What makes for a good sandbox campaign?
>>46776476
modularity.
diverse theme templates to put on the modular sections.
lots of roll charts.
>>46776476
None.
Either you get griefed by strangers, or isolate your group and die of stagnation and idea incest.
>>46776476
A campaign in a desert setting.
tons of tombs to raid, political intrugue between religions, trading of valuable materials such as water and salt, etc.
Players who know how to choose a direction and be self-motivated.
A huge part of a sandbox game is having a whole group who are okay with sharing some degree of narrative control. It doesn't work if the GM is overly controlling, it doesn't work if the players are afraid to pick their own goals or to define elements for themselves.
It's as dynamic and random to the GM as it is to the players.
The GM sets up a web of plot points that get solved once the players find or do certain things. For example: a plot point might be that the PCs find a glowing necklace. They can find it in the mayor's deck, inside that pirate temple, or under the hill giant's bed. Whatever the party does they will end up completing the plot point at one time or another, keeping a coherent tale to the story without becoming "too railroading" like some of you a one think.
>>46776476
The players need to be on-board with it being a sandbox game.
I go with "structured sandboxes". I set up various plothooks as boundaries, while leaving others in reserve in case the players decide to hare off somewhere else. To solve the "WHOOPS, PLAYERS DIDN'T STOP THE WORLD-DESTROYING EVIL" conundrum, I've got 2-3 other parties of adventurers wandering around as NPCs and taking care of the scraps the players don't pursue.
A sandbox with structure is much like what your image is, OP: a world with pre-defined limits designed to engage the user in a way that is different from the norm of having a "set way to play"; when the players choose, they can leave the sandbox and pursue something else that is more structured than the sandbox. A sandbox without structure is just a desert the players can't escape.
>>46776700
Well, duh.
>>46776476
It's actually not sandbox, it has 3 or 4 different paths/endings but that's it. But you're a good DM, actor and improviser so the players will never know.
>>46776681
This is absolutely great advice. It allows players to feel like they have agency, while the GM is able to get things out there by being flexible.
>>46776808
>To solve the "WHOOPS, PLAYERS DIDN'T STOP THE WORLD-DESTROYING EVIL" conundrum, I've got 2-3 other parties of adventurers wandering around as NPCs and taking care of the scraps the players don't pursue.
But wouldn't it be better to not have a world-destroying evil in the first time? Make them "pay" for the consequences, but don't make the consequences too harsh, it's easy.
In my experience players don't like NPCs stealing protagonism. Even if it's protagonism they rejected first. The only way I see another party of adventurers working if it's some kind of rival band played for comical purposes.
>>46776809
>Well, duh.
I've been on /tg/ since 2007, and the number of threads I've seen that contain some permutation on "I wanted to run a sandbox game but none of the players had any motivations" is startling.
It seems like a no-brainer, but you really do need to explain to the players that THEY will be the catalyst of the game. Even then, it seems like most of them don't really get it.
>>46776987
I play them like the opposite party from Order of the Stick, though not evil. The stuff they do only gets mentioned in passing, but I play it out myself.Yes, I have a solo campaign where I just fuck about with my NPC party. They laugh, they love, and they have fun with the plot hooks the PCs abandon because I figure if the players don't want to bother with them I don't see why I shouldn't get some fun out of it. I am basically mentally masturbating myself with a cute and fun Dungeon Meshi party.
There needs to be something that gives the players a direction. This direction can come from the players, or from the GM, but it needs to be there. My advise on this is to setup the world to that there is a default direction that is very obvious to them. One that exists only to give them a direction should they not pick on themselves.
Also, give them choices that will have consequences. Choices that you can't predict which option they will choose.
>>46777058
I respect it and, if you players are okay with it and you're capable of not making the other band cringewhorthy, I aprove it. There's literally nothing wrong with the patrician art of mental masturbation.
>>46777113
My players just assume I handwave what happens to things they don't deal with, since most of the other party's exploits only come up when the PC party goes looking for rumors and plothooks.
