In other words, campaigns that don't have a preplanned plot. The players decide the plot from moment to moment by choosing what goals to follow. The players go around and do what they want and the DM just has the world react to them in logical ways.
Good? Bad?
The only way to play? Never a good way to play?
Thoughts?
Always bad.
They are the best way to play.
.....fascinating isn't it? :D
He's the master of the design not the other way around. And I appreciate being able to ROLEplay in his games regardless of how much the design is assumed to be about roleplay.
A sandbox-style campaign run by a DM without any good ideas or, and I think this is important, any sense of the colour, size and shape of the sandbox (i.e. what the background world is like) can be appalling, dishevelled and disorganised. When you ask about specifics and get something half-baked and uninspiring pulled out it can lead to a completely lacklustre game.
On the other hand I've had a game run with set plot and perfect attention to detail which started to drive the players mad with railroading and lack of flexibility. The DM - who I must add was very creative and had some absolutely great ideas - could not understand why the players wanted downtime and time out for their characters from saving the world, and as a result we ended up with characters who were suffering terrible sleep deprivation because they had been railroaded into the next plot fight "because that was planned for that session".
So, like most things, a little from column A, a little from column B...
But playing that way with a DM with no ideas, is usually gonna be pretty flat, unless the PCs are interesting with snappy dialogue.
As a player, how do you feel about sandbox-style campaigns?
In other words, campaigns that don't have a preplanned plot. The players decide the plot from moment to moment by choosing what goals to follow. The players go around and do what they want and the DM just has the world react to them in logical ways.
Good? Bad?
The only way to play? Never a good way to play?
Thoughts?
It's definitly a fun thing to do, if the DM can do it. You also have to make sure that the players are up to it as well. If they're used to running into plot hooks, they might just sit around and get bored.
A campaign should have some preplanned adventures though, mainly in things that concern elements from a character's background.
Unfortunately, the guys I play with aren't the best of team players, and aren't invested enough in the game to make compelling common backgrounds and goals. I'd love to do a sandboxy game with a different group at some point, though.
Now I might well & happily run through your pre-planned adventures. But as a DM? You'd better expect me to veer off course, persue my own interests/goals, do the unexpected, & maybe even completely avoid things..... If you don't already know how to adjust & improv? You'll learn.
My favorite example of this is a game we played at the local shop a few years back.
The DM seemingly invested all kinds of work in crafting his world. Great amounts of background, colour map, a couple pages of "what we know info" etc etc etc. Stuff that made you think this might be a worthy game....
Apparently he wanted to tell some sort of political based story - something he failed to make known at the start.
Unfortunately, despite OKing all the characters, he failed to take into account the backgrounds of some/most of the characters who were to be the stars of this drama. The political thing'd work for one character, & could, maybe, work for another. Player #3 didn't have a background. Players #4 & 5 though (of wich I'm 5)? Completely the wrong style of adventure plot.
And then he inflicts upon us his drow monk DMPC. In complete disregard to the fact that 3! of the 5 characters were written as hating/fearing drow....
The first adventure was where he learned that we really did mean those words we'd written down in our backstories. Only the fact that we were all good prevented us from lynching the drow. But being of good alignment in no way stopped us from RPing our fear, dislike, etc. We didn't aid him in combat, we used our abilities on one another 1st, made him walk in front of us, refused to allow him to stand watch, were never alone with him, etc etc.
As it turned out, the only two characters (besides the drow) to survive the 1st adventure were myself & player #4. Well, neither of our characters were at all related to, or interested in, the city or even the area where we were. Wich means the political story wouldn't work. Literly, our characters decided that this place sucked, and we wanted nothing to do with its problems or the looming war.
So we pulled out that big beutiful map the DM had given us & started looking at it. It had all kinds of named features - city-states, rivers, mountain ranges, areas, ruins.....
We arbitrarily picked a ruin well far away from where we were & asked "what do we know about this place"? Wich, since the DM hadn't detailed it, wasn't much. So we set about gathering supplies for a 5 week journy - including posting "Help Wanted" posters & essentially "hiring" the other 3 players new characters. And then we left town without telling the drow monk DMPC.
(why should we? He wasn't a party member & both our characters hate drow).*This second week was the point where we players had to explain to him our opinion of DMPCs.
{You're the DM. You get to play anything & everything in the world, write the adventures etc. What you don't get to do is play the game from the same vantage point as we players. Nor do you have to fill some precieved gap in the party. If we'd wanted x class, one of us would've played it. And if we want NPC help we'll seek it out.}
This course of action dumbfounded our DM. He'd never seen players drive the course of the game before.
The next few weeks were a bit rough as he began learning how to DM for characters who had actual goals beyond simply buying new magic items.
