Sandbox Objectivity

[TristramEvans]

I’d be lying if I said the games I run have been pure sandbox. They have a veneer or facade of a sandbox but they are usually more linear when you get down to it.

 

[Fenris-77]

I’d be lying if I said the games I run have been pure sandbox. They have a veneer or facade of a sandbox but they are usually more linear when you get down to it.

Think this is true of many sandbox games.

 

[Black Vulmea]

Sure, but that's getting into No True Scotsmen territory.
"All superhero stories are reactive."
"What about all of these superhero stories?'
"I'm not talking about those kind of superhero stories."

Looking at the examples you offered up-thread, Thor defies his father and king to attack Jotunheim - crosses the line - Cap goes rogue to watch the watchmen - crosses the line - Tony Stark basically hacks SHIELD - crosses the line - and the events of Endgame are all in response to the villain winning the war - it's about as reactive as it gets.

But again, this is why I said player character (super)heroes have lots and lots of latitude about how they deal with threats. When I run a mission-oriented sandbox, there's always much more to the story than the players hear in their briefing, requiring them to adapt and overcome using their wits and their resources - the set-up is linear, but it rarely plays out that way, by design.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Sure, but that's getting into No True Scotsmen territory.
"All superhero stories are reactive."
"What about all of these superhero stories?'
"I'm not talking about those kind of superhero stories."

I don’t think anyone is saying that they can’t be proactive. Just that it’s not surprising that they are considered reactive. I think we can all just as easily list stories where the heroes react to the antagonists. It happens very often in the genre.

Again, I think there are counter examples. I’m just not surprised by the idea that people tend to see superheroes as reactive, and it’s something that I try and remain aware of when I run a supers game.

I’m doing it now, actually, but I’ve kind of cheated by having the setting force proactivity on the part of the PCs.

 

[TJS]

I've often felt that in many ways villains make more natural PCs in lots of genres than heroes.

Not just superheroes but fantasy too. Someone trying to perform a ritual or create a superweapon to dramatically change the status quo of the world just seems naturally more proactive then the people trying to stop them.

It's one reason I prefer settings like Dark Sun or the Scarred Lands where the world is fucked up and the PCs have the option of healing it, or a dystopian set up like Star Wars where the status quo is something the PCs explictly want to overturn.

Not that you can't do a Sandbox the other way around, but I think it can be harder (and I like easy) - plus to my mind overturning the tropes of genre in the name of game play is all win anyway.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm not sure how the consequences "follow them around" in a game where the players are playing superheroes any moreso than your example. I think the consequenes are personal - they know they have failed to act as heroes. Is that any different than a space pirate being haunted by muders they could have prevented or lives they could have saved? The only difference I'm seeing is a focus on the moral dimesion of the characters.

Well if the X-Men don’t stop Magneto, then there are consequences right? In a game, that would likely mean the threat of Magneto has become greater than it was before....he’s recruited more mutants or grabbed some nuclear warheads or whatever shenanigans he’s up to. So he’s still out there. It’s kind of obvious that the game is, at least partially, about beating Magneto.

And this may be fine....genre expectations and player buy in and all that.

But I can kind of see how this pushes into some railroady elements.

And it seems sharper when you look at a similar approach in a different genre/buy in.

 

[Fenris-77]

There's only so hard you can force consequences. Mind you, in a genre game if you have to the campaign has probably already fallen off a cliff.

 

[Endless Flight]

If the GM tells the players that Rhino is robbing the bank, they have to expect the players to do something with that information. Which is why it’s not really a sandbox.

 

[robiswrong]

I'd argue that if you build a sandbox devoid of any problems the players can decide to go tackle, you haven't built a good sandbox. If I am building a D&D sandbox, it's going to have a dungeon that spawns monsters, and evil wizard with a tower out in the woods, and a courtier plotting to overthrow the king.

I feel we've gotten to the point where any action a PC takes can be viewed as reactive.

And I don't... my point is that "reactive" at that scope can be expanded enough that anything can be viewed as reactive. It can be viewed widely enough that nothing is really proactive at all. Which is kinda silly, so I scope "reactive" vs. "proactive" a lot more narrowly, where it becomes useful.

I mean, hell, Black Vulmea makes a case that they're reactive.

 

[TristramEvans]

If the GM tells the players that Rhino is robbing the bank, they have to expect the players to do something with that information. Which is why it’s not really a sandbox.

Wait what...so in a sandbox a player is never expected to do anything with any of the information the GM gives them?

GM: "There's a dragon attacking the village"
Players: "that's nice, guess we'll go pick some flowers"

I think I just don't understand how people are using the word Sandbox in this thread at all.

