Tabletop games don't have railroads (unless they're about trains), and they have the plot and story built in do as to be as unobtrusive as possible.
Anything else is simply a collaborative writing activity or improv theater exercise.

>>97923437
I wish that you killed yourself and stopped bothering me with inane threads where you spam the same tired nonsense every single day.

Also I pity the poor fucker who has you as a player

>>97923437
I don't get the joke.

>>97923568
About 2 weeks ago someone lost an internet argument and
>railroad
has been the bait-de-jour for this cycle. Its been diminishing returns for them so it will likely drop out after a few more and just be part of the regular seasonal rotation.

>>97923568
the joke is that somebody got butthurt.

>>97923605
Oh, no, I get that.
I don't get the reference OP is trying to McDonald's, though.

>>97923627
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TzbHOU758k

>>97923627
No real idea what the image is from but I suspect we're suppose to put together
>angry but dumb customer is whoever their imaginary frenemy is
>smug but passive aggressive servant is OP or someone simulating butthurt OP
>joke is servant befuddles and frustrates angry man
No idea what movie its.

>>97923679
>>97923683
Oh my bad. Its not what I thought it was at all.
joke is
>thing big and popular is different than initial design and initial designer is befuddled
Looks interesting, thanks anon.

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>>97923437
>still going on

>>97923437
kek

>>97923568
the joke can be whatever you want

>>97923437
Weren’t you that guy who got revealed to run a play by post game on Discord and never have played an actual ttrpg in his life? And not even run, considering all of the “sandbox” elements were done by just rolling on random encounter charts the entire time?

>>97923683
>I suspect we're suppose to put together
You're retarded

>>97923437
>just tell the GM what you wanna do next session, and the story is all up to you
Iceberg ahead, captain!

>>97923568
.... So what do I do, just laugh at the joke? And then what?

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>>97923437
It's been almost two weeks and I've still never got a clean answer on how a "true" sandbox campaign is meant to play out. And I mean this in the realistic, week-to-week sense. GMs are still very human and likely unable to conjure memorable encounters within the five seconds it took for PCs to decide they're going to wander into a mysterious cave. Like, between the VTT and filling in the statblock sheets that would take at least 20-30 minutes of full focus.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing the idea of sandboxes - I've always wanted to play a Living World, for example, or run one for me and eight other friends - but I hear too many people yearning for what is clearly a fantasy rendition of how campaigns actually function. GMs aren't Go Into Games Machines.

>>97923568
They expect you to do the DM's work.

>>97923498
>Anything else is simply a collaborative writing activity or improv theater exercise.
That's what sandbox is though. It's just mother may I.

>>97924435
They prepare in between sessions. Sometimes that might mean "reskinning" the bandits they were going to fight into "hobgoblins" since they're now in a place that has a lot of goblinoids

>>97924435
>too many people yearning for what is clearly a fantasy rendition of how campaigns actually function
>After posting an entirely fabricated poor understanding of how sandbox cpaigns function
You dumb.

>>97924561
Then how do they function?! Is it like >>97924450 says? Because this seems like railroading with extra steps. If the PCs ask for rumors then that means I'm drawing from prepared material.

>>97924586
Ask nicer.

If a player demanded something happen next session I'd be stunlocked for a bit. Then wonder why they aren't just running the game themselves if they're gonna treat me like their personal chef.

>>97924607
Why do you assume they're "demanding" anything and not simply asking for something they think would be cool and, better, trying to check if YOU, the DM, would also be cool with that sort of development?

>>97924435
Usually you prepare the starting part of an area, like what they will encounter if they first enter the strange forest, or the deep cavern, or the abandoned town. You would do well already knowing what the general gist of said area is so you can narrate as they start checking the location. Once they choose one location you run the first encounters, and then you know that's the are you need to prep. You can expand the area depending on their interest. You also need to have a table of random encounter by are in case they suddenly decide to quit and go somewhere else.

>>97924435
>>97924630
That said, my main issue as someone who has run and play sandbox is the lack of an end point and a narrative thread. Is more like a bunch of one shots, works well for something like West Marches, and even better with a rotating cast of players, but for a single group it doesn't work unless the players have very clear character goals and work towards it.
Otherwise, is better just to make a game with a clear endpoint (wander this map, your starting objective is to gather resources and kill this bad guy) and just let them get there when they feel like it.

>>97924435
2 weeks and you still haven't noticed these threads are just bait and the faggots making them are talking out of their ass?

>>97923437
You're so desperate that you're using garbage-tier alphazoomer memes now.

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>>97924435
I will sell you the answers to your questions.

>>97924435
Most of what makes something memorable is the core concept. The concept of something is less mutable in the moment than the mechanics of it. Most people aren't necessarily going to instantly engage with something in a way that necessitates having concrete mechanics for it in the moment. And if they do, you can always take a glace at some appropriate tables or similar encounters to quickly derive some statistical information for whatever you had planned.

You paint in broad strokes and fill in as it becomes necessary. If you know the players are heading to Port Flounder at the end of session 5, then you have until session 6 to put down all the important particulars of Port Flounder.

>>97924624
When you "tell the GM what you want to do next session" and there's no discussion or accepting that they might say no? Yeah, that's making a demand.

>>97923437
Eventually AI DMs are going to be a thing that doesn't suck, and it's going to crush tabletop

>>97925771
/tg/ tries not to assume the worse interpretation in the most obtuse way: challenge impossible!
>yeah you look good today
>IMPLYING I DONT LOOK GOOD EVERY DAY?!

>>97924607
If you're running the game you are the personal chef. Cook the players what they want to eat.

>>97925791
It’d still be a novelty at best, since ttrpgs are still a social activity. Otherwise you’d just play a video game for a more fulfilling experience.

>>97925798
>>97925807
Ironic

>>97925807
Nah. Or rather that is one way of being a GM. Another is to go "I'm running a game about x, anyone interested?" and then run that game for people who are interested. It's important to remember that the GM's also a player who's there to have fun, not someone who's there doing a job or providing a service.

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>>97924441
More like you're empowered to narrate the outcome

Improvlets need not apply

>>97924435
You get little pieces of paper and you write ideas on them to use later. You can use a pencil to write words on paper. There are a number of different pencils you can get and also you can use different words.

>>97924435
If you haven't figured it out instinctively as a child then you're never going to. Just give up on this hobby.

>>97925771
I think the example in the OP is spposed to be more like
>"Hey dm, you remember those rumors about the creepy house? We were planning on checking it out session.
The player's come up with a plan/goals and then forewarn the dm so that he can prepare.

>>97924450
So a quantum ogre situation, ergo railroading. Got it.

>>97924607
>What nogames faggots on /tg/ think happens
"GM I DEMAND MY CHARACTER GETS ELEVENDY BILLION GOLD NEXT SESSION AND ALSO BECOMES BFFS WITH THE KING"
>What actually happens
"Y'know GM since we're going to be heading into a larger city it'd be nice if we could have some downtime, maybe craft some items with all this gold we have?"

Speaking from experience, I've put forth suggestions in two games I'm in between sessions via DMs and both GMs have responded positively to what I presented. You pathetic losers are so detached from reality and so misanthropic that you can't fathom friends playing games together, players wanting cool shit to happen to the party, and the GM wanting to have cool shit happen to the party. You insufferable, miserable cunts think that every game is the GM versus the Players, that a TTRPG is just a string of randomly rolled combat encounters with no endpoint. It's not. Those of us with actual games play with our friends, and sure, sometimes shit just happens due to spur of the moment thinking, but sometimes, and I know this is going to send OP and his brigade of gay lovers into a tizzy, the game is actually better when the players and GM work together to guide the game towards certain story beats. Does this mean things will always go as planned? No, of course not, that's where the dice come in. Does it mean that things are more personal and interesting to the people involved in the game? Absolutely.

>>97926087
>I know you want spaghetti, but we're having pizza again. DONT LIKE IT JUST STARVE.
weeeeeee, rpgs so much fun boys

>>97924435
Read AD&D 1E dmg. It will clear things up about anything rpg related. Really its required reading if you want to briswe this board but illiterate retards will oppose this sentiment.

>>97926224
You can cook by yourself, son, you're not a child.

>>97926224
Again, the GM's there to have fun, not to provide a service. If you absolutely insist on a food metaphor, he's not your personal chef, he's just someone who likes cooking and sharing what he cooks with other people. If he feels like making some pizza and asks if you want to come over to have some, you obviously don't have to say yes, but it'd be a dick move to demand him to make spaghetti instead. If you don't like pizza, don't agree on a pizza night with friends. Of course food metaphor doesn't actually work, because the GM's not offering a fully prepared meal. Campaign's not something prewritten but something that takes it shape during play, and that's the case whether we're talking about sandbox campaigns or more plot-oriented ones.

>>97926434
why cook at all? I like my games RAW

>>97923437
>another fucking railroad thread
Mods are desperate, huh?

>>97924435
In my experience, sandbox play inevitably bottlenecks down to a singular plot. Start with a wide open, very vague setting. Have a handful of plothooks and potential threats or inciting incidents in your back pocket in case things drag on. Or source some ideas from the player characters. Point is, you let the players find trouble, even if it's just realizing that they have finite funds and need money, or that they need to get the fuck out of town, but need enough rations to get them to the next town. Eventually, they'll cause enough trouble for the story to become self-perpetuating.