Eventually he asked us why we'd chosen the ruins we had. Our response was that 1) Between the name & the wee bit we got from our knowledge checks, it sounded interesting enough. Afterall, we're adventurers, let's go adventure.... 2) We knew he hadn't detailed it. So the fact that it was 5 weeks ride away should provide him some time to do so.
As a DM, I'm trying to find a mix... Basically by throwing lots of unrelated hooks out (none specifically tied to backstories), and seeing which ones the players grab onto and want to follow. The backstories will be smaller adventures that will catch up to them wherever they go. At least this is the plan, hopefully an illusion of sandbox can be maintained. :D
Personally, when I dm my approach is a blend.
I sit down and think of the story arc I want to have for the coming session.
Then I pick 4-6 key points that I want to hit.
Then I get a better sense of the region/area the players are in.
The session itself is freeform. I go in with a strong idea of what is in the area, and let the players wander through it as they see fit. I work my key encounters/plot points into it as they go so it feels organic instead of like a quest line from a video game. Works out great.
When I was DM I turned a simple bad choice by a PC into the town being attacked and razed by bandits. All because he spilled some beer on an NPC.
This does require a committment to the players to actually not f'off and "make PCs", not just sheets w/ letters and numbers on them (I despise this). No character gen is complete w/out some sort of background, and it better be real damn it, not another "raised by elves", "long lost heir", or "god-child" BS. I wanna' see motivation, region of birth, DOB, family background, whatever. Hero Builder's Handbook is good to this end, but not necessary if you have a decent campaign setting book, a DMG, and a brain.
Once this has been established, it gives incredible synchronicity to feats, skills, and so forth as you begin to connect the nodes and breath life into them. Very rewarding to make a real PC, not another "guy on a sheet". Having done this, the campaigns write themselves in uncanny fashion. You begin to see all kinds of serendipity and timely/coincidental metaphor, etc. Every session is like Christmas Day then for all PCs and the DM. It's like the game become Pi. The interconnectedness reveals itself in little bursts of brilliance whether it was by your hand or random operation. Either way, it's quite novel when it happens.
Or as Bob Ross says, "Happy little accidents.":D
...but, all campaigns, sandbox or otherwise, are only as good as the DM. Doesn't matter setting, books, nothing. Garbage in, garbage out. Killer players can't blossom if there's some fool at the helm.
New Gamers: sandoxing is especially nice. Easier to teach them, cheaper, allows for more possibilities. Character gen isn't contingent then on "that 1 fixed dungeon" straight away, so you have more flexibility.
It perfectly illustrates the difference between the superior (pen & paper) to the static/inferior (MMO). You an do anything, nothing is set in stone or routinely systematic. No 2 games will ever be the same despite coincidences. It's very liberating despite a bit more book keeping. Still, worth it.
Now, a degree of direction is a given to any green PC, but that goes w/out saying. This way though, you cater exactly to the thematic flavor they want and get a real quick feel for the shape of things they desire. The DM works for the players and always has since Gygax kick started this whole shbang.
Once they realize that it's "Anything Can Happen Day", you'll begin to see all those creative juices flowing as the lack of railroading constraints are lifted allowing for more independent thinkign and innovation, not more number crunching and powergaming. This also allows the other players to take him/her under their collective wing easier and teach them faster.
"What do you want to do?" should be the DM's mantra IMO.
Now, don't get me wrong, there are some awesome dungeons out there and I will routinely cannibalize NPCs, maps, themes, etc. from old issues of Dungeon, 2-3.5 ed material, books, movies, etc, but they're peripherals to me. I'd rather the players (not PCs) have more fun and I've found that sandbox, for lack of a better word, facilitates that end better.
I'm also a fan of finding out what kind of game the DM is planning. If I'm not in the mood for a story of political intrigue or dungeon crawls or whatever, I'll most likely take a pass on the game and let someone who is interested have a spot.
A) Can do what ever you want. Go adventure, wage war, explore lost lands, patrol cities, hang out in a bar for 3 weeks...
B) No "end"... even in the event of a TPK, it's not "game over"... the world still exists, you can make new characters and start them off somewhere else in the world and not miss a beat.
C) Multiple games can be going on at the same time (with different players) at the same time in the same world, allowing players to come and go and move around between sessions over the years. Even if all the players in a certain game leave, the "campaign" can still go on as new players start up their own adventures in the world
Over course, as with all games, it's dependent on the skill of the DM. A bad DM is a bad DM in any game... a rail-roaded story driven game is just as bad as an empty, directionless sand-box game.
