Post by dmbrad on Sept 13, 2013 8:12:42 GMT -5
Last night I ran my first session of my new sandbox style campaign. I was a bit nervous as to how it would play out because I have never ran or played in a game of this style. At the end of the night my players all LOVED IT!!! They really enjoyed the complete freedom they were having to do and go whatever/wherever they wanted.
For those who do are not familiar with the terms, there are two types of games, Sandbox and Railroad.
Railroad is when you plan out a specific adventure that the players will do for that session. You may set it up in such a way that they feel they have a choice in what they are doing, but you know that one way or another they are going into the swamp to the evil wizards tower. All of the encounters, rewards,crafted materials, everything are planned out. The only real variable is if they live through it or die trying. The advantage of this style is that it takes relatively little preparation, and requires little improvisation on part of the DM.
Sandbox style is when the DM has planned out the campaign in such a way that the players are given multiple choices as to what they wish to do for that session. Example: The players are wandering through a city/town and decide to find a tavern. On the way there they pass a woman sitting on the side of the road weeping. They talk to her and discover that her son is missing and she needs help finding him. The players decide not to help her because they really just want to kick back and drink some ale. Once they get to the tavern they get caught up in a bar fight or perhaps they overhear a man talking about an a goblin camp that he saw to the west. Or maybe they hear a rumor that the mayor is actually a vampire and wish to pursue that. The possibilities are seemingly endless. Keep in mind that you can still railroad them into going into the swamp to the evil wizards tower if you wish.
The major disadvantage to sandbox style play is that it takes a LOT of preparation to pull it off. If you are going to give the players free reign on what they do, you have to give them many many options. The worst thing you can have is a situation where the players do not know what to do because you did not prepare any options for them. You will also need to have quite a bit of terrain/furnishings prepared to use.
The advantage to sandbox is once you have done all of the initial work, the rest comes easy. There is so much prepared material that you could play for days and days. Lets say that the characters are level 1 and during the first session they hear about the evil wizards tower in the swamp. They decide to ignore it and after many sessions, they are now level 3 and decide to check it out. All you have to do is ramp up the difficulty of the encounters.
As DMScotty would say I will stop babbling now.
If anyone is interested I would be happy share exactly how I set this up. Like I said, it is a lot of work initially, but after that it is a breeze.
Leave a comment if you would like to see how I did it.
Thanks
DMBrad
For those who do are not familiar with the terms, there are two types of games, Sandbox and Railroad.
Railroad is when you plan out a specific adventure that the players will do for that session. You may set it up in such a way that they feel they have a choice in what they are doing, but you know that one way or another they are going into the swamp to the evil wizards tower. All of the encounters, rewards,crafted materials, everything are planned out. The only real variable is if they live through it or die trying. The advantage of this style is that it takes relatively little preparation, and requires little improvisation on part of the DM.
Sandbox style is when the DM has planned out the campaign in such a way that the players are given multiple choices as to what they wish to do for that session. Example: The players are wandering through a city/town and decide to find a tavern. On the way there they pass a woman sitting on the side of the road weeping. They talk to her and discover that her son is missing and she needs help finding him. The players decide not to help her because they really just want to kick back and drink some ale. Once they get to the tavern they get caught up in a bar fight or perhaps they overhear a man talking about an a goblin camp that he saw to the west. Or maybe they hear a rumor that the mayor is actually a vampire and wish to pursue that. The possibilities are seemingly endless. Keep in mind that you can still railroad them into going into the swamp to the evil wizards tower if you wish.
The major disadvantage to sandbox style play is that it takes a LOT of preparation to pull it off. If you are going to give the players free reign on what they do, you have to give them many many options. The worst thing you can have is a situation where the players do not know what to do because you did not prepare any options for them. You will also need to have quite a bit of terrain/furnishings prepared to use.
The advantage to sandbox is once you have done all of the initial work, the rest comes easy. There is so much prepared material that you could play for days and days. Lets say that the characters are level 1 and during the first session they hear about the evil wizards tower in the swamp. They decide to ignore it and after many sessions, they are now level 3 and decide to check it out. All you have to do is ramp up the difficulty of the encounters.
As DMScotty would say I will stop babbling now.
If anyone is interested I would be happy share exactly how I set this up. Like I said, it is a lot of work initially, but after that it is a breeze.
Leave a comment if you would like to see how I did it.
Thanks
DMBrad