth vs. Mars, medium-hard science
>Making a Mars colony is pretty damned difficult without massive supplies of arbitraryum (Elon Musk doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about)
>Think of who would want to set up a permanent base on Mars and why, because nobody will do that shit for no reason
>"Logically" follow up with parties that protest the very concept of Mars colonization, let alone any colonial independence
>End up with bloated mess of factions that I can't expand beyond a name, a founder, and a general list of ideals
Maybe I should stick with oneshots.

>>55100109
>open-world sandboxes
Because they played Skyrim
>political intrigue
Because they watched/read Game of Thrones or some other shit
That's pretty much it. A source for pretty much all campaigns, especially ones made by beginner GMs is "This thing I've just seen is cool, I now want to make a game like that" to a bigger or lesser extent.

>>55100109
No, they just listen to themselves churn.

>>55108687
I mean, you could at least read the rest of the line before giving up on it.
The point is that you get to put things in the players' hands. It's not just you spouting forth, they get to be part of what you're making.

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>tfw forever gm since 3+ years
>make 20 pages of quests+notes for open world fallout game
>things fine so far

>>55108733
This is my problem. Like shit happens you can't just ignore logical consequences... I guess you could but still.

>>55100109
What do you want them to do? Some dungeon crawl thing? Not everyone likes those, anon. A lot of people hate them. Of course they won't do it.

>>55100109

If it's open world then as a new DM, you don't have to make any real decisions to push the party in certain directions. The PC's decide where they wanna go and you just react.

As for political intrigue, people like to push their political views. I'm sure there are a shit ton of shitty campaigns that mirror some political point in history. They are notoriously good vs. evil or edgy1 vs. edgy2 and they are always awful. Politics make you seem smart. Game of Thrones, WH40K Imperium, etc all contribute to get noobs to try and emulate.

As for just difficult ideas, people sometimes just bite off more than they can chew, not realizing (usually underestimating) that the PC's are NOT going to fit their narrative, ever.

They are new, cut them some slack. Tell them they fucked up and how to be better but to be absolutely disgusted is your fault. You decided to play in a new DM's game. You knew the risks and inevitabilities.

>tfw playing open world game
>players never ask npcs questions about the setting
>have to give them information ooc
:c

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>>55110331
Why are you so mean? Did you come here because someone hurt your feelings on /b/ and you are just looking for an outlet? It's ok anon, you can see mean things to me, I'm not a pussy wimp faggot like you, I can take it.

>>55110350
inb4 magic realm

>>55110350
>I can take it.
Judging from that overly defensive reply?
No, no you can't.

>>55100381
Gritty and realistic works just fine. Don't mistake the mistakes of bad GMs for a flaw in the concept. It's popular right now becuz GRRM, and that leads to everyone trying it.

And I disagree. It works just fine with normal characters. Having players play them is advantage enough (although there's nothing wrong with playing nobles).
>>55109397
A lot of people don't like that, myself included. It's about collaborative narrative, instead of roleplaying within the game. I prefer the latter, although I do see the benefits of the former.

I would use Burning Wheel for a narrativist style game though.
>>55108687
Not that anon, but I'm surprised >>55100381's post appeals to you if you don't like >>55108603.

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>>55100346
>could care less

You guys should realize that the only thing needed for a gritty and realistic game is a low hp pool and something to keep the players on edge

>>55100109
Because that's what attract them to roleplaying.

>>55100704
Had my players resolve a trade dispute between two space nations. It went well.

>>55100109
>open-world sandboxes or political intrigue
>difficult theme/concept

Bitch please. There's nothing hard about those. You want hard, start looking at multi-generational stories, or campaigns with multiple PCs per player existing in different locations, or a campaign with non-linear time (either in-universe weirdness or just from the narrative switching back and forth), or stories where the player characterss are antagonistic but still have to team up to survive against nastier enemies.

>>55110440
That just results in a high-pressure game. Gritty and realistic means more than "you can die easily". For one thing, it means that you could put yourself in situations where you can't die easily. If you are in a tank and the enemy is rioting civilians, you are not going to be in danger.

>>55110434
>trying to get Amerifats to improve their English
Wasted effort.

>>55100704
Made my players roll agi for going down a couple of stairs
They broke their legs
Good times

>>55100109
Honestly, i think video games have something to do with it. Bethesda being a big component to the idea.

When i do open world stuff (Or galaxy in the case of star wars) i usually give a bit of direction by telling my players some of the hooks they've encountered or paces to look for jobs. They usually take one of those options

>>55110528
I think danger is necessary so players take the thing seriously

If you've rolled up your second character you're bound to be more careful

>>55110575
I don't see why you have to take a gritty and realistic setting seriously. Do we take real life seriously?

>>55100109
Because it's what they find interesting, and no one ever wanted to run it for them.

>>55110588
Yea i do?

>>55110588
Anyway, the point was you have to do MORE than make death easy, not less. You have to make death easy where it makes sense, and hard where it doesn't. You have to keep the players wanting to cling onto life, too.
>>55110617
WE don't. At its extreme, look at black comedy.