The kind of faggots beating the chests about the pure euphoria of sandbox play are almost exclusively talking in fake smug guy quips and unsubtly letting on that they don't know shit about shit, and just assume that a TTRPG GM is like the computer for a video game. The players sit down every session and the GM just waits for them to say what they're doing, because the world is just full of activities and dungeons waiting for the players. Then the GM tells them what dice to roll and when they encounter some monster or a dungeon. They play for a few hours until they get bored and that's the sandbox, based entirely on their retarded misunderstanding of TTRPGs.

>>97924443
A sandbox allows you to go anywhere you want in a "living world".
That "living world" still has its own internal logic, and that logic is portrayed through the game's rules; established character options (abilities/equipment/powers/tools), enemy behaviors/abilities.
Just because you can go wherever you want doesn't mean you can suddenly go against the rules of the game. Player characters won't (nor should) be able to declare flight in a sandbox game that doesn't establish rules for player character flight.

>>97926482
>he's not your personal chef
then someone else can cook tonight instead

>>97926482
>Campaign's not something prewritten but something that takes it shape during play
that's why the metaphor was that he's a personal chef to begin with, who do you think is going to be doing a lot of the shaping of the campaign during play? the players, and if they want the adventure to cater to them, like it's kind of going to be doing naturally, it's best to lean more into it as well

>>97926574
you dont seem to get sandbox play, with your talk of brow beating, and of the sandbox devolving into railroads

>>97923437
It really is like this. Its how I do cyberpunk. Just build the story off of whatever their interested in doing in the city. If a particular NPC catches their interest, we'll expand on that. Same with plot threads. Now and again ambush them with unexpected problems to keep things lively. You don't need to keep a big list of prepared statblocks. You can just steal them or do guesswork. Or if a thread ends up building towards something, then I start hashing out enemy builds.

>>97926734
Are you playing RED?
How do you get maps if they decide to fight in an area you didn't expect you to?

>>97926694
Wow, that's one hell of an entitlement complex. Maybe you should cook?

>>97926918
I took my favorite elements from 2020 and melted that into REDs more streamlined gameplay.

I almost never prepare maps unless they're on some convoluted gig where they're busting into a place. And if its that setious, they typically do a session of prep beforehand, giving me time to get it ready. If I don't get that time, I just use the drawing tools available to me and scribble it down as they explore.

>>97926973
Yeah I don't think I have the skill to make a good looking map in the time they wanna start a fight
I'll stick with having vague locations and the areas where they fight looking exactly like the ones I prepared beforehand.

>>97926204
OP absolutely destroyed. (Again)

>>97924435
not OP, here is a non-troll reply from my personal experience
first of all
>world
sandboxes are not about scope, they are about player freedom
The village of Hommlet has only 3 mapped locations and no wilderness but it's still a sandbox
The key is to create a location and put some shit the players can interact with such as
>NPCs and factions, services and money-sinks, dangers and rewards, conflicts and problems, occasional eerie WTF thing etc.
not focusing on how scenes will play out in advance

now if you are specifically thinking about a hexcrawl sandbox then the steps are
- start with a single sandbox style location, like a village
- have a map ready of about a day's travel away from the village, maybe one or two small points of interest to explore
- present activities opportunities
>info and or rumors about rewards, conflicts, problems etc
some might be solved here others might require travel (you don't need to have the place ready in advance, just have a rough idea why travel is required)
- at the end of a session or in between sessions ask what the players want to do for the next session
- if they want to investigate something local, work on finer details and flesh it out
- if they want to travel somewhere, you prep another sandbox location relevant to the thing they are trying to investigate
- you are actually free to introduce an overarching meta-plot about some major conflict like a war or something, and progress it from time to time. The players can get involved, or it can just be a background thing the NPCs are talking about, either is fine, and in the latter case you don't have to make it super fleshed out
>Army A has taken city of N so now there are refugees and army B retreating through location M
is plenty fine
- you are free to include hooks to players backstories here and there as well
>hey see that criminal being lead to the gallows? that's your childhood friend Bob!

>>97925791
what will happen is that autistic players will stop coming to my table
for the rest of us who want to have a fun-time screen-off activity with their friends nothing will change
everyone wins

>>97926087
if that's what you mean there is an easy fix of setting up common expectations of what the game is going to be about
on every session zero I openly state that I want to play a game about swashbuckling adventuring, getting into dungeons and castles, killing monsters and getting loot
and if someone wants to play a game about falling in love with a tavern wench, settling down to have a home, and running a dung-farm or whatever they can leave and save everyone the time

and if someone would try that shit nonetheless,
the first time I would polity remind that it's not the game we've gathered to play, the second time I'm saying fine, and then I'm making their old character into a dung-farmer the NPC, and they are rolling a new character

>>97926482
>If you absolutely insist on a food metaphor
It's like a barbecue party
I'm going to grill some meat and drink some beer, wanna come join, bring some more meat and beer?

Imagine how hard one must be seething to make a thread like this.

>>97927147
Considering how anons have been making threads to extol sandbox games while seething about the thought that the game master is in fact a human being they have to interact with and not a mindless adventure dispenser, I don’t have to imagine.

>>97927158
I'd be fine with people extolling the virtues of sandbox games if they could do so without shitting on every other way of playing RPGs. A lot of fa/tg/uys seem pathologically incapable of just liking and enjoying something without simultaneously hating on and seething about something else.

>>97927241
I don't think these threads made by someone who actually experienced a TTRPG.

>>97926164
It's up to the OP to not write like a faggot, not our job to give a good faith interpretation of what's blatantly bait.

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>>97926204
>the game is actually better when the players and GM work together to guide the game towards certain story beats
That was the point of the post. I like it this way too.

>t. OP (asexual)

>>97926705
Because it genuinely doesn't work long term. If the players are going to stay invested to play for more than a couple sessions, they need something to invest in. Characters and stories and unfolding plots. If you're just randomly generating dungeons and random encounters every week, players will get bored and the game will fall apart. A thing you'd understand if you ever actually played a TTRPG in your life.

>>97923498
No, they don't have any plot or story built in.

>>97923605
yeah, you lost the argument lol

>>97924226
still mad about losing and running bad games? lol

>>97924435
the players do things, and the GM adjudicates rules as needed. have you never been in a game?

>>97924435
VTT? Statblock sheets? What are you talking about?

>>97923498
>>97927711
It's true; the DM might have a frame, but the story itself tends to be emergent within that frame.
And the broader the frame, the less directed the growth.
It is an organic process.
The DM is less the storyteller and more the referee/narrator

>>97924607
who said that this is what happens at any point? are you having a stroke?

>>97924657
the narrative is whatever you do in the game. why do you need an end point determined ahead of time?

>>97924435
>Play session
>Players say what they want to do next session
>Prepare that thing for next session
>Always have a few rough ideas for minor things they could stumble on or other major things they might want to pursue
It's a little more work, but ultimately you're still preparing one path, but keeping a lot of rough ideas for other paths on standby.

>>97925771
who said that there's no discussion? who said that he can't say no? can you point out the post for me?

>>97926067
Nope.

>>97927696
It works fine. The players invest in their own goals and the things that happen during the game and the people they meet.

>>97926204
No, it works better when the GM does his job, which is referee, and nothing else.

>>97927715
>>97927720
>>97927725
>>97927731
>>97927736
>>97927739
Damn girl u thursty.

>>97926574
You haven't experienced a sandbox, then.

>>97924443
Not at all.

>>97927764
Concession accepted.

>>97927759
And then, as described, it stops being a sandbox. Do you even know how these things work? Have you ever run a game?

>>97927765
>almost exclusively talking in fake smug guy quips

>>97927787
nou

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>>97926705
>you don't seem to get sandbox play
Do you? GMs aren't computers and tabletop is not video games. Even something as vague as, "let's become Sky Pirates!" Will inevitably command the PCs (or a fraying GM) to come up with a "grand arc" where the PCs hear the One Piece is real. What I consider to be the ultimate expression of Sandbox: Tales of an Industrious Rogue (aka, Sandspit) was not so much a "Do Anything" as it was the PCs deciding they're going to fixate on one particular aspect of the setting, and the GM modifies their narrative accordingly.

That, in my opinion, is not just the true expression of sandbox play but the true magic behind collaborative storytelling. The man across the table isn't your slave, nor is he an overlord; he's a friend that's just as interested as you are in seeing everyone smile and share in the moment. The best campaigns I've ever ran involved me throwing out my notes after the first three sessions - not because they were ruined, but because the players showed more fascination in, say, slice-of-life than epic mysteries, or in plane hopping than fighting robots. I guess what this means is that the GM isn't a "master," he's a "curator" that slowly remodels the campaign into something he sees gets more investment.

Apologies if that rambled away from the original point - it's early and I've got the coffee buzz - but the point I'm making is that the ideal Sandbox is not about dumping the PCs into a vague world and telling them to figure it out, but to set them on an adventure with the understanding that at any point they might diverge to something they find more interesting, and thus the adventure will adjust itself accordingly. People don't wake up and decide to become Sky Pirates, they chance upon the opportunity and seize it.

>>97924435
>Like, between the VTT and filling in the statblock sheets that would take at least 20-30 minutes of full focus.

