Everytime I run any kind of sandbox-like adventure, it explodes in my face. My party does not have much initiative in things or easily run into analysis paralysis. They end up not really knowing what to do. Because of this, sessions stretch out for hours with little progress and they get really frustrated. The worst happened yesterday when I ran From Shore to Sea:
Sounds like a sandbox might not be what your players are into. Perhaps something a little more on rails would be up there alley.
I've GMed for a few groups with mostly timid players. I'll often include an NPC that the group has befriended as a cheap way of delivering exposition. Bards can be great for this. Our skull and shackles game has a gnomish bard named Fezzig Bricklebrack. Doesn't do much but the occasional buff in combat, though he has a sharp tongue. Everytime the group would get stuck, I could have him play a little song, roll a knowledge check, and try to chime in.
Sandbox games can be a ton of fun when players are interested in it, but it's easy to lose momentum. An overall group unifying theme can help too. Our two sandbox games have been a homebrew and Skull and Shackles (which just totally blew up into sandbox stuff).
In Skull and Shackles, piracy was always an easy fallback. If bored, explore a new island! Our version of Golarion has a burgeoning trade group called the Coins, so our players always had a goal of making money.
Hope this has been at all helpful, didn't mean to go on so long.
Move locations of stuff.
Have them stumble upon the next important thing inadvertently, as long as it wouldn't be too out of place.
Follow the rule of 3. There should always be 3 opportunities to find any one piece of information important to the story. If there is only one set of clues in an adventure, add more.
My group also has what we call 'gut checks' level+int+wisdom, with dcs similar to knowledge checks. A successful check and the gm gives them a hint as to what to do next in case they missed something important. Remember the characters may very well be smarter and more observent then the players are themselves. You can also use hero points which can be spent for hints as well.
That's helpful, moophe, and Claxon. The party does have a friendly NPC that helps. They own a vessel and explore the Inner Seas in it, w hich is why I want to lean towards sandbox. However, I'm having a hard time getting the party to take interest in things.
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That's helpful, moophe, and Claxon. The party does have a friendly NPC that helps. They own a vessel and explore the Inner Seas in it, w hich is why I want to lean towards sandbox. However, I'm having a hard time getting the party to take interest in things.
If you're having trouble getting them interested in things, have things get interested in them.
How many pirate attacks will it take before the PCs decide that maybe they should find out where they're coming from? I don't know, but you can find out.
Lets say they're at sea for months, what happens when they have no more food to eat and no gold left in their coffers? I don't know, but you're players will probably do something other than starve to death.
This isn't a video game, the world moves on and continues without them being in that zone. Occasionally it means something should interact with them instead of vice versa. It may be significant, it may be insignificant. But hopefully these interactions will motivate them.
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Adventures like that really aren't sandboxes. A sandbox is where you have them in a location with lots of hooks floating around. They take the hook they want and you extrapolate from there.
With a sandbox you don't really have an overarching plot planned because the story and the plot is what the players make of it. That said, it does require your players to be proactive in some degree or at least have an interest in something in the setting/world.
The (mostly)off/on game I am running now is a sandbox and has the PCs in a coastal town of a new colony. There are bounties out for goblins and orcs, the local alchemist is looking for new sources of supplies and rare ingredients, something is stealing livestock from local farmers every week or so, the duke is looking for people to explore and survey the surrounding country side, the duke's wizard wants to collect/catalog any article or item belonging to the previous kingdom that was in the area, the latest shipment of supplies is late and the church wants to know why, and many other things. The players can effectively pick and choose what they want. Some of the things they can do in conjunction (like scouting/surveying and killing goblins/orcs) and others require focus (investigating what is killing/stealing livestock).
Those options don't even include more political ones involving different factions or groups in town.
I would look around on the internet. There are a lot of blogs that provide good details and information on how to run a sandbox campaign and how it makes the DMs life so much easier and puts the onus for adventure back into the hands of the players (where it belongs).
Adventures like that really aren't sandboxes. A sandbox is where you have them in a location with lots of hooks floating around. They take the hook they want and you extrapolate from there.
Ah, let me rephrase then.
How do I run an adventure where I present a problem and leave the party to their devices to figure it out? I guess the three clue rule applies here.
