Sandbox RPG: help me understand

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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.

I suppose one thing to ask here would be how would you have felt in those campaigns if the other players suddenly stopped engaging that premise (or started moving from one thing to the next with no clear premise in mind)
 
I actually don’t think one is superior to the other. As long as the players and GM enjoy the game, do whatever you want.

Someone really needs to invent a Newman enoji for anytime posters on game forums assert playstyle superiority.
 
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.

OKay, before I answer, to make certain that we are on the same page, let me start by excising the statements you've made in your description that I find the most relevant to the question, and I'm going to ask you one question about each of these statements

1. The game does have themes
what do you mean by "themes"? I think of themes in a narrative sense (and a musical sense, but I assume that's not relevant), but in term of an RPG that could mean everything from "looking back on the events of my campaign, it seemed that these common elements arose from play that gave the game a particular flavour" to "this game is intended to teach the players the value of compassion and empathy".

2. 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.

If we discarded the term "premise" entirely, would you say that this is directly analogous to the term "Initial Context" as defined earlier in the thread?

INITIAL CONTEXT
the situation at the beginning of the campaign that the players are aware of as their characters, intended to give players the information needed to make informed choices from the start.

3. The PCs are almost entirely free to go about how they operate and what they do toward that goal.

Are the PC's free to abandon that goal entirely?

5. The game also doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about the rest of the world.

Are you willing to improvise setting details about the rest of the world?

6. The expectation is that the game will take place in the city.

Do you mean that's the expectation of the game or your expectation as the GM?

7. 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.

If the players chose to end their relationship with the Ministry, would the game continue?

8. Leaving the city…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. I think doing so would likely be the end of the campaign.

To your mind, how is "the game is over if they leave the city" different from a pre-agreed upon exception to the player characters being able to do anything in the game that a real person could if the setting were a real place?

10. 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.

If the players abandoned the premise in the first session and immediately devoted their efforts to escaping the city, and managed to do so, would the game go from being a campaign to a one-shot?
 
No offense robertsconley robertsconley but I really don't think the differentiation above is particularly important.
Folks thought it would be an issue that players instead of remaining pirates decided to go to Colorado to plant potatoes or fight in the French and Indian War. A campaign with a premise wouldn't never have either occur. A sandbox campaign would have that as a possibility.

I see what you're getting at, but I don't think that decision point is what makes it a 'premise' or not.
Those in this thread have continually used premise as as a restriction on what going to happen or not. That a campaign with the premise of Pirates in the Caribbean will remain about being pirates in the caribbean and at no point veer to planting potatoes in Colorado, fighting in the French and Indian or any other number of other things one could be doing in the 18th century.

This is a not a criticism of the use of premise in this sense. I avoid using that word because of problems I have with getting the idea of a sandbox to players. If I was to say that the premise of the campaign was being about mages in the Order of Thoth than the players will think they have to remain being mages in the Order of Thoth. And not consider other possibilities even when they make sense because they go against the premise of the campaign.

This is not theorycrafting but based things that happened dozens of times over the years. So two decades I am careful to say that, you are starting out as Mages in the Order of Thoth what happens afterwards is up to you.

That's fine though, I do see what you're saying generally and I think we agree about the broad strokes.
Sounds good.
 
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.
Just to be clear it doesn't matter if you do something outside of the starting situation. Only that you could. And yes it makes a measurable difference over the long run. For example seen my players try a more risky plan with a bigger payoff knowing that they can adventure elsewhere doing something else.
 
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 fact you will willing to let them try to escape the city and play out the resulting adventure is sufficient. The fact it was difficult to me is a setting details. There plenty of example of fantasy milieus that were bottle settings for various physical or supernatural reasons.

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.
Well I think more relevant test is what A Fiery Flying Roll Black Leaf related. Forgetting the system for a second, if you were running a campaign in the Spire setting, would you, as the referee, be OK with the players making their peace with the establishment and becoming part of the secret police. And that what they do for the rest of the campaign?

If so then it is a sandbox, if not then something more limited, probably a qualified sandbox if the players are free to do anything they wants as long as they remain a rebel.

If the system makes too much work running a campaign where the players are member of the secret police. Then that is a another qualifier that makes it a more limited campaign than a sandbox. Especially if you choose to use that system to run the setting knowing it limits their choices or ends the campaign if the players opt to focus on something else than what the system focuses.

Which is why I don't like using Fate or other system with a lot of metagaming (not saying Spire has this) in favor of system that allow me to quickly resolving players doing specific actions. I am fine with abstracting a complex job like repairing a vehicle to a dice roll. I am not fine with abstracting things like robbing a bank with a die roll or two.

I am only making these points is because from A Fiery Flying Roll Black Leaf description. The description on the website, it looks like the system has a focus on what the players ought to be doing (rebelling). My view as long you resolve what the player do as their character with a system you can handle things like the players being secret police. But it may also require some work to make it happen in a way that fun and interesting with that system. So it understandable why somebody wouldn't go this route.
 
