Sandbox RPG: help me understand

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Uh, no, not in the context of the term "Qualified Sandbox".


QUALIFIED SANDBOX
Anything that a person in that setting can do, PCs can do, with several pre-agreed upon exceptions.

They are not "exceptions to what a person in that setting could do".
Hmm. Interesting. So things like 'expectations', 'theme' and 'premise' aren't actually qualifiers unless they specifically prohibit the players from taking particular actions or making particular decisions? Do I have that screwed on straight?
 
Hmm. Interesting. So things like 'expectations', 'theme' and 'premise' aren't actually qualifiers unless they specifically prohibit the players from taking particular actions or making particular decisions? Do I have that screwed on straight?

Pretty much - it's only arbitrary restrictions on IC player choices that matter

ARBITRARY RESTRICTION
the restriction would not exist if the gameworld was a real place and the characters were real people living in that gameworld. In other words, it cannot be rationalized "in game".

That said, I don't know how one could have a predetermined "theme" or how long their expectations could last, but conceptually, as long as they aren't directly interfering with the reality of the gameworld, they aren't a concern to the definition of a sandbox
 
Pretty much - it's only arbitrary restrictions that matter

ARBITRARY RESTRICTION
the restriction would not exist if the gameworld was a real place and the characters were real people living in that gameworld. In other words, it cannot be rationalized "in game".
Huh. OK, that puts a whole lot less is the 'qualifier' column that I was thinking. I think of things like theme and premise as, hmm, maybe something like a soft qualifier? They don't prohibit specific actions or choices at all, but do (with table buy in) very much streamline the likely set of choices made at the table. I'd never stop a pirate game from going where it goes, but at the same time I do have some (I think legitimate) expectations that that same game will generally continue to be a 'pirate game' for some value of that term in most instances.
 
Huh. OK, that puts a whole lot less is the 'qualifier' column that I was thinking. I think of things like theme and premise as, hmm, maybe something like a soft qualifier? They don't prohibit specific actions or choices at all, but do (with table buy in) very much streamline the likely set of choices made at the table. I'd never stop a pirate game from going where it goes, but at the same time I do have some (I think legitimate) expectations that that same game will generally continue to be a 'pirate game' for some value of that term in most instances.

Well, Players and what a GM expects them to be "likely" to do are strange bedfellows, in my experience.

At the same time, I'd say 99% of the hypotheticals in thee threads, where the players completely abandon the initial direction of the game and take up some form of retail or farming endeavour, to be a one in a million happenstance in reality (even though I participated in one of those 1 in a million exceptions)

If you pitch a game about pirates to players, they're likely to want to roleplay pirates, even if they aren't arbitrarily forced to
 
Well, RPGs players and what they Gm expects them to be "likely" to do are strange bedfellows, in my experience.

At the same time, I'd say 99% of the hypotheticals in thee threads, where the players completely abandon the initial direction of the game and take up some form of retail or farming endeavour, to be a one in a million happenstance in reality (even though I participated in one of those 1 in a million exceptions)

If you pitch a game about pirates to players, they're likely want to roleplay pirates, even if they aren't arbitrarily forced to
Yeah, for sure. I also wasn't precisely indexing GM expectations, but something closer to table expectations. Players do regularly zig when every reasonable predictive model calls for a zag though, for sure - it's part of the charm of RPGing for me.
 
Lifepath gen is an odd one. It doesn't involve the kind of decisions that someone would make about what kind of career they follow, but it definitely makes character background decided by something other than campaign assumptions or other metaconcerns.
Indeed.
It's also something that's decided in play, at the table...which is why I'm making the exception:thumbsup:.

You disagree with the definition then; it specifically says players. (I'm not necessarily of the view that the definitions are set in stone rather than something that can organically evolve or be altered. But if people are taking that position, that part is definitely in it).
Yep. I use my definition, which is quite close, but not 100% the same.
Also, do you disagree that PCs are what trashes the setting, while the players are munching...let's say dorritos, because the specific food is not of such concern?

Honestly, not in many cases. If the freedom to do anything is based on the assumption that will never actually happen, it's not a sandbox in any way. You often see RPGs described as "games where you can do anything" but that's not the case for all campaigns.
Yes. That's why I make it extremely clear whether I'm running a qualified sandbox or not.
In some cases, I'm running a game about knights and ladies, using Pendragon. Nothing but knights and ladies is acceptable, your characters don't leave to become pirates even if outlawed - at worst, they could join Robin Hood's merry gang, and then they should be looking to clear their names:grin:!

In another case, I'm looking at a game where you're all nobles or part of a noble's retinue...but once play begins it's a sandbox.
The difference? I make it extremely clear with the words "gentlemen's agreement". If I'm omitting them, it's a "normal" sandbox.

:thumbsup:

Good question.

Firstly, I'd separate setting from careers etc. And I would take into consideration whether the character decisions made are ones that an individual would be able to choose, or if they're an accident of birth. To use the pirate example:

You are all residents of a cityport and you are all very poor - Full sandbox.

You are all residents of a cityport, you are all very poor so you have all decided to take up piracy - qualified sandbox.

Which I think also answers your other questions.

Player wants more points - A mechanical question entirely separate from the in game setting.

You can't play a kung fu master because there would be none in this setting at this time - The reality of the game setting.
Sure, but that is in itself limiting the players, right? The reality of the game's setting doesn't preclude kung-fu characters. Maybe the PC was stranded in foreign lands, maybe he's the only student of a master who was stranded in this land.
So do I have to allow the kung-fu master, after all? That, in itself, is also "thrashing the setting", potentially even more than anything else (what if the system allows him to defeat a knight in full armour, do the peasants get some uppity ideas about learning the same kind of tricks:shade:)?
Which is part of why I prefer "characters". As a bonus, it makes it clear I mean "after play begins".

As far as I'm concerned, anything that actively involves the GM choosing specific cards is a qualified sandbox. "You can't trash the campaign yet because I'm not ready" - also qualified sandbox.
The decision of powerlevel in a system that allows for different ones is also "the GM choosing specific cards". Do the players have to choose the power level, or it's a qualified sandbox:gunslinger:?
Same for "nobody gets the Supernatural quality" in a game like Nemesis...which gates away most supernatural advantages, BTW. Is it a qualified sandbox because I don't want vampires, werewolves and half-tengu?