 

[TristramEvans]

Well if the X-Men don’t stop Magneto, then there are consequences right? In a game, that would likely mean the threat of Magneto has become greater than it was before....he’s recruited more mutants or grabbed some nuclear warheads or whatever shenanigans he’s up to. So he’s still out there. It’s kind of obvious that the game is, at least partially, about beating Magneto.

And this may be fine....genre expectations and player buy in and all that.

But I can kind of see how this pushes into some railroady elements.

And it seems sharper when you look at a similar approach in a different genre/buy in.

So, wait, the way you run other "genres" of games there's no consequences to the players doing nothing about a problem? It simply ceases to exist if the players ignore it or go do something else?

 

[ffilz]

Wait what...so in a sandbox a player is never expected to do anything with any of the information the GM gives them?

GM: "There's a dragon attacking the village"
Players: "that's nice, guess we'll go pick some flowers"

I think I just don't understand how people are using the word Sandbox in this thread at all.

Yea, I don't see the GM presenting a situation that is happening or is about to happen as breaking a sandbox. A sandbox world should be a world in motion unless there is something specific about the genre that makes it not in motion (a D&D dungeon MIGHT not be a world in motion, that's certainly how the original dungeons seemed to be keyed). The players will react to events in the world in motion, a sandbox GM just has to be prepared for just about any response, though at some point, if the players continue to not engage the content the GM is presenting, the GM is justified in having a conversation, while a fully open sandbox should allow players to return to being farmers or whatever, I don't thing it breaks sandbox for the GM to say "no, we're playing D&D with fighters and magic users etc. who are adventurers not farmers. Now if as the campaign progresses, the players want to settle down and run a tavern or something, the GM should allow that, but it may still be reasonable to say "ok, your character goes into retirement" but it might still be polite to make that tavern feature in the campaign, and the player should be able to bring his PC back into action if some event happens that interests him, or the other players recruit the retired PC for some mission they have concocted. Now other GMs might break out some economic rules and run the tavern owner and in some campaigns there might be constant threats to a tavern owner that make for "adventure" to still happen.

 

[Justin Alexander]

Edit: And I'm not sure where I said GM skill should have *no* impact on quality of play?!?!??!

I literally quoted you saying it in the post you're replying to. Here, I'll quote you again (emphasis added this time):

As for being incapable of creating The Experience for my players with my limited skills - you'd have to give me an example of such a finely crafted AP that routinely produces this effect for all GM's.

You said that the only way you could successfully run an AP campaign is if it had been "finely crafted" so that literally EVERY OTHER GM will have equal or greater success running it.

Either GM skill has no impact on the quality of play (i.e., all GMs get the same result regardless of skill) OR you are saying your performance as a GM running an AP campaign is literally the WORST ON THE PLANET (with no GMs performing worse than you). Making you objectively bad at running them.

Anyway, I'm done laughing at you being hoisted on your own petard of "objectivity." I'm going to go talk about sandboxes now.

 

[Justin Alexander]

Same here. Just going by Marvel movies, many of them have plots driven by the hero.

Thor- He actively decides to invade Jotunheim and consequences ensue.

I'll note this is an origin story. Superheroes are often far more proactive in their origin stories than subsequently. These stories are generally about the hero choosing to become a hero. It's after they BECOME the hero that the reactive nature of the superhero genre tends to assert itself.

Winter Soldier- Captain America actively pokes his nose into what is going on a SHIELD and won't let it go. Consequences ensue.
Age of Ultron- Tony Stark actively uses his inventing superpower to make a super-robot. Consequences ensue.
Endgame- The heroes come up with a plan for a time heist. Consequences ensue.

These are all pretty reactive, though. Or, to put it another way, the scenario hook is coming from the GM:

Winter Soldier - A GMPC shows up and tells Captain America he needs to investigate the people who just tried too-- Whoops. Who did just assassinate him.

Age of Ultron - Tony is trying to build a defense platform to fight the alien army that invaded in Avengers because the GM gave him a vision of the alien army returning (he's still reacting to the original GM-initiated scenario hook). The GM provides him with a magic staff that will let him accomplish his goal, but it also contains the scenario hook for the next adventure.

Endgame - The initial adventure hook here is "there's a bad guy who's literally trying to wipe out half of all life in the universe." That sort of world-ending apocalypse is exactly the sort of thing most Sandbox 101 articles will tell you are a bad fit for most sandbox campaigns.

There are superhero stories in which the characters refuse the heroic Call to Action and/or use their powers in more proactive ways, but these are almost always a deliberate deconstruction of the genre.

To repeat something I wrote back in November, the traditional superhero is almost purely reactive: They patrol, spot a crime, react to crime.