I think the notion of the pirate game being discussed is a little narrow. A lot of things are generally within the sphere of the general pirate genre. Becoming a privateer or taking the kings pardon to hunt down other pirates don't seem to me to really stretch the premise at all - a game has to be able to go somewhere. Ceasing to be pirates and starting a merchant naval empire within the Caribbean is also not really that far out if that's the direction the game organically goes.

But if the Players decide they want to join the East India company with the intention of travelling to India and carving out their own kingdom from the decaying Mughal empire then that's a really radical departure. To me that's the sort of thing that prompts a solid pause and discussion with the players.
eg.
- Why do you want to do this? Are you bored with the current campaign? And if so is this really your preferred alternative or should we discuss a range of different options?
- Does everyone really want to do this given it's basically bringing the current campaign to an effective end? (Or is it just one dominating player?)
- If you want to do this, is part of the appeal really doing this with the same characters, or would you perhaps prefer to create new characters and come back to these characters at a later date?
- We can do this, but maybe we should have a break while I do a little reading up about India during the late Mughal Empire.

Of course it it was a fantasy pirate campaign set in an archipelago that wouldn't even be an option. It's only an option because it's a historical game. If I made my fantasy setting an archipelago with nothing else then there would be nowhere else as the setting was built to reinfoce the premise. Edit: In which case rejecting the premise would have to involve something like hunkering down and taking jobs as tax administrators or fisherman or something, as the moment they want to do anything on a larger scale, they will need a ship and to engage with the basic premise.
 
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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.

Oh, I know it's not a bad thing. I don't really worry about that kind of thing in that sense. I enjoy all kinds of games and I expect plenty of them would be the same kind that pretty much anyone in this thread and I could find ourselves at the same table and enjoying the same game. Then some others might not be for everyone. But I don't think that anyone is describing anyone else's game as bad or anything like that. No worries in that regard.

My take is that sandbox is a general term, it has been for as long as I've used it, and almost everywhere I've heard it. That's how I use it. For the most part, everyone here is on the same page and ultimately, I don't mind if we have different takes on the specificity of the word. I get what you guys are saying, and I can accept that's how you use the word, and that understanding allows us to communicate. I'm trying to understand the nuance of the thinking behind the designation, and to share mine.

As for Spire, no the entire world is not a city, but Spire itself is very large. There are other settings that are likely similar in that they're meant to be the setting, but promote sandbox play....things like Ptolus and the like.

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.

Well, I have one campaign (currently on hold until my longstanding group can all resume face to face play) that stretches back to the early 90s when my group first got together. It's a sandbox, but it does have a general premise. It's had few throughout, but at this point, I think we're in the final phase. I actually want to close things out and give this longstanding game a satisfying conclusion (if that's even possible at this point). I'm not a stranger to long campaigns that may meander in content.


I suppose one thing to ask here would be how would you have felt in those campaigns if the other players suddenly stopped engaging that premise (or started moving from one thing to the next with no clear premise in mind)

That's a good question. I don't know. I think if you have players that want their characters to go in different directions, then that's kind of irrelevant of the sandbox, and is more a group dynamic question. Can the group split and continue to play effectively? Will everyone still be having fun? Does one character effectively go off on their own and that's it? The player leaves or makes a new character?

I mentioned some of these earlier as how they impacted the status of game as a sandbox, because they would kind of seem to.

But then there's also the question of a situation like "Sure, your character can go off and do that.....but we're remaining focused on the other four PCs, so that would effectively write your PC out of the game for now....is that considered not allowing the player to do what his character wants?
 
To me that's the sort of thing that prompts a solid pause and discussion with the players.
Sure if it was agreed for out of game that the campaign was to be limited to playing in the 18th century Caribbean as pirate.
then that's a really radical departure.

Why if it is a sandbox? And if there are limits agreed too then it seems a bit obvious that a discussion is in order. For sandbox campaigns, the possibility of a really radical departure is part of what the referee signed on for.




eg.
- Why do you want to do this?
For sandbox campaigns, I figure the players are quite compentent as adults to know what they want to do. I am not going to second guess them.

Are you bored with the current campaign?
Sure that sometimes happens, what sounded interesting didn't play out so great. You should take it as a compliment that they still want to continue the campaign as those character. This means they see your presentation of 18th century to be interesting just not the situation involving being pirates in the Caribbean during that time. That what makes sandbox campaigns nice in that they are self-correcting in terms of what keeps the players engaged.

And if so is this really your preferred alternative or should we discuss a range of different options?
If the group comes up with the idea of going east to join the East India Company and adventure in the decaying Mughal Empire, I am going to assume they got the range of options covered.

