I’ve been trying (with limited success) to start some
discussion on the structure of Crisis Point this year. We’ve got as far as deciding that we will play
a bath-tubbed version of the nationwide battle for control of Andreivia in 1918.
Bath-tubbing, for the uninitiated, is the idea of representing
a larger military formation (e.g. a battalion) with a smaller one (say a
platoon). So you might fight a company-sized
attack on platoon strength German defensive position and have it represent the
whole breakout from Omaha beach in your campaign structure.
In our case I’m envisaging four or five tables representing
the whole of Andreivia from the Turkish border in the south to the Georgian in
the north. Platoon-sized units on the table (we’re using the Arc of Fire
skirmish rules) will represent larger units in “real” life. They might perhaps be battalions or even
brigades but the deliberate vagueness of Andreivia’s geography means we don’t
have to think too clearly about that. In
fact I’m even prepared for the scale to be flexible – sometimes a platoon will
be just a platoon and sometimes it’ll be standing in for a brigade and I don’t
intend to get at all stressed about the difference.
The question then arises, do we have a fixed scenario (or
scenarios) to be played over those tables or do we do something else?
As with anything, usage varies, but usually when people say
"sandbox" today they mean a campaign that does not have a specific
prescribed storyline, but one where the GM sets up a world (or at least a small
section of one) and the PCs are free to wander where they will and find
adventure where they will. It's about freedom of player choice.
Pure sandbox play is purely simulation driven. A super hardcore
sandboxer places a dungeon (or whatever) in the game world and that's where it
is, for the PCs to come across or not (and for NPCs to come across before them
or not). If a thief is sneaking into a mansion, in a sandbox game he is able to
avoid guards and traps, and not have predetermined plot points presented to him
regardless of his actions.
And further…
Sandbox is a different approach from story-driven - a "story of
what happened" may emerge from a sandbox session but a preconception of
story, or what "the GM wants to happen," is never applied to the
game. Adventure paths, being a series of adventures, can try to be sandboxy but
generally try to provide enough story to get PCs from one chapter to another,
but event timelines and things like that can serve that purpose without being
railroads (though people often complain and call things like that railroading,
just because they feel pressured to do something).
Railroading, the antonym of sandbox, is simply extreme constraint of
choice. Some perceived constraint of choice is always there in any simulated
world in that there are always choices that are impossible to physically
perform or clearly undesirable, but where you cross the line to railroad is
when these things are obviously being imposed by the GM/metagame (usually in
the name of "The Story" or "The Plot").
You can be apparently providing a sandbox but using the game world to
provide so many restrictions that you are effectively railroaded into a single
course of action. A dungeon full of one-way doors that inhibits all
teleportation and divination, for example.
Most games are somewhere on the continuum between pure sandbox and
railroad, or even move between the two based on need and GM inclination. Many
campaigns switch back and forth between railroad and sandbox. Railroading to
move the story on when the players lose momentum and sandbox otherwise it a
frequent GM tactic that lets the players be free when they want to be but gives
them structure when they're feeling lost.
Sandbox gaming can be desirable because it produces a sense of game
world reality that enables the player to focus less on the metagame and immerse
in their character and the game world. It can be problematic because players
can feel like they are spinning their wheels and wasting limited leisure time
without more guidance, and because sometimes a preplanned story cam have more
"big, interesting" things happen in it plot-wise than a sandbox.
I tend towards sandboxy play, but in my most recent campaign I had
players get frustrated and ask for more direct guidance from me on "what
they should do" - I am normally reluctant to do that but did so to make
them happier. Often players want the illusion of sandbox and unlimited choice,
but with the GM pulling strings behind the scenes to keep them headed towards
interesting things.
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| picture: Pinterest |
I like this. Much of my personal transition from role-player
to wargamer was because I increasingly enjoyed the way narrative, Mxyzplk’s “story
of what happened”, emerges from the competitive interaction between the players
in a wargame rather than being more-or-less determined by a GM in an rpg.
So what does the idea of a sandbox approach mean for Crisis
Point 2017? Perhaps the Crisis Point players could just be given their forces
and left to get on with it? Or does that
way chaos lie?
Obviously at Crisis Point we’re wargamers not RPGers and we’re
used to coming at military situations with perhaps a set of orders (or victory
conditions standing in for them) but otherwise free to fight the battle as we
wish. And I think it’s fair to assume
that even the most hardcore of sandbox rpg campaigns would begin with the group
of players having some overall motivation and reason for remaining together.
Should I give each player/force a set of objectives to
provide story seeds? Or is that just me
not fully embracing the sandbox approach?