While I do have a sandbox campaign, they play it out fairly well. Though, I'm not always sure what to throw at them. Some of the PCs have little miniplots going on, but I'm not always sure how to integrate them.
Brewers guide to GM'ing might help a bit. Check this out, if you haven't. Great guide to GMing in general.
Apologies for the huge link, not sure how to create hyperlinks.
https://onedrive.live.com/view.aspx?resid=652EA6399D011D3!107&ithint=fi le%2c.pdf&app=WordPdf&wdo=2&authkey=!AK5Gvgq8AwYimSM
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Brewers guide to GM'ing
Also keep in mind that an open/linear world is there only to help to tell the story that you want to tell. If you do not have a story or if that story has no tension then you don't have a game that your players will care about.
...
...have a central villain.
...have a universal starting area. Absalom is perfect since it means the characters actually have to travel to get anywhere.
...have "random" encounters from movement.
...have a world map that the players can move on.
...have a core objective.
...have major consequences for failure. For instance, Lord of the Rings only works because if the fellowship gets caught they all die. If Sauron gets the ring the WORLD of the west dies.
...not worry about experience all that much. It is stupidly easy to scale up scenarios and modules to the current party. It can be as easy as giving everything the advanced template to just adding monsters.
...include areas that are more powerful than the party. Feeling disadvantaged and in danger is key to making players feel threatened. You do not want them to feel in control, but at the same time you want them to feel as though they are able to struggle to gain partial control.
...include items that allow the PCs to revive if they die if you are worried about characters dying a lot. I have a campaign in the works whose central plot revolves around plot items that cast true ressurection on a character once a month and holds its charge if the character doesn't die.
...roll for encounter chances before the game starts. Roll 50 or more and bank them. This way you know that in X moves the PCs will encounter a group of monsters. In Y moves the PCs will have to make a survival check to move in the direction they want to and a failure means they move in a random direction or don't actually move.
...keep track of food and water. PCs can starve to death or die of thirst.
...include friendly, neutral, and hostile parties. Maybe 10%-80%-10%, and the "hostile parties" the last 10% of the percentile is the villain's minions reveal the party. This should increase things to 10%-50%40% because now the PCs are being actively pursued. The villain's minions should be more powerful than random monsters and possibly more numerous. Remember, they WANT to kill or capture the party. They might be able to request aid from a friendly party or slide away from a neutral party without combat--or make them friendly with an appropriate check,--but they will never avoid open combat with the hostile party if they are encountered.
...make every skill in the game important even on the world map. This can be tricky, but you can do it. Diplomacy to get a traveling caravan to take on the party, intimidation to make a pack of neutral but opportunisitic werewolves to leave the party alone, sense motive to know that the group of men who are evidently "lost" or "traveling the same direction as the party" are actually assassins of the villain and are going to attack the party the moment the party's guard is down, Slight of hand to hide some, most, or all of your gold on yourself when your party surrenders to robbers who outclassed them.
...allow the plot to evolve. Imagine if some of the party get afflicted with Lycanthropy. Mothune has werewolf battalions in their army. They would LOVE to have volunteers, and might even pay some obscure character money to help the afflicted players master their curse to be treated as "natural."
...force the players to move around the world extensively. One way to do this is to split up the plot lines all over the continent so the PCs have to travel a great deal. Perhaps the PCs only find noteworthy quests that are not being done by local heroes from merchants who tell them about them over a pint of mead--PCs treat, naturally.--
...Make NPCs important. Even if it is just a random merchant who shows the PCs cool and interesting gear from far off lands. Make sure these merchants have sufficient body guards to make attacking them a very bad idea. Just because the merchant is a level 6 expert that does not mean that he hasn't paid some clerics to cast planar ally spells for him.
...NEVER just let the PCs go through and buy magic items from the books or other resources. They say, "I want to buy this" and then you roll a percentile. If you think the percentile is high enough (set a standard) for the size of the town then they can buy the item. If not then they either need to search again tomorrow, go to a bigger town, or commission someone to build it for them or have the crafting feat to make it themselves.
Possible ideas:
The Villain is powerful. He has many minions, and most of them are far more powerful than the PCs. It is also possible that the Villain is actively seeking the party himself, and if he finds them before they are strong enough to fight back that he will just kill them all. If you do the latter then play up the threat of him, but do not just have him show up and win. You want the PCs to be able to escape every time, and choose when to face him.
