I've noticed a pretty big resurgence in the last five or so years of sandbox-style campaigns...

I've noticed a pretty big resurgence in the last five or so years of sandbox-style campaigns, usually either as hexcrawls or West Marches games. Less "stop the cult of Tiamat" and more "wander around the coast and find treasures."

I've seen a lot of interest in that sort of campaign lately, especially online on Roll20 and the like, but I've always seen that as the sort of thing that's easy to burn yourself out on when there's no real direction. Does anyone have good experiences with this sort of campaign?

Almost all of my campaigns are sandbox/hexcrawl affairs.
I love em.
>these are best played as classic murderhobo-style characters

Im running one right now.
The secret is to still have quests at the start so the players get a direction to start exploring.
Eventually theyll start exploring on their own.

Another good idea is to have various factions doing their own thing. Loke no end of the world stuff but just jockeying for resources and shit.
That way they can act and react to the achievments and fuckups of the pcs and the world becomes aliver

Story in media is dying. It's always the last thing they add on to a game or movie. The selling point is the flashy graphics or trademark first, story second.

Sandbox is an appropriate name because we're treated like babies, dropped in a sandbox. No story, no structure. Just flinging dirt around.

It's really weird to see someone trying to lament the loss of the good old days when sandbox games used to be the norm for D&D campaigns and all the super-structured "adventure paths" came after.

Not really a loss when you consider that character-driven works have always been more compelling in a literary sense than narrative driven works.

Which is actually exactly why rpg sandboxes are great, since they're about the characters and the world first - the two strongest parts of the roleplaying experience.

Underage or retarded?

It means you can be lazy and wing everything as GM. It means he players will make their own fun and there's no pressure on you to make sure that they react appropriately to things: if you flub a description and they think something is no big deal, suddenly is fine if thats the case. Thats it.

>It means you can be lazy and wing everything as GM.
>sandbox
>less effort than linear

Lol no. You have to do a ton of prep work and be okay with the idea that some of your effort will never be seen by the players.

What up posted wasnt conjecture. Its the reason I, personally, do sandbox now.

I used to make semi-linear stories, or at least ones with linear bits. While those linear parts were some of the best bits of RP my players have ever done, occasionally things wouldnt have the impact I would have liked them to. Now I just draw a map, come up with a few cultures and wing it. It lacks a lot of the heart of my older games, but its easy.

I dont worry about things never being seen by players, because I just make everything up on the spot. If you'd been GMing 20+ years you'd be able to as well.

Lol sure m8
Ive been running sanboxes since adnd. They require much more effort to do right.

Emphasis on doing them right. You making shit up is, by definition, not a sandbox.

Por que no los dos?

I personally feel like you really need a good GM that can creature a world that's structured and realistic, but flexible. You also need a party that's not jaded already to everything the GM might throw out, or aren't willing to just pick a direction and go.

TTRPGs can be the most rewarding place to have sandbox games, because of how flexible they are compared to videogames. But if you don't have the right shit, it's a slog, and half the time I'd rather stop the cult of Tiamat, as it were - something to force unity and direction that might be hard to find with a discordant group or meh GM.

>Does anyone have good experiences with this sort of campaign?

yeah. my first real game was one of those. lasted a year an a half.

I never thought playing an autistic hippy vampire would be so much fun.

For me at least, I plan all of my campaigns around a story in a setting, but I ensure that the story I've planned isn't the only one the palyers can get involved in and influence.

>Loke no end of the world stuff but just jockeying for resources and shit.

yeah this is a good way to lessen strain on yourself in the long run.

>It's really weird to see someone trying to lament the loss of the good old days when sandbox games used to be the norm for D&D campaigns and all the super-structured "adventure paths" came after.

agreed.

I say this in every thread like this that pops up.

Use your players to help fill in the world.

Rather than spending a ton of your prep time filling in the world with people, places, plots, let your players give input.

The easiest way to do this is during play.

Erebri scouts ahead and notices smoke rising from the woods a few kilometers north.

Ask her player what they think the smoke is.

Erebri knows there is a village around here somewhere, they've been there before. She thinks the smoke is coming from that village.

Ask her player what Erebri remembers about the town, maybe an npc they met, something odd about the place, or even mundane information like trade goods.

It doesn't have to be a village, it could be a gnoll camp, but getting that input from the player gives you options without having to put in the work.

You can do this for almost everything.

The party meets an npc? Have them roll some sort of insight/perception check on the person and ask the players with the better results to flesh the npc out.

Maybe he has a limp, fidgets with something in his coat pocket, whatever.