- Does everyone really want to do this given it's basically bringing the current campaign to an effective end? (Or is it just one dominating player?)
Again I am assume there are adults in the room. And if a dominating player is a problem there are going to be other issue greater than a decision to join the East India Company.

In my experience you are far more likely see a problem dominating player hog all the action and planning and the group wanting to go to another area so they can do a reset and get away from that players scheme as they can do anything themselves. That what happen in part in the Nomar campaign. Yes the wealth of the King's ransom was going to change things but the whole reason they were on the viking frontier was because of one player with a strong personality. Once that player had to bow out, they didn't feel an obligation to stick around the area. They weighed their choices and decided it was better to take the money and get out while the going was good and build an inn.


- If you want to do this, is part of the appeal really doing this with the same characters, or would you perhaps prefer to create new characters and come back to these characters at a later date?
There is zero reason to bring that up in a sandbox especially one set in the 18th century where it more than plausible for the player to head to a new regions. Pirates did that all the time then and earlier.

- We can do this, but maybe we should have a break while I do a little reading up about India during the late Mughal Empire.
Sure, I have from time to time asked for a break to do some prep.
Of course it it was a fantasy pirate campaign set in an archipelago that wouldn't even be an option.
Unless you implied there was a larger world. And even if was something like Guin's Earthsea it is still filled with it own comings and goings that are things other than Piracy.

I know we focused a lot of switching geographical location but trashing the setting is more than. It is radical change abound regardless of specifics. For example switching from being pirates to searching for lost mayan treasure and stumbling across an ancient mayan mystery even one involving the supernatural if you are doing something like movies and adding curse, black magic, and the like.


It's only an option because it's a historical game. If I made my fantasy setting an archipelago with nothing else then there would be nowhere else as the setting was built to reinfoce the premise.
In my experience the more a milieu is a bottle setting the more likely it will be found uninteresting in the long run. And verisimilitude is often lost in the process. I have a friend who referee all the time with bottle settings he makes up. Deliberately creates it so the setting is this really small region. Like the Spire mentioned earlier. And his campaigns are generally about one thing and often end after a dozen sessions. They are fun but don't have long legs.

The trick is to make the player want to stay. To make things interesting enough so that they keep on fiddling with thing in the original area of the campaign. You find out what interesting in a sandbox by noting what the players like to do and who they choose to roleplay with as the campaign unfolds. Once they figure out they can make lasting changes both good and bad is often the point where they hooked and want to see it to the end.
 
But then there's also the question of a situation like "Sure, your character can go off and do that.....but we're remaining focused on the other four PCs, so that would effectively write your PC out of the game for now....is that considered not allowing the player to do what his character wants?
With Spire specifically (and I suspect I have the advantage over Rob in knowing the game), I think the problem would be deeper than that. The RPG (and the supplements I've read) are so focused on the "Drow rebels" concept that doing anything else would take so much work you're pretty much homebrewing the game.

It's a similar issue to the (even narrower) Blades in the Dark. You can approach Blades in any way as long as you are always criminals doing some kind of heist or another. Both are narrative rpg sandboxes in how they're written, but their focus is narrow enough to definitely be qualified ones. Which as you say, isn't a bad thing. Sandbox is just one way to approach settings, it's not some kind of plateau you have to reach. I wax lyrical about En Garde! on here and that's not only not a sandbox, it's the polar opposite of one. (It's a closed system game, but that one probably deserves its own thread at some point).
 
Sure if it was agreed for out of game that the campaign was to be limited to playing in the 18th century Caribbean as pirate.


Why if it is a sandbox? And if there are limits agreed too then it seems a bit obvious that a discussion is in order. For sandbox campaigns, the possibility of a really radical departure is part of what the referee signed on for.
Because it's a radical change in the game. I don't really see what labelling it a sandbox or agreeing to previous limits or not has got to do with it.

Even if we didn't have any limitations beforehand, if we've been playing a game in the Caribbean for a year, making contacts, interacting with factions, building relationships with NPCs, then suddenly shifting the whole focus of the campaign is a major change and warrants a proper discussion.

The trick is to make the player want to stay. To make things interesting enough so that they keep on fiddling with thing in the original area of the campaign. You find out what interesting in a sandbox by noting what the players like to do and who they choose to roleplay with as the campaign unfolds. Once they figure out they can make lasting changes both good and bad is often the point where they hooked and want to see it to the end.
Edit: Well yes, but doesn't the illusionist say the same thing? The trick is to make them want to follow the plot?

I just tend to think the freedom to do something you're only really likely to want to do out of boredom with the existing game or sheer perversity is a weird place to draw an important distinction.
 
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1. The game does have themes
what do you mean by "themes"? I think of themes in a narrative sense (and a musical sense, but I assume that's not relevant), but in term of an RPG that could mean everything from "looking back on the events of my campaign, it seemed that these common elements arose from play that gave the game a particular flavour" to "this game is intended to teach the players the value of compassion and empathy".