The villain's minions are actively seeking the PCs. If the PCs are in an area that no one would look then treat any percentage of the Villain's Minions finding the PCs as nothing happens. If the PCs go to another plane, go into the darklands, or stick to forests or hills where they can hide then the villain will be hard pressed to find them.
The ultimate advice is this: A
If you do not have a plot then you are just dumping the PCs into a world and saying do whatever. Expect them to have lots of sex, do lots of drugs, and play lots of rock and roll, but don't expect them to go pursue some sort of illusory plot that they don't care about.
I've read several GMing guides, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Like I'm not descriptive enough and keep missing stuff.
That's helpful, moophe, and Claxon. The party does have a friendly NPC that helps. They own a vessel and explore the Inner Seas in it, w hich is why I want to lean towards sandbox. However, I'm having a hard time getting the party to take interest in things.If you're having trouble getting them interested in things, have things get interested in them.
The party does have enemies. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how I want t hem to interact with the party aside from...well...killing t hem.
I've read several GMing guides, but I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Like I'm not descriptive enough and keep missing stuff.
The party does have enemies. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how I want t hem to interact with the party aside from...well...killing t hem.That's helpful, moophe, and Claxon. The party does have a friendly NPC that helps. They own a vessel and explore the Inner Seas in it, w hich is why I want to lean towards sandbox. However, I'm having a hard time getting the party to take interest in things.If you're having trouble getting them interested in things, have things get interested in them.
They could try to kill their families, their friends, ruin their business, destroy their houses, ruin their reputations....and much much more.
Those are just the ones I thought of it 5 seconds.
The party does have enemies. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out how I want t hem to interact with the party aside from...well...killing t hem.
The problem should always come to the party if the party does not come to the problem.
A wild group of hired thugs appears! They attack the party! The party defeats them, and on them they find scrolls with the emblem of the villains on it. In the [condition to view] the paper has writing inscribed on it that tells of the party and offers a gracious reward for them Dead or Alive. Perhaps it is simply a reward for an item the PCs have on them.If the PCs ignore this then they are attacked again, but this time by more powerful foes.
Begin it like this:
First Group of Attackers CR (APL-1)
Second Group of Attackers CR (APL)
Third Group of Attackers CR (APL+1)
Fourth Group of Attackers CR (APL+2)
Fifth Group of Attackers CR (APL+3)
Sixth Group of Attackers CR (APL+4)
Seventh Group of Attackers CR (APL+5)
Eighth Group of Attackers CR (APL+6) This should kill the party no sweat.
Basically if the party just sits there and doesn't pursue the plot then they die sooner or later. There is no escape from the plot, for the plot is the source of the story's basic foundations. If the players resist the plot then the plot will win to end the story sooner or later.
To motivate players in past sandbox games I have had rumors of undead swarming villages. They did not react, so the next session the undead swarmed their village. The best thing about a sandbox game IMO is that the world can march along regardless of the parties inaction. And sometimes killing off friendly npcs is what it takes.
Sandbox games are great if they set goals and march off, if not you need to start a fire under them and get them moving so that they can blunder into things and get the ball rolling.
I think there may need to be some discussion about what the players can expect from a sandbox game. For our group, (and in other media as well) a Sandbox game is driven ENITRELY by the players actions and it's only the DM's job to set up exciting and appropriate reactions to those players' actions. The DM doesn't push content, he manages it as the players interact with it.
I can tell not everyone shares this view based on what I'm reading, though. And that may cause some issues. For example Taku Ooka Nin's advice is pretty much the opposite of what I do when I run a sandbox game. I think Sandbox games often DON'T have to have a main antagonist, and most of the time they should not. I think the DM absolutely should NOT force the players into any storyline - I mean if you do that it's not even sandbox anymore. You're basically funneling them along your created storyline.
Sandbox style, to me is about letting the PC's drive their story through their choices and personal goals. A lot of D&D is "go here and do this." Sandbox tends to be "I'm this person and I want to do this in this world. Let's set about doing that."