>>55110657
I dont necessarily agree
If the players have high hitpoints they tend to fuck around more, do stunt moves or they just do stupid shit, knowing that they'll be able to sustain the damage or back up and heal

Lets say you're playing cthulhu, where a single wrong step can result in your character dying or going mental

People are more afraid and also more careful - which fits more if you're going for a realistic setting

>>55110730
Sorry, I didn't explain myself well. I'm not talking about HP (I wouldn't use a system that uses HP in the first place). I meant that making people easily die is not enough for gritty, realistic settings.

Take a knight in armour. The best armour. He paid a lot of money for it, because he's a noble. He's not going to die easily. Arrows will bounce off him, and swords are a joke. He's going to hack through any hastily-armed peasant.

You have to properly apportion the danger, otherwise you just have a dangerous game -- not a realistic one.

And being careful isn't realistic. Lots of people weren't careful. Lots of people pull off dumb stunts for honour or popularity, or just because they're angry. You have to deal with that in some way, especially if you want to be gritty. Although of course unsupported roleplay can deal with it on its own.

>>55100704
A one-on-one game that I ran for my only friend. The game followed the adventures of his generic fighter and the four completely soulless DMPCs I saddled him with. It was a series of dungeon crawls that had no thought put into them aside from "what is a level-appropriate encounter" with the in-between bits being completely scripted. There was no story to speak of and what was there was lifted wholesale from Deltora Quest.

It was horrible, but we were also like twelve at the time.

>>55110992
>in-between bits being completely scripted.
How does that even work
Do you write up dialogue beforehand?

>>55111021
Occasionally. I would usually just write a summary of what was going to happen as if it already had- sometimes during the game I would read directly from it. It never even occurred to me that my friend could choose to make decisions that didn't go along with the script. It never occurred to him, either.

>>55111098
Well thats interesting

>>55111098
>it never even occurred to me
...Why? It's integral to pop-culture's view of roleplaying.

>all these new GMs pulling off of skyrim and game of thrones
And here I am, trying to plan my first campaign, and all I want to do is a classic jrpg-esque "get the color coded macguffins, bentley bear" or a detective/noir with supernatural elements a la kara no kyoukai

I'm doomed, aren't I?

>>55111207
My only prior exposure to roleplaying (outside playing pretend on the playground) was a different one-on-one game that my uncle ran for me. Though I'm sure he had a lot more stuff going in the background, the game he ran was nearly identical to the one I would later run: meet team of NPCs, go to dungeon, stuff happens. I was a good little boy who always follows the plot, so I built my game on the assumption that this was the case for everyone else. Essentially, I used D&D as a tool to make a video game that I could funnel my friend through.

Somehow, despite the shitty foundation, I managed to improve dramatically over the years. Hell, I've even been called a good GM a couple of times, something that confuses me to this day.

>>55109556
>mfw want to be forever gm but can never find the inspiration when I sit down to take notes on ideas and shit and mostly just yoink things that I found cool from places

someone help me

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Did any system ever include simple mechanics for simulating multiple factions fighting over territory with the PC party caught in between, with a progression of territory, etc, over time?

>>55100219
As soon as he mentioned Game of Thrones or any material therefrom, you should have slapped him down and told him exactly how bad an idea that was.

>>55100219
That's because you're doing low fantasy wrong. The characters should constantly be dealing with having horrible diarrhea, infections, illiteracy, and lack of any non-agricultural skills.

It's kind of like Twilight 2000 with swords and less radiation.

>>55100109
Because they want to be authors and don't understand how to make concepts playable.

And they almost certainly don't understand politics. Even the people in politics don't understand politics

Uh shit. I'm starting my second campaign in a couple weeks and it's a sandbox game in a pulp sword and sorcery homebrew. I have a few major factions and plotlines written down and a few setpieces ready for the first few sessions but I really was thinking of just winging it and if all else fails throw in a t rex encounter.

Am I doing this wrong? First campaign I ran was LotP leading to Elemental Evil but by the end of it I was so bored with the books I was just making shit up anyway

>>55100381
Edge of the Empire's Destiny Points come to mind here

>>55114044
>plotlines

It isn't a sandbox then.

Sounds fine, do what you what. Just have fun

>>55100109

They mistake the results with the appearance.

They think that they get an epic story out of a big map with a bunch of characters instead of a very tightly controlled set of events that joyride the party through the best possible setpieces.

The illusion of size is very different than truth of it.

>>55100109
>why do people new to something make dumb mistakes trying to do something they have no experience with hmm i wonder why that happens let us ponder this mystery.
Fucking kill yourself.

>>55100704
>age 13
>see lord of the rings
>want to play D&D
>have stories i wrote about half-inch-tall people battling spiders and shit
>decide that's cooler than D&D fantasy setting
>first session, characters are invited to dinner with a mage
>he teleports them all to this world
>after running away from a spider, the characters fight 6 bandits
>friend has made 3 gestalt characters with two weapon fighting
>he rolls 6 attacks
>pretty sure he cheated and got all crits
>all 6 thieves are dead
>session didn't last much longer

Gave up using that world cause it was kinda dumb for D&D. However, 10 years later I am using that same wizard as the final villain in my 3.5 campaign.

>>55100221
That's great. I mean yeah i would be pissed if that happened my first campaign session, but that means there is a power vacuum that causes more tension. Or you could have used it to as an act of war that triggers major instability for the city.