The individual adventures and quests can be linear, it is the world that is a Sandbox. Players are allowed to start and stop or switch between adventures within the world, (subject to any timers running). This is what many people don't understand about the concept of a Sandbox World. If I want an advanced Degree from a University, there are set, linear steps to accomplish that. But I can start, stop, or switch majors or schools at any time I want. There may be consequences, but I am free to move through life making choices.
The quests and adventures are linear in retrospect, but the changes that occur along the way are often consequences of player actions and NPC's reactions. Why didn't you finish at that first University? I didn't like X professor, or I realized the program wasn't for me. So I switched schools, then I dropped out when I happened to meet Y and moved to Z to be with them. So now I'm studying at my thirds school. The same goal, but the path changes owing to consequences.
Excellent video! Modern players, raised on video games, hate these types of inconclusive endings. In the 70’s and 80’s, we thrived on this type of campaign, and I highly recommend this style of play.
Those were the days my friend. Not sure if it was because the RPG scene was first starting off or it reflected the ethos of the time, but we wanted to recreate the world as we saw it, which meant not necessarily a happy or neat ending.
It's true. Players love seeing that their actions have some effect on the world, even if that effect is “Oh god, what have i done?” It's something video game developers strive for.
Great video, and great examples. It is far more difficult and complex to DM a sandbox because there are so many more "threads" to track, progress, decide, and determine the impact. But, to me, the rewards are worth it. Ive found the key is to make sure the players understand the concept of "consequences" and that the world continues, even when they look away. Keep them coming KR!
Thanks for watching! And you are exactly right: the idea that if players look away the action in that area stops can be are hard lesson to learn for players. They will sometime forget to follow up on something, then come back to "finish it," only to discover that things have evolved considerably! The Hey learn to plan for this in future.
Yes consequences are important in RPGs. Even if it is story driven. Good consequences can happen too like the party gets a good reputation in neighboring cities or countries
On the idea of there being no Sandboxes... I don't exactly understand these people, but a video on what they think & a counterargument to their opinion would be interesting, because I really want to know what they mean by that. Maybe they have a different definition for Sandboxes or something... As usual, great video!
I may do a video on this, though I know I'll get pushback. I watched a video where a RPG game designer said that even if a GM creates a dungeon randomly, they are railroading the players by forcing them to go into that dungeon (because that's where they're "supposed" to go, then forcing them turn right or left at a T intersection and so on. It's a bit like saying "you created a coast line with the ocean on the eastern edge of a continent, so you're forcing me to sail to the east or march to the west." What this designer wanted was for players and GM to colloborate on the geography so no one felt they were being forced to do anything.
Cool video. This popped up in my recommended, I’ve been wanting to implement more sandbox-y elements to my games and this’ll help steer me in that direction
My current campaign is a true sandbox, at least I think it is. It’s a nautical campaign with the characters travelling from adventure to adventure by ship. After the first introductory adventure, I had planned out ahead of play, the game has ended up being driven by random encounters and their consequences. After completing the first adventure they randomly encountered a pirate ship crewed by wererats. One of the PCs was cursed with lycanthropy and their ship so badly damaged they needed to sail to the closest island where the ship could be repaired. From then on the adventure has been how to cure the cursed PC so they don’t turn into a wererat every full moon and attack the crew and other PCs. This quest took them to the feywild, splitting the party in the process. Now, just as the two halves of the party are about to reunite, they have run into a very dangerous encounter (which I hadn’t planned to be as dangerous). This is because the half of the party on the ship got to the half of the party stranded on an island after escaping the feywild in record time. The ship arrived on the exact day a random encounter roll for the party stranded on the island indicated an encounter with the infamous cursed pirate Barty Redd. Not being able to leave his ship the PCs stranded on the island would only have to deal with crew sent ashore. However now that the PCs on the ship have arrived on the same day as this encounter they are faced with the prospect of having to deal with Barty Redd himself (a more than deadly threat) My hope is that with some successful history checks the PCs on the ship will learn enough information about Barty Redd to not try and face him head on, but come up with some cleaver plan that will lure him away or otherwise keep him distracted and allow the stranded PCs to be rescued. Because I have no idea what the PCs will do I am looking forward to the next session with the same excitement of the unknown that the players have. I have no idea how this is going to pan out and that is the power of a sandbox campaign. The player’s actions drive the story, not the story driving the player’s actions.