To make this work, you need to be setting up a lot of NPC's and events, write down what those NPC's and groups are going to do be doing regardless of the player's interactions, and then letting the player's choices affect their outcome as they happen into them. Then as the players cause change, you can tweak to add drama or created conflict to make it more interesting and challenging - but there shouldn't be a single goal aside from what the player characters have created for themselves. Let them make enemies, don't force feed them. Let them build their allies. Let them drive everything.
I think there's different levels of control afforded to the players and there needs to be a discussion between you and the group to come to an understanding of expectations. Do they actually want a true sandbox style experiece when they sit down, or are they looking at something more free-form than a dungeon crawl, but still with an overarching narrative and given objectives the way Taku Ooka is describing? Once you know what they want, you can manage expectations and plan accordingly. But don't be afraid of some early awkwardness. If they aren't used to being in control of what happens it may take some time to get used to it.
Our Sandbox games are not usually done in D&D and Pathfinder. We usually do them in White Wolf or other games where "questing" and "levels" are less a theme. But they can be very rewarding when done correctly.
I think there may need to be some discussion about what the players can expect from a sandbox game. For our group, (and in other media as well) a Sandbox game is driven ENITRELY by the players actions and it's only the DM's job to set up exciting and appropriate reactions to those players' actions. The DM doesn't push content, he manages it as the players interact with it.
I can tell not everyone shares this view based on what I'm reading, though. And that may cause some issues. For example Taku Ooka Nin's advice is pretty much the opposite of what I do when I run a sandbox game. I think Sandbox games often DON'T have to have a main antagonist, and most of the time they should not. I think the DM absolutely should NOT force the players into any storyline - I mean if you do that it's not even sandbox anymore. You're basically funneling them along your created storyline.
Sandbox style, to me is about letting the PC's drive their story through their choices and personal goals. A lot of D&D is "go here and do this." Sandbox tends to be "I'm this person and I want to do this in this world. Let's set about doing that."
To make this work, you need to be setting up a lot of NPC's and events, write down what those NPC's and groups are going to do be doing regardless of the player's interactions, and then letting the player's choices affect their outcome as they happen into them. Then as the players cause change, you can tweak to add drama or created conflict to make it more interesting and challenging - but there shouldn't be a single goal aside from what the player characters have created for themselves. Let them make enemies, don't force feed them. Let them build their allies. Let them drive everything.
I think there's different levels of control afforded to the players and there needs to be a discussion between you and the group to come to an understanding of expectations. Do they actually want a true sandbox style experiece when they sit down, or are they looking at something more free-form than a...
So after you spend an entire year pre-generating all of the areas that the players could possibly ever go to, all of the monsters, all of the possible plot-lines that the players could ever uncover, and the sensual possibilities with every single NPC that exists will you be upset if they never leave town to experience your content because they don't feel motivation to do anything?
Having a primary villain and a primary objective is key to gameplay. The villain could be nebulous: The PCs are explorers and the villain is the environment, or the villain could be more concrete and be a powerful character that chases the party out of their home towns because they came into possession of something or their souls are important to him.
The bottom line is this: in the beginning good role-players will have objectives for their characters. You, as a DM, have nothing to lose by adding in motivation in the form of something that resists the PCs or hunts them.
The key is making the "quest" to be nebulous and to not just be go here and kill this. The quest needs to be something that they cannot contend with right now.
Yes there do seem to be 2 schools of thought here. One says that a sandbox should be like modern American tv: some kind of overarching plot and villain so huge and all encompassing that the PCs can't directly influence it and every couple adventures or "episodes" they collide a bit, but otherwise the world is for the PCs' taking. The second school is more like an actual sandbox: the PCs just simply wander from place to place, plot to plot, never really having a point to what they're doing other than whatever sense the individual players want to make of it, kind of like real life.
Its just a matter of what you want to run and what your players want to play. If you like school 1 and they want school 2, or worse one side of the table doesn't even WANT a sandbox then you're really in a quandary. For the sake of this thread though I'll deal with myself since I haven't played with the OP or their players.
My GM style fits nicely into both schools of sandbox. I very much enjoy improv and have a lot of basic monsters and encounters "on retainer" in my brain or on reams of notebook paper. On the other hand if my players seem to want to stick to a central theme I can bounce them in and out of it while they pick their way along.