The number one concern I have for Sandbox campaigns is not the GM, but the players. If players have unconnected goals, the party can split up; either one character sits around bored while the other one is furthering his ends, or one PLAYER sits around bored while the DM runs someone else.
This is pretty much my take on the matter, from the player POV. If everyone has unconnected goals and just happen to get together every once in awhile because they are PCs, it can be tough for the party to legitimately team up without some heavy-handed scripting.
I guess I like the "feel" of sandbox gaming (I can do whatever I want!) with the "play" of scripted gaming (the DM knows exaclty what he's doing with a preplanned encounter).
you're still in the sandbox, but you have some sort of goal you're working towards.
these usually happen over time though: the cleric eventually wants to build a temple, the paladin finds himself a quaint little town to defend, the fighter makes himself a goatee'd rival of opposed skill set (also, estranged brother), the warlock finds a demon to bind and the wizard wants to research the new binding ritual, ect...
right now, we're playing in a scripted campaign: in 3 weeks time, the little town we're staying in is going to be ransacked and pretty much pirate/viking'd to the abyss. needless to say, we want to protect this town (well, my character wants to protect his boss, who's paying him a salary and just happens to want to protect this town).
some of us will help build defenses, others will go look for allies in neighbouring towns, others will go look for a hidden weapon cache we heard about a few sessions back. we each have our goals and we have a good idea what we're going to do during the attack.
we can play and romp in the sandbox however we want, but in 3 weeks time, the big kid is coming to wreck our sand castle. lets see if those dozens of hours of "tower defense" will pay off.
Granted, these games are incredibly rare and extremely hard to make work...but good lord they are the best.
I guess I like campaigns where the line between planned plotline and sandbox become extremely blurred.
I only ran games completely on the fly when I was a new DM (new being a time span of my first 3-4 years :D ). Now I put quite a bit of work into the games I run. The saving grace is that no matter how much I prepare, I will end up improving at least as much as I rely on my notes.
Oh, I put a TON of time into my sandbox games... if anything they take more work (if done well), since you need to plan for so many contingencies :P
But if it's improvised well enough, it'd be largely indifferent compared to planned-out campaign settings. But it'd be more personalized, more informal, more real. Granted, a good DM doesn't script his quests so that events happen as they wrote them to the letter, but rather accounts for all things and adjusts accordingly,
Anyway, I think the best campaign is a mix. Because it is good to cater to the events of the players, but it's just as good to have NPCs and a world that move about them regardless of what they do. So while the story may be incredibly flexible and dependent on the PCs and their choices, the characters they meet are rigid and planned. Thier purpose in context is not, but the substance of things is solid, not flexible.
Im in a homebrew campaign with a really good and really imaginative DM. He has a story set and knows whats goining on in the world he created at any givin time, he gives us hints through npc roleplay on what iddues are going on close to us but its up to us to pick up on those hints and if we go the compleate opposite direction he rolls with it and we go from there. I think its the most fun a creative was to play if you have a dm that can pull it off.
From a PLAYER perspective, I enjoy the same, because I can go and do what I want (and deal with the consequences). I can go hunt a dragon in the mountains for 2 months, and come back and find that war had broken out in my homeland. Perhaps I can join in the cause, or perhaps I flee to the next land over and adventure in a far land. There, I find and defeat a plot to uprise against a noble king. As a reward, I get a keep on a borderland. After stocking it, I return to my homeland (after the war ends) to find I'm no longer welcome for not joining the army, so I make a deal with the king and form an alliance with the king I helped earlier... etc etc...
Nothing in it was a "plot" that the DM made... it was a plot that the party created. The DM made the world (and decided the consequences/rewards of our actions), but we chose where/when/what we did.
But if it's improvised well enough, it'd be largely indifferent compared to planned-out campaign settings. But it'd be more personalized, more informal, more real.
I concur. How could the game designer that wrote 'x' have any possible foresight into the players' sensibilities and predilections at your table? DM's creative license is closer to home, and thusly, more personal/intricate to his friends and contemporaries, the players/PCs.
Granted, a good DM doesn't script his quests so that events happen as they wrote them to the letter, but rather accounts for all things and adjusts accordingly
That seems to be one of the main parameters I examine to see, "Who's a good DM." That is, how are they under pressure and can they adapt on-the-fly cuz' players are always gonna' come out of left field at some point and radically change the entire premise w/ little to no effort.
Anyway, I think the best campaign is a mix. Because it is good to cater to the events of the players, but it's just as good to have NPCs and a world that move about them regardless of what they do. So while the story may be incredibly flexible and dependent on the PCs and their choices, the characters they meet are rigid and planned. Thier purpose in context is not, but the substance of things is solid, not flexible.
True, true.
"Everything in moderation." -B. Franklin