This is exactly the campaign progression I'm talking about in my video! You let the players encounter a set piece, then let the outcome determine the where and who they meet next and so on. No knowing what's going to happen as the GM has the drawback of having to either come up with several alternatives before hand or improvising in-session, but I find it way more satisfying than railroading them into something because it's all I have prepared.
For me, sandbox is the best. I love discovering what my players do and the consequences that come with their choices, successes, and failures. Sometimes, it is hard for them to choose between a few adventures (do we take on the slavers or go treasure hunting ?) I've been doing that for 4 decades...
I've started to suspect that all D&D is in fact sandbox. Any time you run a module, if you cleave to it and don't let go and let the dice and the players decide the story, you've stopped D&Ding and started puppeteering. Of course there are degrees of 'sandboxing'. And there is a very unsatisfying over-reliance on random rolls at the opposite end of that spectrum.
Great points! And I should have emphasized that last one: when you start randomizing for the sake of randomizing things look and feel weird. That's what odds are all about: if there's a 90% chance something's going to happen, it is probably going to happen! And sometimes you handwave that because the 10% is going to change things a bit too much.
Groups of players, .. a.) Want .. more .. complication in plot or gaming mechanics. ( reason for more thinking and metagaming ) b.) Want ..less .. complications. c.) They Say or think, act like they want more or less depth in role playing, but they really don't. Other than dealing with .. consequences .. of actions or inactions on setting plot. Sandbox campaign setting, .. a.) does the players have multiple characters for the same setting ? b.) Random dice roll results at the Tavern Rumor Mill. of n/PCs or that of the players' .. other .. characters. 2.) Video game sandbox model, and those that say they argue for a more realistic historic model, but hate the limitations of historic models. As for English history of the southern forest called the Weal. Only a few main roads for wagon or rapid horse travel. The French and Germans avoid the region cause once a few days on the road, you are Stuck on the road for easy pickings. The hilly woodland thickets prevent horse travel when you really Need to ride for your life. Even the locals prefer to go around the forest on easier travel roads. There was once a western lesser nobleman hunter, ranger/scout that won a great victory over the French. Awards many lands for his family and offer a seat in London by the King. He politely turns down the seat in London offer by the King because London politics was more murderous than warfare with the invading French. The King smiled and said he understood.
@@DDHomebrew For Us American history, the Revolutionary war with the British along with the Usa Civil War, most commanders prefer to stay out of the Appalachian Mountains and skirt along the more foot hill regions. Beautiful views of landscapes but you can barely get 2 to 3 miles a day on the roads for supply wagons. France had about a 1 third of its area, up till the end of WW I was consider unfarmable due to the forest hill terrain near the Alps. Bulldozers base off of tank tread were require to clear/ level the land. Many people argue on what manpower/mules can accomplice, but you don't plow farmland flat you bulldoze it. Then look at all the water drainage ditches, that is machine work. As for the highways/ interstate roads through rock formations, thats tnt and jack hammers. Needless to say, there were areas in the late 1800's that were living tax free from the royal/federal government. You couldn't get an army in there without being picked off. Those were also the regions with the most werewolf legends too. They were consider so poor, they didn't bother with metal arrow heads, just fire harden sharpen wood point arrows. Many history docs/videos or other source state at that time everyone switch over to muskets and no one practice archery, so I hit back if they were so poor, how they afford metal musket barrels and gun powder ? Side problem was, every farmstead or house they visited/raided, military inspected they could find no signs of archery craft. So who were the bowmen harassing troop movement in the back hill country ?
The politics/history discussion is necessary to have, but this is the wrong place to have it. As for the main points in this video, you can still have it be a "Sandbox" while also having Solutions/End Goals as well as consequences. But the consequences should only in the most extreme circumstances be really negative/bad in a TTRPG game/Fantasy setting. For example: Say there is an Ins@ne powerful individual who some days is charming & harmless, yet other days is tormenting & h@rming people. The party hears about them and are begged to deal with them. The party fails to get there in a reasonable amount of time or fully ignores it, a consequence could be that person ends up doing something so cr@zy that they end up unlifing themselves in a humorous accidental way.