There are, however, exceptions to this. Batman: Year One, for example, provides a potential model: Batman is faced with a city filled with corruption and needs to figure out how to actively fight to change the status quo. The actual Year One narrative really only features organized crime and corrupt cops, but you could tweak the dial a bit and create a town filled with supervillain-led criminal organizations as the status quo with the superheroes needing to figure out what they're going to do about it.

But even then, you've still got a default goal that's probably veering closer to a default scenario; it's more sandbox-y than sandbox.

I think to be true sandbox you'd have to veer farther afield into stuff like Marvelman and Rising Stars... at which point you're really playing a game about demigods transforming reality rather than a traditional superhero story.

If the GM tells the players that Rhino is robbing the bank, they have to expect the players to do something with that information. Which is why it’s not really a sandbox.

Wait what...so in a sandbox a player is never expected to do anything with any of the information the GM gives them?

If we're talking about traditional superheroes, there are two sides to this coin:

1. If there isn't a supervillain, what does the superhero do? (Generally speaking, they continue patrolling or sitting around waiting for Commissioner Gordon to call them and tell them a supervillain has shown up.)

2. If there IS a supervillain, is there ever a circumstance in which the hero DOESN'T go after the supervillain? Not really.

If we define a sandbox campaign as one in which the PCs are empowered to either choose or define what the next scenario will be, these two paradigms run directly counter to the essential nature of the sandbox: The superhero is neither empowered to define their next scenario (they have to wait for the supervillain to show up) nor to to choose it (if a supervillain DOES show up, then they WILL fight them).

You can have dragons attack the PCs' town in sandboxes, but if that's the ONLY thing that happens in your campaign, then it's almost certainly not a sandbox.

Rejecting this kind of "it looks like a choice, but you don't actually have a choice" can certainly be mixed up with the "blank void" fallacy that plagues some people's understanding of a sandbox (in which the PCs are never presented with scenario hooks), but it's a distinctly different problem.

I actually posted a video about the "blank void" fallacy earlier today, so I'm going to pimp that.

 

[Stevethulhu]

These days, I dont worry about is it this or is it that. Its a similar approach to the way I do music. I just kind of do what I do.

Admittedly the only gaming right now is running Dragon if Icespire Peak for the kids. And that's fairly sandbox by nature. But even then, I'm just going with the flow. Let the kids take the lead a d see what thy want to do.

 

[AsenRG]

So I think this is an interesting point, and connects to your other post about player buy in.

But when you take this scenario and apply it to another genre....and maybe remove a few edge cases like paladins or Jedi and purely do-gooder types...then it kind of seems a bit different.

Here’s a villain who’s showed up to cause a problem! The crew of mercs in my Mothership campaign may decide to engage with this in some way. Or they may decide this is more trouble than it’s worth, and avoid it altogether.

If they do that....they leave the sector and head elsewhere...then having consequences follow them around seems odd. It’s like the GM’s story shows up and taps on the window “Can I come in yet?”

I think it genre and player buy in and most of all expectations of play are what matter here most. In a supers game, this may be perfectly reasonable. In another kind of sandbox, it may be almost antithetical.

Well, superheroes are assumed to be do-gooders. That's why I prefer "people with superpowers" as a genre. Those who want to make do-goodeers, can, and those for whom this might be onerous, can do their own thing!

As for your crew of mercs, the consequences are already there. They're missing on the opportunity to get the recognition, fame, and possible rewards from this community on this planet. If there are two hypothetical* group of players and one of them is leaving when there's too much choices to be made - like wandering heroes/mercs, they just do a job, take the reward and leave - while the other sides with an in-setting faction and sticks with them...
Well, don't be surprised if the latter group ends up having much more "benefits" after the same - or even less - time playing the game. This needn't even be in the form of XP!

But the point is, that's a consequence of deciding - repeatedly - to "not engage that villain" (usually in less moral situations).
I mean, let's go back to supers. It's like the difference between two groups of supers both of which patrol the streets and take down gangs, lone criminals and supervillains...but some of them are also making a promotion campaign to get extra funding for the local police department, and running charity events where the proceedds go to disadvantaged families in the area, and helping social workers to find work for people who are fresh out of a correctional institution.
Sure, this takes time, so they might end up taking down less supervillains.
But which group do you think would be likely to have greater impact on reducing the crime in their area of the city? Which group is going to have an easier time working with rge local cops (even assuming supers are considered vigilantes)? Which group would have more of their pictures taken shaking the hands of politicians?

*Hypothetical my ass, I'm talking about my own campaign while changing the genre to fit the example. The former group has been attending more actively, but despite having more XP, those PCs are still having less influence in the setting - titles, posts and stuff like this tend to go to the latter PCs.
Which the players in the former group find incomprehensible.

