"Sand Box" Adventures
opsneakie:
Well, sandboxing can be a fun time, but it does usually prevent anything from going the DM's way. If you have a big final fight planned out, the players might just skip out on it to beat up some villagers, and there's nothing you can do about it. However, I think you can hit a happy medium between scripting and sandboxy.
In advance: ok, ok, I know I seem to be the only one who does this, but I think it leads to really fun and engaging game experiences, both for the players and the DM/ST/GM/whatever
So, I like to get my plot to run, but I've long since gotten used to the idea that nothing will go quite the way I imagine it. Instead of trying to go fully sandbox or railroad the players onto my plot, my reaction to this was to stop prepping games. I ran a short D&D freeform where everyone was a member of one of a group of warring orc tribes, which got me used to generating content on the spot. This is where I think the games I run get to be a lot of fun. I throw a couple plot hooks here and there, and see which ones the players bite. Then we follow that one, and I just drop hints here and there, and they do the rest for me. No one feels like they're railroaded, and they really aren't because I don't prep much more than thinking of a couple NPCs that the players might encounter or a couple places they might visit. While I'm running whatever encounter they're in I'm thinking an encounter ahead. It keeps me really focused on the game, and it seems to suck the players in because the world seems to live a little more if there's always content wherever they go. It takes a detailed setting to do, but I've detailed out the setting for my current sci-fi game well enough to keep making stuff up as we play, and let the players decide how the game flows.
For example, the game I'm running right now, I dropped some hooks about an icky region of space, and that a character's missing son might be out there. They follow this hook, and end up exploring all over the place. When the players arrived in Dead Space, all I knew or had prepared was that there was a group called the Brotherhood that helps protect the people stranded out there. The organization got much more fleshed out and the players had a great time talking to all these NPCs I was pulling out of the air. I'm focused on getting my story (about alien stuff in Dead Space) across, but the players are getting there in their own time and on their own path, so it feels very sandboxy, but really does (eventually at least) follow a plot line I had planned in the beginning. Apparently I'm also now able to make up NPCs and encounters that seem as if they were planned.
I've found that instead of trying to get players to do what you want, they are surprisingly susceptible to simple splot hooks, and letting the players guide the story around is really a fun way to play. If you're having trouble with sandbox, try to kind of 1/2 sandbox it. I'd say run a game completely sandbox for a little bit so you get very used to building cities, NPCs, and encounters on the fly, and then give it a whirl. I think it's really a great way to do things. Obviously what works for me might not work for everyone, but eh, it's a thought.
Hope that helps,
Sneakie
hoefer:
Sneakie,
I must say you sound like somewhat of a mutant when it comes to GMing. Most GMs I've played under who started a game with just vague plot threads and a few NPCs do a pitiful job of running anything that has any semblance to a story. This is largely because it is so hard for many to adjust to player actions and realize how a plot can be foreshadowed and developed in a given impromptu scene. Kudos to you for being one fo teh few that can do this.
I think my vision of layout would suit the style you play to though. It will give details of important places and people as well as some plot hooks, then have a story-board section where GMs who aren't as apt to think on the fly can follow the plots/characters' actions on a flow chart and be given suggestions on how to pull a climax from them... My biggest fear is disappointing the GMs that would download this thing. As a GM I would be disappointed if I got what I thought was a ready-to-go adventure and it wound up being just some "adventure notes" that I still had to do a ton of planning and on-the-fly thinking to make work. Just my opinion, and I know this really contradicts the "game as a living developing thing between players" mantra that many of this sites regulars espouse (note, I am not disagreeing with this sentiment, I prefer a more plot-driven, cinematic game).
Louis Hoefer
www.wholesumentertainment.com
Vulpinoid:
If you want to apply foreshadowing into sandboxy adventures, there's a few simple tools.
1. A notebook.
If you quickly write some notes about events that come into play through player suggestions, these can often be linked together later.
2. Story Influencing Currency.
Allow the players to introduce a story element through a form of finite currency that exists outside the scope of the characters. Let players introduce NPCs that might be useful, then make note of these NPCs, it might costs 2 points of currency to introduce such a character the first time, but only one point for another player to introduce that same NPC later in the campaign. Players can build up these NPCs with every appearance scene, and in this way the more commonly faced NPCs really develop a life of their own. The same could work for place visited, the more currency a player spends on the place, the more descriptive they can be about it, and the more impact it may have toward a climax.
This ends up taking even more narrative control out of the GM's hands, but that's one of the aspects of Sandbox play isn't it?
V
opsneakie:
Louis,
I must admit I am a bit of GM mutant. I don't know quite how I do it, but I certainly don't do any prep except maybe a little day-of thinking along the lines of "this could be fun..."
I think the trick is to listen to your players and get a good feel for both the setting and the characters, then drop plot hooks you know they will like. I've noticed my games getting more cinematic as time goes on as well. Now that I know how to tug the players a bit, I can brainstorm quickly and make an encounter very cinematic.
I am, however, a big subscriber to the "game is a living developing thing" idea though. This game is already very different than I anticipated, and we're kind of about to go off on an alien religion tangent. You do sacrifice some control over the plot, but I wouldn't say the game is any less plot-driven. It's just that the players are deciding a chunk of the plot instead of you, and you have to take that and run with it. Although this game, I really feel like I'm running six solo adventures every time because of all the sub-plots.
Anyways, long post short, I think the trick is in detailed characters + detailed setting + knowing how to tug on those characters --> perfect game. I'm still working on making it all come together, but it's been getting closer and closer.
- John
Susan Calvin:
Most of what I've written is for conventions, so I usually have to set a very definite timespan in a limited environment, even if I like open-ended scenarios. The world doesn't stop, and eventually some kind of climax will develop. I like to pre-plan as much as I can, so there is usually half a dozen alternate endings depending on what they do. And when someone inevitable does something else, there must be leeway for improvisation. A typical scenario has a rough, detailed timetable for the groups, individuals and events in the world. If the Danish secret agent has been discovered (which is quite unlikely because he doesn't take any action before the last half hour), all events involving him are altered.
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