I'm curious why the consequences shouldn't be bad in a fantasy or RPG setting. What's wrong with having negative consequences? I'm not saying that everything has to be bad all the time, but in your example the charming person could have murdered somebody important to death if the party didn't get there in time. Maybe somebody even to the party. Shit happens
@@ishmiel21 Because they are supposed to be an escape from reality, the good people always are supposed to win & the bad people lose/get punished and it's all supposed to be a happy or exciting ending. That's why I can never get into Dark Fantasy or Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time or many other Fantasy Series. Instead I prefer the Tamora Pierce or Christopher Paolini or JK Rowling or Rick Riordan or The Dragonlance series of books.
I tried to be as quick as possible on the politics/history stuff and then get back to the RPG side of things. I threw it in because what I'm going for with consequences and randomness is game equivalancy to real life. Events continue to astound us, because despite our tremendous understanding of the physical side of life we have no way to predict the social aspects! And that is the core of an RPG. I agree that solutions/end goals are a part of a sandbox: these are what motivates the players to do things. But for the GM it's the consequences of those that drive the action, not (IMHO) any end goals the GM wants to see come to fruition. Those are created by the players. And I don't care for grim dark fantasy either, though I always have some very bad NPC's and monsters who are into it big time!
In my world the players usually "win" in the end, but I use the quotation marks because some bad things can happen to good people along the way. And the players always make it a point to punish those who have done things to good people. Even if it costs them something of their own! Because the treasure and gold, along with everything in an RPG, is imginary, but the emotional satisfaction of righting a wrong is real.
The individual adventures and quests can be linear, it is the world that is a Sandbox. Players are allowed to start and stop or switch between adventures within the world, (subject to any timers running). This is what many people don't understand about the concept of a Sandbox World. If I want an advanced Degree from a University, there are set, linear steps to accomplish that. But I can start, stop, or switch majors or schools at any time I want. There may be consequences, but I am free to move through life making choices.
The quests and adventures are linear in retrospect, but the changes that occur along the way are often consequences of player actions and NPC's reactions. Why didn't you finish at that first University? I didn't like X professor, or I realized the program wasn't for me. So I switched schools, then I dropped out when I happened to meet Y and moved to Z to be with them. So now I'm studying at my thirds school. The same goal, but the path changes owing to consequences.
Excellent video! Modern players, raised on video games, hate these types of inconclusive endings. In the 70’s and 80’s, we thrived on this type of campaign, and I highly recommend this style of play.
Those were the days my friend. Not sure if it was because the RPG scene was first starting off or it reflected the ethos of the time, but we wanted to recreate the world as we saw it, which meant not necessarily a happy or neat ending.
"new people bad me people good" ahh mentality
It's true. Players love seeing that their actions have some effect on the world, even if that effect is “Oh god, what have i done?” It's something video game developers strive for.
I've found the players become so invested that they will sacrifice material gain (exp, magic, etc.) for the opportunity to impact the world.
Great video, and great examples. It is far more difficult and complex to DM a sandbox because there are so many more "threads" to track, progress, decide, and determine the impact. But, to me, the rewards are worth it. Ive found the key is to make sure the players understand the concept of "consequences" and that the world continues, even when they look away.
Keep them coming KR!
Thanks for watching! And you are exactly right: the idea that if players look away the action in that area stops can be are hard lesson to learn for players. They will sometime forget to follow up on something, then come back to "finish it," only to discover that things have evolved considerably! The Hey learn to plan for this in future.
Yes consequences are important in RPGs. Even if it is story driven.
Good consequences can happen too like the party gets a good reputation in neighboring cities or countries
You are right: renown or infamy can be a consequence as well!
On the idea of there being no Sandboxes... I don't exactly understand these people, but a video on what they think & a counterargument to their opinion would be interesting, because I really want to know what they mean by that. Maybe they have a different definition for Sandboxes or something... As usual, great video!