In short, I think your definition of qualified sandbox is needlessly broad:thumbsup:.

It's a qualifer (and qualified sandboxes are necessarily lesser sandboxes, just different sandboxes).
Is it "aren't", or is it "but also" instead of "just":devil:? It would read quite differently, but for now, it's unclear what you mean.

I probably should have made that clear earlier. But it's absolutely a metadecision, nothing to do with the game world.
Yes it is...but it also impacts the game world, absolutely. You just have to prepare less of it (which is why it's used in the first place), and thus, it's literally a "lesser sandbox".

Sorry, I missed that. No, it's not. Random gen is one of the easiest ways to avoid illusionism in a sandbox.
Well, then obviously you can avoid illusionism while running a sandbox. Because I'm basically using exactly that...though I'm mostly checking for outliers (in either direction), or applying a template if the result comes with the (heavily weighted towards the middle) "nothing really unusual" result:angel:!
 
And, honestly, I'm kinda tired at this point and don't want to wax on about different definitions and whether it should be redefined or a more specific term substituted or whatnot. Let's just say, when folks claim that D&D "has a built-in premise" - no, that's not how the word "premise" is being used. But I don't think that matters so much as just acknowledging that running a Sandbox (that isn't Qualified) means that the GM has no expectations regarding the player's choices in the game (with the unspoken caveat applied to ALL role-playing games - "...as long as they are role-playing their characters").
Fair. I think we'd agree it's getting circular at this point and I think we understand each other's positions even if we disagree with them. So yeah, agree to disagree at this point I think.

I'll just touch on the "premise" question, because I think this one is just semantics anyway. I just use "premise" to mean "spoken assumptions" and I think you see that as different.

D&D's an odd beast for examples anyway. If I say that D&D has a built in assumption that you'll be dungeon crawling, it's true, but I'm largely talking about OD&D (and I'm not talking about any editions after 1e AD&D because I don't know them well enough). At which point we get confused because we're entirely likely to be talking about different games.
"Make rule-viable characters that fit New York 1937, and know each other, then we go from there". And the "what happens after that" is what matters: can they do anything within the bounds of the setting and reality of the gameworld (which might well include voodoo magic and mesmerism)? Then it's sandbox.
Also, I'm not too sure everyone would agree (I suspect A Fiery Flying Roll Black Leaf wouldn't), but I believe that "make characters in setting A, starting at city B, that have been pirates for a while (not necessarily voluntarily - shanghaied into service after being captured is a thing), but after that you can go anywhere in the setting and don't have to remain pirates" qualifies. To me, it's about what happens after chargen.
I wouldn't and from what he's said Brendan wouldn't. (I think he and I have broadly the same definitions here). Your first example is definitely a sandbox though.
So


Does anyone have an example of an unqualified sandbox? I don’t even see how one could exist.
Yes, with the proviso that I don't consider location (you all start in this place) or era (it's this year) to be qualifiers.

My Hollow Earth Expedition campaign:

The only character limitations was that they must all be on a cruise ship in the 1930. Or natives of the Hollow Earth.

The game started with the ship crossing the Bermuda triangle, dumping them on a beach.

What they did with that was entirely open. (It helps that HEX has a really detailed setting that leads itself to exploration).

But again, I'm saying it makes it "qualified sandbox" not "not a sandbox".
 
Is it "aren't", or is it "but also" instead of "just":devil:? It would read quite differently, but for now, it's unclear what you mean.
Oops, it should read "aren't lesser sandboxes". That's definitely a meaning changing typo. :p
 
Actually, it happens in my games...and in BedrockBrendan BedrockBrendan 's obviously:thumbsup:.
And, just as in his games, it doesn't mean an end to adventures - not any more than getting a keep and your own barony means an end to adventures at 9th level in D&D...:grin:


Ayup...and even if it's not an organisation - they're now part of a community. In fact, they're part of overlapping communities.

Let's stick to the hot fishwives for the sake of the example:tongue:.
OK, the village elders now have some out-of-villagers to deal with. Do they have to prove themselves? And BTW, what does the village need? Can they throw the "new faces" at it, and see what they can achieve:devil:?
Then there's the overlapping, even if smaller, family community. The miller got a blue-painted leather robe for his wife from a trader passing through town. Now it's the talk of the village, since it really suits her eyes (and nobody else has a similar one). Your fishwives have some green eyes, but green leather is even harder to come by (and the trader went on his way anyway, they just didn't have enough money to buy themselves similar clothing, or simply felt stingy at the time - you were procuring what the elders wanted:gunslinger:). Honey, do you feel like making a trip to the next town in the near future? We know you had to leave in a hurry, but it's not too much bother, right:angel:?
Actually I think this does happen, but not in the retiring from adventure entirely way. What I found with long term sandbox campaigns was almost every player eventually wanted to have a legacy of some kind. That might mean establishing an organization like a sect. But more often it meant marrying and having children. I found this very useful because once players do settle down a bit, it just means you can engage adventures over longer time scales if you want. For example if the players are managing a sect (or say a keep in a medieval fantasy setting), and you are dealing with a large scale conflict, you may be handling things less on a daily basis and be doing bigger skips over things like seasons (obviously depending on what the players want to do, but I just see more I spend spring doing X when the players establish themselves in this way). So once this happens, your wife, your kids, all that stuff starts becoming very important. It doesn't mean the game is suddenly about the boring details of domestic life.

I found this a natural fit for my wuxia campaigns because the major wuxia trilogy, condor heroes, is a bit like star wars in that it is a generational saga (the second book in the trilogy is about the children of the characters from the first book: in particular the protagonist in the second book is the son of the bad guy in the first----or at least the son of the guy who ends up going bad).
Well, see, when I say settle down, I don't mean this:
Clipboard01.jpg
Most of my players end up getting here at some point. They have put down some roots and have a place to return to.

What I mean by "settling down" is this:
farmers-daughter-christopher-rowan.jpg
The PCs now have moved from Home Base to Home. They have fundamentally changed what they do for a living.

