In the days when I used to frequent RPG discussion forums on t'internet, I sometimes used to see people complaining about their woes of trying to run a 'sandbox' campaign. "All my players do is sit there!" a DM would moan. "We didn't know what we were supposed to do!" a player would whine. This seems to suggest a level of almost pathological passivity; given just the tiniest ounce of initiative and creativity, a rudimentary D&D sandbox campaign should almost be able to run itself from the results of some random generator results alone.
In my regular game, one of the PCs wears a pair of gauntlets of air elemental control that he inherited from a fallen comrade (he is actually the fifth PC to have possessed the gauntlets, the others all having died and passed them on to somebody new in their turn). They were obtained in a randomly-generated treasure hoard, and were identified shortly after, but they have never been used in anger - the party just hasn't happened to come across an air elemental at any stage since.
The player whose various PCs have worn the gauntlets at different times has always had it in the back of his mind that at some point he wants to use the damn things for their intended purpose. And at the last session he seemed to be hinting that at some point actively going out and finding an air elemental to command would be something he would like to do. This, of course, is the stuff dreams are made of: like putting the ball on the penalty spot for the DM to hit right through the laces. What greater spur to creativity does one need? All of a sudden, questions pop off in the mind like fireworks: where might there be an air elemental in the region? Who would know? What would it be doing, or guarding, or searching for? And why?
Random treasure hoards, in other words, just like random encounters, are a campaign-generation device par excellence. All that is needed is for the DM and players to be attuned to the notion that their results are not to be taken in isolation but as part of a cohesive world, and the game will drive itself along with only a finger needed on the steering wheel for guidance. All that one needs to do is to think of the campaign world as having an independent existence, and the things - everything - found within it as having an explanation waiting to be thought about and uncovered.
At some point in the early 00s (I think) I tried to code some generators for my own use. My coding skills were good enough (I thought)! So, that's how my game at the time ended up with Pants of Fear, Pants of Unknown Item Detection, and Pants of Wizardry. I think years later one of my players told me he just thought there was a clothier who had somehow happened on magical powers; but that idea never occurred to me, I just downplayed the weirdness of it all.
ReplyDeleteBut now you have to actively set about creating a situation where there is an air elemental to take control of, it having some role such as guarding something interesting, and tailoring a custom way to relay this information to the players.
ReplyDeleteIn essence you are creating a "plot" where the PCs are in the center. Isn't it the exact opposite from a sandbox experience?
I would actually argue that no, you're in the right to do so. This is because a sandbox doesn't mean everything has to be written completely in advance. It can grow and evolve and be informed from player expectations and ripe with planned adventure situations, as long as once you set these things in the campaign world you accept they are now their own living thing that will react naturally to meaningful choices made by players. I would totally do the same and take knowing what the players are planning to seek out as an opportunity to expand the sandbox and even tie it back into other things I had already created - as long as I remember to create situations and not plots.
answer to your question "Isn't it the exact opposite from a sandbox experience?". No, it is not. Your following enjoiner "It can grow and evolve..."goes on to describe a sandbox campaign fluid in motion and exactly the desired goal of a sandbox. PC directed play.
DeletePure sandboxes can be a bit overwhelming at first since there are just SOOOOOOOOO many options in some sandboxes. What's worked well for me is a "highway." There's a clear set of things PCs can do if they don't have any better ideas but there's nothing stopping them from leaving the road and there are plenty of nice well-marked off-ramps.
ReplyDeleteCould you define what you mean by "pure sandbox"?
DeleteOh, air *elementals*. I have down that they control *spirits of the air*. Hence previous characters have tried to use them to control birdmen etc. Although each failure has moved whichever character closer to the position that "these are for something that is pure air and spirit". Funny how such a slight word change, plus a knowledge of the ontology of D&D foes which one can only pretend not to know, alters everything.
ReplyDeleteAlso: damn, there is no Chekhov in this world!
Don't worry, Metheglin read none of this :)
Yes!!
ReplyDeleteMike
Bit late to the party but this was partially what I attempted to do when writing volume one of the Encyclopedia Arcana treasure/magic book for the Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2E game. You've got recognizable magic items from the old gamebooks, random junk and crap that no doubt PCs will try and find a use for, weird food and drink with equally weird effects on your digestive system, and all kinds of potentially valuable treasure from rare monster organs to Dwarf trade shipments of primitive firearms, all tied intuitively into the Fighting Fantasy world of Titan. You're totally right, random treasure hoards can be an excellent campaign generation device.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/402614/Encyclopedia-Arcana-Vol-I--Treasures