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.
Dogs in the Vineyard provides a solid procedural framework for itinerant do-gooders uncovering and addressing evil in each community they visit. The Nightmares Underneath is explicitly premised on battling “incursions” of the Nightmare Realms into the rational, lawful Kingdom of Dreams, with extremely solid procedural support, but the incursions appear as dungeons (which spread corruption to their surroundings). Either framework can be adapted to sandbox play. If you want a procedural framework for more active “incursions” that demand a response from PCs who are guardians of the lawful status quo, Apocalypse World’s “fronts” (perhaps most easily adapted from Dungeon World to D&D) are a great tool for making this happen according to a nice, neat, procedural mechanism.
ReplyDeleteThese are interesting observations. I've played both Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World but the problem I always encountered with them was that they feel a bit ephemeral and not meant for any sort of long-term play. With that said, you may be right that the frameworks they use can be adapted.
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ReplyDeleteHow I do this is to create NPCs, factions, or powerful sentient monsters which have some long term goal that will create a problem for the good people of the land. One or two is sufficient to start.
The baddies take action on the way to their long term goal. In the early stages of the campaign, the baddies' progress toward that goal creates noticeable but not apocalyptic problems for the locals and other important good aligned NPCs the player characters might go to for aid or as allies.
The way I prevent that from becoming a railroad is I role-play the baddies not too differently from how I would role play a singe character as a player. The baddies are characters with goals, obstacles, and resources just like the PCs are. At the beginning of the campaign the baddies progress toward their goals is in an early stage and probably still a secret. As the players go around dealing with minor minions, getting involved in other minor evils they uncover evidence of the badness.
Then the party can start following those clues and acting to thwart the baddies in their schemes. As the players cause problems for the evil overlord or wizard or secret faction, they start to take action against the party or do things to defend, or try to get other powerful NPCs/monsters/factions to do something about it for them.
The baddies at the beginning of the campaign are far more powerful than the players or even any single good NPC in the sandbox can handle. The players have to progress to the point of direct confrontation by dealing with the minions or minor members of a faction in the early and middle phase of campaign. Once they progress to higher levels, they can try to be more direct.
There is definitely something to the idea that the job of the DM (in any type of game and in any kind of situation, really) is to play all NPCs as though they are PCs in their own game.
DeleteI'd argue the knights of the roundtable go riding out into the blue to fight evil quite a bit. There's not always a quest, sometimes they just go and seek adventure. Admittedly I see your point though, good people generally don't go off fighting unless there's a serious reason.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually why I was considering making a game strongly based off the themes of The Hobbit. The party consists of 'little people' (lets call them all 'gnomes') who go out into a world completely unknown and far too big for them. XP is gained via travel and experiences, combat is largely about running away, using completely new mechanics, and surviving in monster-hunted wilderness in order to get enough material for a memoir is the real goal of the game. Might be a tad bit twee but it does allow for characters to be less rogueish and more upright (even if they are forced to sneak rather than stand and fight).
I like the idea of this kind of game but I find it very hard to see how it would work in practice. I think it needs strong systemic support and also a lot of devoted work by the DM to make the setting interesting to interact with.
DeleteI'm not wedded to the idea, but I suppose I'd better qualify and defend it. I did not mean to say the DM should not proactively introduce bad elements. The intended meaning of that sentence was that, is the status quo of the world is benign, the ONLY bad elements are in effect those proactively introduced by the DM.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me this makes your response something of a false dilemma. Consider two settings, one Tolkienesque and idyllic, ruled by the just and noble, the other Howardesque, ruled by cruel overlords, malignant sorcerers and bloodthirsty high priests. A system for generating active, non-static threats can be applied to either of these settings. But which is easier to implement, fits more elegantly into the existing world, has more synergy with the static elements thereof, and is likely to result in richer and more complex interactions? The world already dominated or at least heavily populated by baddies with their own pre-existing relationship webs, strongholds, agents, etc? Or the world in which each must spring fully formed either from the DM's brow or from a generator?
Yes, I take your point. And perhaps we're talking past each other. I didn't mean to suggest that the setting I'm talking about - the 'good guy' setting - is 'Tolkienesque and idyllic, ruled by the just and noble'. All I meant was that the PCs should be the guardians of something. It could be the Last City in a world otherwise populated by demons; it could be a frontier land threatened by incursions by giants; it could be the world of Beowulf where humans are beset by monsters. Indeed an 'idyll' would be pretty boring to me.
DeleteI was pondering how I might handle such a "good vs. evil" campaign and I think a good place to start, as far as emergent complexity goes, might be using faction mechanics to generate the active threats. That's probably just my personal predilection talking, but I'll put it on the table with apologies for the mess:
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We start with an abstract framework for each faction, e.g. for the sake of argument only, I'll use D&D ability scores. Strength = military power, Dexterity = mobility (logistics/supplies), Intelligence = spies & espionage, etc. For a world-defending game we are only interested in Bad Guy factions.
Using spreadsheets, we can have as many nested and weighted tables as we want and get results instantly, so complexity is no issue. Each campaign turn, each faction makes one or more attacks (assaults, infiltrations, corruptions, bribes) against one or more targets, determined by weighted chance. Each attack, determined likewise, requires contributions from one or more ability scores, e.g. "flying column" takes contributions from Strength and Dexterity. The size of these contributions is rolled randomly as well; points not assigned are reserved for defence. Targets (castles, cities, monasteries etc) are treated as static factions with no agency or attacks and low ability scores.