Now, if a Ranger PC decides to "settle down" by taking a land grant on the Thunder River in the Westermarck, where he's expected to keep Picts from coming over the river every day and run the homestead or a freelance hitman decides to "settle down" by becoming the personal button-man of a Mob Boss, then things aren't going to change all that much. If anything, they get harder.
 
Yes, with the proviso that I don't consider location (you all start in this place) or era (it's this year) to be qualifiers.
Also, things like powerlevel/number of available points, available character traits...:tongue:
At some point, I don't see much difference with "and this event happened to all of you".

My Hollow Earth Expedition campaign:

The only character limitations was that they must all be on a cruise ship in the 1930. Or natives of the Hollow Earth.

The game started with the ship crossing the Bermuda triangle, dumping them on a beach.

What they did with that was entirely open. (It helps that HEX has a really detailed setting that leads itself to exploration).

But again, I'm saying it makes it "qualified sandbox" not "not a sandbox".
I think that's a needlessly broad definition.
Well, see, when I say settle down, I don't mean this:
View attachment 40762
Most of my players end up getting here at some point. They have put down some roots and have a place to return to.

What I mean by "settling down" is this:
View attachment 40763
The PCs now have moved from Home Base to Home. They have fundamentally changed what they do for a living.
...I'm not sure I get your meaning. Even if they change to home, it's not like their enemies are going to forget them, right? Nor the people that want something they beleive the PCs have:devil:?

Now, if a Ranger PC decides to "settle down" by taking a land grant on the Thunder River in the Westermarck, where he's expected to keep Picts from coming over the river every day and run the homestead or a freelance hitman decides to "settle down" by becoming the personal button-man of a Mob Boss, then things aren't going to change all that much. If anything, they get harder.
Yup, that was my point, too:thumbsup:.
 
I'm having a lot of trouble imagining myself wanting to run a campaign without a premise, so there's that. To each his own.
I like seeing what the players do with the situation they choose to start out in within the setting I created. To adjudicate I think how about the different ways the inhabitants of the setting would respond, choose or make a die roll to determine the response, and roleplay accordingly.

I like not knowing what I am going to get.
 
In other words, it's freedom entirely within the context of "IC". Now, obviously that is not what you mean by player freedom. But I think it's what most of us who run sandboxes mean - robertsconley robertsconley, CRKrueger CRKrueger can correct me if I'm wrong.
Pretty the same here. Which is why I use the phrase "player acting as their characters" so much.
 
Well, see, when I say settle down, I don't mean this:
View attachment 40762
Most of my players end up getting here at some point. They have put down some roots and have a place to return to.

What I mean by "settling down" is this:
View attachment 40763
The PCs now have moved from Home Base to Home. They have fundamentally changed what they do for a living.

Now, if a Ranger PC decides to "settle down" by taking a land grant on the Thunder River in the Westermarck, where he's expected to keep Picts from coming over the river every day and run the homestead or a freelance hitman decides to "settle down" by becoming the personal button-man of a Mob Boss, then things aren't going to change all that much. If anything, they get harder.

In my case it was more like home base became sect headquarters. It is a bit like becoming king or something in a campaign. You are still running your character but now you are dealing with concerns on a bigger stage. Materially what it means is you might have more time being elapsed. You might have the PC sending people out to do things on his behalf more (though he can always decide to pick up the sword and deal with matters personally). One thing to keep in mind is system may also matter here, especially in terms of how XP is gained. I think though this is a point in the game where characters do often plateau power wise (they may be going out into the world less). I actually had to come up with new ways of handling XP and advancement because it didn't make as much a sense for them to grow the way they had in the past. For example there is the whole convention in martial arts movies of powerful masters going into seclusion to meditate and train in order to break through to the next level of skill. So when my players entered this phase of the game, I started coming up with rules for going into seclusion (which effectively, at first, becomes a trade off of you have to trust other people to manage your affairs while time elapses and you attempt to breach through to the next level). But in my campaign, because it was wuxia, it might be different than a campaign where you are playing a ranger. There is a whole world to explore in wuxia in terms of sect politics. But I think it isn't all that different from dealing with things like guilds or rising through the ranks of some kind of ranger order. One way to think of it for me is at this stage in the game, the players go from being the ones who wander and contend with powerful foes, to being the powerful foes wanderers must now contend with. They have established a strong base of operations. They may even have the power to strategize and command others. So some sessions were literally just them in their reception hall managing the affairs of the sect (which still meant dealing with conflict, but also meant dealing with things like finding an appropriate and willing master to teach their child martial arts, dealing with intrigue within the sect or even within the marriage, etc). I do think if settle down, simply means retire to a homestead and no longer really play the character, then that is a whole different thing.
 
Hmm. Interesting. So things like 'expectations', 'theme' and 'premise' aren't actually qualifiers unless they specifically prohibit the players from taking particular actions or making particular decisions? Do I have that screwed on straight?
Technically yes, but theme and premise is not a thing with Sandbox campaign. What you are thinking is part of how the setting works. A Fantasy setting based around the idea of Howard's Hyboria is going to have some different and some comment assumptions than a fantasy setting based on the idea of Tolkein's Middle Earth or Martin's Westeros. Or historical 12th century Western Europe.

Saying I will run a campaign in something like Miller's Third Imperium setting, Asimov's Foundation, or Lucas' Galactic Empire also carries a set of different and common assumptions. Some of these elements you may call a theme or a premise. But as far as a sandbox campaign goes they are part of the setting's description.
 
...I'm not sure I get your meaning. Even if they change to home, it's not like their enemies are going to forget them, right? Nor the people that want something they beleive the PCs have:devil:?
It works out exactly how you would expect it work out if you were there witnessing what happening.

If the enemies forgot about the character then it because they forgot. Why they forgot may never come up but if pressed I am sure that CRKrueger CRKrueger would provide the reason why after the campaign is done. I would never answer such a question during the campaign because spoilers.

Or maybe it only seems like they forgot and due to World in Motion they got bigger fish to fry. But if the campaign plays out long enough well...

Or maybe they are actively plotting to happen "Real soon now" and it is the player who has forgotten in the excitement of finally achieving one of their major goals and busy doing what needed to secure it.

