Welcome to this week’s blog club. This week we are looking at “Dispelling a myth - Sandbox prep” by Michael Shorten from 2009 (ChicagoWiz’s RPG Blog).
Next week we’ll take a look at “What is the Best Combat Algorithm?”, by Daniel Collins (Delta’s D&D Hotspot).
You can see a list of previous blog club posts here.
I feel like I’m still catching up from the end of year festivities, but I don’t want conversation on these to falter. I haven’t come across this post before, but I broadly agree with the guidelines it lays out.
I think of prepping a sandbox as a fractal in that you can always keep “zooming in”, which is similar to “just in time preparation”. After initial prep, if players take interest in a particular region, then the next time I prep I “zoom in a level”, and my prep is more focused as I build on what I’d previously created and elements improvised in sessions. Each time the players spend a session somewhere it grows richer. By the end of the campaign I could probably overlay a metaphorical topographic map over the hex map denoting the contours of my players’ interest over the course of our sessions.
Another element not laid out in the post explicitly that dovetails nicely is that no prep is wasted. If you prep a kobold mine, but the players end up changing their mind or don’t explore its depths, you can use the prepped dungeon floor(s) in another spot in your campaign world. The players won’t know, so you can use it as is or modify it to fit wherever it ends up.
The last thing I’ll say is that one of the most formative texts for me on sandbox prep has been Stars Without Number Revised by Kevin Crawford. In addition to the trove of GM resources provided in the growing library of Without Number books he provides straightforward guiding principles to keep prep on point:
Instead, you should follow a simple guiding prin-
ciple whenever building anything for your campaign,
whether a stellar sector or an adventure outline.Am I having fun? If you’re enjoying yourself, then
you can keep building. We follow this hobby because
it’s fun, and if you’re enjoying the process then you
should let yourself have your indulgence.Am I going to need this for the next session? If what
you’re creating is something you know you’re going to
need for the next game session, then you should finish
it. Don’t let this feeling of obligation extend to every
detail, however; it can be easy to imagine situations
where you’ll need to elaborate some NPC or organiza-
tion or location, but if you respond to every such pos-
sibility you’ll never get away from the drawing board.If you’re not having fun and you don’t need it for
your next game session, stop it. You’re going to exhaust
yourself on minutiae and trivia and not have the energy
to do the parts you really do need, or the vigor needed
to actually run this for the group.
Thank you @xaran for keeping this conversation going.
I had a related thought: Many GMs enjoy the lonely fun of prepping sandboxes (as Kevin Crawford says). So even though it’s not necessary to get a sandbox campaign they spend ages on prep and then (to have an outlet for their enthusiasm) document it online.
This gives the impression to GMs new to this kind of play that huge amounts of prep are required. But that’s just because the people who are writing online are those who are most excited about their prep.