Recently though, they've started looking into these guys who take care of the jobs they pass up, since at one point they decided they wanted to go back to a hook they heard about two month ago and found out my NPC party had already dealt with it. I'm hoping they drop it; knowing how murder-hobo prone they are, they're likely to shoot several times and power attack first before asking questions.
Sandbox games are, by definition, plot-free dungeon-of-the-week homebrew garbage in generic fantasy settings that every DM thinks is "unique" because they gave it a made up name and changed the titles of all the races.
Everyone who tries to run a sandbox game fails, and everyone who insists they're in "the good sandbox campaign" is too stupid to know better, probably because they're a horrible player in a horrible group, so they think it's great.
>>46777431
Don't care, doing it anyway.
>>46777206
A good party vs party fight sounds good desu.
>>46777603
Even if I secretly want my NPC party to win and tell the PCs to fuck off and let them do their own thing?
>>46777022
Shit, really? I thought that was step 1 of starting up a new campaign was talking to your players and seeing what they want to do.
>>46778509
Step 1 of starting a new campaign is stepping back and asking yourself "Do I really want to spend several hours a week playing make-believe with these people?"
>>46776476
Mostly, it needs real protagonist PCs, the sort who will take a world and make things happen, try to bend the society to their wills, forge a narrative.
That's actually pretty rare: in the overwhelming majority of normal RPG narratives, the PCs are focal characters, but the BBEG is the real protagonist in the dramatic sense: BBEG acts, PCs react.
In practice, I find it doesn't work well with groups. If you have 4-6 players who all want to do their own things, they tend to step on each other's toes. And if you have one guy who bends the group to his will, you get tension from the "leader" unless everyone is ok with following another PC's plan all the time.
What you really need to make a sandbox work is a very small group, 1-3.
>>46777206
>>46777714
>>46777603
>>46777058
Does anyone have a screencap of that campaign story where the hidden twist was that the goal of the campaign wasn't to beat the BBEG, but it was to do it before one of the other NPC parties did?
The gm is good at making initial encounters and then doing improv with everything beyond the first encounter in a plot. A good sandbox also needs a gm who can pump out a lot of volume of prep in an efficient way and keep it reasonably interesting.
I'm known in my group for running a sandbox and the handful of times folks asked advice for running that sorta game, I tell them "Write 20 interesting random encounters/plot hooks, make a hexgrid on a couple pieces of paper, make a couple towns and insert three or four dungeons/adventure locations"
If that sounds intimidating to them or they don't know how to write the encounters and towns into less than 5 pages, then they shouldn't start a sandbox or the prep will overwhelm them.
>>46776476
High quality sand
One thing in addition to the self motivated thing, the players have to know how to work well together as a team.
I sorta liken it to being coworkers in a way.
>>46776476
>What makes for a good sandbox campaign?
-A good GM who has a binder full of random encounters and quests, NPCs, and points of interest that aren't strung together in any specific way he could use for unplanned situations. Still has a well thought out story lined up that ties everything together.
-Players who actually put in a little bit of effort.
>>46777058
Given the retardation I've seen my players do I considered it. There's just some groups you can't create a complex over arching plot with.
Actually that could be awesome for a fantasy writing project I gotta do that sometime, just run through the game, take key notes and hash out a story. It'd literally write itself at times. The best part is once a party gets wiped or wraps up a 'campaign' you get a shot at writing an entirely new group.
You could actually try and wing fantasy novels with this. If those god awful cheesy softcore porn novels can make it this could!
>>46777431
Allow me to translate this post
>I only play in shit games because I'm so annoying that I alienate people who are fun and creative.
>I honestly believe that following my GM's hackneyed fetch quests and connect the dots encounters are better than "a dungeon of the week"
Two important ingredients to a good sandbox
>Scheduled events that happen without player input
Or in other words, the world needs a life of it's own.
>Some acknowledgment by the players that the sandbox is limited
I think it's good form to tell the GM what your broad plans are. If you oblige him to prep a bunch of material to support your player's bids at courtly intrigue, and then the day of the game you hop on a ship and sail off the map, you are being an asshole.