There is a general to answer to be had because all rest of the specific circumstances of the campaign. A lot of time after a campaign is done, players will ask question of me about certain things. At which point I will walk them through what happened and why.
 
Technically yes, but theme and premise is not a thing with Sandbox campaign. What you are thinking is part of how the setting works. A Fantasy setting based around the idea of Howard's Hyboria is going to have some different and some comment assumptions than a fantasy setting based on the idea of Tolkein's Middle Earth or Martin's Westeros. Or historical 12th century Western Europe.

Saying I will run a campaign in something like Miller's Third Imperium setting, Asimov's Foundation, or Lucas' Galactic Empire also carries a set of different and common assumptions. Some of these elements you may call a theme or a premise. But as far as a sandbox campaign goes they are part of the setting's description.
So the pirate game isn't a sandbox? I'm confused. That's what I meant by premise and people mostly agreed that is was a sandbox.

Edit: And I was actually specifically talking about premise, not something about the way the setting works FWTW. Your comments here seems very much at odds with TristramEvans TristramEvans reply from just slightly upstream. The failure to connect the dots there is probably mine.
 
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Saying I will run a campaign in something like Miller's Third Imperium setting, Asimov's Foundation, or Lucas' Galactic Empire also carries a set of different and common assumptions. Some of these elements you may call a theme or a premise. But as far as a sandbox campaign goes they are part of the setting's description.

I haven't run many science fiction settings (simply because I have never really grasped how to make it work in practice). I have always found them fun to play in, but been very intimidated by them as a GM. But trying to run something like Foundation, or Clark's Childhood's End seem like they would both be challenging because those stories are very much about what happens over long spans of time. I almost feel like I never stopped to appreciate the setting itself in both cases because there is this sense of movement over them (with the exception of the prequel to foundation where it feels more like I am in a setting if that makes sense).

Stuff like Caves of Steel or City and the Stars I could probably manage as a setting. And I think you could use End of Eternity as a good premise for a time travel sandbox (but I think with a time travel sandbox, unless the GM knows everything about history, you would have to allow for the GM to make up details beyond what they know, and not worry about accuracy, simply to accommodate the freedom of a sandbox-----the GM wouldn't exactly have time to prepare if you suddenly go to a random place and time).
 
So the pirate game isn't a sandbox? I'm confused. That's what I meant by premise and people mostly agreed that is was a sandbox.

I think what he is saying, and I could be wrong, is there is setting in sandbox. You may have pirates. The players may from the outset decide to be pirates. But pirate campaign, itself isn't the sandbox: the sandbox is the world the pirates inhabit. Though I think you could make a pirate world (just like you could make a horror setting).

This is one of the reasons why I qualify most of my descriptions. Because I generally don't take a here is the world: do what you will approach. I often incorporate genre expectations into my games, and I usually have some kind of focus. So I find it a lot easier to use sandbox as one descriptor among others (i.e. Drama and Sandbox or a Wuxia Sandbox). It isn't because I think my games are unworthy. It is that when I run games I like to include elements that a lot of sandbox players don't seem to expect or want. For instance, I like being able to throw in "I am your father" moments. Those kinds of twists are comfortable in the wuxia genre (and I play them fairly, I don't invent them on the fly, but establish those kinds of secrets early on). Still, I would expect if I ran a game for Rob, Krueger, and Tristram, and told them it was sandbox, then started throwing these melodramatic plot twists at them all the time (or had henchmen popping out of walls a lot like in a Chang Cheh film), they would start to look at me a little oddly. So I like to set expectations. I had Rob in a session (and granted that was a particular scenario for a youtube) but I explained to him what the genre premise was and he was happy to go along (and it was great having Rob because he was good at pushing the boundaries of the system to get at genre convention, like using weapons in very unorthodox and creative ways).
 
I think what he is saying, and I could be wrong, is there is setting in sandbox. You may have pirates. The players may from the outset decide to be pirates. But pirate campaign, itself isn't the sandbox: the sandbox is the world the pirates inhabit. Though I think you could make a pirate world (just like you could make a horror setting).

This is one of the reasons why I qualify most of my descriptions. Because I generally don't take a here is the world: do what you will approach. I often incorporate genre expectations into my games, and I usually have some kind of focus. So I find it a lot easier to use sandbox as one descriptor among others (i.e. Drama and Sandbox or a Wuxia Sandbox). It isn't because I think my games are unworthy. It is that when I run games I like to include elements that a lot of sandbox players don't seem to expect or want. For instance, I like being able to throw in "I am your father" moments. Those kinds of twists are comfortable in the wuxia genre (and I play them fairly, I don't invent them on the fly, but establish those kinds of secrets early on). Still, I would expect if I ran a game for Rob, Krueger, and Tristram, and told them it was sandbox, then started throwing these melodramatic plot twists at them all the time (or had henchmen popping out of walls a lot like in a Chang Cheh film), they would start to look at me a little oddly. So I like to set expectations. I had Rob in a session (and granted that was a particular scenario for a youtube) but I explained to him what the genre premise was and he was happy to go along (and it was great having Rob because he was good at pushing the boundaries of the system to get at genre convention, like using weapons in very unorthodox and creative ways).
Yeah, sure, but none of that stops me and my table from having a 'pirate premise' nor that game from meeting the requirements of 'sandbox' laid out in this thread. The two don't seem to be in any way incompatible, so I don't see the value in trying say they can't co-exist. I'm not rrying to be difficult, I just don't see the value/point in trying to excise the notion of 'premise' form the idea of sandbox. *shrug*
 
So the pirate game isn't a sandbox? I'm confused. That's what I meant by premise and people mostly agreed that is was a sandbox.

Edit: And I was actually specifically talking about premise, not something about the way the setting works FWTW. Your comments here seems very much at odds with TristramEvans TristramEvans reply from just slightly upstream. The failure to connect the dots there is probably mine.


As Black Leaf and I were discussing, the word "premise" has different meanings, and none of them are "wrong", it just can lead to misunderstandings when one person is meaning it one way and another person is using it in another (equally valid) context. The thing is, "sandbox" here is terminology, specific to the hobby, so we're debating a specific meaning in a pre-determined context, whereas "premise" is just common usage English.