 

[tenbones]

I’d be lying if I said the games I run have been pure sandbox. They have a veneer or facade of a sandbox but they are usually more linear when you get down to it.

As long as we don't confuse "linear" by choice - as in the players decide to do <X> regardless of what other "things" you put in their way. I mean there is absolutely nothing wrong with you as a GM creating content or a scenario that the players decide - "WE MUST DO THIS TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL ELSE" and doggedly pursue it in some linear fashion.

The primary difference here is as a GM you're letting the PC's dictate the direction, and as a GM you can flood the zone with as much content as you want - be it obstacles, help, or situation-neutral stuff as long as it makes sense in-setting. It's a balancing act that you have to curate as appropriate for your group (after all the point is having fun, even if unfun events are occurring in-game).

The whole point of creating setpieces exists as a fun activity where the PC's can get very focused content by intent or accident. You might create the secret Sentinel Factory as a Super's Dungeon, and have a series of adventures that lead the party to its discovery. Or something even more overt and linear - session starts and the whole party wakes up in Arcade's Murderworld (of your own design). Linear? Totally. But it's up to the PC's to figure their way out. And thus Murderworld is now a setpiece in the larger sandbox once the PC's escape (or they die).

I'm not saying there is a "purist" approach to sandboxing. It's contextual to what you are doing as a GM with your players. My end-state is that you extend the sandbox to transcend and include whatever linear elements, like setpieces, even whole adventures that you allow your players to engage in at their own discretion, and contextual all of it as now part of the sandbox. Thus the sandbox grows, and you can toss literally anything and everything you're willing to take on into it.

Imagine my players reaction in our Marvel game when after many sessions they realized Metropolis was a place in the game... and the big blue boyscout arrived on the scene as a kind of Year One Superman... the sandbox grew. I'd sprinkled WTech logos around the game and with various gadgets, and it took a while for them to realize it was WayneTech. And my players were like... "I thought we were playing Marvel Superheroes?"

And I said "WHAT IF we are?" /rimshot

 

[EmperorNorton]

I'm gonna be honest. Basically I'll just say that most of the conversation about "what is a sandbox" in this thread kind of defines pretty much everything that isn't a railroad as a sandbox.

I've almost never played in a game where the players weren't free to try and solve the problems in a variety of ways.

Also "Supervillain has a plan to level the city, what do you do" has, in my experience, been something that "sandbox" adherents have called out as bad sandboxing forever. Yet it is common in the superhero genre.

Also, this goes back to the discussions where people denied that Blades in the Dark is sandbox because of it's narrow premise.

 

[TristramEvans]

I've almost never played in a game where the players weren't free to try and solve the problems in a variety of ways.

Who is defining a sandbox in that way?

Also "Supervillain has a plan to level the city, what do you do" has, in my experience, been something that "sandbox" adherents have called out as bad sandboxing forever. Yet it is common in the superhero genre.

Whenever you talk about general unspecific groups of people doing, saying, or believing things, in your experience, I think all it does is corrupt the conversation, because you're not engaging with the posters in the thread, just reacting to some vague "Them".

Also, this goes back to the discussions where people denied that Blades in the Dark is sandbox because of it's narrow premise.

Nothing that I've heard about it so far sounds like a Sandbox. But bringing up that an argument exists, isn't the same as making an argument, or challenging it.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Ok, I think people are missing my point. First, I said that it isn't "Pure Sandbox" not that it can't be sandboxy.

But Superheroes are probably a little more vague, but let's look at a different game. Say, Mutant City Blues.

In Mutant City Blues, the characters play as (mostly mutant) police detectives who specialize in crimes committed by or against people with mutant abilities (10% of the population in the game setting are mutants).

Ok. so you work within a structure where you are given cases to solve. I mean, yes, you can decide not to investigate it, but well, you'd then be fired cause you aren't doing your job, and you probably wouldn't be part of the game anymore (the character would be retired) unless the entire unit decides to go rogue or something (though then you are playing a pretty different game than we prepared).

The general assumption is that you will be handed an investigation. You go about it however you want investigating it, face consequences of those actions (say if you did something illegal to get info and have to cover it up), and try to solve the crime.

Then it goes to prosecutors and you move on to the next case you are assigned.

100% this matches the description of Living World that you and tenbones are talking about. The world moves, you do your thing in it, etc. But I don't think anyone would describe this game as "pure sandbox".

 

[Baulderstone]

Ok, I think people are missing my point. First, I said that it isn't "Pure Sandbox" not that it can't be sandboxy.