More about the narrative; the kinds of things that are likely to come up. Resisting authority, societal class distinctions, how far people will go for a cause, the damage that such things do to people.....these are all expected to come up or inform play to one degree or another. There certainly could be more, and there certainly can be ones that spring up only through play which may be unique to one game but not to another.....but there are some that I would say are more likely or expected. Like, when I pitched the game to my players, I mentioned some of them.

2. 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.

If we discarded the term "premise" entirely, would you say that this is directly analogous to the term "Initial Context" as defined earlier in the thread?
INITIAL CONTEXTthe situation at the beginning of the campaign that the players are aware of as their characters, intended to give players the information needed to make informed choices from the start.

Yes, I believe it does for the most part.

3. The PCs are almost entirely free to go about how they operate and what they do toward that goal.

Are the PC's free to abandon that goal entirely?

Ultimately, yes. However, the decision to do so may have significant impact on the game, and may well end it. The game is kind of about taking the initial premise or initial context and then seeing how that goes for the characters. What does this kind of cause do to people?

I think there are some changes in goal that would be easier to handle and some that would be difficult. I mean, spies or rebels changing allegiance or branching out into other things like crime or what have you isn't exactly unheard of... but shift too much, and I think the game becomes about something much different than intended.


5. The game also doesn’t go into a great deal of detail about the rest of the world.

Are you willing to improvise setting details about the rest of the world?

Could a Gm be capable of such? Sure. But I think if the players decide to abandon Spire and their connection to the Ministry and the cause of the drow, then there comes the point where you have to say "why are we playing this"?

And I don't mean that there cannot be answers. Maybe the characters are on the run, and there's some interesting bits still there, and people are eager to keep going, and the GM doesn't mind the additional work. There could be reasons to continue, and I expect people out there in the wild have done so.

But I would also expect that such a decision meaning the end of the game would be a reasonable outcome, too. "After being disavowed by the Ministry and being hunted by both them and the Paladins, you manage to escape the city" seems like a fitting end.

The game need not be an endless campaign where you continue just because. I think the premise gives it a kind of clock that's counting down. Though everyone can go at their own pace....the idea is that bad things are likely inevitable. Similar to how most folks may approach a Call of Cthulhu game. The longer it goes, the greater the chance of madness or death. Doesn't have to be so, but I think it's a factor.

6. The expectation is that the game will take place in the city.

Do you mean that's the expectation of the game or your expectation as the GM?

Both? I mean, that's what the game is about, so I think anyone who was interested in playing it would likely want to stick around there. There's no shortage of detail or material to run many, many sessions if that's what one wanted. There's plenty to do and explore and interact with.

7. 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.

If the players chose to end their relationship with the Ministry, would the game continue?

Perhaps. The way my game is going, that seems to at least be on the table, and I don't think that if it were to happen that their break from the Ministry would be the end of the game. But I think it would be like the beginning of the last leg, or triggering of like "Act III" so to speak. From that point, the game would be different, and it would likely be about escaping the city intact, or maybe some kind of blaze of glory, or something similar.

8. Leaving the city…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. I think doing so would likely be the end of the campaign.

To your mind, how is "the game is over if they leave the city" different from a pre-agreed upon exception to the player characters being able to do anything in the game that a real person could if the setting were a real place?

Because the characters can leave the city? Within the setting, the "game" doesn't end.

I mean, if my character wants to leave the city, and I don't do that because I as a player don't want the game to end, I'm not making decisions as my character in the world, I'm making them as a player in the game.


10. 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.

If the players abandoned the premise in the first session and immediately devoted their efforts to escaping the city, and managed to do so, would the game go from being a campaign to a one-shot?

Was there meant to be a 9?

That may be how I handled it, yeah. I'd read that as the players not actually being interested in playing the game. But I don't really see this happening.

It's Pete Holmes to Jared Logan in the clip you posted. Freedom to not engage isn't really the kind of player freedom I'm concerned with maintaining. If we've talked about this as a game we're going to play, I'd be very surprised if people wanted to bail in session one. If they didn't seem interested in the game when I pitched it I would have run something else (in this case, I pitched a choice of four games I'd be willing to run, and the three players all had Spire as their number 1 or 2 choice, so it was above the others).
 
The more I think about it, the more I think any real radical change in direction in the game has more to do with how the group feels when it happens and very little to do with any initial session 0 pitch.

If you've been playing a game in a city for a year and the players have to flee because they've made their presence unsustainable, then that might either be a natural place to end a campaign or a launching pad for something very different, but it's really going to depend on how everyone feels in the moment. With the best intentions of keeping within the bounds of the city the game may still reach a point where that is no longer viable, and yet everyone is so attached to their character they want to continue in some way. On the other hand, regardless of any prior agreement that the game was an open world, after a year of being heavily involved in a single city, the game may feel like it's reached a natural end point (or at least indefinite pause point) when the party leaves.