I don't think anyone is using it incorrectly, they are just using it to express different ideas.
 
Yeah, sure, but none of that stops me and my table from having a 'pirate premise' nor that game from meeting the requirements of 'sandbox' laid out in this thread. The two don't seem to be in any way incompatible, so I don't see the value in trying say they can't co-exist. I'm not rrying to be difficult, I just don't see the value/point in trying to excise the notion of 'premise' form the idea of sandbox. *shrug*

Nothing here stops you from doing anything. And by the sounds of it, you and me might have closer preferences for running a sandbox than me and Rob or me and Tristram. But I think the thing that matters really, which again is why I am not worried about set up and edge cases all that much, is whether that pirate premise you have effectively means the players aren't free to go and do other things in the setting, or to stop being pirates and seek their fortune serving a king or adventuring in wild lands. As long as the premise isn't interfering with that freedom, I think what you are saying describes a sandbox. If the premise puts some kind of constraint on what the players are allowed to do in the game, then I think it is a more limited or qualified sandbox. I also do think it matters if the premise is being imposed on the players or if they are setting that premise for themselves. If players aren't going off the pirate premise because they know the GM wants them to stay on it, that to me is definitely against the spirit of a classic sandbox. If they are staying pirates because that is what they want to do, I don't see that as not being a classic sandbox. Ultimately though, this just matters in terms of what the word means, not in terms of any should that you ought to be engaging in at your table. Personally, I tend to have a premise pitch I give to the players for my sandboxes. And I think that is what takes my games out of the realm of pure sandbox, and into the realm of limited or qualified (among other things I do).

I think Rob is just making the point that pure sandbox is about the setting not about the theme. Which I think is true.
 
As Black Leaf and I were discussing, the word "premise" has different meanings, and none of them are "wrong", it just can lead to misunderstandings when one person is meaning it one way and another person is using it in another (equally valid) context. The thing is, "sandbox" here is terminology, specific to the hobby, so we're debating a specific meaning in a pre-determined context, whereas "premise" is just common usage English.
Perhaps robertsconley robertsconley can be more specific about what he means by premise then, since he's the one who saw some value in divorcing the two ideas. I didn't think 'premise' was so vague a notion as to cause problems, but apparently I was mistaken.

Edit: On re-reading the above sounds bitchy, it wasn't supposed to. :thumbsup:
 
So the pirate game isn't a sandbox? I'm confused. That's what I meant by premise and people mostly agreed that is was a sandbox.
I don't know how many times I can repeat this but there is a difference between saying.

I will be running a campaign where everybody is going to be pirates in the 18th century Caribbean.

versus

I will be running a campaign where the setting is the 18th century, and the players start out as pirates in the Caribbean.

The former has a qualification because it has a premise. It would be expected that they remain pirates for the duration of the campaign.

The latter doesn't, it just saying that what the players are starting out as. Whether they remain pirates and for how long is completely up to them. That whatever they do it will happen on 18th century Earth.

I am failing why people are finding this so complex to understand. But it not you, it something I been wrestling with since the mid 80s.

People in this thread and other try to talk about what the "default" is. My opinion the default is that players think that the referee has put a lot of time and prep to making the campaign what it is. That it is rude to act in a way that negates or destroys that prep so goes along with whatever the premise is. That they have to convinced when that is not the case. And you just can't tell them, you have to back it up with how you referee during the first few sessions of the campaign. Once the players get to know you and how it works then it gets a lot easier.

Most of the novices to my campaign, don't believe they can decide to something different than what pirates ought to be doing. They think I will get upset or annoyed that they have destroyed my prep. A far less common subset will hear me but then start thinking as players they can do anything, not getting the fact they can only act and respond as their character. Misinterpreting the back and forth that occurred during character generation to create their background applies once the campaign has started*.

*This does not apply to asking about the setting, or pointing out something doesn't follow from what I said earlier, or something ought to be there because it is implied by something I said earlier. I been taking and acting on input on stuff like that for decades.
 
The two don't seem to be in any way incompatible, so I don't see the value in trying say they can't co-exist.

They aren't incompatible at all. I think there is a difference between saying "Sandbox means X and not X+Y" and saying "You shouldn't have X+Y in your game". I think we are just debating what the meaning of the term sandbox is. And I don't think anyone here is saying you can't mix sandbox with other things or tighten the constraints of a sandbox to produce cool 'qualified sandboxes". I would argue that the most exciting thing happening in gaming right now is seeing many of these old school approaches get picked up by people who are injecting new school elements into them and making something new. I like to think that is what I do for example. I think part of the problem is there seems to be an assumption here that 'sandbox' is good and 'qualified sandbox' is bad or lesser than. I find myself more interested in qualified sandboxes because they are both easier to run and I think you can throw in other tools and approaches that might not be present in a pure sandbox.
 
No offense robertsconley robertsconley but I really don't think the differentiation above is particularly important. I see what you're getting at, but I don't think that decision point is what makes it a 'premise' or not. That's fine though, I do see what you're saying generally and I think we agree about the broad strokes.
 
It works out exactly how you would expect it work out if you were there witnessing what happening.

If the enemies forgot about the character then it because they forgot. Why they forgot may never come up but if pressed I am sure that CRKrueger CRKrueger would provide the reason why after the campaign is done. I would never answer such a question during the campaign because spoilers.

Or maybe it only seems like they forgot and due to World in Motion they got bigger fish to fry. But if the campaign plays out long enough well...

Or maybe they are actively plotting to happen "Real soon now" and it is the player who has forgotten in the excitement of finally achieving one of their major goals and busy doing what needed to secure it.

There is a general to answer to be had because all rest of the specific circumstances of the campaign. A lot of time after a campaign is done, players will ask question of me about certain things. At which point I will walk them through what happened and why.
Oh yeah, some of my "retired" AD&D characters found out when the Next Generation took to the world that Demon Lords have a long memory. 30 years is nothing to them. There are even Ahab NPCs who see the PCs as the White Whale and are ready to stab at them from Hell's Heart.
 