I may do a video on this, though I know I'll get pushback. I watched a video where a RPG game designer said that even if a GM creates a dungeon randomly, they are railroading the players by forcing them to go into that dungeon (because that's where they're "supposed" to go, then forcing them turn right or left at a T intersection and so on. It's a bit like saying "you created a coast line with the ocean on the eastern edge of a continent, so you're forcing me to sail to the east or march to the west." What this designer wanted was for players and GM to colloborate on the geography so no one felt they were being forced to do anything.
Cool video. This popped up in my recommended, I’ve been wanting to implement more sandbox-y elements to my games and this’ll help steer me in that direction
Glad you found it!
My current campaign is a true sandbox, at least I think it is. It’s a nautical campaign with the characters travelling from adventure to adventure by ship. After the first introductory adventure, I had planned out ahead of play, the game has ended up being driven by random encounters and their consequences.
After completing the first adventure they randomly encountered a pirate ship crewed by wererats. One of the PCs was cursed with lycanthropy and their ship so badly damaged they needed to sail to the closest island where the ship could be repaired. From then on the adventure has been how to cure the cursed PC so they don’t turn into a wererat every full moon and attack the crew and other PCs.
This quest took them to the feywild, splitting the party in the process. Now, just as the two halves of the party are about to reunite, they have run into a very dangerous encounter (which I hadn’t planned to be as dangerous). This is because the half of the party on the ship got to the half of the party stranded on an island after escaping the feywild in record time. The ship arrived on the exact day a random encounter roll for the party stranded on the island indicated an encounter with the infamous cursed pirate Barty Redd.
Not being able to leave his ship the PCs stranded on the island would only have to deal with crew sent ashore. However now that the PCs on the ship have arrived on the same day as this encounter they are faced with the prospect of having to deal with Barty Redd himself (a more than deadly threat)
My hope is that with some successful history checks the PCs on the ship will learn enough information about Barty Redd to not try and face him head on, but come up with some cleaver plan that will lure him away or otherwise keep him distracted and allow the stranded PCs to be rescued.
Because I have no idea what the PCs will do I am looking forward to the next session with the same excitement of the unknown that the players have.
I have no idea how this is going to pan out and that is the power of a sandbox campaign. The player’s actions drive the story, not the story driving the player’s actions.
This is exactly the campaign progression I'm talking about in my video! You let the players encounter a set piece, then let the outcome determine the where and who they meet next and so on. No knowing what's going to happen as the GM has the drawback of having to either come up with several alternatives before hand or improvising in-session, but I find it way more satisfying than railroading them into something because it's all I have prepared.
For me, sandbox is the best. I love discovering what my players do and the consequences that come with their choices, successes, and failures. Sometimes, it is hard for them to choose between a few adventures (do we take on the slavers or go treasure hunting ?) I've been doing that for 4 decades...
Me too. The sandbox is a lot of work, but always the most satisfying style of RPG.
Great video, thanks.
Thanks for watching!
thanks!
Thanks for watching!
I've started to suspect that all D&D is in fact sandbox. Any time you run a module, if you cleave to it and don't let go and let the dice and the players decide the story, you've stopped D&Ding and started puppeteering.
Of course there are degrees of 'sandboxing'. And there is a very unsatisfying over-reliance on random rolls at the opposite end of that spectrum.
Great points! And I should have emphasized that last one: when you start randomizing for the sake of randomizing things look and feel weird. That's what odds are all about: if there's a 90% chance something's going to happen, it is probably going to happen! And sometimes you handwave that because the 10% is going to change things a bit too much.
Groups of players, ..
a.) Want .. more .. complication in plot or gaming mechanics. ( reason for more thinking and metagaming )
b.) Want ..less .. complications.
c.) They Say or think, act like they want more or less depth in role playing, but they really don't.
Other than dealing with .. consequences .. of actions or inactions on setting plot.
Sandbox campaign setting, ..
a.) does the players have multiple characters for the same setting ?
b.) Random dice roll results at the Tavern Rumor Mill. of n/PCs or that of the players' .. other .. characters.
2.) Video game sandbox model, and those that say they argue for a more realistic historic model, but hate the limitations of historic models.