And there's also games where this sort of thing happens and you continue and everyone feels the energy somehow just drain out of the game within a few sessions.
 
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Which is why I don't like using Fate or other system with a lot of metagaming (not saying Spire has this) in favor of system that allow me to quickly resolving players doing specific actions. I am fine with abstracting a complex job like repairing a vehicle to a dice roll. I am not fine with abstracting things like robbing a bank with a die roll or two.

I am only making these points is because from @
Black Leaf
Black Leaf description. The description on the website, it looks like the system has a focus on what the players ought to be doing (rebelling). My view as long you resolve what the player do as their character with a system you can handle things like the players being secret police. But it may also require some work to make it happen in a way that fun and interesting with that system. So it understandable why somebody wouldn't go this route.

The default assumption of the game is that the characters begin play as drow rebels, members of the Ministry. There are narrative mechanics in the game, but most are class abilities that allow players to determine certain elements of the setting. The more extreme versions of this are addressed by magic use. The game does offer alternate abilities for PCs who choose to join the city watch or any number of other organizations, so I think you can certainly do a game where they abandon the mission, but keep going in some way. I'd just be surprised if that happened a lot in games of Spire.


With Spire specifically (and I suspect I have the advantage over Rob in knowing the game), I think the problem would be deeper than that. The RPG (and the supplements I've read) are so focused on the "Drow rebels" concept that doing anything else would take so much work you're pretty much homebrewing the game.

It depends. There are plenty of other groups with actual mechanics for PCs, and there certainly could be ways to continue without the Ministry angle and just using the setting, with some other goal in mind.

But yeah, the default expectation of the game is the idea of resistance.

It's a similar issue to the (even narrower) Blades in the Dark. You can approach Blades in any way as long as you are always criminals doing some kind of heist or another. Both are narrative rpg sandboxes in how they're written, but their focus is narrow enough to definitely be qualified ones. Which as you say, isn't a bad thing. Sandbox is just one way to approach settings, it's not some kind of plateau you have to reach. I wax lyrical about En Garde! on here and that's not only not a sandbox, it's the polar opposite of one. (It's a closed system game, but that one probably deserves its own thread at some point).

Well, I've played or run Blades games where the PCs were one of the default crew types....Hawkers, Smugglers, Bravos, and Assassins (there are a few others, but these are the ones I've played), but also Vigilantes, Scholars, Grifters, and a game where the PCs were members of the Bluecoats. So certainly not always criminals and certainly not always involved in heists.

So there has been some expansion of the mechanics to the point I think a pretty good amount of options exist.

But I don't disagree with your general point that Blades has a narrower band of possible starting situations than other games may have. At least potentially, even if I think many times the default is some kind of take on "adventurer".
 
Blades can run pretty much anything that involves groups of like-minded individuals IMO.
 
The more I think about it, the more I think any real radical change in direction in the game has more to do with how the group feels when it happens and very little to do with any initial session 0 pitch.

If you've been playing a game in a city for a year and the players have to flee because they've made their presence unsustainable, then that might either be a natural place to end a campaign or a launching pad for something very different, but it's really going to depend on how everyone feels in the moment. With the best intentions of keeping within the bounds of the city the game may still reach a point where that is no longer viable, and yet everyone is so attached to their character they want to continue in some way. On the other hand, regardless of any prior agreement that the game was an open world, after a year of being heavily involved in a single city, the game may feel like it's reached a natural end point (or at least indefinite pause point) when the party leaves.

And there's also games where this sort of thing happens and you continue and everyone feels the energy somehow just drain out of the game within a few sessions.

Yeah, these are my concerns. Radical change but your sure (as sure as you can be) that everyone's on board, and you're capable of making the change (like you have or can create the content you need)? Awesome, do it. I've had campaigns that veer off into new territory like this, so the appeal of that possibility is not lost on me.

But I've also gone along with such a change and had my enjoyment fade. Or seen the entire group's enjoyment fade.

This is kind of why I think any such major shift may be a signal of dissatisfaction in some way. Something is missing for someone, it would seem. Or things have gotten stale. These seem like out of game concerns to me, so I'd want to talk about them.

On another note, I wonder if having a dedicated rules system that you almost always use, or a dedicated setting that you almost always use, factors in here. I don't really have either, so maybe that's flavoring my perceptions on all this.
 
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Blades can run pretty much anything that involves groups of like-minded individuals IMO.
I find it narrower than that. Anything that includes a crew carrying out some kind of score (and the Bluecoats playbook is heavily based on the "police as another gang" trope, as is the vigilantes).

There's a reason that most of the FiTD games (and all the successful ones) follow that basic structure. Stuff like the stress mechanic just wouldn't work the same way for a game of plotting nobles say.
 