This method doesn't always work, some players aren't comfortable being put on the spot, but most players will get better at it with time.

Also keep in mind that some players are assholes and will use this to give their characters an advantage.

DM fiat is important. Not every piece of input from your players has to lead somewhere or even be true.

Another way to use this is during character down time. Characters chat when they make camp. Someone mentions the village they grew up in? Work with them to add it to the map.

Getting their input on things not only eases your burden as a DM, it gets them invested in the world. They're gonna care more about that small mining town, Gedwynne, if they helped to flesh it out.

...

>The easiest way to do this is during play.
>Erebri scouts ahead and notices smoke rising from the woods a few kilometers north.
>Ask her player what they think the smoke is.
>Erebri knows there is a village around here somewhere, they've been there before. She thinks the smoke is coming from that village.
>Ask her player what Erebri remembers about the town, maybe an npc they met, something odd about the place, or even mundane information like trade goods.
>It doesn't have to be a village, it could be a gnoll camp, but getting that input from the player gives you options without having to put in the work.
>You can do this for almost everything.


how do you do this for a modern setting?

I'm running a game taking place in Europe in 2016?

Interesting.. Will try doing this more on my games. Seems like it can really improve RP, asking what does the character think some clue they saw could be

>This method doesn't always work, some players aren't comfortable being put on the spot, but most players will get better at it with time.


Ive noticed that with some of my players. They like getting creative and preparing stuff outside of sessions but they completely shut down or panic when put on the spot.

This. If my players think of something cool, its going in the game.

Not much has to change. You could use modern maps and wikipedia to look up information about locations, or just use the map and let your players make shit about these places, their people, rumors, whatever.

What are you running? Give me a bit more info on your game, maybe I could help you fit this method to it.

I have a couple players who are exactly like this. So I let them contribute during periods of down-time or even at the start of a session.

I usually have a bit of collaborative worldbuilding during the first half-hour anyways.

I used to just have them submit their work to me before the game, but I've found that letting them show off their work during pre-game gets better results.

Let it be an open table. If Orboir's player isn't comfortable with improvising, it's agreed that anyone can jump in with a suggestion to help the player come up with stuff.

Usually if someone else starts an idea, they can finish it. It eases the pressure but still lets them feel like the contributed.

Any tips on how to make this work when the game is done with a group on the internet via text on IRC instead of in person? (we already have and IC channel for game posting and an OOC channel for out of character chatter, questions, and using the dice bot)

One of the drawbacks of text based games is the relatively slow pace they tend to run at.


So I'm asking

1.) how to I encourage my players to help fill in the world

2.) how do I do this without slowing down the game to the point that people start getting displeased?

I'm the same user who posted
>how do you do this for a modern setting?
>I'm running a game taking place in Europe in 2016?

>What are you running? Give me a bit more info on your game, maybe I could help you fit this method to it.

My players all browse Veeky Forums and I don't want to spoil things by accident. Do you visit any of the Veeky Forums related IRCs?

Exactly.

My players have become incredible role-players. When we started out they were pretty bad. They didn't get into character at all, they weren't comfortable with it. But now, they're fucking amazing at it.

I'll ask a question and they'll answer it In-Character, as if speaking to the rest of the group.

ME: "You smell smoke on the air, Irral rolled the highest perception, what does she smell?"

Irral: "You smell that? Ugh, someone is burning corpses."

This method can slow things down a bit but as your players become more comfortable with it, the speed will improve.

You don't need long answers and the questions can and should be answered in an IC conversational manner when it applies.

Honestly, I've never done an IRC game, so I don't have experience with how they are paced.

But I can say that this style of running games doesn't slow things down very much at all. Sometimes the players go down a rabbit hole and get crazy with in-depth information about something, but it's my job to tamp that down, keep it IC where applicable and limit extraneous information.

Maybe use the IC channel to ask questions of the characters and have them respond IC whether through their character answering the question conversationally to the rest of the party or in the form of a thought.

The OOC channel can be used to get input if the player can't think of anything but that'll have to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

I'll hop in there right now. give me a sec to get things set up.

If you can really manage to get your players engaged in the world, it really takes some burden from the GM's stiff shoulders.

A good help for that is to set up/work out a long term goal for the players, even if it is just "your life is shit and you want to move up".

Also keep conflicts going and with that i don't mean "the war lasts forever" but there will be always some sort of struggle, or the players will lose interest quickly.
I still want to run a game where the first mission is "Kill the evil king" and the rest of the game is dealing with the aftermath, like sucession wars and civil unrests.