But Superheroes are probably a little more vague, but let's look at a different game. Say, Mutant City Blues.

In Mutant City Blues, the characters play as (mostly mutant) police detectives who specialize in crimes committed by or against people with mutant abilities (10% of the population in the game setting are mutants).

Ok. so you work within a structure where you are given cases to solve. I mean, yes, you can decide not to investigate it, but well, you'd then be fired cause you aren't doing your job, and you probably wouldn't be part of the game anymore (the character would be retired) unless the entire unit decides to go rogue or something (though then you are playing a pretty different game than we prepared).

The general assumption is that you will be handed an investigation. You go about it however you want investigating it, face consequences of those actions (say if you did something illegal to get info and have to cover it up), and try to solve the crime.

Then it goes to prosecutors and you move on to the next case.

100% this matches the description of Living World that you and tenbones are talking about. The world moves, you do your thing in it, etc. But I don't think anyone would describe this game as "pure sandbox".

No. I don't think anyone would either.

 

[EmperorNorton]

No. I don't think anyone would either.

See, but that is the point I'm making about superheroes. Having the choice of how to deal with a supervillains plot doesn't change the fact that when a supervillain plot is going on your character is 99% of the time, going to be dealing with a supervillain's plot.

Is there a real difference between "here is your assignment, you can choose not to do it but you will be fired" and "a supervillain is plotting to destroy the city, you can choose not to engage, but the city will be destroyed".

(Also, again, coming back to the thing I said: I never said Superheroes can't be done fairly sandboxy, I just said it would difficult to do as a PURE sandbox (not even impossible, just difficult))

 

[CRKrueger]

I’ve said this before, but “sandbox” is a word with a huge definition that you can apply to almost anything not literally scripted. Also there’s a big difference between one situation and an entire campaign.

That’s why I don’t really like referring to the type of campaign Tenbones, Tristram, Rob C, Arminius, Black Vulmea, et al are talking about as a “sandbox”. That’s one category more specific than “campaign”, but still doesn’t differentiate from other types of campaigns under the gigantic, stretched umbrella that gets created anytime someone attempts to define sandbox, or indeed anything gaming related.

That’s why I like the term “Living World” or “World in Motion” campaign.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Whenever you talk about general unspecific groups of people doing, saying, or believing things, in your experience, I think all it does is corrupt the conversation, because you're not engaging with the posters in the thread, just reacting to some vague "Them".

It is there to explain what I'm talking about when I am saying "pure sandbox". Explaining the context in which I'm saying something doesn't mean I'm saying that is what people here are saying.

Providing context for why I'm saying what I'm saying isn't "corrupting the conversation".

Nothing that I've heard about it so far sounds like a Sandbox. But bringing up that an argument exists, isn't the same as making an argument, or challenging it.

Blades in the Dark's entire system is built around the characters proactively deciding what they want and going out and getting it, then the consequences of those actions falling on them. Then making decisions about their new positions to decide what they want next and going out and getting it. And in all of those cases it is built around them having the option to go get it and who to get it from based on the info they can uncover. And the option of "you failed to get it" is also a thing.

How does that not fit the definition of sandbox you seem to be promoting?

 

[CRKrueger]

I don’t know where the term “Pure Sandbox” entered the thread, because the term is really useless in any discussion.

 

[Stevethulhu]

I’ve said this before, but “sandbox” is a word with a huge definition that you can apply to almost anything not literally scripted. Also there’s a big difference between one situation and an entire campaign.

That’s why I don’t really like referring to the type of campaign Tenbones, Tristram, Rob C, Arminius, Black Vulmea, et al are talking about as a “sandbox”. That’s one category more specific than “campaign”, but still doesn’t differentiate from other types of campaigns under the gigantic, stretched umbrella that gets created anytime someone attempts to define sandbox, or indeed anything gaming related.

That’s why I like the term “Living World” or “World in Motion” campaign.

Equally, a "Railroad" usually gets defined as "You can't tell me what to do!"

There's a howling wilderness of excluded middle between the two definitions most often seen in this kind of discussion. I mean, I don't consider myself a 'sandbox' or 'railroad' GM. I do believe that players should have the freedom to choose. And to choose badly. But I also believe that players like to be given something to do. A long term goal that lets them decide how they want to go about achieving it seems to be the most common thing people like in their hobby time. At least going by what I've seen from players.

 

[TristramEvans]

See, but that is the point I'm making about superheroes. Having the choice of how to deal with a supervillains plot doesn't change the fact that when a supervillain plot is going on your character is 99% of the time, going to be dealing with a supervillain's plot.

Is there a real difference between "here is your assignment, you can choose not to do it but you will be fired" and "a supervillain is plotting to destroy the city, you can choose not to engage, but the city will be destroyed".