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 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.
Well...I really don't expect the enemies really forgot. If they got killed elsewhere, maybe.
In some settings, maybe not even then...:shade:
But yeah, the rest is about what I'd expect.
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.
So how do the characters in your second picture "retire"? Like that? Like Odysseus (who, in a fantasy book written about the war of Troy, was mentioned to be 'the man with no enemies'...because he'd killed them all, until not a single one remained:devil:)?

Also, A Fiery Flying Roll Black Leaf I see that Tristram, Rob and Fenris are having the same conversation about the pirates...but I'd note with satisfaction that most of them seem to consider "a game where all the character are pirates" to be a pure sandbox and not a qualified one, as long as the PCs are able to drop the pirate trade in Session One.
Which is what I was saying as well.
However, this has two unexpected conclusions which make me feel weird for this thread:
1) This is a thread where you're taking a more extreme stance about what makes a pure sandbox than Tristram, whom you labelled "an Old Testament prophet":angel:.
And now the real kicker (in my book):
2) 'Tis also a thread where I'm on the side of the majority:shock:!
Conclusion: this thread is weirder than the Kowloon Horror thread, man:gunslinger:!
 
I find it narrower than that. Anything that includes a crew carrying out some kind of score (and the Bluecoats playbook is heavily based on the "police as another gang" trope, as is the vigilantes).

There's a reason that most of the FiTD games (and all the successful ones) follow that basic structure. Stuff like the stress mechanic just wouldn't work the same way for a game of plotting nobles say.
I'm pretty familiar with the mechanics and I can think of more than one way to make that work. Mostly, I find, it's about reskinning stress to target something core to the theme in question. If you rebranded stress to Face, say, and rebuilt 'turf' into something based on influence and rumor I think you'd be off to the races. I should be clear, I didn't really mean Blades as published, but more FitD as base mechanic and design philosophy.
 
Interesting thread, and a lot of activity this morning that I simply couldn't keep up with... I had to skim a lot of it...

For sure though, Robert has never said anything that doesn't make sense to me or that I don't agree with. I don't have the resources to run the pure sandboxes that Robert runs, but I sure strive to give players as much latitude as I can.

Yet, I have also had frustrations. I had a Traveller play by post on Unseen Servant where the players were very reluctant to follow any of the hooks I set out. Several of the players also got into so much deep role play among themselves that made it hard to follow (and some of it approached "go get a room" level). In fact, they often ignored my requests for "what action do you take next?" and instead focused on their PCs romance. And then one player introduced a major NPC that was conspiring against the PC and then decided they needed to go to his PC's home world (off map). Now I get in a pure sandbox, the GM maybe would just roll with this, and roll up some brand new sub-sectors and figure out who this NPC was. Or maybe not...

My RuneQuest Thieves Guild campaign looks like the PCs are about to head off away from the Thieves Guild. Honestly it's turning out there isn't quite enough amongst the Thieves Guild scenarios to really run a campaign. It's not yet quite a sandbox because I really hadn't though much about the world beyond Haven. They are interested in following some leads that will head towards some of the Companion's adventures, not quite sure where that will go. So yea, this was a campaign that started off with PCs rolled up as Thieves Guild candidates that is likely heading off in a different direction.

My RuneQuest campaign in Glorantha is much more of a sandbox, still not pure and the players are almost certainly trying to color inside the lines, but if they abandoned the current scenario lead and took off on some other angle, I would oblige. But Glorantha, at least in the area the campaign is in is familiar enough with me that I can handle anything, and I've got a huge stock of modules (including D&D modules) that I can put into play. I've also run two "dungeons" (actually ruins set in The Big Rubble) by taking a Dyson Logos map and quickly populating it. The 2nd was because they decided to chase some trolls that ran away from the 1st, which they then abandoned before actually going after the trolls... Though the abandonment was to get back to following a lead from the 1st ruin.
 
Yep, I can definitely see where a sandbox might get pooped in by the players. That’s why the GM has to have a water spray bottle nearby in case he needs to take action.
There's a very different reason I value those massive 600 page hardback rule books. For hucking...
 
That all sounds cool to me. I feel like fantasy is a qualifier although one that’s wide open, but using a D&D system likely narrows it down a bit.

If you don’t mind sharing more, how did things begin? Were the PCs all in the same town? Same job or organization? Again, if you don’t mind sharing. It’d probably be good to have some specific examples instead of everyone waving hypotheticals around and going booga booga!

The 5e game I’m currently in is one I’d classify as a sandbox. The PCs were all living in the same town at the start of the game. Two are natives of that town, one’s a military deserter hiding out there, and one was a new arrival, looking to set up some trade for her father.

We’re approaching a year of play in February and the characters are about to hit level 8. They’ve spent most of the campaign in the surrounding area of the main town. The farthest we’ve traveled is the capital city which is about a week or so away.

One lived in town, one outside of town on a farm, and the other in a cabin on the edge of woods near the farm.