My chief problem with being a GM in a sandbox? Commitment. Its EASY to be a player: show up, roll dice, and go. For a GM you have to have plots buried in the sand just waiting for the PCs to pick up and, once selected, you need to commit to that one even if you wanted to run something else. Sandboxes are for players most of the time.
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Having a primary villain and a primary objective is key to gameplay.
Not in a sandbox game and not in my gaming experience. If a group needs a primary villain, they aren't looking for a sandbox game. And all you need to do is make a list of some of the players and notes about what they are doing and how and when it crosses paths with the players. It's worked MANY times for my group.
In fact I could argue that to have a good gaming session you don't need a villain at all. You just need obstacles for the players to overcome.
Since we are quoting singular sentences out of context:
Having a primary villain and a primary objective is key to gameplay.It's worked MANY times for my group.
Well, since it has worked many times before I don't see the problem....
The important context is this:
The villain can be nebulous.
nebulous
adjective1. hazy, vague, indistinct, or confused
With this word it means the villain can be a theme, a myth, or even just their finances.
I think you're moving the goal posts, TON. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this. I don't consider a villain and obstacles to be the same thing. And I suspect a lot of players would be confused if you used those terms inter-changeably.
I think our not seeing eye to eye goes back to my original point: Have good communication with your players and make sure you know what they want to do.
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Everytime I run any kind of sandbox-like adventure, it explodes in my face. My party does not have much initiative in things or easily run into analysis paralysis. They end up not really knowing what to do. Because of this, sessions stretch out for hours with little progress and they get really frustrated. The worst happened yesterday when I ran From Shore to Sea:
** spoiler omitted **I can't blame the module or my players. I know I'm doing something wrong here.
Blame is the wrong word, but it seems to me that you don't have the right sort of players to run a sandbox adventure. So my advice would be "Don't".
Assuming you want to run one anyway, my favourite ever account of a sandbox game is the West Marches.
Y'know what always bothered me about Western Marches? Intelligence.
You've got a monster out there, like say a young green dragon. It's an animal with simple motivations like eating and mating, but it's also a sentient creature with a 12 Int. That makes it as smart a most fighters.
Now, why is it just flying around it's forest? Why hasn't it
- impressed a bunch of kobolds into it's service to rob the town
- raided the ogres and stolen their loot
- sent other minions to unearth a powerful artifact
I mean what about all the monsters that want to hasten the end of the world? Or dominate others? If they're living out in the Western Marches, what are they doing to achieve their goals?
One of the keys in the article is "No or little NPC interaction". What fun is that? The PCs roleplay with each other, but otherwise I may as well just be playing a video game.
In my opinion, Grand Theft Auto is no way to run a role playing game. It sounds fun at first but quickly devolves into either "line up more pins for us to knock down" or "spend all day talking about hiring engineers and draining swamps for my new castle".
What TON is describing is not a real sandbox--it's a classic adventure environment with a high level of player autonomy. This is good, because a real sandbox game is, for most players with the usual view of how D&D works, terrible.
That's not to say that many, many players wouldn't enjoy a pure sandbox game. But many of them would be happier playing either war games or "purer" storytelling games (the kind with little emphasis on combat or even mechanics at all). The classic sword and sorcery game needs at least some overarching elements, even if the players ultimately subvert them.
Re: West Marches in particular, that setting solves a very particular problem--that of a rotating and unreliable player roster--by changing the basic assumptions of the game to be more sandboxy. This is because a more coherent, story-based approach simply wouldn't be possible with those constraints. That's fine and fun; it just represents a way to have fun despite a lack of player commitment. It's certainly not the typical expectation of a Pathfinder or D&D player in my experience.
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I will not argue what is and isn't sandbox, but i'll share some tips and tricks for motivating an otherwise sleepy party.
To get a player more deeply seething and involved than even you as a GM might ever expect...Offend them.
1. Steal something
2. Make a character look like a fool
3. Attempt to kill(and maybe almost succeed in killing) that character
4. Hurt someone or destroy something the character cares about.
If somebody steals something from the more item-possessive PC for example, and then escaped into said dungeon...No force in d20 can keep that player character from hunting them down.
I had a GM have what he intended to be a short-term side-plot about someone marking my level 1 character for death. The group survived the assassination plot while stripped of gear. Well, let's just say that while it was meant to be an early introduction into the dangers of that city, by level 7 my guy was gleefully hunting down assassins for an offense committed 6 levels ago, actually causing unforeseen ripples in buckling a faction well beyond intended.