(Also, again, coming back to the thing I said: I never said Superheroes can't be done fairly sandboxy, I just said it would difficult to do as a PURE sandbox (not even impossible, just difficult))

Well, I don't think not falling back on a ridiculous plot like "Supervillain is going to destroy the city" , and actually giving the villains in a campaign realistic and comprehensible motivations is that hard, really, and I'm not sure why liberally spreading a living city or world with hooks and allowing players to follow up on whichever ones they happen upon or decide to place importance on at their choice is so much more difficult in a Superhero game than in a fantasy game. Sure every one in a while there might be an Avengers level "everyone is in peril" that the player characters feel obliged to engage in (or not, it's not like Daredevil and Powerman showed up to take on Galactus), but that's really not what Superhero RPGs (or comics) are usually about.

 

[CRKrueger]

It is there to explain what I'm talking about when I am saying "pure sandbox". Explaining the context in which I'm saying something doesn't mean I'm saying that is what people here are saying.

Providing context for why I'm saying what I'm saying isn't "corrupting the conversation".



Blades in the Dark's entire system is built around the characters proactively deciding what they want and going out and getting it, then the consequences of those actions falling on them. Then making decisions about their new positions to decide what they want next and going out and getting it. And in all of those cases it is built around them having the option to go get it and who to get it from based on the info they can uncover. And the option of "you failed to get it" is also a thing.

How does that not fit the definition of sandbox you seem to be promoting?

Because reading the book, examining the play examples, and watching streams of people playing the game gives the impression that the PCs aren’t really doing any of that, the players are always talking about them doing that, and invoking mechanics the PCs can’t invoke to get it done.

You don’t even decide what tools you take with you, just the number of tools, and you decide what tool you use when you use it. This gives the appearance of you being a Danny Ocean level thief without actually trying to play a thief.

You really can’t see how some people have trouble saying that’s the same thing as say, SR or CP where you actually have to Roleplay your characters planning?

Come on, let a little reality in.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Well, I don't think not falling back on a ridiculous plot like "Supervillain is going to destroy the city" , and actually giving the villains in a campaign realistic and comprehensible motivations is that hard, really, and I'm not sure why liberally spreading a living city or world with hooks and allowing players to follow up on whichever ones they happen upon or decide to place importance on at their choice is so much more difficult in a Superhero game than in a fantasy game. Sure every one in a while there might be an Avengers level "everyone is in peril" that the player characters feel obliged to engage in (or not, it's not like Daredevil and Powerman showed up to take on Galactus), but that's really not what Superhero RPGs (or comics) are usually about.

Supervillain plots often include mass destruction to accomplish those "realistic and comprehensible motivations".

Like this isn't even engaging with what I'm saying. Huge threats of massive destruction are common in the superhero genre, because of as you yourself pointed out, the SCALE of power in the genre is higher.

This has nothing to do with realistic or comprehensible motivations. Magneto has very realistic and comprehensible motivations, and he's definitely caused mass destruction because of it. He's literally levelled cities.

 

[TristramEvans]

I don’t know where the term “Pure Sandbox” entered the thread, because the term is really useless in any discussion.

I don't know what it means either. I don't mind your "World in motion" alternative term, but to me, there's just Sandbox, Linear, or Railroad, and they're all very clearly distinguished in my mind based on player choice.

In a Railroad, player choice doesn't matter. You are playing through the GM's pre-set plot and any attempt to subvert that will end up in Schrodinger's Ogre. The only free choice a player can make in a Railroad is to die.

In a Linear Adventure, there's a set plot, but the players are free to pursue various avenues to complete that plot and have a degree of freedom and choice within the confines of the "what has to happen".

In a Sandbox game, there's no plot, the gameworld simply exists, and as things are going on in it, the players can chose to involve themselves in the various lives that are unfolding, and the GM (embodyig the world) reacts to their involvement and determines the natural consequences.

 

[EmperorNorton]

Equally, a "Railroad" usually gets defined as "You can't tell me what to do!"

There's a howling wilderness of excluded middle between the two definitions most often seen in this kind of discussion. I mean, I don't consider myself a 'sandbox' or 'railroad' GM. I do believe that players should have the freedom to choose. And to choose badly. But I also believe that players like to be given something to do. A long term goal that lets them decide how they want to go about achieving it seems to be the most common thing people like in their hobby time. At least going by what I've seen from players.

Here is the thing, I've found my games mostly sit in the middle with a mix of a lot of techniques. I'm just going by my own experience of being told how I'm not "really" running a sandbox when I run stuff like BitD because of the restricting premise.