One player wanted to randomly roll everything, so he wound up as a Bugbear Paladin with the Outlander background and the Homesteader origin, so we molded that as he was part of a Bugbear raiding party that was left behind by his companions so they could get away, the king's men took mercy on him, and he repented his evil ways and swore fealty to the crowd and to justice. Then his home on the edge of civilization was raided while he was out on a hunt, and his family killed and his farm burned down, so he swore an oath to see justice done and hit the road looking for them, officially taking the mantle of Paladin.

Another was a Minotaur stone mason raised by two dwarven women after his parents - merchants - were killed when he was young. One mother taught him craftsmanship and one mother taught him to fight (class is a Fighter). His town was attacked and one of his mothers wounded terribly, so he took up his warhammer seeking revenge.

The third is a human Ranger who is conflicted with dark thoughts brought on by unrequited love, and she lived on the edge of the wild.

With the backstories they gave me, I tossed the obvious idea that both places were attacked by the game group - gnolls - and they sought out this tortured Ranger to help them find the attackers.

The gnolls provided the hook to go into the neighboring empire that they are only passingly familiar with, and which I've started seeding with encounters, schemes, and groups for them to stumble on.

I didn't even do much worldbuilding at all, until they made characters. Once one made a minotaur, I split minotaurs into two groups: The classic, underground minotaur and the above ground, more peaceful minotaur, which he was spawned from.
 
You said adventuring careers, so it would seem so.

Is there an expectation that the players are going to try and look for a kind of stable employment as labourers and clerks?

Give WotC another year or two and I have no idea what the expectation for D&D characters will be. I just ditched our Tiny Taverns game for 5e...I fully expect WotC to release a book where you're just running a bar in a fantasy world sometime soon.

But that could easily be a, what did we decide on? Constrained sandbox?
 
Give WotC another year or two and I have no idea what the expectation for D&D characters will be. I just ditched our Tiny Taverns game for 5e...I fully expect WotC to release a book where you're just running a bar in a fantasy world sometime soon.

But that could easily be a, what did we decide on? Constrained sandbox?
Not sure. I mean, it might be pure sandbox, it depends on whether that was the premise, or whether the GM requested we're running a bar.
I'd love it either way:shade:.

Yep, I can definitely see where a sandbox might get pooped in by the players. That’s why the GM has to have a water spray bottle nearby in case he needs to take action.
Over the years, I've used a bird cage, a bokken, a Chinese training sword, and discussion of the (on-topic for the IC events) locks and strangles that the character was training, complete with demonstrations, to keep the order:shade:.
The bird cage action was actually the most violent one, since I put it on the heads of two female players that were kissing each other (in character), so I only needed one cage for both:grin:. Complete with a "if you want to get a room, we'll sideline your characters for a while, or if you all want to get a room, I'll be waiting* and reading a book here" clarification:tongue:.
Compared to that, showing the locks and strangles with good control was completely pacifistic!

*The group contained a relative of mine, so I wasn't comfortable with joining:angel:.

Yet, I have also had frustrations. I had a Traveller play by post on Unseen Servant where the players were very reluctant to follow any of the hooks I set out. Several of the players also got into so much deep role play among themselves that made it hard to follow (and some of it approached "go get a room" level). In fact, they often ignored my requests for "what action do you take next?" and instead focused on their PCs romance. And then one player introduced a major NPC that was conspiring against the PC and then decided they needed to go to his PC's home world (off map). Now I get in a pure sandbox, the GM maybe would just roll with this, and roll up some brand new sub-sectors and figure out who this NPC was. Or maybe not...
Depends on my mood, frankly. I don't usually tolerate players introducing NPCs, but I give them some lattitude for NPCs from their backstories, as long as I confirm those are available.
Then again, if they go to visit the homeworld, they just might find an asteroide field instead...or a distress signal that actually says "do not approach, you morons, quarantine the fucking planet FOREVER"...:devil:

Yes, I'm both a lazy, and an EVIL Referee:gunslinger:!
 
Give WotC another year or two and I have no idea what the expectation for D&D characters will be. I just ditched our Tiny Taverns game for 5e...I fully expect WotC to release a book where you're just running a bar in a fantasy world sometime soon.

But that could easily be a, what did we decide on? Constrained sandbox?
Hmmm...constrained sandbox.

I'm tempted to dub this a lunchbox.
 
One player wanted to randomly roll everything, so he wound up as a Bugbear Paladin...

Another was a Minotaur stone mason...

This sounds like the kind of characters my players will pitch to me... right after I told them "only PHB players races".

But yeah, that was an awesome way to link all the PCs together.

I tried to follow this thread but really it just seems to be people arguing over definitions which don't really matter, because at the end of the day, you play what you play at your table.
 
This sounds like the kind of characters my players will pitch to me... right after I told them "only PHB players races".