Sandbox campaigns have issue when attempted with systems with more modern and complex monster stat blocks and terrain assumptions. Compare the simplified stat blocks of a 1e/2e D&D orc to the stat blocks of an orc in 3e and later editions. A simplified 1e stat block is 2 lines where as even "simple" monsters in later editions are much longer.

>>97927800
No, it doesn't stop being a sandbox. Do you? Have you?

>projecting.

>>97924435
lol, stat block.

Threat Level : determined by regional average
Attacks and powers TL +1
Active def TL +0
Passive def TL -1
Psychic def TL -2
Special def TL -3

Heavy armor : +3 passive def
Mindless : immune to mental effects
Dangerous : +3 attacks
Alert : +3 special def
Mentalist : +3 psychic def
Agile : +3 active def

This base stat card with tag combinations can generate 99% of beings in the world. All else an actor's note card needs is whatever powers they have. Villains can have specific modifiers applied for further differentiation.

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>>97927858
Well, I guess that answers it? "True" sandboxes can only be experienced in primitive states, just like how communism works really well in tiny tribal units. As the system becomes more advanced, so too must your participation within it. As I said here >>97927811, I think ToaIR is the gold standard for a "modern sandbox" and that's heavily reliant on the GM building roads for routes the PCs want to travel.

>>97927929
Just lie and hope no one notices lol

>>97927696
>If you're just randomly generating dungeons and random encounters every week
again not OP effort anon here
who told you a sandbox is just randomly generating dungeons and encounters?

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>>97927800
>players choosing what they want to do
>game stops being a sandbox
where the fuck are you getting this?

>>97927929
I disagree that sandboxes are only viable in "primitive" systems. My point is more that monsters and opponents have become much more complex to build and deploy and sandboxes need them to be quickly built and deployed. A "modern" system designed for sandbox campaigns would have much simpler rules for quick generation of opponents rather than the complex rules that most popular modern systems use.

>>97928074
Oh! Like uhh, Shadow of the Weird Wizard? I ran the “Rage of the Goblin King” adventures for my friends and I was blown away how quick and intuitive the dungeon/encounter generation is. Sorry for putting the blinders on and thinking only in DnD, you’re absolutely right that “modern” systems can be made for sandbox.

>>97927997
The kind of people that make retarded posts like OP are the ones telling /tg/ that.
And they’re also the ones who basically refuse to actually discuss sandbox games beyond making smug loser quips and trolling because they’re allowed to. Look at this very thread.

>>97928122
No, no one has ever told you that. Quote a specific post or admit that you lied.

>>97927000
I don't the skill either. I just let my words and their heads fill in the empty spaces.

>>97927764
And all those posts were made as soon as the timer allowed.
He's really desperate.

>>97928122
if you know this why engage with such posters?
why not instead engage with effort posters who are also present in the thread?
(you) are the problem anon
stop feeding
>>97928368
lmao it do be leik that

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>>97923437

>>97928368
concession accepted.

>>97928463
cause he's a seething railcuck lmao

>>97928463
Cause I just want to call OP a retard, frankly. >>97927811 said almost everything worth saying on the subject , frankly, anything I’d have to say would be redundant beyond relaying my own poor experiences with trying pure sandbox games. Imo most don’t work out because they end up as aimless affairs, and most tables I’ve played at have players who prefer to have a unified goal with few reasonable restrictions on how to reach it. After all, they don’t have all the time in the world to play and the session can only run so long, so they’d like to inch closer to their goal every session even if they take some time to joke around about something pointless for ten minutes or so.

But that’s been my experience. Also, OP is a seething cuck.

>>97925791
This will just replace solo-play people, like >>97925798 said. The only difference in our interpretations of the future on that is that as that type of solo-play gets better as the AI DM's capabilities increases, more and more people will probably find out they like solo-play stuff. But, for the majority of people who enjoy TTRPGs, it is a screen-off, social activity, so that will not affect the driving force of the hobby.

>>97928992
(you)'d wrong guy, whoops.

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>>97923437
>You just tell the GM what you wanna do next session, and the story is all up to you.
If you tell me what you want to do next session I am going to indulge you but be ready for some serious monkey paw shit to happen.

>>97924435
That's the trouble with a sandbox: It's wide but not deep. You are not going to be playing a grand fantasy narrative, but rather a fantasy slice of life. There's nothing wrong with that, per se, unless the players are trying to expect the GM to do both at the same time which is not going to happen.

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Far too many people think a sandbox just means you bump between random encounters until you get bored. Don't you create factions in your setting that have goals and take actions to achieve them? That's where plots should come from, and the campaign is the story of how the players learn of the world around them and how they choose to interact with it.

For example I've been running a Star Wars game set right after Episode 6. Initially the players were a grab bag of mercenaries and colonists just trying to find work and survive in a galaxy gone mad.

They took missions from criminal syndicates, the empire, local planetary governments, wealthy corrupt politicians, the rebels, each other, etc. Eventually after about 30 or so sessions of exploring the galaxy and seeing what it had to offer they decided on their own to join the rebellion.

From that point onward I prepared a rebel campaign. I threw hooks at them of intelligence on the empire, battles they may want to join, and of course anything from their past they had yet to resolve. They made a lot of enemies in those 20 sessions, including the entire Pyke Syndicate!

Of course I have a rough idea of how each session may progress but they commonly circumvent my plans with their own, which causes me to change how things work out. But on a larger scale every ignored hook resolved itself "off screen" and changed the setting in a way that may impact them.

For example I gave them the hook of a treasure map, but they never took it. So later a great pirate found the treasure and became very wealthy, causing an increase in pirates across the galaxy that he funded. The players fought one of these pirates and knew that the setting changed as much from their inaction as it did their action.

Originally I did have a BBEG and everything but they always ignored the hooks related to him. I've had a lot more fun this way just seeing where they go next. Their goal is to destroy the Empire of course, I'll see if they can.

>>97923437
And then there's no game because playoids can't think for themselves and won't do anything without the GM's "railroading" them to some village with a kidnapped child yet again.

>>97929244
Wide and deep.

>>97929470
Nah.

>>97927811
>I've never understood this thing so I'll decide my bad interpretations of it are what it is
You and many other's next complaint will be
>well then explain it for real!
but you're clearly incapable of getting over your own preconceived notions, its pointless. You can[t even get to
>well, its not a thing I get but that's okay, other people can do a thing
which removes the possibility of you having reasonable conversations.

>>97929504
Maybe you should provide some examples of play to explain the “right way” to do it then

>>97929482
>Wide and deep.
You can try, but if you write up a nuanced plot the players are going to skirt around it more often than not. You will also have a hard time relying on worldbuilding because then you'll end up doing one of several things:
1) Explaining to your group that what they are doing is retarded.
2) Trying to tardwrangle them into not being retarded.
3) Allowing them to be retarded and bending the world around them.
Each option sucks for you or for your players in varying ways. If you railroad them they'll get annoyed and won't want to play. If you let them do whatever they want you might as well have a chatbot do your job.

>>97929517
>reads the post
>still responds in the predicted way
lol you're hopeless

>>97929566
>won’t because he can’t because he doesn’t play games and lies about it on the internet for reddit gold
Got it.

>>97929596
nou

>>97929380
This seems like the exact sort thing that this anon >>97926574 was talking about. Where a sandbox starts out with a lot of freedom, but eventually the players get bored of just doing random jobs, and so they either create a big objective for themselves or they join a major faction that already has a clear objective, and then the remainder of the campaign is 'about' that thing.

Very few players are the type who want to just be an aimless wanderer forever.
Which is why you get the people who realize that instead of making an entire sandbox for the players to dick around in for 30 sessions, they can just ask everyone which faction they like the most before the game begins, and then you're just playing a Rebel Alliance campaign.

The disconnect is when you have some people who praise sandboxes say that the PCs being Rebels makes the game a railroad (even if the players all agreed to the starting premise), and that a sandbox game requires little to no work or prep to get started. That's what causes the misconception that spending time fleshing out the details of a setting or the PCs joining a faction causes the game to cease to be a sandbox.

>>97928122
Why aren't you "actually discussing" sandboxes then? There's lots of good posts in this thread about the topic, and the other half dozen threads made about the same topic. If they work so well, why the fuck can't you faggots actually articulate how and why?

>>97928014
>>97927874
>players are dropped into a world and given various hooks to chase
>they latch onto one
>GM now starts almost exclusively preparing material built around that hook
>Players see that through to the end, either as a long-form campaign, or as a shorter series of adventures
>afterwords, if play continues, the process starts over.
At a certain point, the story is self-perpetuating and now based entirely on the whims of the players.

Even if you truly believe a 100% player driven game is possible, you will eventually stumble your way into a game where the GM is directing the story. The players are not in charge. They do not decide what NPCs do or what events happen. They don't direct the monsters, the factions, the kingdoms, or anything else. Just because there's not a railroad plot laid beneath their feet does not mean they are in control.

>>97929659
NTA, but I think the best function of a sandbox is to just let new tabletop players find out what they want to do in the first place. You set them up in a world where they're not particularly special, let them dick around and face consequences for their dickery, and then find a niche in that world that they find interesting. It makes a good way to feel out what a group of people want to do long-term, but as a one-off its utility and narrative potential is less than good.