No offense robertsconley robertsconley but I really don't think the differentiation above is particularly important. I see what you're getting at, but I don't think that decision point is what makes it a 'premise' or not. That's fine though, I do see what you're saying generally and I think we agree about the broad strokes.

I think it depends on how they are said and the intent. But my reading of Rob's A is that has an ought behind it (you guys are going to be pirates, you should remain pirates to stay true to this premise). Obviously a GM might simply mean B with that phrasing as well. But I do think Rob is drawing a distinction between a starting point, and a premise that is supposed to remain a through line over the course of the campaign. This is why I think what really matters is if the players are actually free to disengage from that premise or not.

And again, nothing wrong with having a premise that is a through line. I prefer them. I just think when the GM pitches a campaign like that, and there is the tacit assumption it will remain that sort of campaign) you are not offering them the same degree of freedom to explore as you would if it were simply a starting point.

Also I think it is totally fair for a GM to do this. I like qualified sandboxes because as a gamemaster it enables you to set parameters on what kind of work you want to do to prep for the campaign. Making it about pirates narrows it down an awful lot. It really makes things easier for me, it still affords a lot of freedom to go in any number of directions, but it isn't the same as just giving them the run of the setting. When I run games, I am mostly concerned about what works. And what works best for me, is defining the sandbox a bit and focusing on certain elements. Sometimes I want to go full sandbox. But for the most part, I find this the most effective in terms of balancing out the cost and time sink of prep.
 
So the pirate game isn't a sandbox? I'm confused. That's what I meant by premise and people mostly agreed that is was a sandbox.

Edit: And I was actually specifically talking about premise, not something about the way the setting works FWTW. Your comments here seems very much at odds with TristramEvans TristramEvans reply from just slightly upstream. The failure to connect the dots there is probably mine.
"Pirate Game" means to Rob that the PCs start out as Pirates or come from a Pirate Background.
"Pirate Game" to you sounds like that plus, there's a built in assumption that things will stay that way.

To me that added built in assumption is what the word "Premise" adds to the equation.
 
"Pirate Game" means to Rob that the PCs start out as Pirates or come from a Pirate Background.
"Pirate Game" to you sounds like that plus, there's a built in assumption that things will stay that way.

To me that added built in assumption is what the word "Premise" adds to the equation.
There isn't any GM assumption built into mine, the fiction is going to go where it goes and it's not for the GM (me) to make efforts to 'push' things back into a pigeon hole. I just don't think premise automatically has that notion built in whereas Rob does. Like I said, that's not an important distinction IMO, since we do agree that player freedom is the defining bit.
 
Pretty much - it's only arbitrary restrictions on IC player choices that matter

ARBITRARY RESTRICTION
the restriction would not exist if the gameworld was a real place and the characters were real people living in that gameworld. In other words, it cannot be rationalized "in game".

That said, I don't know how one could have a predetermined "theme" or how long their expectations could last, but conceptually, as long as they aren't directly interfering with the reality of the gameworld, they aren't a concern to the definition of a sandbox

I have an example to offer here, and I’m curious to see how you’d view it. My guess would be a qualified sandbox, but maybe not.

One of the games I’m in now is a game of Spire that I’m running. The game does have themes and a default premise: the PCs are all drow in the eponymous city, members of an organization called the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress dedicated to resisting the rule of the high elves who conquered the city a couple hundred years ago. The PCs are almost entirely free to go about how they operate and what they do toward that goal.

So that’s a strong premise. The game also doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about the rest of the world. It gives enough to lend context to the situation in the city. The expectation is that the game will take place in the city.

The city is essentially the environment of play. They’re free to move about the districts of the city and interact with the NPCs and factions there however they like. Their relationship with the Ministry could prove to be volatile and could end, either by their choice or their superiors’. So the premise could certainly change in that regard.

Leaving the city though…that’s a bit trickier. Doing so isn’t exactly allowed or easy to do within the setting. Could the PCs decide to do so? It would certainly be something a character in the world could consider. Could they pull it off? Conceivably, yeah.

The only context that this has come up in game so far would be as escape. The players talked about if the shit hit the fan badly enough, they might have to just skip town. But I think doing so would likely be the end of the campaign. Like, we’d do a final mission/adventure of them trying to make it out of the city undetected, and if so, they escape and are able to retire to far off lands. If not, then they’re either killed in the attempt and the game ends, or else they’re captured and maybe we continue in some way if everyone wanted.

The way I look at this game is as a sandbox. While there is a premise, it is one the players are actively interested in pursuing, and any obstacles to changing the premise have a reason in the fiction, even if they also have a reason in the real world.

I’m curious how you and other folks would view that. I mean, I think I have an idea on what bucket you’d put it in, but it’d be cool to hear thoughts on it.
 
I have an example to offer here, and I’m curious to see how you’d view it. My guess would be a qualified sandbox, but maybe not.

One of the games I’m in now is a game of Spire that I’m running. The game does have themes and a default premise: the PCs are all drow in the eponymous city, members of an organization called the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress dedicated to resisting the rule of the high elves who conquered the city a couple hundred years ago. The PCs are almost entirely free to go about how they operate and what they do toward that goal.

So that’s a strong premise. The game also doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about the rest of the world. It gives enough to lend context to the situation in the city. The expectation is that the game will take place in the city.

The city is essentially the environment of play. They’re free to move about the districts of the city and interact with the NPCs and factions there however they like. Their relationship with the Ministry could prove to be volatile and could end, either by their choice or their superiors’. So the premise could certainly change in that regard.

Leaving the city though…that’s a bit trickier. Doing so isn’t exactly allowed or easy to do within the setting. Could the PCs decide to do so? It would certainly be something a character in the world could consider. Could they pull it off? Conceivably, yeah.

The only context that this has come up in game so far would be as escape. The players talked about if the shit hit the fan badly enough, they might have to just skip town. But I think doing so would likely be the end of the campaign. Like, we’d do a final mission/adventure of them trying to make it out of the city undetected, and if so, they escape and are able to retire to far off lands. If not, then they’re either killed in the attempt and the game ends, or else they’re captured and maybe we continue in some way if everyone wanted.

