In my most recent post and various others over the years, I made the case that the default OSR-style fantasy sandbox (and I suppose any other kind of sandbox) is ill-suited without modifications to a campaign in which the PCs are, self-consciously or otherwise, 'goodies'. There needs to be a way, I suggested, to systematise the appearances of threats which the PCs-as-goodies then defend against.
This prompted the following comment, on my most recent post:
But, in a game, a vile world is most conducive to PCs being the goodies. You can sandbox a game full of evil barons and vampire counts and the players can fight against it however they choose; if the world is doing well then the DM has to proactively introduce the bad elements, which is just not how this game functions best. That way lies predetermined narrative setups.
I take this to mean that there is in fact no need for any special systematisation or modification to run a 'goodies' sandbox. All you need is to fill a hexmap full of baddies and watch the PCs go out and fight against them. To 'proactively introduce bad elements' on the other hand is 'not how the game functions best' and leads to railroading.
I decided that this comment needed special rebuttal, as doing so will help to elucidate just why it is that fresh systematisation of 'goodies' sandbox gaming is necessary.
Let's go back, crucifixes and garlic in hand, to a time when Zak S was in his pomp and had not yet been declared persona non grata. In an old post from that era, which I can no longer find, Zak made the important and useful observation that there is a point of distinction between campaigns in which the PCs are rogues versus those in which they are heroes. In a campaign in which they are rogues, the PCs start with ready-made motives and can be (I don't remember if Zak put it in these terms) active while the world is passive. The PCs want gold. Off they go into a world of adventure to get it. The DM's job is to set up an interesting landscape - typically a hexmap - populated with various sites where treasure can be found. The PCs are thus the active agents; the landscape is passive - it is to be explored.
In a heroic campaign, such a setup feels inert. What do heroes do? They don't go about just looking for bad guys to beat up. They protect people. They are much more passive against active threats - Clark Kent happens to notice a bank being robbed, jumps into the nearest phonebox, transforms into Superman, and catches the villains: this is contingent on the villains having taken the active step of robbing the bank in the first place.
The commenter's premise, then - that 'You can sandbox a game full of evil barons and vampire counts and the players can fight against it however they choose' - is, then, not really true. You could make a hexmap full of evil barons and vampire counts, for sure, but then why are the PCs going off into such a hexmap to fight them? Some unsatisfying and implausible conceit might justify it ('the PCs are Evil Hunters and have been tasked by Lord Uzanohakna to go out and smite evil wherever it can be found'), but the result feels bland and inert. One pictures the PCs waking up each morning and deciding between themselves, 'OK, which evil baron shall we go and slay today, then?' The result is fairly one-dimensional and, frankly, not all that heroic.
No: what I believe is reqiured is a method by which threats are introduced into a sandbox, which the PCs must then deal with as they see fit as protectors or guardians or something of that sort. They live in a region of the world which has its own dangers but which, from time to time, is invaded by evil beings, whether from 'beyond the mountains' or another plane of existence or faerie or whatever, who must be found, rooted out, and destroyed.
This method must be carefully designed so that the threats which appear are not scripted, are unique, and interact with existing elements of the campaign setting in interesting ways. But this can I think be done, and I indeed came up with the rudiments of such a system here. What is required is a more formal description, with lots of examples and options, and a bit more thought devoted to the subject of how the existence of threats is incorporated into the sandbox itself in an active way, how advancement takes place, and so on. But the basic model of 'you can sandbox a game full of evil barons and vampire counts and the players can fight against it however they choose' is, to my eye, in itself a non-starter.
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