>>97929659
I did. But if you did genuinely want my opinion rather than just bitch me out for lack of effort (which, fair cop if that were the case), I think most people like the idea of a sandbox more than the execution of it. Most of the “ideal” sandboxes described by no-games resemble Skyrim more than an actual ttrpg, and most actual instances of honest attempts I’ve seen described are basically most computer rpgs that ignore the supposed big overarching plot in favor of doing the side quests and advancing the small factions’ dotting the area to see how their influence actually affects the world in a tangible way.

So I don’t think there is much else I can add. I’m bad at articulating my thoughts for topics like these.

>>97929555
I can try and succeed, and I do, frequently.

>>97929600
Who told you that a sandbox is aimless wandering?
Why is your imagination so poor?
Real life doesn't have a goal other than those you set for yourself. Do you spend all day in real life aimlessly wandering? (If you post a flippantly sarcastic response to this last question, you automatically concede the point.)

>>97929659
Do you think your betters feel some pressing need to explain themselves to petulant, dishonest trolls such as yourself? You aren't interested in a discussion. DO NOT pretend otherwise. You aren't subtle or clever in the least.

>>97929600
>Very few players are the type who want to just be an aimless wanderer forever.
Which is why you get the people who realize that instead of making an entire sandbox for the players to dick around in for 30 sessions, they can just ask everyone which faction they like the most before the game begins, and then you're just playing a Rebel Alliance campaign.

That is one possibility. Another underutilized one is building and managing a stronghold in that sandbox. So many players try to play sandboxes as if they were open world videgames like the Elder Scroll and Fallout series. They wander around the world for a while looking at points of interest, gradually get board and then start looking for the "main story" to progress at which point the game shifts from sandbox to adventure path.

To actually do a sandbox well you need the players to first explore the sandbox and then build or claim a base of operations that they can then expanding from. Once they have claimed and developed the entire sandbox that is when the sandbox campaign ends.

>>97929766
Look man, your standards aren't my standards. If whatever you're doing works for you and your group then that's great. I'm not going to go on a tirade telling you how to facilitate fun.

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>>97929752
Yeah this is about where I land after skimming these threads.

I can't help but feel that these sandbox threads are largely made by dumb cunts who think they can play GTA in a RPG, but don't actually know enough about RPGs to understand that 100% player directed games don't actually work. Even if they still requires that the GM either painstakingly model and simulate an entire living world, or spontaneously generate a living world that organically interacts with itself on the fly. Anything less, like the GM preparing a loose adventure ahead of time, is railroading, which they've decided is the worst kind of play and inferior to their imaginary ideal of an open world vidya in pen and paper form.

>>97929788
You seem upset and unable to articulate any substantial thoughts on the subject that you claim to have such strong opinions about.

>>97929695
The players create monsters, factions, kingdoms, and far more.

>>97929804
Correct. My standards for fun are far higher than yours, and my games are better than your games, and my players are more intelligent, more attractive, more creative, funnier, and more charismatic than your players.

>>97929814
You can play GTA in an RPG, and 100% player directed games work.

>>97929824
Personally I think you're just a low effort troll, but whatever floats your boat.

>>97929820
>>97929828
Is this what passes as witty and clever in your third world country?

>>97929845
That's ironic, coming from you.

>>97929846
Even more ironic. lol

>>97929846
It's some kind of brain damaged tourist that thinks it's going to ragebait with vagueness and vanity.

>>97929864
Yep, that's you.

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>>97929600
>Which is why you get the people who realize that instead of making an entire sandbox for the players to dick around in for 30 sessions, they can just ask everyone which faction they like the most before the game begins, and then you're just playing a Rebel Alliance campaign.
You don't need to "make" an entire sandbox, it takes the same amount of work as a railroad. Instead of fleshing out the culinary taste of your favorite NPCs spend that time fleshing out extra plots and factions. The opening phase of the campaign was really fun, with many players still looking on it fondly and hoping they can break away and roam a bit.

There was a large stint of the campaign where they got kicked out of the rebellion. They spent a long time trying to redeem themselves but the sandbox design once again was very helpful. There was a long list of different people they could go to for help and work for if they needed to. There is no linear, pre-planned list of events in a sandbox game.

Hell, even though they joined the rebellion and made that their main goal "how" they pursued the goal still varied wildly. I gave them many different war fronts to look into each with its own unique character. The Empire after episode 6 fractures into many warlords after all.

Just because a Major faction is chosen doesn't mean the sandbox disappears. All those places and people are still around, it's a living setting. Something they are wary of is the growing influence of the criminal syndicates. They regularly find time to sneak off and beat up the Pykes before rejoining the war.

Even a war campaign, which could easily become a railroad as you fight mission to mission, can be a sandbox. You just need to respect player initiative and wishes, it isn't hard.

>>97929874
I think I'm starting to see the problem here. You are presenting something that is, in my experience at least, a fairly normal game. Which is something that is a some sandbox, an occasional short railroad, and a dash or improv and random tables when needed. It's actually extremely common for players to choose how they approach a problem and who they can talk to. Even in modules and pre-written adventures, which are most likely to be railroad-heavy, there is usually built in breathing room where players can pick different paths and approaches, choose not to pursue things, or divert themselves to optional adventures.

>>97929780
Yes, you have to remember that no every player is the type to set a clear goal for himself. Also, the issue with sandbox is that many events are unconnected and are just "random shit that happens" that's fine in real life but is less rewarding than "everything we do put us closer to our collective goal" in a game.

>>97930197
If you haven't created goals, you're not done creating your character.

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>>97929780
>Why is your imagination so poor?
Holy shit. God dammit. You're bothering me even if I can see your points. Stop treating tabletop gaming like it's some sort of collab imagination session where you input commands to the wetware GM and he spits out a fully-fleshed encounter. This is how people daydream what tabletop is about. This is how people fantasize about tabletop. This is not the reality of tabletop. As someone who's sat on both sides of the table, game prep requires a very rigorous understanding of where and what the PCs are doing. This can't be done in any sort of satisfying way without at least some minutes dedicated to thinking on the matter.

Let me give you an example of what true sandbox, at least how I envision it, works. Take "Tales of an Industrious Rogue." Again, I consider this the gold standard for what tabletop sandbox actually entails; the PCs were tasked with eliminating some nasties in a dungeon and, after doing so, discover a stable portal to the demiplane of salt. Rather than destroy the portal and go on their way, the Players looked up how much a bag of salt is worth, and realized they could make a business harvesting the salt and selling it. The GM rolls with this, and quietly shelves whatever plot they had planned after the dungeon to focus on writing up merchant companies, saboteurs, wandering monsters and employee issues that could come up with their new business. The PCs even get into the business of selling dreams, after the GM randomly rolls a Night Hag embedding itself among the staff.

That is sandbox. That is collaboration. It's a story from over a decade ago and it still rings true to my old grognardian ears. The Players get an idea, and the GM realizes it.

>>97930200
Most people just want to sit and play, and a simple task like "you guys go and kill that thing, you'll get pay" is sometimes more satisfying than "here's an entire map, here's a bunch of information about the nearest locations on said map, c'mon, go and do something now".
Sure, it depends, but in my decades of experience, the type of player exclusively for that second style of play is a very particular one nd not the norm.

>>97930232
It is a collaborative imagination session.

>>97930237
Playing the game is setting goals and making decisions in the service of those goals. If you don't want to play, don't show up. You will receive no further replies.

>>97930247
I mean, they wont show up to you sandbox. They will surely show up to my small campaign with a clear finish line.

>finish line
Embarrassing, for you.

>>97929874
>There is no linear, pre-planned list of events in a sandbox game.
Gygax is rolling in his grave. If you're asking for a sandbox then the world should continue to move without player input. That is how time works, or as Gygax called it, time management. More specifically, you're describing a hex crawl; the PCs are masters of their own business, but every action they take causes the clock to tick just a little closer to riches or ruin. As somebody that's ran a Hexcrawl before, you kinda have to roll (or outright fabricate) events ahead of time simply to have them on-hand during session. Sure, I might not know where the PCs want to go that day, but I do know in three weeks the Emperor is going to die and cause a succession crisis.

>>97926924
I will if you're going to cook what no one wants to eat. What makes you think you're fit to DM at that point. Get out of the kitchen.

>>97927811
TL;DR you should just check this anon's post instead of replying to me.>>97927081

So then the customer steals their idea, franchises it and copyrights it while suing them so they can't keep their freeform GM system right?

>>97929874
>it takes the same amount of work as a railroad
it actually takes significantly less, it's one of the benefits of sandbox play

>>97927696
It's the only thing that works long term. Railroading will inevitably be more sequels of railroading, whereas the sandbox remains consistent throughout. What happens when a railroad adventure ends, you put in a massive prep to form the next one, and railroad the players into and through it all over again. Railroading is a failure state of RPGs. Some DMs are just so bad at the practice that they rely on these training wheels forever.

>>97930534
Spoken like someone who doesn't play, let alone run, any games at all.

>>97929780
>Who told you that a sandbox is aimless wandering?
I just said it wasn't. Pay attention.

>>97930501
Jesus, man. That’s a little sharp? What are you cooking, then? What’s anon going to prepare for his players.

>>97930536
Not him, but it feels like this entire thread has been people either describing the *fantasy* of TTRPGs or their belief that GMs exist as unfeeling robots who must cater to their every demand.