>>46779851
This. A good sandbox means fucktons more work for an ultra-dedicated GM, whose players then have to self-motivate. It's a ton of work for a GM, and almost-always a god-damn waste of time, because the players just gobble the hooks you throw and you might-as-well have just ignored everything but the adventures you choose to run with, anyhow.
>>46780317
I think the difference is that players can tackle challenges non-linearly--instead of following a trail of breadcrumbs.
And they can also make a fun game out of things that don't have a glowing PLOT HOOK sign floating over them.
I remember one game where my players saw a tiny little village on the edge of the frontier and decided there must be something interesting to keep people there. I fluffed it out for the next session and it became a major location for the rest of the campaign. I think it turned out a lot more fun than me getting pissy about them not following my plot hooks.
I think every game that isn't a rigid scripted quest has elements of sandbox play.
>>46780464
>And they can also make a fun game out of things that don't have a glowing PLOT HOOK sign floating over them.
They really can't.
>I think every game that isn't a rigid scripted quest has elements of sandbox play.
Is this like how any 2D platformer is called a metroidvania, or every RPG that includes any RNG at all is rogue-like?
Sandbox RPG is a specific thing.
Consequences for actions. You unleashed the evil horde of skeletons from the dungeon? They're now wandering around, sacking towns. Someone will have to stop them, whether it's the PC's or some army. Maybe a few local villages get destroyed, and bandits form out of the groups of survivors. Anything that says "this could have gone way differently".
Quest hooks. Players need a way to know what decisions they can make, so having around three different hooks leading to different adventures lets them go after whichever adventure suits them most. Bonus if the adventures they don't go on have situations that progress in the meantime, or are somehow affected by the completion of the adventure they chose to go on.
Lots of potential (random or stocked in some location) encounters, preferably with more options than just combat to resolve them. See consequences above.
No overarching story. A history is fine, a time-table of events is fine (kingdom x invades city y at date z), but a sandbox game is all about decisions made; the more events that happen that you include that can't be affected by the PC's, the further that campaign is from a sandbox.
There's probably more I'm forgetting to add.
>>46780505
>They really can't.
Then there must have been a gas leak at my buddies house that made us delirious enough to believe we were having fun.
What exactly are your criteria for a sandbox game? There's nothing about a hexcrawl setting or open ended exploration that precludes an ongoing storyline, fleshed out NPCs, and so on.
>>46780317
It's only a ton of work up-front. If players miss out on content because they skip it or don't see it, just recycle it for another day. Sure, it might ruin a little bit of the magic if they find out, but that DM screen exists for a reason.
>>46776476
I like a sandbox with a hub and a gimmick - like protecting or building a town, knowing the BBEG up front and trying to avoid his eye, or trying to rise int eh ranks of an organization.
Alternatively, I like sandboxes where things are going tits up and the characters are sort of in the middle of it become central figures - the heroes that rode out the apocalypse.
>>46779851
Players matter so much more than the GM.
>>46781620
If the players genuinely want to play the game, then they just need to put in honest effort at playing their characters and they should make their way through the setting in the manner their characters would.
If the players just want to play "Stump the GM" by being unpredictable and random then the game is doomed. If the GM puts real effort into a game, the players should put in equal effort in playing it. The GM isn't a babysitter. He shouldn't have to wrangle an unfocused party to get back on track every ten minutes.
So yeah, players matter more than the GM in that they are the only thing that bring the setting to life.
>>46776476
War and politics. The players don't just play with the world. The world plays back. I like sandbox games, but I think the players should still be reacting to events most of the time. The events should just be bigger, and the players should have more available options of reacting.
>>46779006
I would protect gay rights.
>>46782596
>The events should just be bigger, and the players should have more available options of reacting.
What do you mean by bigger?
>>46781904
Exactly my point. A sandbox relies entirely on the players actions and behavior fleshing out the world and making the campaign lasting and satisfying.
No amount of GM random tables will save it otherwise.
>>46776476
GURPS works pretty well cuz it allows you to adapt to whatever your players want to do.
Space might be good but mapping out solar systems etc. might be a bit tough.
>>46781904
>If the GM puts real effort into a game, the players should put in equal effort in playing it.
This is not something players are capable of.