 

[Endless Flight]

A GM could make a linear adventure appear as a sandbox by just applying different labels to everything. I agree with Krueger about his “world in motion”. That to me is what a sandbox means.

 

[robertsconley]

Conversely, I do think Sandbox-style will put you in a lot of situations where more opportunities for sharpening your improvisation skills will occur, I don't think they're mandatory. You *can* train yourself to be better at it. Random tables *really* can help you in this regard in either capacity to dodge out of doing Improv, or as a springboard for more of it.

Random Tables are a concise description of the possibilities for X. The best references for sandbox campaign are those that effective at conveying a concise terse description of the possibilities.

 

[EmperorNorton]

I don't know what it means either. I don't mind your "World in motion" alternative term, but to me, there's just Sandbox, Linear, or Railroad, and they're all very clearly distinguished in my mind based on player choice.

In a Railroad, player choice doesn't matter. You are playing through the GM's pre-set plot and any attempt to subvert that will end up in Schrodinger's Ogre. The only free choice a player can make in a Railroad is to die.

In a Linear Adventure, there's a set plot, but the players are free to pursue various avenues to complete that plot and have a degree of freedom and choice within the confines of the "what has to happen".

In a Sandbox game, there's no plot, the gameworld simply exists, and as things are going on in it, the players can chose to involve themselves in the various lives that are unfolding, and the GM (embodyig the world) reacts to their ivolvement and determines the natural consequences.

Ok, but where would something like Mutant City Blues fall on this list. Because there isn't something that "has to happen". It is all the world acting in motion. Your boss gives you an assignment because he's your boss. You can do what you want to, and the world reacts to that.

But there is something you are "supposed" to be doing, but it isn't an outside force, it is a force within the game's living world. You can say "but the players can ignore it" but are they realistically going to? Like, why sit down to play this game if you aren't going to investigate the crimes assigned to your team.

I think that Living World and Sandbox are not necessarily equivalent terms. Cause I would say that my example of a Mutant City Blues game is not a sandbox, but is a living world.

 

[TristramEvans]

It is there to explain what I'm talking about when I am saying "pure sandbox". Explaining the context in which I'm saying something doesn't mean I'm saying that is what people here are saying.

Providing context for why I'm saying what I'm saying isn't "corrupting the conversation".

That...doesn't make any sense to me. When you say "pure sandbox" it's because of the context...\ "Supervillain has a plan to level the city, what do you do" has, in my experience, been something that "sandbox" adherents have called out as bad sandboxing forever. Yet it is common in the superhero genre."?

Those don't seem like related points, or at least I'm not seeing how the latter provides any context that explains the former. What makes a Sandbox "pure"? Not having any events happen in the world that the players feel any compunction or responsibility to involve themselves in?

Blades in the Dark's entire system is built around the characters proactively deciding what they want and going out and getting it, then the consequences of those actions falling on them. Then making decisions about their new positions to decide what they want next and going out and getting it. And in all of those cases it is built around them having the option to go get it and who to get it from based on the info they can uncover. And the option of "you failed to get it" is also a thing.

How does that not fit the definition of sandbox you seem to be promoting?

I suspect there's more to the system than just what you are describing. But I guess I'll just ask a simple question - can a character in Blades in the Dark hop a plane to Japan to attend a friend's funeral? Can they decide to look into government corruption? Can they start a business?

 

[EmperorNorton]

I suspect there's more to the system than just what you are describing.

But I guess I'll just ask a simple question - can a character in Blades in the Dark hop a plane to Japan to attend a friend's funeral?

I mean, they can't hop on a plane to Japan because of the setting but yes, they could just attend a friends funeral? Why would they not be able to?

Can they decide to look into government corruption?

My current campaign has a lot to do with our shared hatred of the nobility and the power structures of the city so... yes? Gaining information on government corruption sounds like a great heist.

Can they start a business?

I mean they can, but to answer the question more thoroughly: Why are they doing it? What is the purpose of the business? Because how I'd handle it would be different depending on the answer.

Are they using it for money laundering? It would probably be some kind of turf.

Are they using it to create some legitimate money on the side? Probably some stuff with downtime progress clocks.

Is the purpose to make the game no longer about being criminals and instead just operating a legit business? I mean, I guess you can do this, but uh, why? What are the chances that the entire team, as a whole, decides that suddenly they don't want to engage with the premise of the game. And if it is just an individual character I'd be like "sure, why not, you retire from the life and we all continue on without you" because I don't think that the other 3 players want to sit through the guy running his textile shop that none of them are involved in. And if everyone decided to, I'd probably either just go "ok, well, you live happily ever after in retirement" or switch to a different system.