>>97930564
Or otherwise screwing around taking what they think sandbox games are like it while never actually describing those games, outside of a coupe lost souls who actually answered sincerely.

>>97929874
>Just because a Major faction is chosen doesn't mean the sandbox disappears.
And likewise, just because the campaign starts with the premise that the PCs are working with a major faction doesn't make the game a railroad.

That's the part of the pro-sandbox argument that gets retarded, where people like you can perfectly understand that giving the players a string of specific missions to complete still qualifies as a sandbox seemingly act all confused when somebody states that they are running neither a railroad nor a sandbox.

>>97930523
>>97930534
That's only because you don't even know what railroad is.
If you start in A and you need to go to point B but you're free to get there in whatever way you want is not a railroad.

>>97923700
but Keatons charecter doesn't even own McDonald's at this point, this is his first interaction with it.

>>97930277
Gygax didn't have any special knowledge about game design or fun. No one cares what he thinks of their games. He's not important or interesting.

>>97930564
If you're just doing whatever you want during the campaigns as an individual, then you are dog ass at DMing.

>>97930607
I don’t know about that, I’ve got players who bring their friends to session because they think I’m one of the good ones. I’m just not interested in putting in tons of work realizing a dozen plot hooks that might never be bitten. I’ve got a job, chores and a house to maintain.

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>>97930552
Whatever they're in the mood for, I am a 5 star restaurant.

>>97930581
Pot calling the kettle black

>>97930613
no players no friends lol

>>97930606
Literally one of the two most pivotal figures in RPG history.

>>97930623
Yeah, because tasteless retards like you worship him for no reason. Retard.

>>97930613
>I’m just not interested in putting in tons of work realizing a dozen plot hooks that might never be bitten.
Feels ironic if you're actually a railroading DM, that requires way too much effort to keep everything on the tracks.

>>97930626
>For no reason
is it summer already

>>97930632
Yeah, for no reason. Dumbfuck. I'm older than you btw.

>>97930083
At no point is there a railroad, you keep inserting that as a definite thing despite me never saying it. The players are always free to pursue a solution to a problem how they want. I never invent fake obstacles to force a certain direction, nor do I copy and paste things that were avoided.
>>97930277
I do plenty of time keeping, there are many events and scenarios that occur at a time when I plan them to. The only caveat being if the players caused some change that would make preplanned events no longer make sense. How the players solve a problem, and if they consider it theirs to solve is always up to them.
>>97930523
This is true, the more you flesh out the people and places, and less the events, the easier prep becomes
>>97930579

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>>97930622
Pic related is the map for next session, the PCs are on their way to eradicate an Ankheg Hive and need to pass through a dangerous canyon. There are Workers keeping lookout, and if the PCs don't eliminate them quickly or quietly than they'll get attacked by Ankheg Warriors (the tokens shaded, on the GM Layer.) I'm pretty happy for this one because it gives PCs an excuse to play around with verticality, and killing monsters in ways they might normally not get the chance to.

After that, they're heading to the Hive Entrance, where they'll be attacked by several Ankheg Warriors and a Hive Guard (reskinned Chuul with pheromonal rage ability taken from the Hive Mother) I plan to let the PCs know that if they carefully extract the pheromone sacks, they'll be able to enter the Hive without alerting the swarm - like Freeman in HL-2 with the antlion sacks. I'm going to post the Hive itself because I'm really proud of that one.

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>>97930647
The Hive is large, claustrophobic and illuminated purely through bioluminescent fungus. I'm quite proud of the effort I put into giving the glowing mushrooms their own light sources. I haven't actually added any monsters to the map because I doubt my players will get to this map before session end (we only run for 4 hours every Friday.)

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>>97930689
>>97930647
Anyway, last post I'm making. I was going to include this in the Hive post but I was having trouble comfortably splicing the two images together. Oh well! This is what the map looks like with 100% Darkness enabled - aka, it's illuminated purely by light sources. I'm very happy with this, I've got some ambient music to set the mood.

>>97930647
nice fake game kek

>op is STILL mad he lost an argument online

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>>97930647
>>97930689
>>97930698
Cool stuff Anon. What system are you playing?

>>97930689
>>97930698
It does look very atmospheric.

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>>97930755
>What system are you playing?
Pathfinder 2e, though in a custom setting based around the 7th century Byzantine Empire immediately after a devastating war against the Sassanid equivalent. The PCs are operating in what is effectively Antioch and have just finished reporting to the Aghias Makarion, a monastery in the style of Meteora which beseeched them to quell the Ankheg infestation. The campaign name is "There Will Come Soft Rains," after the poem written immediately after World War 1 where life will continue even if an apocalypse destroyed Humanity.

>>97930749
you lost :)

>>97930755
>>97930765
>>97930780
REPLYING TO HIMSELF LMAOOOO

It's been a month of you seething.
A whole goddamn month.
Just because you got btfo on 4chan.
What a sad life.

Feels good to be a sandbox CHAD

>>97923437
>"But I don't know how to cook! I've never done it before, all I've ever done is eat other people's food and took it for granted! Oh this food is sandy, much too handy for me. Here OP, make a pearl."

>>97930816
you're the one seething loser :)

>>97930793
No...

You already made this thread.

>>97931032
Yep :)

>>97931087
And honestly has made me think lesser of sandbox games with how much people have spammed threads about them with nothing intelligent to say

>>97931101
>>97931087
cope :)

When this faggot inevitably makes another thread, I want the whole lot of you to drill this pattern into your head.
>(You) engage with good faith, experience, and insight about TTRPGs that challenges this faggot's obnoxious routine
>Others chime in and agree, add their two cents, discuss the matter, call into question this repeated spam
>retarded faggot responds to as many posts as possible with low effort, one sentence NUH UH posts.
>repeat until thread hits bump limit
>new thread is made

>>97931137
What makes you think it's the same anon. I believe that there's several anons on this board who think sandbox to be pure D&D, and then there's just the one word replier who flocks to the threads.

>>97931148
I don't doubt that some anons have strong opinions on sandboxes and I'm not talking about them. The people making actual posts and actually talking to each other aren't the problem, even if there is a fundamental disagreement caused by a lack of understanding. The rest of this shit, like the dozen posts directly above this one, are retarded shitspam that only exists to stir up more bickering to keep this pathetic board from going completely stagnant.

>>97931137
You didn't engage in good faith, you have no experience and no insight. Everything you said was wrong, and everything I said was right. I'm more attractive and popular than you.

>>97931203
>NUH UH
Rethink your life, retard.

>>97931204
Ironic.

>>97925791
You misunderstand what AI is. It's just regurgitating what you want to hear back at you. It is incapable of creating original content or thoughts, and it is incapable of true randomness. It's literally a yes-man machine that does only what it is told and always seeks to benefit the person feeding it information.

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>>97930780
I see. Have you modified PF2e's base rules to accommodate this in any way? Like are you going balls to the wall autistic historical accuracy and cutting out plate armour and rapiers, or is the 7th century just a baseline for the inspiration and there's still all the usual goodies you can find in the books?

>life will continue even if an apocalypse destroyed humanity
Anon... are you preparing to spring an apocalypse on your players?

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>>97931576
>Have you modified PF2e's base rules to accommodate this in any way? Like are you going balls to the wall autistic historical accuracy and cutting out plate armour and rapiers, or is the 7th century just a baseline for the inspiration and there's still all the usual goodies you can find in the books?
Baseline for the inspiration. I haven't modified anything, but the players modified themselves to better reflect the lore. I wrote a whole compendium on Galamethe and the Samothraki hinterlands (Antioch and Syrian Interior respectively) so they feel comfortable with it.
>Anon... are you preparing to spring an apocalypse on your players?
Magic is very new in the setting; it came about 250 years ago with the birth of a star called Revelation, and was responsible for the collapse of the Pythian Dominate (The Roman Empire analogue.) Monsters flowed into the world, and things were shit for 20-30 years. Most modern religions came about at this point, as divinity seems also directly correlated with Revelation. I could gab and goof about the details, but the big baddies are a Cabal drawn from all echelons of society unified in the belief that magic has done nothing but harm the world, and they're thus out to Kill God.

So yes, I'm eager to spring an apocalypse on my players. Did I mention that Necromancy has not been invented yet? I want it to be a critical moment in the plot where the PCs witness the creation of the "first" undead. I used quotations because the "first" undead was already made, an ancient Pharaoh that ripped himself out of the waking dream of the afterlife known as Amon, though the Cabal knows him as the Twice-Dead King. He has no interest in killing god, he simply wants to "bleach" god so spirits can freely pass between the spirit world and reality.

Here's the map I made of the setting, btw.

>>97930780
Oh yea, I remember you posting about it a few months ago.
Glad to see the campaign's launched.

>>97933090
Thank you, anon. Every session brings me great joy, designing a custom setting based on your annual hyperfixation might be tough, but the fruits speak for themself.

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>>97931615
Cool shit dude, I'd play that.

>>97931615
Do you have the map in higher resolution? Your campaign is the only worthwhile thing in this shitty thread.

