COOPERATIVE STORYTELLING

What I mean is this – Tell your players the town name, maybe a few details. Improv the minor stuff like street names and WRITE them down. Let the players Improv small details as well, and WRITE them down. Call out your Wallflowers by asking them pointed character details and telling them to wing it within reason – a hobo won’t likely have a pentium 5 PC. Then reign in your veterans and greenhorns alike with realistic consequences – No gun-toting sociopath mage is going to get away with that psycho-killer shi’ite in my worlds, because the Cardinal Rule applies whether you speak Greek or are fluent in Geek: There is always someone better and worse than you. And the Bartender can always kick your ass.

COOP Play takes a good deal off of the DM in a Sandbox Game, allows the players more freedom to tie in their characters to the DM’s world – Imagine is said Mage was next-door neighbor to the town sherriff who had known the guy’s parents/wife/loved one? – and it establishes some control that makes EVERYONE wallflower, greenhorn, veteran, varmint and showhog all feel like they ARE IN THE WORLD, not just skating along it’s surfaces.

http://celtricia.pbwiki.com/
That’s a link to a 25 year old sandbox setting.

I think were up to about 134 characters and 37 players. Right now we have 2 groups playing full time, 1 irregularly and an online group.
But the major plotlines are well set, with a lot of mid-level plots nestled in the crook of their arms, but with a minimum of railroading.
(well, except recently when they the Igbarians had to rescue a party member from a band of assassins that had given her in trade, but that was their own fault for wandering around alone after they found out there were cotracts out on them…)

You seem to have gotten a bit of response on this subject. Good job.

@Snargash Moonclaw – Your third paragraph does a good job of listing some of the problems; the library of adventure material sounds demanding to accumulate and be ready to run, but it sounds like it works well for you. Your conclusion is right too; the sandboxes I’ve seen fail tend to fail from the beginning, before they ever pick up steam. That first hill is a tough one.

@LordVreeg – Thanks for sharing your hard won experience; I’ve never seen a 25 year old sandbox game. How many groups have tromped through your world/setting? When you say 88% sandbox– are some games strongly plotted with others being much more freeform, or are all of them a similar “some plot, lots of choice” setup?

However, I’ve run a sandbox campaign for 25 years. I just finished describing on a CBG post how the orginal players (3 of who are still with Celtricia, a quarter century later) helped create the basal setting notes. So I have some feedback here.

The first note is that like life and politics, setting design is almost never black and white, but a shade of grey somewhere on a continuum. I bring this up first after reading a few people trying to pigeonhole their settings in the terms of the title. Linear and freeform are two extremes on a continuum, much like freemarket and socialisation. And going completely to one side or the other too far makes an unworkable situation. Understanding where on the continuum you’d place your setting is more useful than trying to pigeonhole it. Celtricia, my burden, my world, is about 88% ‘freeform’, or ‘Sandbox’ style.

The second point I want to make has to do with the player maturity level necessary. A facet of Sandbox that has been mentioned in terms of gameplay but not foccused on my itself is the PC integration level. In a thematic setting, or a linear one, the PC’s are trying to accomplish something. This is why they are adventuring.
In a non-linear game, the reason behind why the PC’s are adventuring is often much more the decision of the Players, and must be carefully designed into the game by the GM upon inception.
The political or social growth potential normally has a lot to do with it, but that is a whole post in and of itself.

The third major point will probably meet with some dissaproval, but it is part of my whole, “Make the system match the setting, or the setting WILL morph into matching the system.” In this case, I ma saying that combat is a riot and a good time in any setting,. but systems that are combat oriented without a corresponding focus on social skills will become a lot more boring and will end a ’sandbox’ style game more quickly. If Players are trying to socially advance and ingratiate themselves in the political spectrum of a well-realised’ setting, a system that promotes a, “Let’s get back to killing stuff” mentality is a near-critical handicap.

This has slightly backfired though – the badass roleplayers have very much overshadowed the wallflowers with their complex, intertwined backstories and motivations, while the wallflowers handed over much underdeveloped goals and motivations… *sigh*.

I feel that in such situations, it is the GMs responsibility to pull the wallflowers in with something that happens _only_ to that player, and, if possible, in a way that ties into the charactar concept. It worked for me anyway – the wallflower in question was completely shellshocked over all the roleplaying he suddenly had to do