The way I look at this game is as a sandbox. While there is a premise, it is one the players are actively interested in pursuing, and any obstacles to changing the premise have a reason in the fiction, even if they also have a reason in the real world.

I’m curious how you and other folks would view that. I mean, I think I have an idea on what bucket you’d put it in, but it’d be cool to hear thoughts on it.
Spire's a qualified sandbox. It's very open ended in how you resist the Ministry (tactics etc.) but it wouldn't support the PCs making their peace with the establishment and become secret police. (At least not as anything other than an endpoint to the campaign).
 
There isn't any GM assumption built into mine, the fiction is going to go where it goes and it's not for the GM (me) to make efforts to 'push' things back into a pigeon hole. I just don't think premise automatically has that notion built in whereas Rob does. Like I said, that's not an important distinction IMO, since we do agree that player freedom is the defining bit.

In that case I think you guys are using different language to say the same thing. As far as I can tell, the key distinction for Rob is if the premise is expected to remain over the whole campaign (and if the players feel pressured to keep the premise intact): versus the premise as a stating point. I do think there is a very real difference between those two ideas.

These things are also hard to deal with in a vacuum. Because then we just start debating edge cases. I know in my last two campaigns I considered them qualified sandboxes because of the expectations I had in my pitch to the players. My first one was the constable campaign. That was qualified and contained because I set it in a particular region and I wanted them all to be constables. I felt that was enough parameters that it was more of a limited sandbox than a pure one. And frankly I thought that was a good thing, because I wanted to run a game where I wasn't thinking so much in terms of sandbox. Especially since they would be going on missions initially and I wanted to include a lot of true crime stuff. I found it easier to fill in the campaign with elements from things I was thinking about, by not thinking it was a pure sandbox. I still ran it as a living world, and still let them go about doing things when, how, wherever they wanted. But I just wasn't as constrained as a GM to always check that I was being true to sandbox. My other recent campaign was supernatural new england, and the premise was the players would be paranormal investigators. That meant me imposing on them some kind of glue to keep them going after different monsters each week. I let them decide what that glue was (they ended up choosing to be a group of friends doing an online Ghost Adventure type show. Just to get things off the ground, the first adventure was planned: you guys are going here to investigate X. But after that I just handed them a map with paranormal locations and let them either pick those or inquire around about things that weren't pegged to the map if they preferred. And I basically used google maps to run everything, so they had full freedom to explore within the context of that (and because it is a private game, you can use real people, businesses, etc as NPCs and locations). I would definitely say that was at the very least, a qualified sandbox (probably even more of a hybrid game: once you get into modern day sandbox becomes a not so useful term I think).
 
In that case I think you guys are using different language to say the same thing. As far as I can tell, the key distinction for Rob is if the premise is expected to remain over the whole campaign (and if the players feel pressured to keep the premise intact): versus the premise as a stating point. I do think there is a very real difference between those two ideas.

These things are also hard to deal with in a vacuum. Because then we just start debating edge cases. I know in my last two campaigns I considered them qualified sandboxes because of the expectations I had in my pitch to the players. My first one was the constable campaign. That was qualified and contained because I set it in a particular region and I wanted them all to be constables. I felt that was enough parameters that it was more of a limited sandbox than a pure one. And frankly I thought that was a good thing, because I wanted to run a game where I wasn't thinking so much in terms of sandbox. Especially since they would be going on missions initially and I wanted to include a lot of true crime stuff. I found it easier to fill in the campaign with elements from things I was thinking about, by not thinking it was a pure sandbox. I still ran it as a living world, and still let them go about doing things when, how, wherever they wanted. But I just wasn't as constrained as a GM to always check that I was being true to sandbox. My other recent campaign was supernatural new england, and the premise was the players would be paranormal investigators. That meant me imposing on them some kind of glue to keep them going after different monsters each week. I let them decide what that glue was (they ended up choosing to be a group of friends doing an online Ghost Adventure type show. Just to get things off the ground, the first adventure was planned: you guys are going here to investigate X. But after that I just handed them a map with paranormal locations and let them either pick those or inquire around about things that weren't pegged to the map if they preferred. And I basically used google maps to run everything, so they had full freedom to explore within the context of that (and because it is a private game, you can use real people, businesses, etc as NPCs and locations). I would definitely say that was at the very least, a qualified sandbox (probably even more of a hybrid game: once you get into modern day sandbox becomes a not so useful term I think).

I think the big thing in the distinction between what robertsconley robertsconley and Fenris-77 Fenris-77 are making is about a change in the original situation or premise and if that’s possible, but also how likely anyone will even want to make such a change.

I’ve played in plenty of games I’d call a sandbox where the starting situation or something very much like it was in place for the entirety of the campaign. Like, as a player, I wasn’t really concerned about the need to be free to leave and go elsewhere or whatever.
 
Spire's a qualified sandbox. It's very open ended in how you resist the Ministry (tactics etc.) but it wouldn't support the PCs making their peace with the establishment and become secret police. (At least not as anything other than an endpoint to the campaign).

While I don’t exactly agree with your specific example (there are rules related to the ruling factions of the city in the event the PCs join them) but I think overall yes, you have a point about endpoints. Similar to how I described escaping the city…that seems like an end of some sort.

So that may be an interesting topic…how do folks end their sandbox campaigns? At what point do you call it over? Is it based solely on real life considerations like “until interest/enjoyment wanes” or rules/system elements like “once we reach level 20” or more in world reasons?

If in world reasons, what might those be, given the desire to eschew premise or theme and the like?
 
I have an example to offer here, and I’m curious to see how you’d view it. My guess would be a qualified sandbox, but maybe not.

One of the games I’m in now is a game of Spire that I’m running. The game does have themes and a default premise: the PCs are all drow in the eponymous city, members of an organization called the Ministry of Our Hidden Mistress dedicated to resisting the rule of the high elves who conquered the city a couple hundred years ago. The PCs are almost entirely free to go about how they operate and what they do toward that goal.

So that’s a strong premise. The game also doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about the rest of the world. It gives enough to lend context to the situation in the city. The expectation is that the game will take place in the city.

The city is essentially the environment of play. They’re free to move about the districts of the city and interact with the NPCs and factions there however they like. Their relationship with the Ministry could prove to be volatile and could end, either by their choice or their superiors’. So the premise could certainly change in that regard.