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>>97935144
I've got a full-bore 7000x5694 slobberknocker print of the map, but the attached file is the most 4chan would allow. The reason the map appears so bare is because,
>I didn't want to fill out the world before my players had a chance to give their input
>That's a whole lot of work for a map that won't actually get used too much beyond ogling
>The second post is a lie, I actually filled in the map but only while making the regional blurbs in the campaign document
I'll post an example of a "regional map" after this post.

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>>97935320
Akhen is a land defined by a single geographic feature. Known as the Nefer, it is both the longest and widest river in the Ecumene, if not the world. Sourced from lakes and mountains far to the East, the Nefer pours itself across the desert before spilling out into the Selene. When the Nefer floods, it leaves behind a rich black soil - the most fertile in the world - which has allowed the Nefer Delta and surrounding floodplains to flush green with life in defiance of the luminous north and south deserts.

This wealth has been sought after by every people who looked upon it. The natives of this land, who call themselves Khemites after the soil they thrive upon, once built mighty states upon the Nefer which flourished long before Kerameikos and Kadesh organized into tribes. These nations coalesced into a single empire which gave the land her name; Akhen. For thousands of years, Akhen developed a civilization that spread across the Eastern Selene, and made her mark upon every land and people that saw the great ships of the Lands of Nefer.

Alas, those days of empire are long gone. Akhen was conquered many centuries ago by Kadesh, and soon Kerameikos sought their own claim of the land. Akhen became the jewel by which any Imperial dream might shine, and the Khemites became nothing more than pawns in these vicious games. The land was rich, but her wealth was no longer for the natives to enjoy.
[1/2]

>>97935332
>Akhen gold fuels half the states upon the Selene. Akhen grain feeds the people of Bucephalon. Akhen girls are famed for their shapeliness and allure, prized slaves for those with the coin to claim them. The lands of Akhen were no longer governed by their own people, and were now the field by which foreign Empires reaped and profited. Control of Akhen was one of the primary goals of the Wyrding War, and the Kadeshahr and Nicomedian Empire spilled blood over a dozen battlefields for the Land of the Khemites.

>With the war's end, Akhen remains in Nicomedian hands as an Exarchate. The cosmopolitanism of the port city of Phaeron, named after a title that has not been said for almost a thousand years, rivals that of Bucephalon and Galamethe. The lands hold an allure that captures all who look upon it, but if there is anything the lands truly hold, it is a plea to be free. The Khemite rankle beneath their Imperial yoke - however gilded it may be - and yearn one day for deliverance so that they might one day truly claim control of their destiny.

[2/2]

As you can see, Akhen is "just Egypt" but Egypt as it was in the 7th century, rather than the more stereotypical Pharaonic period. It's a land that has endured foreign conquest for centuries. My PCs are slowly beginning to realize that Galamethe was an Akhen colony known as "Mahrak," or "The City of Hope," and was pivotal to that land's empire. One of my player backstories completely rewrote how I was going to present Galamethe and the cosmology of the setting, which I guess is an example of, "Player-informed decisions altering the campaign."

>still pretending to run games
kek

>>97927730
>The DM is less the storyteller and more the referee/narrator
The DM is literally called the storyteller in several systems including all of WoD games.

>>97923437
Railroading is dumb, but doing exactly what the players want is dumb too. I want a DM because he can introduce situations that I can't predict or adequately prepare for.

If I say
>I want to fight a dragon next session
I'll know what to expect and what to prepare. But if the DM instead goes
>A dragon appears
I'm not prepared, I have to come up with a plan to make the most of what I have on hand. Maybe we don't even fight the dragon and just avoid him because we don't have what we need.

I want that unexpectedness.

>>97935320
>but the attached file is the most 4chan would allow
What about catbox?
The thing that captured me was the city in the not-Giblartar, it seems like a perfect hub where adventurers and big powers from around the world can collide

>>97935770
Yeah, we know bad games exist, genius

>>97935856
You don't know what kind of dragon it will be, or where it will be, or when you will encounter it, or how many dragons there will be, or what other enemies will accompany it, or what environmental hazards there will be, or what the dragon's goals will be, or pretty much anything else about the encounter.

>>97935856
How prepare you depends exactly on how much information you have about the dragon in question. If you work multiple session to prepare for this encounter, no shit you should know more or less what to expect. Now if this is just a dragon that pops up at the end of the session with little time to prepare then no, you don't really know what is coming next.

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>>97935937
>The thing that captured me was the city in the not-Giblartar
Oh, Bucephalon? That's the capital of the Nicomedian Empire, and described as a buzzing hive of culture and corruption. It's presented as ancient, immensely powerful, and utterly unstable. The players are in Galamethe because it's regarded as the "City of Hope," being situated upon several sea routes, and the stopping point of several overland caravan roads (including the Silk Road, as Antioch was, historically, one of the big stopping points for merchants.) This trade is considered paramount to the restoration of civilization, and has made the Archon of Galamethe a very wealthy, and very politically dangerous, man.

Most of my PCs are women, and I intend once they breach level 8 to begin engaging with said Archon and his court. I'm excited to write the torrid love affairs and Bride Shows that will come about once they get into courtly politics.

>still pretending to run games
kek

>>97935352
>One of my player backstories completely rewrote how I was going to present Galamethe and the cosmology of the setting
Really? Did they tie their character to some faction/deity that was supposed to be hidden until later?
>>97935320
The map is very oglable, BTW. Very nice "production value" here.
>>97936021
How do you make the two cities feel different if they're both trade hubs? Making locations of similar population size is something I'm worried I'm going to struggle with, so I'd welcome any tip.

Also going back to your older threads, IIRC you were asking how to make the PCs stick around each other despite different backgrounds and goals, right? Since you've had some sessions already, I'm assuming you managed to deal with that, so what was the solution you've used?

>still replying to himself
kek

>>97936099
>Did they tie their character to some faction/deity that was supposed to be hidden until later?
Nope, they invented a cult whole clothe and said the cult had access to magic before magic was supposed to exist. It had me flawlessly integrate their god into the lore and make the "body" of this god an important plot point.
>The map is very oglable, BTW. Very nice "production value" here.
I'm just a gamer, anon. That map took me a solid 2-3 weeks to completely fill in. Worth it, though. Starting a project is always hard, but once you're in the trenches it'll get better.
>How do you make the two cities feel different if they're both trade hubs?
I describe Bucephalon as more of a sprawl. A festering den of decadence. It's bigger, technically richer, but bloated because of it. Lots of old money in Bucephalon. Every time I introduce an NPC who comes from Bucephalon, they've got a grime to them beneath the gilding. I really want to emphasize to my players that Galamethe isn't representative of the rest of the world, and outside of their little pocket of merry adventuring, people are languishing. The Wyrding War destroyed trade upon the Selene, and if we imagine trade as blood flow, than many organs are going to start to rot. Hence why people are so eager to get Galamethe productive, to restore life to a world that needs to know tomorrow can come.
>Since you've had some sessions already, I'm assuming you managed to deal with that, so what was the solution you've used?
That wasn't really too difficult; all my friends are friends with each other, and players implicitly know they should feel the need to stick around each other. Narratively, the PCs were united through recovering grave goods stolen from them by the prior-mentioned Cult, and now they're sticking around because they share interests and know each other - presently, all of them want to acquire the "royal jelly" of the Aghias Makarion, as the Monastery is famed for their honey.

>>97936150
>>97936099
>How do you make the two cities feel different if they're both trade hubs?
Going to double-dip in my response because I felt inspiration, but have you read Lord of the Rings? I ask because in the books, the Fellowship (or simply the Hobbits) visit many forests in their travels, but each forest is given a strong thematic flair; The Old Forest is malicious and gnarled, Fangorn is ancient and mossy, Lothlorien is glowing and beautiful while Mirkwood is dark and dreadful. They're all technically the same kind of "ancient forest," but each is given a personality unto themselves.

Also, and this is returning to my Donut Steel Lore, but the nature of the trade hub is incredibly important; Bucephalon is a *consumer* of trade goods, while Galamethe is an intermediary of trade goods (and Phaeron, on the map, is the set-off point for Akhen luxuries and grain.) A city's position along a trade route will significantly alter the "character" of the city. You can imagine then that Bucephalon is a great big fat man, glutting himself on the wealth of a dozen lands. Galamethe, in contrast, is a place of rest - a halfway house, bidding you to kick up your feet and enjoy a drink before getting back on the trail.

>>97935856
100% if a DM said to you a dragon appeared roll initiative, you would be pissed

>still replying to himself
kek

>>97924435
Sandbox is more of a methodology and mindset and things don't necessary have to be "pure" sandbox. In fact there is usually a little bit of railroad at the start to give you a chance to set some stuff up and give the players something to work with.

The basic formula is you give the players a few hooks, three is a good number, and let the players choose what they want to do next session. Then you prep that. They can go outside those hooks too, like they want to go explore that abandoned fort on the map. You are effectively building the campaign just in front of the players 1 session ahead as they make their choices. You might offer a hook about a necromancer in a graveyard, a rumor about a monster in the sewers, and people talking about how some old tomb filled with riches was discovered. However, you don't fully prep them until the players plan to do them.

Their choices feed into what rumors, opportunities, and hooks might be available. They ignore a necromancer quest, maybe there is an undead problem somewhere now. That tomb? They found a old scepter that used to be a symbol of power. People want it and who they give it to changes the balance of power. The monster in the sewers gets them a reputation among the slums if they kill it.