I'm still baffled though. Why does Blades in the Dark have to jump through all these hoops because it has a narrow premise, but superhero games don't?

 

[TristramEvans]

Supervillain plots often include mass destruction to accomplish those "realistic and comprehensible motivations".

Like this isn't even engaging with what I'm saying. Huge threats of massive destruction are common in the superhero genre, because of as you yourself pointed out, the SCALE of power in the genre is higher.

This has nothing to do with realistic or comprehensible motivations. Magneto has very realistic and comprehensible motivations, and he's definitely caused mass destruction because of it. He's literally levelled cities.

Well, you say I'm not engaging with what you are saying, so I guess I have no idea what you are saying. How does a character in your game causing mass destruction force the players to follow a plotted series of events? What do you, as the GM, do, if the player hears about this happening, but their busy investigating a smuggling ring in Devil's Kitchen and just assumes the X-Men will deal with it? Is the game over because they didn't accept your plot hook? Does the rest of the world not exist, including the thousands of other heroes except the player characters? If Magneto destroys a city is that the end of the game?

It seems to me what the disconnect here is is between an actual living world vs a series of vignettes that the GM is throwing out.

 

[AsenRG]

A GM could make a linear adventure appear as a sandbox by just applying different labels to everything.

Examples how that would work? Because my first impulse is to say "no, not really, second time for 2021" but maybe you don't mean what I think you do...

Ok, I think people are missing my point. First, I said that it isn't "Pure Sandbox" not that it can't be sandboxy.

At this point, this looks like a "No True Sandbox" fallacy.
Frankly, I don't care how "pure" my sandbox is in anyone's opinion. It probably has a Schroedinger-level of purity, which anyone looking is free to define however he wishes.
Also, it contains cats, with all that follows!

 

[robertsconley]

That’s why I don’t really like referring to the type of campaign Tenbones, Tristram, Rob C, Arminius, Black Vulmea, et al are talking about as a “sandbox”. That’s one category more specific than “campaign”, but still doesn’t differentiate from other types of campaigns under the gigantic, stretched umbrella that gets created anytime someone attempts to define sandbox, or indeed anything gaming related.

Back in the mid 2000s when the Wilderlands team starting pushing the Necromancer Games boxed we settled on calling what we do with the Wilderlands a sandbox campaign because how the term was used in computer games. A sandbox in computer is a game where you have no goal, just a set of mechanics and tools to manipulate the environment either as a character or from a god's eye view.

Sandbox Games

The difference is we were doing this with a human referee and a RPG system instead of a software algorithm.

The term caught on and been discussed ever since.

Disclaimer (not directed CRKrueger )
This come up every time when I talk about how the term originated.

• No the Wilderlands team did not invent sandbox campaign. Sandbox campaigns as we defined existed prior to the team working on the boxed set. It just wasn't labeled as anything special.
• Yes, it was the Necromance Games Wilderlands team that first applied the term to a type of RPG campaign. Every reference prior to that was using in a different context generally in reference to the use of sand tables for miniature wargaming or a synonyms for all RPG campaign. This is easily seen by a search of the Dragon Magazine Archive.
• However sandbox in reference to computer games did originate from sand tables and children's sand boxes. So there is a indirect reference.
• No, I did not come up with it first, somebody else proposed it, but I was one of the first to say yes that how we should describe what it is we do. Mostly because I am a big fan of computer sandbox games so the connection felt right to me.
• There were issues in how we explained the idea of sandbox campaign at first. Most of us, including myself, left the impression that a sandbox campaign always started with the players in a blank map then exploring. This misconception led to a lot of report of sandbox campaign not working as most hobbyist don't like their decision amount to throwing darts in the dark. So this where other idea like World in Motion, the Initial Context started to be added to give a fuller description of what it is we did.

 

[TristramEvans]

I'm still baffled though. Why does Blades in the Dark have to jump through all these hoops because it has a narrow premise, but superhero games don't?

I don't know from Blades in the City, only what people have said on this forum. You describe it one way, other posters describe it another way.

But I don't know what hoops it has to jump through that a superhero game doesn't. OK, in BitD, players are choosing to be theives, engaging with the premise. In a superhero game it's assumed players will chose to be superheroes. But if the GM is running either as a Sandbox, that means the characters can make any choice that they would if they were real people in a real world. The point of the questions I had was to determine if BiTD's systemspecifically prevented those choices. FASERIP doesn't, DC Heroes doesn't. I haven't played it, but I assume Champions doesn't.

So I guess I'd need to know why people say BiTD isn't a sandbox to see if I agree with them or not (because I honestly didn't commit previous conversations about the game to memory. All I have is a vague impression that the system was kinda Narrativey).