Leaving the city though…that’s a bit trickier. Doing so isn’t exactly allowed or easy to do within the setting. Could the PCs decide to do so? It would certainly be something a character in the world could consider. Could they pull it off? Conceivably, yeah.

The only context that this has come up in game so far would be as escape. The players talked about if the shit hit the fan badly enough, they might have to just skip town. But I think doing so would likely be the end of the campaign. Like, we’d do a final mission/adventure of them trying to make it out of the city undetected, and if so, they escape and are able to retire to far off lands. If not, then they’re either killed in the attempt and the game ends, or else they’re captured and maybe we continue in some way if everyone wanted.

The way I look at this game is as a sandbox. While there is a premise, it is one the players are actively interested in pursuing, and any obstacles to changing the premise have a reason in the fiction, even if they also have a reason in the real world.

I’m curious how you and other folks would view that. I mean, I think I have an idea on what bucket you’d put it in, but it’d be cool to hear thoughts on it.

I would say a limited, contained and/or qualified sandbox. And that isn't a bad thing at all here. I like campaigns set in cities. I ran a campaign in one city based on the Boxer from Shangtung (the idea being the players, like the character in the movie, are young up men and women who rise through the ranks of the criminal underworld and maybe even create their own criminal empire). I think once you set it inside a single city, that is what I would call a limited sandbox (because there are literal boundaries, it is contained). I don't know much about spire so unless this is something where the whole wolrd is a giant city, I think it would be contained. The premise sounds pretty focused to me and I would be inclined to think of it as qualified. But again, I don't see that as a bad thing. I think that is probably a good thing here.

You can bake parameters into the cosmology. So if the issue of leaving the city is limited by in game reasons, I still tend to thing of that as contained if it feels like a strong outgrowth of a premise. Like say the movie the running man: they can try to escape the gameshow, but the game show is the setting, and that kind of goes against a sandbox spirit. Sometimes though baking it into the setting doesn't feel like it is creating parameters as much.

Again, I think we are getting very deep into how many angels can dance on the head of a pin territory here. The important thing, really, to me, is your premise has enough focus and definition, and the setting is contained in one location, so it doesn't strike me as a pure sandbox.

Now that said, it doesn't mean you aren't running a sandbox. You are, just a more qualified one. Within the constraints you've set down, it seems like you are abiding by very sandbox approaches. That is one of the reasons I used contained sandboxes to refer to specific scenarios: there is this area of the map where the scenario is happening, but the players can do whatever the hell they want within those parameters. I think that is a lot of fun, plus it is easier to prep for than a complete setting.
 
I think the big thing in the distinction between what robertsconley robertsconley and Fenris-77 Fenris-77 are making is about a change in the original situation or premise and if that’s possible, but also how likely anyone will even want to make such a change.

I’ve played in plenty of games I’d call a sandbox where the starting situation or something very much like it was in place for the entirety of the campaign. Like, as a player, I wasn’t really concerned about the need to be free to leave and go elsewhere or whatever.
My experience with sandboxes (a pure sandbox) is players often do disengage from the starting point. They also often stop adventures mid-way through and go pursue other things. The promise of a sandbox is that kind of freedom. So I don't think it is that uncommon to start a campaign where people are pirates and for the players to become legitimate. In my last two wuxia campaigns the players started out as one thing and went the opposite way: in the first one they started out as criminals rising through the ranks of an underworld (not in a city this time), but eventually turned into heroes who rebelled against the corrupt emperor. In my other campaign they started out as constables and became drug lords. Now even though I didn't stop them from doing those things, from the outset of the campaigns, I had established those as strong premises. So I considered them both qualified or limited sandboxes (or if you prefer: focused sandboxes). It may in fact be a distinction that doesn't matter to everyone here, and that is fair. But I definitely think if I was going for a more pure sandbox, I wouldn't have emphasized the premises the way I did. And even though the players were able to break free from the premises, that was still a bit of a rail.

But every campaign has a starting point of some kind. Even if it is just you guys are hobos in the woods. That is a starting point. I think where it becomes the kind of premise Rob is talking about, is when the GM is saying this game is about being hobos in the woods.

And again, I don't think this is all that big a deal either way. Both approaches are good. They each have their upsides and downsides. I tend to prefer sandboxes with a stronger premise, and I don't think there is any harm in labeling those kinds of sandboxes with a modifier like qualified or limited. I actually find those labels a bit liberating. I don't particularly want to be shackled to pure sandbox that much. And I think when you promise players a sandbox, without qualification, there are some very strong expectations there. So it helps to just say, this isn't a typical sandbox.
 
While I don’t exactly agree with your specific example (there are rules related to the ruling factions of the city in the event the PCs join them) but I think overall yes, you have a point about endpoints. Similar to how I described escaping the city…that seems like an end of some sort.

So that may be an interesting topic…how do folks end their sandbox campaigns? At what point do you call it over? Is it based solely on real life considerations like “until interest/enjoyment wanes” or rules/system elements like “once we reach level 20” or more in world reasons?

If in world reasons, what might those be, given the desire to eschew premise or theme and the like?
For my HEX campaign, it just came to a natural in world end point.

They'd found a way back to the surface world, several characters were going to take it and several others decided to stay in the Hollow Earth. So it made sense to wrap it up there.
 
So that may be an interesting topic…how do folks end their sandbox campaigns? At what point do you call it over? Is it based solely on real life considerations like “until interest/enjoyment wanes” or rules/system elements like “once we reach level 20” or more in world reasons?

I think in classic sandboxes the endpoints are a lot less clear, and one of the appeals of a sandbox like that is longevity. You really can keep going and going if you do it right. I would contrast that with more heavily premised sandboxes, where I think the premise starts to naturally close in on itself and produce a more natural conclusion if that makes sense. This is at least my experience. I don't think these are universal physics for all sandboxes. But I have noticed the more open the sandbox the more it just kind of keeps going, and the more the detritus of what came before serves as a firmer and firmer foundation for that sandbox. Whereas my focused games have a tendency to end in things like blazes of glory or some kind of satisfying conclusion.
 
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