Start by giving yourself a region, set up a hub city/town. Then set-up some points of interest around it. Add stuff as you go. As you roll encounters think of how they would feed into the world. The original Keep on the Borderlands from B/X is a good example of a sandbox. Old School D&D is a bit more in tune with sandboxes than modern D&D which was more inspired by Dragonlance.

I recommend watching the Alexandrian's video on sandboxes, he gives great DM advice: https://youtu.be/mDpoSNmey0c?si=WYxbTG43fVZQJcpz

No one can squeeze everything about running a sandbox into a 4chan post. There is just too much to it.

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>>97936032
Show us notes from your game or kill yourself, nogames fag

>still pretending to run games
kek

>>97936426
C’mon, man. We’ve moved beyond this. Do you want to join us at the table?

>>97923605
Two weeks ago?
More like two years ago.
This is an argument they have lost more than just the once.

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>>97936021
>Most of my PCs are women
How many of them are hot tieflings?

>>97923437
The modern obsession with open world/sandbox is retarded. It has a charm sometimes but nothing will ever beat a strong narrative. There is this obsession with "i want it my way" that doesn't work especially at a tabletop with several people working together. Ttrpgs are a mixture of shared storytelling, improv, strategy and of course just having fun.

A dm should obviously listen to players when creating scenarios and encounters and what not, and I have played games that were also a totally plotless series of dungeon crawls. And these were ok but nothing memorable compared to good storytelling

>>97923437
I stick to a basic framework when I run a campaign. Typically, I organize my game with 3-4 clear factions (sometimes the lines blur) and consolidate character backstories with a larger than life threat that turns them from scruffy vagabonds to landed, well respected heroes, and then to demi-gods if the campaign runs that long.

I usually create a map of the region the story is set in, along with hubs. These hubs are connected by roads with time impacting travel (and thus the story). At each of these hubs i prepare 4-5 "side quests", typically unrelated to the central threat. Sometimes it happens that the players REALLY enjoy a particular side adventure, so I subtly shift things to allow them to explore more of that. However, the central threat is persistent and ignoring it gives the central threat more agency, power, influence, territory, and so on. I keep an in game calendar to track time and rationally influence the game world based on that. Sometimes I roll for outcomes to keep things also unexpected for myself.

I find it hard to run a game without some form of railroading, which is a stupid term in all honesty. Its not a railroad its a structure. I think its perfectly fine to play a game without plot mind you, one that is focused more on mechanics of the game itself, but ive never seen a table last long like this.

I've had my players literally applaud me at the end of sessions due to roleplay and story, which takes many shapes (including adventuring and combat etc). But a completely unchecked game runs the risk of just murder hoboing which is fun for a session but not a campaign and never brings people back for more.

>>97936931
It's mostly lazy GMs who figure they can just let random encounter/monster tables do 90% of the work for them. Which is the complete opposite of what is needed to make a campaign like this not feel like a tabletop version of some early 2000s Korean MMO.

>>97936170
Did you use the idea of making PC sticking together by putting them on a ship? I saw that and I want to use it myself.
>>97936150
I really appreciate the in-depth replies, anon.
Good luck with your game!

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>>97936896
>How many of them are hot tieflings?
No, though not for want of trying! Presently, I've got,
>Pic related, I can describe each of them on request.
Though it's good you mentioned Tieflings, because Tieflings and Aasimar were part of my design philosophy which I'll share with the class.

Tieflings and Aasimar, in modern writing, have lost the prejudices and privileges that come with them. People *say* Tieflings are persecuted, but the reasoning is always flimsy. I chose to solve this by assigning primordial monkey brain fears to each of them. For example, Tieflings always breed Tieflings - more ominously, a single ejaculation inside of a non-Tiefling will cause that woman to only ever produce Tieflings, though the same does not happen with non-Tieflings mounting Tiefling women. This fear of population replacement, coupled with the women being comparatively risk free, produces the fear of Tiefling men "ruining" human women and Tiefling women being sluts.

Comparatively, Aasimar never breed Aasimar. Aasimar men and women, when paired with non-Aasimar men and women, always produce the non-Aasimar's breed. That said, the children always come out healthy, happy, and full of potential. This makes Aasimar men and women desirable to the monkey brain, and thus people always treat them well in the hopes of getting a chance to bang them. There is no fear of population replacement - in fact, their presence is a blessing to the nation - so Aasimar enjoy a privilege most others do not.

I've also written Aasimar as looking like Draenei because I'm a pervert. Scholars to this day debate on why Tiefling and Aasimar, despite being opposite ends of the divine spectrum, share caprine features. The common conclusion is that divine energy in it's purest form trends towards goat (just like evolution trends toward crab.)

>>97936931
Sandbox creates strong player-centric narrative rather than a GM's failed novel that they must force the players back onto track constantly.

>>97937045
>Did you use the idea of making PC sticking together by putting them on a ship?
I did not, because I chanced upon a more useful method of getting PCs together. My solution to, "how do the PCs get together" was very simple; PCs are controlled by Players who,
>Know each other
>Love getting attention
>Innately understand they're in a game built around teamwork
Knowing this, you should design a Session 01 hook that wrongs everyone in the group. Some sort of, "they stole our stuff" or "we stumbled into an investigation." Have an authority figure give the PCs a sliver of power under the caveat that they work together. This should last 1-2 more sessions as they suss out what's going on. By the 3rd session, the PCs should do something wild, overt and extravagant that causes them to get 15 minutes of fame. This part is critical. Players adore NPCs calling them heroes, and once they get called "hero" it will be very, very easy for them to get talked into more and more dangerous jobs. More importantly, being a "hero" in the eye of the public causes a snowball effect where authority figures want to hire them to do jobs, and then bigger authority figures want to hire them because the smaller ones did, etc. etc.

>>97937648
How many times has that happened to you? Cause mostnodnthe railroading asshole Gms I’ve suffered had no story worth telling and were running bog standard dungeon crawls, they were just dog shit at giving the table a reason to care about what’s going on between the bland forced monster fights, snide and overbearing and unavoidable traps

The main thing I don't get about sandbox is, why not just ask the players what they want to do before you even start playing? Like if the goal is for the players to explore the world and then decide a path they want to take, why does that have to happen at the table? Basically every campaign I've played in/ran in my group has been "Hey so what kind of campaign do you guys want to do" or "hey here is a kind of campaign I want to do".

Like we're not children, most of us have some experience dming. We all know what's going on behind the curtain.

>>97937661
A few times, mostly beginner DMs influenced by Critical Role and other big podcasts. Railroading is a common piece of advice in the normie TTRPG sphere. It is good advice if you want to quickly dislike TTRPGs and go back to Cards Against Humanity and Catan. Otherwise it is just a waste of everyone's time.

This extends beyond the vagaries of campaign and session planning but extends to individually combats as well. Did your DM fudge a roll? Railroad. Did your DM not track HP and decide when the fight was over? Railroad.

>>97937682
>Like we're not children, most of us have some experience dming. We all know what's going on behind the curtain.
What you are referring to is the result of bad DM'ing. Good DMs don't railroad their players, it's pretty simple.

>>97937699
You’re right that Good DMs don’t need to say, “thou must do this” to their players, because a Good DM should present the session in such a way where the preferred outcome is chosen by the PCs without forcing it.

>>97937748
And a Good DM would accept if the PC's don't make the preferred choice, however this is where most railroadtards fail.

>>97937695
Oh hey that’s actually a good litmus test for a GM’s campaign; does the unplanned death of a PC “ruin” the campaign.

>>97937761
Absolutely, and some of my favorite moments while GMing is when players took the unexpected path. Which I think cuts to the core of this entire conversation; GMs need to build a framework for the players to navigate, and the players have the power to follow that framework as much or as little as they want. Arcs need to be made, questlines need to be made. How the PCs solve or shatter those arcs and questlines is the magic of TTRPGs.

>>97937782
Yup, and that's why Sandbox games are the only ones worth playing.

>>97937790
Except that's not what a sand box is you mouth-breather. There's still a finite number of outcomes due to the nature of the game not just being LOLRANDUMB BULLSHIT GO. That's what sandbox games are. Incoherent messes where nothing makes sense, any verisimilitude is fully sacrificed on the false altar of absolutist player agency. Nothing the players do matters, because of the fact they can do anything, because there is no string of cause and effect.

A good game involves a premise the players agree to with a plot hook to get them started, and a skeleton of a series of events that the players react to in some way. As I've said many times, do not tell your players they need to "kill the dragon", tell them they need to "deal with the dragon". They still have freedom but it's within the scope of the game, and unlike a litterbox game every choice they make has repercussions, good or bad, depending on what they choose to do. A Good game has a starting and ending point. The ending point might change a lot due to what happens in between, but rather than just being open world slop like a litterbox game, a real tabletop game will start off looking like two points, a start and an end, and by the actual end of the game it's more like a winding path where the end point might have moved entirely, but still exists, the path decided by the choices the players make, feeding into another choice, and so on in a linear path from start to finish.

Litterbox games don't have an ending. It's just aimless wandering, where nothing the players do matters at all, because there is no cause and effect. They can choose to do one thing, then immediately choose to undo that thing, or fuck off and stop following the thread they picked up over and over, it leads to the party being completely aimless and getting nothing of value done, ever. Or, worse, the players don't do anything because they're paralyzed by choice or otherwise have realized nothing they do will ultimately matter.