Attacks are rolled at the start of a campaign turn and resolved at the end, to give players time to get wind of them. If the players aren't personally involved, then the attack is resolved by an opposed roll. If the bad guys win they gain one or more points in one or more ability scores at the expense of the loser's, not necessarily from the same score. If the good guys win they get zilch, but the bad guys lose one or more points. To keep the pressure on, the bad guys have a slight chance of their scores ticking up each turn.
To make this player-level granular, specific values are assigned to each point: how many orcs or giants make up a point of Strength, how many thousands of g.p. a point of Charisma, and so on. I imagine this would be the most laborious part; a full roster for each faction would probably be required. We also generate additional details about the attack that would be relevant if the players get involved. When the players are personally defending against an attack they of course determine the outcome, but they can also proactively modify scores by, for example, going to a dungeon, killing a bunch of monsters, taking their loot and then giving it to the city.
When one of a faction's ability scores drops to zero it's vanquished, disbanded, routed or whatever. Same for targets. With another generator you create new factions once in a while, which might often start out weak but by the nature of the system will inevitably gain strength and influence over time, unless checked by the players.
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It would take time and thought to set up the mechanics, but once they're done each turn would be generated at the push of a button. Even the record-keeping could be automated if you tinkered with your spreadsheets enough.
I'm going back and forth on how I would categorize my own campaign: The PCs, having become a bit unstuck in time, discovered that there's an apocalypse due in about ten years, but they're long on "what eventually happened" and very short on "how it all started."
ReplyDeleteThere isn't any particular danger *at the moment*, but you could argue that the looming apocalypse does the work of an actively present danger. In any case, it's been sufficient to spur the PCs into regular action.
As with your original post on this subject (and the post by Zak that inspired it), I had a response of sorts in a post I made. What it all boiled down to for me is: I don't agree with the premise. More accurately, I don't agree that the premise HAS to function that way.
ReplyDeleteSometimes people define things in a way that gives one the impression that either said thing can only function in the very particular, narrow way in which that person described it or that is simply the way in which it works best for that person.
For example, "What do heroes do? They don't go about just looking for bad guys to beat up." Are you a Comic Book reader? Are you familiar with heroes 'going on patrol'? Spiderman is especially famous for swinging around NYC before going home just in case he should come across trouble. Superman has done it many times as well, flying around Metropolis with Telescopic and X-Ray vision to make sure everything is OK.
Heck, in the Silver Age he did it in space! "I'll make a loop around Alpha Centauri before heading back to Earth and...Great Scott! A Moon-sized meteor is about to strike that distant planet! This looks like a job for..."
My long time friend and GM William ran a decade and change long Champions campaign in which some sessions of opened with him saying something along the lines of, "It's a bright Summer morning, a Wednesday, around 9 am. Where is your character and what are they up to?"
AJ replies that Pulse is fighting his arch-nemesis General Winter near the Brooklyn Bridge. Dave lets us know Omni is back at base watching the Trouble Monitor and is aware of Pulse's situation. I inform everyone that Starguard is redirecting a Comet so it doesn't crash into the Eastern Seaboard of the USA. Street-level hero City Hawk is on the hunt for a villain who murdered two physists and stole their invention. Etc...
This came from the Players, proactively using their imaginations to describe events befitting their characters and typical of Superhero Comics. Some here this and think it indicates some predetermined narrative. How? None of us know what is going to happen next. Neither does the GM as he had no idea what any of us were going to say. If you suck at improv don't try this as you'll probably get weak results but it was kind of my group's thing. Will ended up tying it all together with General Winter and City Hawk's villain using some device to draw the Comet to Earth as they detected something of value inside (if I recall).
My point is, any game can be run in a multitude of different ways. It might take a little extra effort to figure out how but it can absolutely be done.
It doesn't indicate a predetermined narrative and whether people suck at improv isn't why they reject it. That's got nothing to do with it. It's a difference in game philosophy: some people want to build a group narrative through everyone contributing to the story in an omniscient way. Some people want to roleplay as a person in a fictional universe controlling that person's actions in the same way they control their own, with no control over anything unrelated, and let the narrative emerge from that. There's overlap but there're also hard lines. Nobody has to agree on it which is lucky because nobody will ever agree, what matters is that we don't confuse one for the other.
DeleteI think something like Against the Wicked City's idea for a revolutionary campaign might be a possible solution.
ReplyDeleteEssentially: The players are rebels fighting against an evil empire, possibly as members of a larger organization. Instead of treasure they're after ways to sabotage the empire- things like sabotaging a magic weapon, slaying an evil dragon, or rescuing a captive rebel leader. To make it particularly old school we might even assign XP values to every objective- with higher XP values indicating more valuable targets, although these are obviously also better defended.
I was going to say this isn't a typical fantasy plot but I realized it's basically Star Wars, which is one of THE biggest space fantasy stories.
I'd argue that the default OSR-style fantasy sandbox (OSFS) needs this systems in the first place, since the usual endgame of the OSFS is becoming a lord or even a king over a domain (in AD&D, since it goes up to level 20, that is more than half of the game), you need to protect it after it has been secured, so filling it up with bad guys overnight wouldn't work. But you also don't want PCs to and their stuff be completely safe, so you'll need a way for threats to appear organically and without DM fiat.
ReplyDeleteAD&D actually goes up to at least level 29 by the spell tables in the PH, but I wouldn't say over two-thirds of the game is domain level play by most people's experience. I guess I always assumed the original intention was to segue into fantasy wargaming once you'd carved out your barony and only break out your character when actively going on adventures.
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