A friend is about to close a Cairn open table sandbox after a year and over 50 sessions. The game was fun and definitely a success. But we have been talking about the one thing he felt didn’t work as he wished: players never really developped their own ambitions in the world or engage in bigger picture faction or domain play. It seems they enjoyed going on various little adventures, often a little bit aimless. They primarily reacted to the world.
This post isn’t about dissecting that specific campaign.
But we have been discussing a lot about what a GM could or should (or shouldn’t and couldn’t) do to facilitate sandbox play that doesn’t result in a hexcrawl that feels aimeless.
Which brings me here, interested in perspectives, thoughts and opinions on this beyond the scope of one campaign.
I think options range from “talk to your players about what game you want”, to “create more conflict or provide clear goals in the fiction”, or to “use mechanical incentives”.
However, incentives are a tricky thing and this isn’t supposed to be a theory discussion.
So how do you make your sandbox campaign meaningful?
Why do your players play with the sand in the sandbox?
For a Sandbox to really sing, it’s going to require some Player Engagement. There’s sometimes a bit of paralysis that can occur when they’re presented with this “big wide world” or Setting and no tangible direction or goals to achieve. This is where Information Currency becomes very important.
So I’m very free with Information: I provide a lot of Rumors to start with, and clearer Choices to get things off the ground initially rather than just presenting the Setting and asking them to “Find the Fun.” Rumors might point to 2-3 Site Based Things that they have to choose from at first, and I use those initial Adventures to seed more about the Setting, teach the Rules, and keep a constant ear open for things they mention interest in so that I can funnel this back into my Prep. I’m constantly adding more Rumors like this, and dispensing them to the Players in various ways. Some may be tantalizing enough for them to decide to follow them or contradictory enough that they spur investigation.
I make sure that their Actions and Decisions leave a mark or have a tangible impact on the Setting. Players tend to be more engaged with things that they had a hand in creating or destroying, and those changes to the Setting are usually going to be more memorable for them than the initial Prep itself!
Instead of presenting the Sandbox and watching the Players just sit morosely in the wet sand, I want to give them a bucket and pail, perhaps a toy bulldozer. Once they have those tools, they’ll be building their own castles in no time!
I ran a thirty-eight session sandbox campaign split between two parties—one playing OSE and the other D&D 5E (gasp). While neither got to the point of founding their own factions and constructing keeps, one did acquire and fix up a farmstead and also set up a permanent camp upon the ruins of an ancient village. They hired mercenaries to keep each safe and attracted a gaggle of misfits to live and work in each location. (You’ll never guess which of the two parties it was.)
I attribute the modest meaningfulness of my campaign to three random tables:
Rumors. I regularly restocked the rumors table with relevant and actionable happenings (often related to what local factions are up to) and offered said rumors up to the players for very nearly free.
Consequences. I kept and regularly updated and rolled on a consequences—or, in more modern parlance, Impact—table, results from which would find their way onto…
Encounters. In addition to the usual stuff (factions and fauna and such), results from rolls on the consequences table also end up on the random encounters table.
Partly, I think it was because they saw the results of the actions they took play out in the world. But also—and this was key, at least for my groups—downtime actions in between sessions.
At the table, it was mostly run-of-the-mill adventuring. They go to the dungeon. They get the treasure. Et Cetera. But in between sessions, they were plotting and scheming and contributing to the world.
Even still, the playing with the sand in the sandbox was pretty minimal. I think it takes a very special group of players to be engaged enough to run a sandbox campaign to its full potential (and a very special referee—debatable whether I am such). And while some of my players were very engaged and would easily contribute to that special group, others were just there one night a week to have fun. (Nothing wrong with that!)