>>97937963
>That's what sandbox games are. Incoherent messes where nothing makes sense
That's not true at all kek, do you understand anything? A sandbox game is one where you present the players with a living, breathing world and give them the actual freedom to explore it and form their goals how they see fit. What you're describing is a sandbox, every game must end eventually. The difference is in a sandbox the players pick their end goal, and are free to dynamically change it just as your described.

You have a very specific idea of what a sandbox is undoubtably drawn from bad experiences with unskilled DMs who didn't understand the concept. I've played in such games as well, they do suck. That doesn't change the fact that sandbox play is how TTRPGs were intended to be played.

>>97925807
If you want me to cook something I'm not gonna want to eat myself, then you have to pay me.

The sentiment that the GM is there only in service of the players is wrong.
The sentiment that the GM can completely ignore what the players want to play is wrong too.

If the GM has no fun, why would he host a game?
If the players are not going to have fun, why would they join?

>>97937649
Noted.

>>97937991
No, that's not a sandbox. A Sandbox requires absolute freedom, as per your own rules, and if the GM imposes ANY restrictions on the players' choices it's a railroad.

Also, "intended to be played", yeah maybe back in the 70s when a TTRPG was just loot and stab simulator. They're more than that now though. as a player, I have no interest in wandering aimlessly doing pointless quests that never amount to anything because the GM is a lazy faggot who can't worldbuild for shit and won't prep and expects us, the players, to do his job for him. As a GM, I do not have the time or energy to constantly make up random bullshit because the players refuse to do anything consistent, nor do I want to have to stop the session after 5 minutes because whoops, the players did something I don't have material for because I'm not omnipotent and cannot predict everything they're going to do.

And you're going to argue USE RANDOM TABLES AND PREMADE STATBLOCKS but guess what faggot, only D&Dogshit and its many dogshit clones like PF and SOTDL have premade statblocks. Good TTRPGs don't have things like monster manuals because they trust the GM isn't a lazy little faggot.

Anyway, yeah, a Sandbox is not what you described, nor is having a framework the GM presents the players to operate within a railroad. A Railroad is when everything happens in one specific way. A Railroad is a straight line. A sandbox is a bunch of disconnected lines that randomly end. A real game is a line that goes from Point A to Point B and curves with the choices the players make between A and B. You'd know this if you ran or played games, but you don't.

>>97937649
Your understanding of players is either very shallow or you have some of the worst players I've ever seen.

>>97938050
Restricting choices =/= Ignoring choices

bump

>>97936588
yeah, the railcucks keep losing

>>97938058
Except it is, because it isn't a sandbox anymore. There are finite numbers of options. The GM is still forcing the players to act within a fixed set of parameters.

>>97937996
I can’t even tell the frame of reference for these threads anymore because all of my responses have been on the experience that everyone at the table knows each other and has some experience being on the other side of the screen. After a while the lines between railroad and sandbox become blurred because you can accurately predict what your friend will do.

>>97938109
>No, you cannot pull a Nuke out of your pocket, this is a medieval setting
>No, you cannot kill the Duke, he is an important NPC later one
Are you saying, completely without irony, that these two things are the same? Your argument is entirely semantics on my definition not outlining every possible condition where its ok to limit a player choice. Having a setting is inherently limiting, but not a railroad.

This entire thread has been you projecting your poor experience with a bad sandbox game, then getting irrationally upset and acting in bad faith when people don't accept it as a universal experience.

No, just because the players aren't each playing genie's with infinite power doesn't mean the game isn't a sandbox.
>nor do I want to have to stop the session after 5 minutes because whoops, the players did something I don't have material for because I'm not omnipotent and cannot predict everything they're going to do.
Why are you completely incapable of improv? Is your game so poorly fleshed out that any deviation from your railroad immediately "bricks" it like a video game? You know you're a human being right? Random tables and premade statblocks are to supplement situations like this, they're useful guardrails if you're uncomfortable with thinking on the fly.

>>97938057
Would you mind explaining why? Because you’re insulting people I’ve known and played with for over 9 years now.

>>97938131
>After a while the lines between railroad and sandbox become blurred because you can accurately predict what your friend will do.
Not true at all, if you predict what your friend will do and plan accordingly that is still a sandbox. If you predict what your friend will do, but they do something different, but your take measures to force them back onto the track you have prepared, that is a railroad.

>>97938143
And I agree with that, thank god we finally reached consensus. I hope you have a lovely day, anon.

>>97938109
>Except it is, because it isn't a sandbox anymore. There are finite numbers of options.
Then there's no true sandbox. If the players choose to kill someone, they are no longer able to talk to that person or ask them for favors.
As soon as the players make a choice that has actual consequences, they've already limited their own options, because that's how choices work.

>>97938137
That anons kind of thinking is exactly why prepping situations, locations, and NPCs and factions with goals are always better than trying to prep a plot. If your players kill an NPC in your plot, it fucks everything up. If your players kill an NPC in your situation, oh well, no biggy, we have plenty of other NPCs for the players to interact with, some of whom will be interested that they killed the other npc, for good or ill.

>>97938109
You don't understand what a sandbox is.

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>>97937636
>I've also written Aasimar as looking like Draenei because I'm a pervert
Based fetish inserter

>>97938299
Having a plot doesn't mean you need to railroad, it means you need to understand what happens if things how wild. If they kill the quest NPC, they either get the info from another related source or the don't, and if they don't you just imagine "alright, how will this come to bide them later". The issue is not the plot, is being inflexible, if you more or less get the situation you can improvise the unexpected results.

>>97938142
Your players are shit and you're shit and nobody owes you an explanation of anything, faggot. Neck yourself.

>>97938992
Why is there a specific thing you want them to do in the first place?

>>97939318
I hope your evening is better than your afternoon, anon.

>>97939321
Because campaigns don't usually take place in the hyperbolic time chamber with three featureless options in front of the players. If the world is an actual world you are going to make a oath of least resistance more often than not.

My life is better than yours, loser.

>>97939367
So are you going to support the assertion "you are going to make a path of least resistance" in any way?

>>97938992
I was going to say something about how any semblance of a plot or events taking place without being explicitly caused by the players is going to be regarded as railroading by the gameless faggots in this thread, but they've already done that.

>>97939372
I already did. I am sorry it was beyond you. Life must be hard.

>>97939522
No you didn't. Your concession is accepted.

>>97939457
No one has said that.

>>97924435
that's because most people don't do it. it's too much work for the DM and most players need plot hooks and clues to follow.

>>97939607
it's actually less work to run sandbox, one of the benefits

>>97929766
SHOW NOTES

>>97939769
it's actually less work to run sandbox.

>Readers Added Context
>There is a significant amount of work to set up the sandbox

>>97939769
Explain further.

>>97939826
You just have a hundred random tables and roll for it for everything

>>97939887
Doesn't that go right back to the prior complaint that sandboxes rely too much on generation tables?

>>97939941
That's only a complain fro storyshitters

>>97939826
Less preparation is needed. You don't need to make complex scenarios that players are expected to engage with. You rely on the players to make the decisions that expand on the sessions. All you're really making in your free time is expected tables for rolls. You might want some general ideas for things to happen, but no planning beyond the premises is needed either. You just play the game. I think it was another thread, where anon said what happens when you sit down at the table of a railroad the DM was expected to prepare, and you say "I changed my mind about what I want to do this session" and it filtered every railroading DM in that thread, every single one. In a sandbox there's no issues at all, just sit down and play, do what you want. You will never wind up with a bunch of prepared material you have to repurpose down the road either, so it elimiates quantum ogres as well at that.

>>97937996
You're fired, I am cooking tonight.

>>97937699
I wasn't talking about railroading? I meant that liek we all know that the amount of things a DM can plan ahead of time is finite and we would all prefer if that's stuff we wanted to do rather than them just guessing.

>>97938058
Restricting choice is just pre-emptively ignoring choices

>>97937682
It removes the spontaneity and surprise of emergent play.

>>97937682
Why shouldn't it happen at the table? The whole game is making decisions. What else are you going to do?

>>97940032
Does someone knowing what they want to do with their life mean spontaneous and surprising things don't occur?

>>97940060
For the same reason that you decide a ruleset or a setting before you start playing lol. Because it's way to get everyone in the same mindset and operating on the same assumptions about the game. Why is "Hey does anyone want to play a game where we go on an adventure to defeat the Big Bad evil guy of fantasy setting 2" any different than "Hey does anyone want to play a game where we go on an adventure in fantasy setting 2?"

>>97939999
>All you're really making in your free time is expected tables for rolls
I want to give you shit for this, but you have some exquisite quads. Next time, however, do not make it so obvious that you don't actually know what a sandbox actually looks like at the table and in practice. What you are describing is more like an imrpov game than a sandbox.

>>97940076
The players don't have to always be working on the same objective at all times. Games don't have to be dull.

These threads are pointless because one side is talking about a Do Anything Machine and the other is talking about their experiences with the reality of Tabletop Roleplaying. More importantly, I've yet to see a single example of these pro-Sandbox anons giving actual examples of in-session play - in fact, when anon earlier in this thread presented his experience with Roleplaying, the sandbox anons called him a "faker" and "piece of shit."