As for English history of the southern forest called the Weal.
Only a few main roads for wagon or rapid horse travel. The French and Germans avoid the region cause once a few days on the road, you are Stuck on the road for easy pickings. The hilly woodland thickets prevent horse travel when you really Need to ride for your life.
Even the locals prefer to go around the forest on easier travel roads.
There was once a western lesser nobleman hunter, ranger/scout that won a great victory over the French. Awards many lands for his family and offer a seat in London by the King. He politely turns down the seat in London offer by the King because London politics was more murderous than warfare with the invading French. The King smiled and said he understood.
Politics is the most treacherous game. I'm going to use your idea on the forest of Weal!
@@DDHomebrew For Us American history, the Revolutionary war with the British along with the Usa Civil War, most commanders prefer to stay out of the Appalachian Mountains and skirt along the more foot hill regions. Beautiful views of landscapes but you can barely get 2 to 3 miles a day on the roads for supply wagons.
France had about a 1 third of its area, up till the end of WW I was consider unfarmable due to the forest hill terrain near the Alps. Bulldozers base off of tank tread were require to clear/ level the land. Many people argue on what manpower/mules can accomplice, but you don't plow farmland flat you bulldoze it. Then look at all the water drainage ditches, that is machine work. As for the highways/ interstate roads through rock formations, thats tnt and jack hammers.
Needless to say, there were areas in the late 1800's that were living tax free from the royal/federal government. You couldn't get an army in there without being picked off. Those were also the regions with the most werewolf legends too. They were consider so poor, they didn't bother with metal arrow heads, just fire harden sharpen wood point arrows. Many history docs/videos or other source state at that time everyone switch over to muskets and no one practice archery, so I hit back if they were so poor, how they afford metal musket barrels and gun powder ?
Side problem was, every farmstead or house they visited/raided, military inspected they could find no signs of archery craft.
So who were the bowmen harassing troop movement in the back hill country ?
The politics/history discussion is necessary to have, but this is the wrong place to have it.
As for the main points in this video, you can still have it be a "Sandbox" while also having Solutions/End Goals as well as consequences. But the consequences should only in the most extreme circumstances be really negative/bad in a TTRPG game/Fantasy setting.
For example: Say there is an Ins@ne powerful individual who some days is charming & harmless, yet other days is tormenting & h@rming people. The party hears about them and are begged to deal with them. The party fails to get there in a reasonable amount of time or fully ignores it, a consequence could be that person ends up doing something so cr@zy that they end up unlifing themselves in a humorous accidental way.
I'm curious why the consequences shouldn't be bad in a fantasy or RPG setting. What's wrong with having negative consequences? I'm not saying that everything has to be bad all the time, but in your example the charming person could have murdered somebody important to death if the party didn't get there in time. Maybe somebody even to the party. Shit happens
@@ishmiel21 Because they are supposed to be an escape from reality, the good people always are supposed to win & the bad people lose/get punished and it's all supposed to be a happy or exciting ending.
That's why I can never get into Dark Fantasy or Game of Thrones or Wheel of Time or many other Fantasy Series. Instead I prefer the Tamora Pierce or Christopher Paolini or JK Rowling or Rick Riordan or The Dragonlance series of books.
I tried to be as quick as possible on the politics/history stuff and then get back to the RPG side of things. I threw it in because what I'm going for with consequences and randomness is game equivalancy to real life. Events continue to astound us, because despite our tremendous understanding of the physical side of life we have no way to predict the social aspects! And that is the core of an RPG.
I agree that solutions/end goals are a part of a sandbox: these are what motivates the players to do things. But for the GM it's the consequences of those that drive the action, not (IMHO) any end goals the GM wants to see come to fruition. Those are created by the players.
And I don't care for grim dark fantasy either, though I always have some very bad NPC's and monsters who are into it big time!
Agreed.
In my world the players usually "win" in the end, but I use the quotation marks because some bad things can happen to good people along the way. And the players always make it a point to punish those who have done things to good people. Even if it costs them something of their own! Because the treasure and gold, along with everything in an RPG, is imginary, but the emotional satisfaction of righting a wrong is real.