[sandbox] Slacking through the Sandbox (1 Viewer)

[Roger]

I've seen threads here from time to time about sandboxes and how to set them up, and no small amount of angst over the amount of prep work they may require.

I recently set up a sandbox with minimal up-front prep; I wrote up my experiences with it and put it into a pdf. With maps, even.

You can read it at:
http://stirgessuck.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/slackbox.pdf



Cheers,
Roger

 

[Mock]

Nice! I'm working on a similar project right now (it's still embroyonic at the moment) and this is very helpful. I have a map (intentionally Generic Sounding), and I have a bunch of ideas, but I may back up a couple steps and try this out.

 

[talysman]

There's a style of low-prep, make-it-up as you go along play that's very sandbox-y and that I've always considered sandbox, but I've been thinking maybe it needs its own name. You start with simple sketch maps of a town and immediate environs, general notes on what you find there, looser notes on what's farther out, and a couple levels of a dungeon or two; expand a little at a time, improvise plots, relationships and details as you go along. Sounds like what you did.

I've occasionally called this "improv sandbox" or just "improv", but that might be confused with people who use stage improv techniques in RPGs.

Edit: Although I should point out that, by "sketch map", I'm talking about something a lot less exact than the maps you defined from star maps. But your breakdown of maps into points, lines, zones and names is pretty clever.

 

[Andurion]

I've seen threads here from time to time about sandboxes and how to set them up, and no small amount of angst over the amount of prep work they may require.

I recently set up a sandbox with minimal up-front prep; I wrote up my experiences with it and put it into a pdf. With maps, even.

You can read it at:
http://stirgessuck.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/slackbox.pdf

I dunno ... creating a pdf of your thoughts is a suspiciously industrious activity for a supposed "slacker" ...

Thanks for writing this up! I like the idea of overlaying a "mess of points" on some "mess of blobs." Part of the fun of the process is thinking up what all that stuff represents and how it could have come to be.

 

[Delwugor]

That's way too much work.

1. Grab a setting, any setting. Greyhawk, Eberon, Forgotten Realms there are many free ones like Khoras. Spend 15-30 minutes getting a feel for the setting, countries, races and gods, but you don't need to "know" the setting.
2. Grap a city/town/village as a starting point. Many free cities out there, with maps and basics needed. May adjust to setting if needed. 15 minutes.
3. Grab 1 or 2 premade dungeons even if just maps. If it includes monsters adjust for setting, system and PC levels, but only the first level - 5-10 minutes. If no monsters then you have a bit more work - say 10-15 minutes.
4. Grab 5-10 outdoor encounters. 10-20 minutes.
5. Come up with a hook for the PCs to explore the dungeon(s). 1 minute.

2 hours total prep time for a new sandbox campaign.

For each session fill in dungeon levels if needed, 5-15 minutes.

Eventually you will have to find new dungeons and outside adventures and once the characters start broadening the sandbox grab some more towns.

 

[OneEyedMan]

There's a style of low-prep, make-it-up as you go along play that's very sandbox-y and that I've always considered sandbox, but I've been thinking maybe it needs its own name. You start with simple sketch maps of a town and immediate environs, general notes on what you find there, looser notes on what's farther out, and a couple levels of a dungeon or two; expand a little at a time, improvise plots, relationships and details as you go along. Sounds like what you did.

I've occasionally called this "improv sandbox" or just "improv", but that might be confused with people who use stage improv techniques in RPGs.

Edit: Although I should point out that, by "sketch map", I'm talking about something a lot less exact than the maps you defined from star maps. But your breakdown of maps into points, lines, zones and names is pretty clever.

I'd word-smush it and call it "sketchbox", if I needed a term for it. And it's how I generally did my sandbox worlds when I was playing on a constant basis. It was a lot like playing in an RTS game with Fog of War on. You didn't need to know what was more than a map-distance in either direction except the most vague of labels ("To the south are vast plains with gnolls, tribal halflings riding lions, and a great swamp where mud dragons hunt" "A Dark Master has conquered the Northern Empire", "There's a mountain out west where a god hid the Heart of Radiance" "The Ghoul Lord lives in a tower *waves vaguely* off thataway")

-J

 

[cpip]

This made for really interesting reading. Thanks!

 

[OddjobXL]

I'd word-smush it and call it "sketchbox", if I needed a term for it. And it's how I generally did my sandbox worlds when I was playing on a constant basis. It was a lot like playing in an RTS game with Fog of War on. You didn't need to know what was more than a map-distance in either direction except the most vague of labels

That's how the most common old school games ran in my experience. Eventually someone would make up a big map but since nobody ever knew if a campaign would last it always started with that first dungeon and a little village with details added as they came up in play.

Later on, with Judges Guild Wilderlands stuff, we just ran around there and used the random tables in the Ready Ref book to fill in any blanks. Sometimes our DM would create a real dungeon. Sometimes we just explored and riffed off random or preset encounters. Or we'd roll a random dungeon up.

Doesn't get more lazy than that. But it really worked to get us wondering why things would come up on those random tables in certain places and that'd often spur improvised roleplaying, and rationalization, on the spot.

 

[Lord Crimson]

I've seen threads here from time to time about sandboxes and how to set them up, and no small amount of angst over the amount of prep work they may require.

I recently set up a sandbox with minimal up-front prep; I wrote up my experiences with it and put it into a pdf. With maps, even.

You can read it at:
http://stirgessuck.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/slackbox.pdf



Cheers,
Roger

Amazing work, Roger!

And pretty damn insightful to boot.

I think you can still call it a slackbox, even with the work spread out rather than compounded up-front, though.

Because if it doesn't fly with the group, you can just stop working on it. Instant end to excess work.

 

[IvanMike]

I like it - good job. I will probably steal some stuff (and give you credit). I dig the lunar map and star map being used to such effect - very very cool.

I often do the sketchbook sandbox - that's probably how most of mine go. I think of it like human sight.

We really don't see all that well. Go ahead, pay attention to your peripheral vision sometime. It's awful. Nothing's really in focus and there's very little detail. Our brain literally "makes up" the missing stuff, and gets helped by us darting our eyes about to concentrate on different spots. If you ever get a chance to look at the video made by a camera that mimics human vision, it's downright frightening.

That's how I treat a sandbox - where are you now? there's where the main focus is. Everything else is a little blurry. Putting incredible effort into every aspect of a sandbox can be fun, but not necessary. A lot of it just won't see the light of day. It's a bit like the guy in Raiders of the lost Ark twirling his sword around and Indiana Jones Just shooting him. When the players never go to that place that you spent a month on, your big guy just got shot!