// martin

On the other hand, when developing a homebrew setting from a top-down approach, I believe that incorporating player collaboration is, while not an absolute necessity, exponentially more beneficial to everyone involved than doing every bit of it myself. (Personally, I find that both my creative range *and* productivity increase exponentially in a collaborative process – whether that is gaming, composing music or improvisational playing, or any other creative effort outside of traditional drawing/painting types of visual art.) Once the global concepts of a setting, i.e., overall geography, technology and magic levels, deities/religions, primary races, etc. have been established well enough to provide players with a basic contextual framework to start from, players are free to envision and flesh out nearly anything which doesn’t blatantly violate that context. I was about to say, “Such as no ray-guns” but then realized that a sufficiently creative player could in fact develop what would functionally amount to the same thing from a magical basis; a Wand of Magic Missiles, Rod of Lightning or Ring of Fireballs is arguably precisely that – cast the same enchantments on a pistol crossbow and fantasy gunslingers can soon be found lounging at the bar when the PCs wander into the obligatory saloon, er, tavern. Anyway, pretty much whatever character or even new racial concept a player might have can be incorporated while leaving the player(s) free to provide anywhere from just the character’s backstory (with the GM providing the portion of the setting in which that backstory then fits) up to completely creating the entire regions for the characters including other nations surrounding their homes, the political and economic relations between them and their bearing upon the world as a whole. Focusing some one-on-one time with each of the players, both during character creation and as the campaign progresses to maintain a good idea of how they wish to see their character(s) to continue developing also helps to ensure that the more extroverted players and their characters don’t overshadow the others as it helps continue providing “personalized” plot-hooks and sub-plots featuring everyone’s characters at various times. (Gives the one controlling the spotlight something to focus it on. . .)

Sandbox games in actual play can still pose difficulties even if the players are contributing to the backdrop of the setting. Some who can contribute vast, highly imaginative and detailed background material may still find themselves drawing a complete blank when they sit down at the table and need to determine what their character(s) will actually *do*. I try to maintain a “library” of available adventure material, whether linear adventure modules, story matrices or improvisational themes and patterns (“12-bar blues”). Most of these can then be readily adjusted and filled out as needed both to provide appropriate challenge and to support/further develop whatever storyline the players have chosen to follow/further explore. I also try to incorporate some of the “bait” for other, subsequent plothooks where it makes sense. Very few groups really can self-direct 100% in a wide open sandbox, (even one they’ve had an extensive hand in building,) no matter how well stocked – especially not at first. If that is the eventual goal the campaign will usually still need to start out as Robert describes with a “pick one of these four plots” mandate to get the ball rolling. Firmly basing each option on facets of one or more PC backstories, and including later elements which point toward others (as identified during one-on-one time) can ensure interest to begin. With a well conceived (and monitored) dynamic world setting players can be shown not only some of the direct consequences of their action but some of the wider ripples as the world shifts and changes around them. I like to further have one or more over-arching world storylines which are essentially developing on their own as part of the dynamic backdrop itself. These are things most characters (without a definite background in something like international politics or global church/trans-national faction activities) will only begin to perceive after the campaign is well under way and taken on its own momentum. At that point 20/20 hindsight may start to shed new light on previously unnoticed clues which had been in front of them the whole time – achieving a vantage point from which to play connect-the-dots then becomes an underlying, somewhat background goal and reward. Players by such time will have become much more self directing and motivating since their characters will have developed and invested considerable effort in personal goals which they know they cannot expect the world not to interfere with if matters are simply left to develop of their own accord. (Whether this involves various personal alliances, career growth in some profession or organization or simply financial investments intended to provide additional, steady income/retirement savings they will still start to take active measures as they deem necessary to ensure their desired outcome.) How they view and choose to respond to the facets of bigger picture they’re beginning to understand still remains entirely in their hands and even gentle nudging should by this time be entirely unnecessary. So long as the GM provides sufficient points of intersection between their personal story paths and such setting story arcs they will grow more adept on their own at recognizing them and their ramifications. A group still interested in and enjoying the campaign these more developed characters comprise (rather than wanting to create and play different characters instead,) will almost certainly generate their own motives to involve themselves in one or more of these greater patterns they now perceive.

The upshot of all that is that players, given some initial direction along with input can move into far more free-form play. The biggest hurdle tends to be generating the initial impetus. As the campaign develops it will develop a life of its own with its direction determined more and more by the players as they take more of the reins and less by GM whose primary job will become more focused on maintaining/increasing its momentum so as not to be stalled out upon encountering the obstacles and challenges s/he puts in the way

However, Ars Ludi did have a very interesting post back in ought-six about players passing the ball between one another that was just fantastic, and as GM you can follow those rules too using your NPC mouthpieces. Here’s the link:
http://arsludi.lamemage.com/index.php/38/play-constructively-pass-the-ball/

Equally, I wish to give the same freedom to my players. I try to make sure there are adventures to be found but it is up to them to take them.

@Kurt “Telas” Schneider – Losing your wallflowers is a huge risk in sandbox play. The style is not well suited to spreading the spotlight– the most dramatic actions tend to produce the most noticeable response, which means the big early actors can dominate. I don’t have a good solution.

@BryanB – It does seem to work well for your group. Players and GMs working together makes life a lot better for almost every game.

@Karizma – Your first paragraph is a great distillation of the advantages and disadvantages. Sorry that your first experience with it proved unfun.

@Badelaire – While I suspect the important variable is player attitude and character drive, you’re absolutely right about the group being key. If they’re too passive, taking the plot away just increases boredom. If they’re dicks… well, who likes watching scum trample everybody underfoot? As the GM I’m a player too– if you can’t keep the game interesting for me, then I’m not going to waste my time.