Don't over use it, but there is always that 1 player who will stalk an enemy to the ends of Golarion to exact revenge for even the pettiest of offenses. If you find a party lacking gusto, giving them someone to hate will stir the ole fires. Just don't follow up by denying them some sweet satisfaction early on, as it'll make them feel disempowered and their efforts at initiative seem futile.
And don't think this doesn't work on altruistic characters. If you have your altruistic cleric or paladin stumble upon an orcish slave-raid aftermath with the dropped teddy bear of a likely shackled child, just watch the rage boil and the creative aggression pour out of the party as it puts a stop to the faction of offense.
Another method is to create an NPC for the group to universally despise that can't be solved by swinging a sword or spell right after introduction.
We have a trope for this now in our games. We call him a 'Prescott,' so named after the first named NPC of this trope. Whenever you want to get the player involved, or deter a player from acting, this 'Prescott' always serves as a combat-ineffective, yet bureaucratically connected gadfly which attempts to thwart a plan in such a way that direct and violent retaliation rarely works. Typically he's a politician, noble, merchant, slanderous chronicler, or the like, and he has powerful friends which would overwhelm or seriously harm the group if they just cut him down in the street.
And we make him universally petty in gloating over any small victory or trip up he achieves in fouling up the party's plan. This is the wormy NPC hindrance which always raises at least 1 set of hackles and burns the party into a drooling fervor to do whatever it takes to make him pay.
On a softer side of GMing, I like to go with the early payout for a first impression.
If you indulge a character whim for an entire session, suddenly they feel as if they have meaningful choice, and are usually much more satisfied in returning to whatever over-arching goals or problems exist. There is something about knowing the GM will roll a random generator if they cross that unexpected boundary to accommodate them, which makes them far less likely to want to constantly poke and push the borders at ill-advised times.
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I think there's about four different degrees of autonomy and motivation at play here.
1) Clear-direction road. A classic dungeon crawl has a very straightforward plot. There'll be some twists, but not many forks. If it's done wrong it's called railroading. However, my players tell me that they actually like it when it's done right; if the GM has a story to tell the players can enjoy being the characters in that story.
2) Vague direction story. There's a problem that sparks a story, there's opposition to the PCs, and eventually things will come to a head and the plot will be resolved. The way this happens isn't all that certain however. Detective stories tend to fall in this category, if there are multiple paths of clues available to figure things out. As a GM, figure out all the desires of the NPCs and all the means they have available, and place enough clues to figure things out. But you can't quite predict the way the PCs will get there; they'll probably spend a lot of effort on something you didn't think was important, and fail to recognize something crucial. At some point, they may feel like they're stuck. They didn't find a clue, or didn't understand it. Recognize this situation and let them find another clue or have an NPC stop by to talk things over and get them going again.
3) Multiple stories on offer. This is a typical sandbox setup: there's a world with all sorts of story hooks available. PCs aren't compelled to pick them up; they can move on and go after something that's more interesting. Each individual hook can lead to a Type 2 story, but the difference is that the players choose which story was gonna get picked. This means you prepare many many more hooks. To keep yourself from going crazy, don't work out all the stories, because some are never going to get player. When the players pick one, improvize the rest of the session to get them started, and between this session and the next one, work out the details.
This also has a certain social contract in it: the players have to actually go out into the world and eventually bite on some sort of hook. They can't sit and wait for the story to come to them. And they can't window-shop forever. Also, if they bite and you prepare more details for the thing they bit on, they won't move on before getting into it a bit deeper.
4) PC-driven. The characters have definite goals they want to achieve and actively start stories to do so. The GM has to pay attention to see what things the players are interested in, and build up stories in response to the initiative taken by the PCs.
To make that possible, you need PCs with big motivations, and a world you can get motivated in. If a PC is against slavery, the world needs to have slavery in it so the PC can crusade against that. If a world is basically happy and safe, it's hard for a PC to get very motivated about that.
In PF, this might be a game about PCs setting out to build their own kingdom on the edge of the wilderniss; exploring, subjugating, ruling, engaging in diplomacy with neighbours.