But yeah, that was an awesome way to link all the PCs together.

I tried to follow this thread but really it just seems to be people arguing over definitions which don't really matter, because at the end of the day, you play what you play at your table.
If I told my players "only PHB races", they would have stuck to that. They are good like that.

I didn't even have published Minotaur stats anywhere when he asked...but I found a set on an Unearthed Arcana article and it was good enough for me.

And I am with you on this thread. Holy smokes this navel gazing takes the fun out of gaming sometimes.
 
If I told my players "only PHB races", they would have stuck to that. They are good like that.

I didn't even have published Minotaur stats anywhere when he asked...but I found a set on an Unearthed Arcana article and it was good enough for me.

And I am with you on this thread. Holy smokes this navel gazing takes the fun out of gaming sometimes.
Depends on the navel I suppose...

iu
 
Give WotC another year or two and I have no idea what the expectation for D&D characters will be. I just ditched our Tiny Taverns game for 5e...I fully expect WotC to release a book where you're just running a bar in a fantasy world sometime soon.

But that could easily be a, what did we decide on? Constrained sandbox?

“Welcome to Dragonbucks!”
 
“Welcome to Dragonbucks!”

Y'all realise it's already been done, right?


Adventure summary

The adventure takes place over the course of the characters' first day of work at the Firejolt Café. Their manager, Ellina Tanglewood, scheduled the group for training but quickly falls ill. She trusts the characters to work together to run the café as she recovers.

Player objectives

  • Clean the coffee machine.
  • Successfully fulfill drink orders during the morning rush.
  • Save customers from the monster hidden in the newsstand.
  • Work together to complete a complex drink order.
 

Adventure summary

The adventure takes place over the course of the characters' first day of work at the Firejolt Café. Their manager, Ellina Tanglewood, scheduled the group for training but quickly falls ill. She trusts the characters to work together to run the café as she recovers.

Player objectives

  • Clean the coffee machine.
  • Successfully fulfill drink orders during the morning rush.
  • Save customers from the monster hidden in the newsstand.
  • Work together to complete a complex drink order.

Are those really the objectives? I am all for players launching coffee trade empires or doing non-adventurous things, but having worked in shops and restaurants for years over my life, I can't imagine having fun with completing 'complex drink orders' as one of my main objectives (unless there is more to it like getting the ingredients is itself an adventure because you have to go off to the hills and find exotic monsters or something). It just looks like roleplaying a daily grind of working in the service industry.
 
Roll A DEX check to clean the coffee machine, DC 25 .... Darn, rolled a 12 ... OK, you lose an arm and you're now bleeding to death, what do you do?
 
Are those really the objectives? I am all for players launching coffee trade empires or doing non-adventurous things, but having worked in shops and restaurants for years over my life, I can't imagine having fun with completing 'complex drink orders' as one of my main objectives (unless there is more to it like getting the ingredients is itself an adventure because you have to go off to the hills and find exotic monsters or something). It just looks like roleplaying a daily grind of working in the service industry.
After reading the adventure I think it supposed to be more about the people you meet while doing those things.

Which is fine in my book, but this particular take on it is poorly done. The author gets caught way too much in the game aspect of RPGs than the roleplaying.
 
I know nothing about current WOTC stuff.
Wizards has been changing tone and tenor every product cycle. I will bet the next cycle will have something completely different. This cycle about roleplaying characters in a weird magical academy. I guess I a bit meh about the reaction to this adventure and the main product because for decades there been a large group of GURPS fans who like this kind of stuff with Illuminati U, Girl Genius, and so on. Off beat, and off the wall fantasy that supposed to be a bit silly and fun and doesn't always involve kicking down doors, killing things, and taking their shit.

So now for the next couple of months it gets the spotlight with the current edition D&D. (Shrug) It will pass on to the nex thing like the Gothic Horror of Ravenloft, The megadungeon of the Mad Archmage, a actual Greyhawk adventure in Saltmarsh, adventures in Hell, and so on.
 
Roll A DEX check to clean the coffee machine, DC 25 .... Darn, rolled a 12 ... OK, you lose an arm and you're now bleeding to death, what do you do?

Lol. That would at least be entertaining (like the old beer and pretzels games in the 90s). Like if you ran it as a sitcom format (where instead of encounters you had more and more complications and comedic-dramatic twists, I could see that (not really D&D, but that would be fun on a night you want to just do something different or take a breather). Like I could see an I Love Lucy type situation or a Seinfeld or Friends situation. I used to do that kind of format occasionally for one shots when we were bored with serious games. But this doesn't seem to be anything like that. This looks like you are literally roleplaying work.

I remember morning rushes when I worked in a bagel shop. Nothing fun or gameable about the morning rush, unless you are throwing in stuff like the owner losing his finger in a bagel machine and needing to keep that secret from the customers (while taking orders for the local health inspector)
 
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